Cow’s Milk: A Substitute for Human Milk
People often refer to non-dairy milks, such as soy and rice, as "alternatives to" or "substitutes for" cow’s milk, and the dairy industry scathingly calls them "imitation milks." By definition, the words "alternative" and "substitute" imply that the thing they are being measured against is the superior choice; that is, you choose the "substitute" when you can’t get the real thing, and so on.
However, I don’t like the use of these terms when referring to non-animal-based foods for a number of reasons. By all calculations, meat, dairy, and eggs are superior in no way – not in terms of health, not in terms of taste, and certainly not in terms of ethics. And if we step back for a moment, we’d see that animal foods are actually the alternatives to plant foods, and we’d remember that cow’s milk is actually a substitute for human milk.
ANIMAL PRODUCTS REPLACE PLANT FOODS
When animals were first herded and domesticated for human consumption, about 9,000-10,000 years ago, they essentially became the alternatives to plant foods. Plant foods were the foundation of the human diet for a long, long time - long before people started domesticating non-human animals. (READ: Plant foods were the foundation. I’m not saying humans didn’t eat "meat" at all.) Fast forward thousands of years to our own "modern" culture. With millions of dollars, the animal exploitation industries convinced people they need to consume the flesh and secretions of animals, and fruits, vegetables, beans, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices were pushed off to the sidelines and sold as garnish, and meat, dairy, and eggs, with their powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, enjoyed government support, subsidies, and protection.
Thanks to the dairy industry, whose government-sponsored advertisements pose as public service announcements, humans are continually sold the idea that we need cows’ milk to be healthy. This stuff is sold as if it contains some magical formula designed just for human bodies. The truth is it is a perfect formula, designed just for growing babies — bovine babies, that is.
HERDING ANIMALS - DUPING HUMANS
Cattle are herd animals, which means they are easy to control because they move together and stay together. In other words, "cattle" meet certain requirements that make it easy for humans to contain them. Let’s not kid ourselves into believing that humans struck nutritional gold when they started drinking cows’ milk. Cows’ milk — just like soda — is a commercial product that is sold to the public by the dairy industry that has billions of dollars behind it in advertising and enjoys government protection from false advertising laws.* Whether it’s cow’s milk, goat’s milk, sheep’s milk, buffalo’s milk, rat’s milk, or dog’s milk, it is totally unnecessary for human survival and health.
Not only are we the only animal that drinks another animal’s milk, we are the only animal that drinks it into adulthood. All female mammals produce milk for the same reason: to feed and nourish their offspring. At a certain age, depending on the mammal, the infant is able to move onto solid food and is weaned off of the mother’s milk — every mammal, that is, except humans.
Despite the fact that humans don’t continue drinking human milk after being weaned, we’re told we have to drink cows’ milk. And despite the fact that calves naturally stop drinking cows’ milk after they’re weaned, humans have been duped into believing that they must drink it as adults. Our own physiology supports the cessation of milk-drinking in that - at about time time when we should be weaned off of breast milk - our bodies stop producing lactase, the enzyme that enables us to digest lactose, the sugar that’s in mammalian milk. One of the reasons the majority of the world population suffers from lactose intolerance is because we’re not able to digest it. Drinking milk - human or otherwise - into adulthood makes absolutely no sense, but it makes really good business and very good money.
TAKING BACK THE WORD
The dairy industry has made attempts to own the word "milk" and stop non-dairy milk companies from using the word; they loathe the use of the word "milk" in any other context outside of that which refers to the stuff they take from cows and sell to humans. (Perhaps they would prefer human women to say "breast beverage" instead of "breast milk.") Besides referring to the fluid that a female produces when she is lactating, the word "milk" also refers to the liquid extracted from various plants, whether they are nuts, grains, seeds, or fruits. Many of these milks have been around for thousands of years in different parts of the world. The milk from these plants are hardly "alternatives." Rather, they stand on their own as delicious and much healthier choices for human consumption.
SOY
Soy milk originated in China, a region where the soybean was native and used as food long before the existence of written records. Later on, the soybean and soybean foods were transplanted to Japan. Soy milk is reputed to have been discovered and developed in the Han Dynasty in China about 164 B.C. Cow’s milk is definitely the "alternative" to soy milk, particularly in the East. Sadly and ironically, however, the consuption of cow’s milk now exceeds that of soy milk in Japan. The advertising arms of the North American dairy industry reach far and wide.
RICE
If you’ve ever been to a traditional Mexican restaurant, you’ve had the pleasure of imbibing Horchata, a delicious sweet beverage made primarily of rice, sugar, and cinnamon – and often almonds. The Mexican Horchata is based on the Spanish Horchata de Chufa, which was traditionally made from a grassy plant called the Chufa or tiger nut and has its origin in ancient Egypt and Sudan.
NUT
Almond milk – by far my favorite! – was used widely in the Middle Ages in regions stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to East Asia. It was prized for its high protein content and its ability to keep better than milk from animals, which soured if it wasn’t used right away. Milk derived from other nuts also has a long history, including that of walnut, cashews, peanuts, macadamia, and hazelnuts.
COCONUT
The milk of the young coconut is referred to as coconut water or coconut juice and is absolutely delicious and drunk as a beverage. It’s been a popular drink in the tropics since the discovery of the coconut palm tree! (Early Sanskrit writings reveal that the people of India were using coconuts as a staple for food.) It’s naturally fat-free and low in calories with high nutrition content. (Coconut milk is the thick sweet, milky white substance derived from the meat of a mature coconut and is often used for cooking and not for drinking.)
FOLLOWING THE COWS’ LEAD
The bottom line is we have no nutritional requirement for the milk of another animal. Though we have nutritional requirements for nutrients such as calcium, we can do what the cows do and get our minerals from the green leafy stuff that grows in the ground. That news, however, hasn’t quite made its way to our living rooms and classrooms. The kale growers don’t seem to have the money for multi-million-dollar ad campaigns (got kale?); the chard lobby has yet to be formed; and the broccoli farmers just haven’t gotten around to producing glossy marketing materials (I mean - "educational" materials) for young children in school to compete with those that the dairy industry have been supplying to teachers for decades. Get them while they’re young, and you’ve got them for life.
Though humans have been drinking the milk of animals for thousands of years, there is enough evidence now to support the detrimental effects it has on our bodies. Just because we’re in the habit of doing something doesn’t mean we should continue. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.
(*The California Milk Advisory Board was sued by animal advocates and organizations for falsely representing the condition and treatment of dairy cows in the state. Because the California Milk Advistory Board is the marketing arm of the California Department of Agriculture and thus a government agency, it is exempt from false-advertising laws. The case was thrown out, but not before the judge acknowledged that California cows "probably aren’t happy and that if the ads implying that they were happy had been made by a private individual, false-advertising laws might apply.")
*Listen to my podcast episode on my favorite non-dairy milks
Tags: Agriculture, almond, buffalo, calcium, children, coconut, Consumer Products, cow, dairy, Food, Food Production, goat, Health and Health Products, john robbins, milk, nutrition, PETA, Politics, rice, school, sheep, soy, soymilk
July 20th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
This is an excellent article!
Something that you might also consider, is that cow milk is designed to grow cows, and to grow them quickly. There is a hormone in cow milk that triggers rapid growth, and rapid maturity. This hormone is biologically IDENTICAL to the human hormone that regulates growth.
It’s no wonder that we are seeing such an epidemic of childhood obesity (particularily among lower-income families, who get WIC, Food stamps, and commodities, which are predominately dairy products), and early adolescence. This is why your 10-yr old has big boobs. Really. Yes, your 10-yr old son, too.
I recommend the http://www.notmilk.com website for lots of information on the negative effects of cow milk consumption.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 am
Your question is a really good one, and my answer is "no." We don’t have any nutritional requirement for any of the plant-based beverages. They’re just beverages, BUT because they’re made from plants, they do have some nutritional benefits, depending on the plant used. Perhaps what’s more important about these beverages is not that they’re necessaily so nutritious (eating foods in their whole state is optimum, so oats are better than oat milk, almonds are better than almond milk, soy beans are better than soy milk, etc.) but that you’re not drinking the stuff that is harmful, namely animal milk. Also, many of the plant-based milks are supplemented with calcium, B12, and some other nutrtients that people simply aren’t getting, so it’s just another benefit to drinking them. So, in a way, you might want to think of them as "supplements." Again, these are just beverages with some nutrtional benefits, and they’re great for baking with (though rice milk is too thin and not really great for baking), using in cereal, adding to smoothies, etc. I highly recommend eating an abundance of vegetables, beans, fruits, etc., but beverages such as soy milk, almond milk, etc. can make a great addition to a varied diet. And variety is key. Once your palate adjusts to not having cow’s milk, keep trying different plant-based milks and rotate a couple different ones. I love them all (though my least favorite is rice), so I rotate mainly between almond, soy, and oat. In terms of tricks for adjusting to the plant-based milks, I think one thing that works really is to literally wean yourself off. Perhaps start mixing half of your cow’s milk (in your cereal or however you currently use it) with a non-dairy milk of your choice. Each day, add more of the plant-based milk and less of the animal-based milk until you’re at 100% non-dairy milk. Also, everyone’s tastes are different, so you’ll have to find the non-dairy milk that you prefer, but keep in mind that there are so many different brands! I actually grew up in New Jersey (in Summit), so I know the area around Drew University very well. If you checked out the Morristown Health Shoppe, if they’re still there, they’d have a variety, I’m sure. My favorite soy milk is Wildwood, but Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods brand are also very good. Different brands use different sweeteners, so depending on whether you like it sweet or thick, unsweetened or thin, you can have your pick. The ones I just named tend to be a bit on the thicker side, which might be good for you, just coming off of cow’s milk. But my favorite milk of all is Almond Breeze, made by Blue Diamond Foods. It comes in regular, vanilla (my favorite), and chocolate (YUM!), and it’s just delicious. Give it a try, and see what you think! Compassionate Cooks - Empowering People and Saving Animals One Meal at a Time - http://www.compassionatecooks.com
July 25th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
metis - after reading the article and your comments, I feel it necessary to address your statement that Colleen presumes she is ethically superior to you because she is Vegan. I read her 2nd paragraph to mean that it is empirically more ethical to pick a soy bean from a plant that regenerates than it is to milk a cow then send her to slaughter after her utters run dry. That’s how I read that same statement.
Second, it seems most people conveniently ignored the sentence:
>>”(READ: Plant foods were the foundation. I’m not saying humans didn’t eat “meat” at all.)”
and chose to accuse her of “rewriting anthropology”. I think she covered her bases. Though she did not specifically use the word “omnivore”, she still made it clear that early people did eat meat as a part of their diet.
This is a great article for someone who cares about the ethics of using animal products - some people, as was stated in the comments do eat meat, do use leather, etc., - but some people do not want to continue to do so. It’s hard enough to make these choices in your life w/o hearing from other people why falling in line is better (and easier) than trying to live an animal-suffering-free lifestlye. We can only control our own actions, not those of other people, and it’s great to have someone like Colleen on the internet to help those who want advice & support.
In other words, don’t be vegan if you don’t want.
July 26th, 2007 at 4:03 am
In response to Metis’ comments which can generally be summarized as “consuming animal products is my choice and it is not ethically inferior to your choice not to” is simply wrong and ignores reality. Most people would agree that, if one is lacking compassion and empathy for other beings, thereby leading to the taking of actions which inevitably cause other thinking and feeling beings pain and suffering, that person’s actions are not ethically justifiable. This is particularly true where the pain and suffering is only for pure enjoyment or entertainment, not for any compelling, survival-based reason. In the quantities needed for our growng population, dairy products are produced through keeping cows constantly and artificially impregnated, taking away their calves virtually immediately after birth, pumping them full of hormones so that they produce an abnormal and enormous quantity of milk, and then taking it regardless of the pain and infection that frequently exists in their udders because of the constant milking. The calves, if male, after a short period of intense incarceration in solitary confinement, end up as veal. If they are female, they suffer the same fate as their mothers. After their prime calf-bearing years are behind them, dairy calves are butchered into hamburgers. So, yes, I’m sure it will be criticized as elitist, but refusing to support the dairy industry is indeed the ethically superior decision. After all, is it really proof of our superiority that we are the only mammal to consume the breast milk of another species? Would most adults consider consuming the breast milk of another human? Would they consider keeping their pet constantly pregnant so they could dispose of her offspring and consume her milk? These are tough but necessary questions to ponder if you want to ethically justify the consumption of dairy products.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
I think that the point of the article is that cow milk is really not a good substitute for human milk, in infant development, even though it is marketed as a primary “food”, and the the fact that it IS a substitute is not mentioned.
And, it’s a really bad substitute. Really bad. How much of the health problems we are seeing are because of the rampant use of a substitute for feeding our offspring? How insane is that, anyway?
July 31st, 2007 at 11:39 pm
The author provides a refreshing and insightful look at how certain business interests have duped the vast majority of people on the subject of milk. The media is about 90% corporate owned and therefore most of the media reflect the views and interests of corporations who own the media and their corporate buddies who advertise on the media. The corporate owned media dupe people every day on nearly every topic.
Many people would become vegan if they knew the real story of how animals are treated, how harmful eating other animals are for you, and how much better plants are in terms of nutrition, energy efficiency, and the long term health of the planet. The con job on milk is remarkable. The article helps to see the con. Although the picture hints at it, a better picture for the article would have been a few of the adult celebrities who advertise for milk sucking on the teats of real cows. Put that on national television and see if that wakes some people up.
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:00 pm
so to abstain from killing any living being is not ethically superior? sorry it is. its just hard to look at for emat eaters but they are involved in violence (slaughter is a form of violence, there is no waya round it).
August 21st, 2007 at 4:09 pm
I’ve been a vegan for 20 years. It was only after a few years of shunning diary and meat that I was able to recognize the degree to which big industry brainwashes us. I fell for it for the first 3 and a half decades of my life. Now that I am no longer buying it, I can see the financial incentives and lies that keep those industries in the black and keep us less than well.
I applaude this writer for telling the truth, and I understand how hard it is to accept this truth when we are still eating dairy and meat.
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:08 pm
This is an excellent article. There is no evolutionary or biological reason to expect that humans would require, or even benefit from, the lactation products of another animal. If you want to drink another animal’s breast milk, make it an ape or a chimp — someone who’s biologically close to us. We have been fed a “load of manure” by the USDA about our nutritional requirements. The dairy industry requires that the young of another animal be removed from that animal so that we (humans) can drink that lactation fluid, which we don’t even need (and which in fact is bad for us). This is just WRONG, no matter how you slice it. Colleen has inspired me, a half-hearted lacto-ovo vegetarian for 14 years, to become fully and consciously vegan through her excellent, well-reasoned, well-researched podcast. Check it out — vegetarian food for thought on itunes. It has changed my life. Thank you Colleen for your work!!
November 26th, 2007 at 12:12 am
I found this article very useful. When reading an issue with any argument you need to keep an open mind. I’m using some of the points I read for a speech I’m writing titled “Why Soy is better to drink than Cow’s Milk. I am also Lactose intolerant and wanted to paste something else I read, written by a Harvard Medical Doctor. It is important to remember that a large % of our population has lactose intollerance. Then, think about why it IS so common, (we’re not made to digest other mammal’s milk!) that’s my opinion~!
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Human beings are the only species (other than house cats) to consume milk past childhood. We are also the only species to consume the milk of another species. Yet, at about the age of four, most people around the world begin to lose the ability to digest lactose, the carbohydrate found in milk. This results in a condition known as lactose intolerance.