Is cows milk necessary in todays world?

In My Humble Opinion
1

With all the advances in available nutrition and given that milk production is such an intensive and polluting industry (methane gases) is it time to scale down milk production. Except for providing nutrition at very young age (there are alternatives btw) , adult human consumption of milk and milk products is largely unnecessary from a health viewpoint in my view. We are addicted to cheese, ice creams and yoghurts. But we can easily live without them and not suffer a great deal in terms of human health.

So why not scale down the industry? Why has market forces not done the job yet?

2

Market forces? Like supply and demand? There is plenty of both.

3

So what? I’d rather have dairy and be unhealthier. There has to be trillions of dollars of commerce that we’d be healthier without. Most of us don’t think that really matters.

4

All three of these (ice cream especially) taste good. Sure, we can live without them. But life would be much less fun.

5

This is more suitable to IMHO than GQ.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

6

You can pry the cheese from my cold, dead hands…

7

You’ll have to pry the gooey cheesy pizza out of my cold, dead hands.

ETA: Ninja’ed, and GMTA.

8

So beef is still ok?

9

You can pry the cheese from my cold, Dutch hands.

10

You get the cheese - I’ll get the froyo.

11

It’s a good source of protein; how are you suggesting replacing that?

12

Consider the data (Table 3.9) presented here: World Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030 - An FAO perspective

Cultural forces are always at play, but I don’t see any pure market forces against the consumption of milk and dairy products. On the contrary: consumption in healthy economies has been slowly but steadily growing by a couple of % per year.

ETA this is all despite the fact that livestock production unquestionably rapes the environment, as you mention.

13

By the way, I’m pretty sure methane emission from cows is not regulated. So that is not a cost to the producer, therefore it’s not a market force.

14

Absolutely nothing is necessary, ever.

I personally like milk and dairy and I think that’s a good enough reason it should continue existing, unnecessary though it may be.

15

You know, honestly, I could be just fine without ice cream or yogurt.

If you try to take the real butter from my morning english muffin, you will have a fight on your hands.

16

Market forces are at work providing downward pressure on the milk industry, but are being stymied by governing bodies who keep propping up the industry.

*Vermont Public Radio is reporting the Northeast is again poised to begin dumping milk. The reason: Too much production and not enough processing capacity. Lower fluid milk sales also aren’t helping.

Earlier this year, Land O’Lakes requested that farmers be allowed to dump milk on their farms and still be paid for it. Erik Rasmussen, Market Administrator of the Northeast Federal Milk Marketing Order granted the request and is allowing the practice through July 1, 2018.*

Google ‘milk dumping’ and there are a lot more articles about this practice. Dog help any politician willing to cut farm subsidies these days.

17

No mention of butter? Seriously? It’s the only reason I was never a vegan. I just couldn’t do it. There is no substitute.

I do think that we’d all be a lot healthier, and so would the ecosystem, if we could make the switch to goat’s milk though.

18

The market forces are what support the existing industry. Are what you really proposing is the banning of dairy products through government edict? If so then market forces really have no say there.

19

Market forces and government subsidies, apparently.

I’d say yank the subsidies just to see what happens, but I like my morning yogurt.

20

We should ban everything except Soylent.