Quiet, don’t give them Ideas
Not really: U.S. dairy subsidies equal 73 percent of producer returns
USDA data reveals that for more than a decade, U.S. farm gate prices for milk fail to cover costs of production.
So, we taxpayers are paying for overproduction of a product, much of which is going to waste. If market forces were allowed to play a larger role in the dairy industry, we’d probably see a lot more dairy farms going out of business. Who’s going to advocate for that?
We can also live without beer and tequila - if you call that living.
Baby cows like milk. I like hamburgers, feed them calves, I say. Milk is a staple in fridges all across the country. I ain’t about to give up ice cream, yogurt, cheese. Butter, meh, ok, I can live without.
It depends on whether the public loves milk, and wants it subsidized to as low a price as possible, or whether they truly don’t want that much of it in which case the farms may as well produce something else.
Sure! Remember PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.
This is like arguing against the use of coal with only power generation in mind, and neglecting coal for steel and cement.
Formula is made from cow’s milk btw; this includes specialty formulas except for lacto-protein-free formula. Are there enough other sources of milk to replace that kind of volume? Are you going to be the person who tells a mother that can’t breastfeed for whatever reason, or a husband whose wife can’t breastfeed for reasons ranging from “kid won’t latch” to “mom is dead”, that their kid can’t get formula?
Most of us get our calcium from dairy products. There are other sources, but how much do you like sardines and kale?
I go through at least two cans of sardines a week.
Almond milks are fortified with calcium and vitamins. I can’t drink cow milk, and ice cream gives me problems also. There are very good ice creams that don’t have dairy in them.
They do make these cheap things called vitamins. If you’re afraid you’re not getting enough calcium from dairy, try them. The lil’wrekker just got blood tests for our wellness insurance thingy. She was low in D, they asked her if she drinks enough milk. We are so pale that we use sunscreen in the highest numbers to prevent burning. We are religious about it. I put her on a good one-a-day. It’s so funny cause when she’s home she drinks a lot of milk. Last school year was her first away from home, so I’m sure she didn’t eat as well, more junk food and such. We had a talk. My point is, some peeps can’t get enough D from sunshine, the next best thing is dairy or supplements. So, no we need milk, regular old cow milk, IMO.
Out of interest, can I ask why? – please, fight my ignorance. Is the methane problem less, or non-existent, with goats?
My brother opts always for goats’ milk and butter, instead of cows’; for him it’s a humanitarian thing – with dairy goats being a far smaller and less efficient-commerce-driven undertaking, than the industry which involves cows’ milk: as he puts it, he anyway likes to think that dairy producers who specialise in goats are more likely to treat their animals in a less ruthlessly mechanistic way.
This might be the most obvious question to answer in the world. The human body is primed to give us rewards when we eat things that are high in fats or have trace chemicals that we need. In some chemical configurations, we get exceptionally nice rewards. Milk products give us those rewards, so we eat them.
Nutrition has only a very small amount to do with it. It’s certainly possible for us to invent some sort of Vegan “Soylent Octarine” that we pump into our stomachs and it provides us with our nutrition. We wouldn’t get our nice food rewards though, so it would make our quality of life suckier. We generally are willing to pay so that our quality of life isn’t sucky, so we buy cheese and ice cream instead.
Could we switch to Chihuahua milk? They already make cheese from it.
The market often doesn’t properly price in effects on the environment, like methane emissions and waste disposal. If those costs were imposed on dairy producers, prices would go up and demand would come down (I doubt it would be eliminated entirely). In the case of dairy, there are further anti-market forces with the government subsidies mentioned above.
The dairy industry, of course, isn’t the only industry that doesn’t properly include all environmental costs as a cost of production. Other big industries are oil (probably all non-renewable energy) and many other farm products as well. I’m sure there are others.
If all industries were required to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants and externalities, I’m sure we’d see some pretty big realignments. No reason to single out the dairy industry, though.
And Corona from their urine.
I dunno, with any/all of the other protein-rich foods?
You’ll need to bump it up to two cans per day to get to the recommended intake of calcium. I’ll keep my cheese, thanks.