Is cow's milk "the worst beverage on earth?"

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

The article"Is cow’s milk “the worst beverage on earth?”"seems rediculous to me. Why are people arguing the health benifits and whether or not it gives you cancer? my argument for avoiding the stuff: just think about it.

milk. a secreted liquid intended for infant bovines that someone decided to squeeze from the glands of this large foul-smelling animal. Becides the putrid taste, the frothy ickyness and the unpleasant tendancy to go bad (go bad, isnt it already??) its just down right nasty to drink something that came out of something. Especially THAT something. Howmany people would drink milk if they actually had to squeeze it out themselfs? if a farmer took hold of human ‘glands’ and squeezed out something white, would you go “MMMM YUMMY!” and gulp it down? how is cow milk any less revolting than dog milk, horse milk, human milk etc…?

Edited so as to provide link to Column. – CKDH

2

Well. my kids seemed to enjoy breastfeeding.

It is not “less” revolting per se. It IS in the same sense that most people who eat hamburgers would not eat them if they were dogburgers or catburgers or ratburgers.

Actually we also drink (directly or in cheese form) ewe’s milk, goat milk, camel milk, yak milk. I’d guess one of the many reasons dog milk hasn’t caught on is that bitches don’t produce enough mik to make it financially worth it.

As to human milk, I find it too sweet for my taste.

3

See, you started off your first post here with a rather stupid assumption. Plenty of us, hell, most of us find the taste of cow milk delicious and refreshing, and enjoy the thick frothyness. A milkshake wouldn’t be a milkshake if it were as thin as water.

Everything besides plain water comes out of something. Maple Syrup comes out of trees. Orange juice comes out of oranges. Honey comes out of bees.

It tastes better and is cheaper to produce in large quantities than other types.
Let me take a blind stab here - you’re a militant vegan, right?

4

First, it’s the rule here to provide a link to the column you are citing, just to be polite:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030321.html

Second, while you are entitled to an opinion, your opinion is of no factual value to the several billions of people on the planet who drink the milk and eat the dairy products of several different species of animals and have done so happily for thousands of years.

Cecil dissected the objections to milk consumption from a rational viewpoint, which is the purpose of his column. Your viewpoint appears to be both idiosyncratic and non-rational.

Go to Great Debates and see how your opinion flies there, or to the Pit and rant.

Telling Cecil not to be rational… Well, that’s like telling Stephen Hawking to start jogging for his health.

5

The OP is referring to Is cow’s milk the worst beverage on earth.

Now, apart from the personal prejudices and virulent non-thought expressed by the OP, it should be noted that milk consumption – of sheep, goat, reindeer, and mares’ milk, not just of cow’s milk – has a long history in Eurasia. In many cases, of course, the milk would be processed into something that, in modern parlance, we would call yogurt or cheese (or which was in that nebulous borderland where we basically flip a dinar to come up with a category). It should also be noted that, prior to the adoption of industrial farming, the vast majority of people who consumed dairy did milk the cows (sheep, mares, etc.) themselves – by hand, squeezing those “glands” as the OP so euphemstically puts, and probably even getting milk on themselves (oh, the humanity! :rolleyes: )

I’d suggest that the OP is a PETA agent, but there are plenty of stupid, ignorant bigots who don’t belong to PETA.

6

Let me address some points that haven’t been addressed:

1. If you think about where it comes from, you’d be disgusted. Actually, except for fruit, cow’s milk is one of the least disgusting sources of nutrition. It comes from a natural feeding organ of a mammal. You know, the kind that human infants have been drinking from for millenia from their own mothers. OK, so it’s another species’ mammary glands, but it’s pretty close.

It certainly is less disgusting than killing the cow and ripping out its flesh to eat.

It’s less disgusting than eggs, you know, the unfertilized (most of the time) menstrual waste of chickens.

Or honey, the vomit of bees.

Or things that were growing in the filthy and unsanitary and bug-ridden dirt.
2. It goes bad. OK, now you’re just being ridiculous. What foodstuff doesn’t go bad and then taste bad when it goes bad? Refrigerated milk has a longer shelf life than a banana.

Your post really belongs in MPSIMS becuase it’s all personal irrational reaction rather than anything useful or factual to contribute.

Peace.

7

As opposed to flour, discarded cellular debris intended for wheat embryos that someone decided to pulverise and extract from the smashed shell of a mutant weed.

That sounds so much better doesn’t it?

Since so many people voluntarily drink milk I think you’re going to have to accept that milk doesn’t taste putrid, and the prominence of froth in milk advertising proves that it is attractive to most consumers, not icky.

Where did you get the ridiculous idea that anyone but you finds milk icky or putrid?

All foods have an unpleasant tendency to go bad. The difference is that while bad milk is highly unlikely to make you ill, many other foods will. In that respect milk has a more pleasant tendencies when going bad.

No. If you looked in the dictionary you could have answered that question yourself. Bad in the sense you think you are using it means “spoiled”. Milk can’t be already spoiled before it goes bad.

So you wouldn’t drink beer, that came out of a grain, or wine that came out of a grape, or juice that came out of an orange on the grounds that the are disgusting.

You must have a very bland diet. I’m glad I don’t suffer form your neuroses.

Based on milk consumption in pre-industrial times and consumption in developing nation it seems that 99% of people would drink milk if they actually had to squeeze it out themselves.

No. But then I wouldn’t eat pulverised human either. The way in which we treat produce varies from species to species.

I don’t know, how is it? Most people have drunk human milk. Mares milk has been a staple part of the diet in some parts of the world for over 5000 years. Dog milk is not a viable food source because dogs can’t eat grass. If it were then I would happily drink dog’s milk if I liked the taste.

I can’t see any reason why cow’s milk is any less revolting than those things.

So CarrotsNmySOX are you going to tell us what your comment is on Cecil’s comment. So far all I’ve seen is a semi-literate rant. What is your comment on the article? Did you enjoy it? Find it informative and factual?

8

This (and other assertions by others above) ain’t really accurate.

A lot of the stuff we eat is really stored ready sustenance for young plants and animals. Milk is intended to feed the young of mammals. Egg Yolk is a food sac for the developing chicken embryo. Aside from the hull and the “germ”, the grains we eat are the stored “food” for the seed’s early growth, enabling it to sprout and to start its own food factory. Honey may look like “bee vomit”, but it’s condensed plant sugar liquid with a few things added to prevent spoiling, intended to feed bee young and to fee the hive during cold times. Syrups (maple and other) are our own attempt to do something like this, draining off the plant’s own nutrient fluid and condensing it by boiling. Virtually everything we eat is either stored food for the young, or else vital tissue from a living creature. Or else a “bribe” for us to transport plant seeds and help the plant propagate.

9

Carrots, do you also obstain from cheese, cream, butter, cookies, pie, pudding, cake, pizza, cream soups, candy bars, etc. all of which are derived from or contain milk?

10

According to the not milk site, you should avoid any food with the following on the label:

Butter, butter fat, butter oil, buttermilk, calcium caseinate, caramal, casein, curd, custard, lactalbumin, lactose, luncheon meats, milk chocolate, nougat, pudding, rennet, simplesse, yogurt, whey, non-koser hot dogs and sausages. Most margarines.

I wonder how many hours non-milk people spend at the grocery reading labels?

11

Those of us allergic to milk sure spend a lot of time reading labels. I’d just like to have a good explanation of why milk has to be added to breaded chicken cutlets, bacon, soft drinks, fruit juice, tofu, etc., etc., etc.

12

wastondog, if you buy kosher meat or neutral (parve) products, you won’t need to worry about the addition of any dairy products or by-products.

13

Dairy products and by-products like whey are extremely cheap sources of high-quality protein, and can provide flavorings, sweetness, browning, texture, and bulk to other products that lack these things on their own. To a food chemist, dairy is almost a magic ingredient that you can get to do almost anything you want.

14

C K, that’s what I do when I can. Otherwise, I make things from scratch.

15

Three’s a crowd. Eliminate the farmer, and not only would I go “MMMM YUMMY!”, I’d buy the gland owner long stem roses.

16

I hear ya. The ones that always get me:

  • margarine (a butter substitute) with milk solids
  • dark chocolate with whey powder and milk solids (making it -milk- chocolate in my opinion)
  • hot dogs and smokies with milk solids
  • soy ice cream (why would someone add milk to this? why do they think we’re eating the danged stuff anyway?)!
17

While I am not a vegetarian and do not plan on becoming one, several arguments (not mentiioned hereinbefore) have got me thinking and/or wondering about how healthy milk is for humans. Please explain to me the realities behind the following:

Most of the world population can’t tolerate milk. While in his article Cecil states many facts about this, he fails to draw any confident conclusion from the information. The impression I got is that humans were never supposed to be able to drink milk adn the only reason north ameriucans and europeasns can is because we’ve adapted.

Why is it that osteoporosis and diabetes are virtually non-existant in asia and other non-milk-drinking places of the world, while places (i.e. finland) with the highest levels of dairy consumption see the highest rates of these diseases? And how come the only milk-drinking tribe in Africa (the Massei indians [i dont know if that’s how it’s spelt]) is the only tribe that sees these diseases.

I’ll talk more later and edit this later out of time for now

18

err… you ever noticed that half the adult population have a couple of lumps on their chest? They’re not there just to provide entertainment for the other half of the adult population…
although they invariably do…

19

sorry i meant another species (ie cow’s) milk…

20

Humans weren’t meant to drink milk after they were weaned, which would exlain why unless one is raised on dairy products, one cannot tolerate them. Of course, Humans weren’t meant to live past 45 either, so that’s neither here nor there.

However, to answer the question posed by the OP (and the column), I would have to say, no. Cows’ milk is not the worst beverage on earth. I would say lye is the worse beverage, with hydrofloric (sp?) acid in second, and wood alchohol a distant third.