Good grief, no. Life spans used to be much shorter. Societies used to resemble countries in the Arab world or Africa where half the population is under the age of 25. Countries like Japan or Italy, where the replacement rate is down to 1.6 or lower (2.1 children per couple keeps a population stable) have a hugely high ratio of older to younger individuals. Calling this an issue of U.S. baby boomers is extremely short sighted.
Free range for dairy cattle might actually be worse for them in the long run, since good dairy herd management require close attention to their everyday health, feed consumption, and other areas that a life of wanderlust would make hard to monitor. Likewise, dairy cattle on feedlots, which gain in popularity every year, tend to produce more but live shorter lives because of what some call “overproduction.”
Probably the most humane choice for dairying would be a small herd (15-100 head) with access to pasture (grazing) and a carefully managed diet. Smaller herd sizes allow for greater ease in providing for the care and comfort of every animal, as well as catching both contagious and non-contagious diseases before they become herd-wide concerns or serious problems.
Sadly, small herds are becoming a thing of the past, as it’s nearly impossible to remain economically viable in an industry that is trending more and more to “industrial” practices – 1000+ cow operations, around-the-clock milkings, outside investors, etc. So, um, support your local dairy farms and dairies/cheese factories.
I’d love to know what specific issues you’re criticizing here. Do you mean things like the overstatement of the role of milk in preventing osteoporosis? Prostate cancer? Any food industry is constantly under attack from the reportings of new studies – see the pork industry in the late '80s. Until the public (and/or the media) is able to analyze the results of studies intelligently and impartially, we’ll be stuck in the current situation. Or until America learns moderation, but good luck with that.
And there’s nothing inherently gross about milk coming from a cow udder. With modern pasteurization processes and proper milking practices, you’d probably encounter more harmful bacteria going down on someone. As St. Augustine said, if infinitely more eloquently, we are born between piss and shit.
Miss Purl, Wisconsinite and dairy farmer’s daughter
Saturated fats and refined sugars have little to recommend the but the calories they contain, which are unneeded in the diet of the modern Western person. Whether you exercise or not is irrelevent; food that is primarily comprised of this is indeed “junk” food. Ditto for tobacco, which isn’t healthy for you in any quantity. That these substances may be only marginally harmful in small quantities doesn’t mean that they’re not negative quantities from a nutritional and health standpoint; merely that you can tolerate a limited amount without great harm. No “minimalist dietary quackery” :rolleyes: involved.
True minialist diets like the that of the calorie restriction life extension crowd or the traditional fish and vegetable diet of Okinawa indicate such diets contribute significantly to geriatric health and reduction in chronic illness, cancer, and mental decline as aptly demonstrated in medical literature.
Chicken abortion omlette…yuck. I think eggs are pretty gross even if you don’t think about where they come from. Unfortuantely, they’re pretty much indispensible for baking and egg pasta.
Stranger
I wonder if she ever kept chickens. Once in a while one of them will discover those round, cobble-like things can be broken into and they really are delicious. Then you got trouble. When we were keeping chickens when I found one that had been undiscovered for an unknown period I’d give it back to the chickens but I’d smash it flat first so they wouldn’t associate that tasty puddle with an intact egg.
I tried Silk once and liked it, but the sampling was followed by an unpleasant bout of stomach-churning and intestinal gas, which I’ve never gotten from regular milk. Is there such a thing as “soy intolerance?”
I like soymilk because it keeps much, much longer than regular milk. I don’t drink all that much milk, mainly use it for cereal and a splash for macaroni & cheese, so living as a bachelor I have trouble consuming even a half-gallon on my own before it goes sour. I can buy several cartons of soymilk at once and don’t even have to keep them in the refridgerator until I open them.
And when you’re eating it with cereal (or the tidbit for mac & cheese as mentioned above) the taste difference is only barely noticeable. But I actually like the taste anyway. So two points for soymilk!
I can’t have milk (or any dairy product softer than cheddar). I’ve enjoyed Silk’s milk and creamer. I also really like almond milk and hazelnut milk-- they are sooo good, even tastier than soy. Expensive, though, so I only get it on sale.
Soy cheese, however, is just not up to snuff. Thus, I can’t quite get on the vegan wagon.
This is exactly the kind of stuff I was alluding to earlier. Dude, you’re already dead, or might as well be.
Lactose intolerance in adults is not an anomaly. The widespread ability of Europeans to digest milk past childhood is the mutant strain.
We evolved to drink human milk as infants, in any case.
Anyone feel like some egg nog?
Just like to point out that recent reports are indicating that the longevity benefits of “caloric restriction” are that it lowers body temperature in an effort to reserve energy. Similar benefits are seen in animals with their body temperature externally lowered but maintained on a regular (or higher calorie, even) diet. Turn down the thermostat this winter. You’ll live longer.
In all honesty, though… we’d be much better off if people got off the dietary angle as well as their fattening asses and got a little more exercise.
It’s called “science” (with an s and a c) and it’s what you get when you study action and result rather than make a bunch of wanton dismissals with ideas that don’t fit within your prescribed world view.
True, and in all honesty I wouldn’t advocate that anyone try to follow the calorie restriction diet, which strikes me as being an unhealthy extreme. Cutting out or substantially reducing saturated fats, increasing vegetables and fiber, regular exercise, et cetera is for many people the difference between suffering chronic illnesses starting in their 50’s or being active and healthy through their 80’s.
“Milk builds stronger bones”: in fact, there is little difference in calcium deficiency syndromes in cultures that regularly eat dairy products (Europe, North America) and those that do rarely or not at all (Southeast Asia) indicating that other sources of calcium are sufficient to provide dietary needs. (Unsurprising, since we didn’t evolve drinking cow milk and many ethnicities have only a limited tolerance for raw dairy products.) Other health claims are equally spurious. Milk was a great dietary resource for people in Northern Europe who lived for significant portion of the year on starchy preserved food and meat, as it contains a whole host of vitamins they wouldn’t otherwise get, but with modern availability of fresh fruits and vegetables the benefits are somewhat diminished while the harms (high in saturated fats, growth hormones both natural and synthetic which may or may not be harmful, et cetera) can be mitigated by a reduction of what has previously be considered the norm (milk with every meal).
Don’t think I’m totally down on the dairy industry–as a cook I’d be hard pressed to survive without butter, milk, cream, and cheese–but research has increasingly showed that these products are best consumed in a level of moderation that would make the dairy industry (understandibly) unhappy. Milk as the standard beverage choice for grade school lunches is not nearly as healthy as you are led to believe. On the other hand, a world without the occasional scoop of pistachio ice cream probably isn’t worth living in.
Stranger
I used to love Silk, until I got fed up with having to rewash my dishes, after running them through the dishwasher with one drop of Silk, left in the bottom of a glass. It coats and spreads like paint.
Im lactose intolerant, so I replace almost everything milk related with silk. Or rice milk, whichever is cheaper that particular week. I still use a little half and half in my coffee though, that I won’t give up.
Rice milk is some of the filthiest-tasting stuff that’s ever been inside my mouth (and that’s saying something).
I will do all my baking and cooking with Silk(except pudding which won’t settle right with the soy stuff), but if I want a bowl of cereal or glass of milk, it’s full-fat milk all the way. My SO is lactose intolerant, so we don’t keep cow milk in the apartment.
Ed Abbey said it best, I think. “Eat your pussy food, and be quiet…”
Soy baby formula was the pits for that. Tom Sawyer used it to whitewash the fence.
Take your jerkishness to The Pit. It doesn’t belong here.
Stranger
I started tracking everything I eat on October 11, and I found that I was getting 10-20% of my RDA of calcium. I’m a 35 yo woman on Depo-Provera so this didn’t seem optimum for me, so I added skim milk to my diet. Currently 2 glasses per day. I might up that to 3 in the near future.
Most of what I’ve read says that women in particular do not get enough dietary calcium, and that it has impact other than on bones. Do you have data to the contrary?
I am unsure about the claims that nonfat dairy can help people lose weight, though data on that would also be welcome.
In traditional diets on the Pacific Rim (specifically Japan and Okinawa, where cow milk is not any part of the normal diet) the major source of calcium is from vegetable matter. Calcium can be found in significant quantities in many legumes; greens like broccoli, okra, rutabaga, collards, and kale; seaweeds (kelp and wakame); and many nuts and seeds. Calcium can also be absorbed from hard water sources or tabletized supplements, although there are questions about how effective this is.
Research in the last couple of decades indicates that high protein diets can actually leech calcium from the diet (it’s a critical element in protein transport) and that calcium from milk and other dairy products may actually be only marginally useful or even counterproductive in preventing calcium deficiency and osteoporosis, as the bulk of calcium absorbed is used to process the milk protein casein. Osteoporosis is virtually absent in populations with traditional low-protein (~120g/day) fish and green vegetable-based diets.
Stranger