A Milk Startup Takes on 300M Cows | Hacker News Reader

A Milk Startup Takes on 300M Cows

wsj.com

34 pointsjkuria57 comments

A friend of mine, a chemistry teacher, taught in an Indian school for a number of years. He said a huge problem was buying milk for the students that wasn't cut with bad water and/or other chemicals. They tried paying above market price, equivalent to the price of pure milk, and it worked for a while, but he kept testing the milk and found the vendor eventually started diluting the milk. I guess the temptation was great.

This startup looks like it may solve that problem!

Apparently many people in China buy imported powdered milk for the same reason - the local stuff may be adulterated.

Not that the powder being imported stops adulteration from happening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal

There is a cottage industry in Australia and New Zealand of people sending back milk powder and infant formula to China, often with newspapers or other proof that the package originated in Australia or NZ. There's no guarantee that the "NZ milk powder" you buy in China is real, however a sealed package from NZ is fairly certainly going to be real. I used to have a colleague from China who would bring an extra suitcase filled with infant formula and multivitamins evert time he went back home to China for his relatives.

There are now limits on the amount of infant formula you can buy at supermarkets here, especially in areas with a high concentration of Asian immigrants. Supermarket shelves were getting cleared out by grey-market exporters.

I'm surprised the response to grey market exporters is to limit sales.

Why not produce more? I don't believe there's a shortage of milk in Aus.

It might also have to do something with demand and income levels. As both of them rise people who could afford buying unadulterated milk meant the vendor had bigger demands to meet. Now he could either raise the price, something which might be frowned upon. Or start diluting the milk unless he is caught and forced to raise the price.

It's a controversial issue, but I try to refrain from eating any type of dairy products (with mixed results) because of two main reasons:

- It seems that science is supporting a vegan lifestyle for longevity/a longer health span [1]

- Cows are so bad for the environment...

[1] https://valterlongo.com/daily-longevity-diet/

This is a weird one:

> Select ingredients among those discussed in this book that your ancestors would have eaten.

I'm pretty sure my ancestors never ate bananas, oranges, kale, quinoa, avocado and everything else which wasn't present in Europe 500 years ago.

In the book he is referring to the generation before your parents. I believe because they did not have access to anything that was produced by a chemical plant

The generation before my parents (i.e., my grandparents) were born around the time that The Jungle was published, which describes food so tainted that the outcry lead to the formation of the Food and Drug Administration

The 50s were full of canned and processed foods too.

For me, that generation also did not have access to kale, quinoa, or avocados. Bananas and oranges were a rare treat, because getting them fresh was utterly impractical and expensive where they lived.

One side were farmers, the other lower class city folk who got their chickens in cans, and had to over cook pork until it would shatter if you dropped it just to be sure that it was safe to eat.

That generation grew up without refridgeration; there was very little in the way of fresh foos during winter months as everything had to be preserved in cans or dried.

I for one ame glad for our modern food supply.

Quoting from the book:

Whether it’s lactose or kale, quinoa or turmeric (curcumin), you have to ask whether these were foods common at the table when you, your parents, or your grandparents were growing up. If not, it’s best to avoid them or consume them only occasionally.

Yep people will look for whatever they can do to “make a difference” as long as it doesn’t affect the things they really want to do. See: driving, having kids, eating meat, etc.

I'd rather milk them than kill them for hamburger and shoes.

What do you think happens to all the male calves that are born each year to keep dairy cows lactating?

For milk to come the cow needs to deliver a calf. How long will you allow the calf to drink her mums milk, before you decide that calf hurts your bottom line?

Most commonly the calf is removed from the mom in a few hours, after which the mum is crying for her kid for several days.

Dairy is super cruel, besides it being very unhealthy for humans (especially humans after their weening phase).

> the mum is crying for her kid

Sounds awful. Do you have a reference where I can read/watch more about it?

This video sums up the dark side of the dairy industry pretty well:

https://youtu.be/UcN7SGGoCNI

I'd say that video shows the worst of the dairy industry.

I grew up spending time on a grandparents dairy over school holidays. It was nothing like this video. Yes you do have things like farms putting their arm up cows vigina and bobby calves being separated. But usually it's a clean and non-traumatic process. Things like the mastitis and blood in the milk is unusual.

While I dont doubt there are some highly cruel and unethical operations running, on the dairy farms I used to spend time on those farmers love their animals. That's what these video rarely show, the care and love farmers have for their animals. And 99% of the time that animal is happy and well looked after. But grab clips of the worst farmers at their worst moments and this is what you get.

The vast majority of milk on supermarket shelves comes from factory farms operating exactly as described in the video. But even the best run boutique family dairy farms are going to have to figure out what to do with their male calves.

Watch this recent German documentary to see the reaction when a Bavarian dairy farmer that takes pride in treating her animals well sees the ultimate horrific fate of one of her male calves:

https://youtu.be/295wKcuDGQk

Wow. This is really, really awful. Thanks for sharing that video

1) My grandparents operation and a few others I have spent time with were from boutique operations. At least in the regions I have seen the majority of the market is not based on suppliers as you say. Perhaps there is data to the contrary as my experience is within 2 regional bubbles only, but your statement is not true in these regions.

2) I speed watch through a good part of the documentary. 100% there is some horrifyingly bad footage there. I feel its fair to note what I saw in Germany / France the animals are treated well. The horrifying footage was largely shot in developing countries in the middle east. This supports what my original comment was about, the information being provided shows a skewed view. And I haven't seen anything to change my mind that in some regions animals are treated well and looked after. And in others, they are not.

The point of the video is that dairy farms generate surplus male calves, which have to be disposed of somehow. The male calves may be treated well when they're being raised but it's those very same male calves that are often shipped abroad from countries like Germany to meet the fate you see there. This is an intrinsic part of the dairy business because cows must be kept pregnant to produce milk. I think you should watch the whole thing because you missed the point.

At least in the US, 80% of the milk sold is from factory farms, where cows are certainly not treated well.

https://www.organicconsumers.org/essays/how-boycott-milk-fac...

It is awful. We had a newborn calf die this year and mom called for it for 3 or 4 days. But we also only raise 4 or 5 new cows each year just for us and a few local friends. So our scale is much smaller than the large dairy operations.

Veal is a byproduct of dairy

Dairy is very unhealthy for grown-up humans...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3c_D0s391Q

Even the title cries clickbait.

For what it's worth: life is deadly. Deal with it and eat what you like.

> life is deadly. Deal with it and eat what you like.

I agree, but in a situation were CVD kills millions we might want to look at an easy fix. And another point, kill yourself with you shit behavior is one thing, dragging 100s of innocent being along with you by paying for them to be bread/hurt/exploited/killed is another thing. A not very ethical thing, especially since alternatives are readily available.

Clickbaity or not, did you see this doctors points? He has quite a case going. Dairy is unhealthy to a point that we should not be so eager to pass this addiction (yes search for casomorphine) on to our children.

I disagree. Not eating dairy products restricts your eating choices considerably. I don't know where this crusade against dairy is coming from (besides the internet).

It's very much normal to eat and drink milk related products, especially in countries with domesticated cows.

What makes humans the only species that need to consume the breast milk of other species after weaning?

Pleasure. Don't forget the produced goods that come from milk like cheese in your burger.

It's diversification in your food ressources. In the ancient past that made it easier to survive.

Just because we did something in the past doesn't mean we need to continue doing it now. There's no reason for adult humans to continue consuming another species' breast milk and ingest all the saturated fats and hormones that come along with it to damage our health.

edit: to add to that, there are horrible ethical violations in the dairy industry and it causes tremendous harm to the environment.

It's not really an argument to stop either.

The damaging effects of consuming a food loaded with fat, protein, and hormones meant to grow a calf as fast as possible is not a good argument to stop consuming it?

No. I mean can you prove the damaging effects? There doesn't seem to be a unison there from what I found.

Do countries with high milk consumption have shorter life spans?

> I mean can you prove the damaging effects?

See the in-your-eyes clickbaity titled video.

> Do countries with high milk consumption have shorter life spans?

Total lifespan is dependent on a lot of factors. But YES moving to dairy as a population shortens your lifespan by greatly increasing a bunch of sicknesses. See "the china study" for more in-depth info.

that would be a single source.

Reading the Wikipedia article on the "china study" doesn't seem that it's all definiteley related to dairy (or animal food consumption).

Just for your information:

https://www.uth.edu/media/story.htm?id=1692785a-5886-46e8-81...

Just waiting for synthetic foods. Science Fiction always likes to paint a picture that such things aren't as good as the "real thing". Sure that might be true in the earlier days, but I suspect that in the end they'll be superior. Though that'll be a long way away yet. Maybe around 2150 :P

Food preparation is one of those "adult" things I still struggle with, leading me to consume a lot of convenience things. Maybe if the world wants to move more towards veganism, we need more (pre-)processed food, just not from animal sources. Veganism is too tied to whole food and slow food movements for it to gain traction. The corporate world still sees it as niche, first-world and hipster enough to charge a premium where it does get involved.

Guy selling a book sounds like bullshit. A 2017 study finds "no evidence that following a vegetarian diet, semi-vegetarian diet or a pesco-vegetarian diet has an independent protective effect on all-cause mortality."

N = 267,180

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28040519/

Broadly speaking, a vegan diet is a diet of deficiencies. (Meta-analysis from oxford)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10408398.2018.1...

And probably harmful for brain health.

http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/vegan-diets-and-the-brain/?utm_...

The only thing worse than the pro-vegan whataboutism that you replied to is anti-vegan propaganda like your last link. Sheesh.

And the Oxford study has a whole lot of "due to poverty" evidence. "This recommendation is bad because it does't work in Kenya in areas of subsistence farming, where the diet is already kinda shitty" -- really?

Are you confounding vegan and vegetarian?

Also, the study didn’t control for any of the other variables of his diet for example low sugar intake. You can eat as much vegetables as you like, if you eat a lot of sugar, your diet is still unhealthy.

Even if the paper holds for vegan there is still a difference in living longer and living health. That’s why I stated the health span, too.

I really recommend reading the book. Its evidence is based not only on large cohort studies like this one, but also on other sources like centennial studies, biochemical pathways etc. It is probably the best source for understanding what food does with our bodies as of today.

*conflating

you're right... thanks. Can't edit no more though

- As far as I know, there is no such thing as humane dairy. Calves are weaned and taken from their mothers very young. Cows are kept pregnant and eventually their bodies kinda give out. And that's the absolute best case scenario, where all their other needs are tended to and they are generally treated well.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/well/eat/good-vegan-bad-v...

http://archive.is/xeCxt

I came to ask for a non-paywall link, thank you for posting this.

Not all heroes wear capes.

odd arhive.is does not work with 1.1.1.1 but does with google dns.

I love this picture:

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/B3-BA230_0704MI_M...

Something about the woman in the lab coat, with a generation of men standing around her while the older generation looks on, calf and all. It's very reminiscent of early 20th century paintings from the US.

There truly is a stock photo for everything.

Business woman with headset and laptop milking cow:

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/woman-milking-cow-business-f...

https://st2.depositphotos.com/4319567/7421/i/950/depositphot...

Wow. I’d love to know the backstory on that.

Powerful drugs and paying by the hour seems like they have to be included in the necessary Venn diagram.

I... I'll be in my bunk.

Huh... the last thing you want is a company that tries to "invent" some nonsense to improve the "cows".

Mexican Lala goes to india I guess?

Not sure what you imply, but chlorinated chicken

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