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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

I know nutritionists claim we are not "meant" to consume milk after 1-2 years old, but it's not my life's goal to become an athlete and eating cheese is optimal for me, in the sense it makes me "optimally happy" because good cheese is one of life's pleasures.

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The claim is partly based on the fact that the majority of people stop producing lactase (the enzyme needed to digest milk sugar) at an early age.

Well aged cheese has little to no milk sugar, the cultures have eaten all of it. So, problem solved.

Humans should only consume UHT milk or highly fermented milk products, not normally pasteurized or unpasteurized milk. Milk protein consumption induces postprandial hyperinsulinaemia and shifts the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) axis to permanently increased IGF-1 serum levels. Insulin/IGF-1 signalling is involved in the regulation of fetal growth, T-cell maturation in the thymus, linear growth, pathogenesis of acne, atherosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, obesity, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, thus affecting most chronic diseases of Western societies. Of special concern is the possibility that milk intake during pregnancy adversely affects the early fetal programming of the IGF-1 axis which will influence health risks later in life.

Source?

Med Hypotheses . 2009 Jun;72(6):631-9. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.01.008. Epub 2009 Feb 15. Milk--the promoter of chronic Western diseases Bodo C Melnik 1 Affiliations expand PMID: 19232475 DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2009.01.008

"good cheese is one of life's pleasures"

Unfortunately animals are usually harmed for this pleasure.

That's an example of moving the goalpost -- nothing about the comment I was replying to was about animal welfare.

In any case, if you don't eat cheese, I'm sorry for your loss. A good cheese and some ham, along with some fine wine! Makes life worth living.

>nothing about the comment I was replying to was about animal welfare.

Still doesn't invalidate his argument. Animals are harmed to produce dairy (Bobby calves), and this is a valid reason to avoid it.

It kind of does invalidate the argument in the sense of "it's irrelevant because it's not what we're discussing". Arguments are context sensitive, you have to actually make an argument about the thing being discussed, you cannot just react to some keyword in the text and go on a tangent.

I take it you also don't enjoy a good cut of cheese with a fine wine? A shame.

>It kind of does invalidate the argument in the sense of "it's irrelevant because it's not what we're discussing". Arguments are context sensitive, you have to actually make an argument about the thing being discussed, you cannot just react to some keyword in the text and go on a tangent.

I interpreted the discussion to be about the merits of dairy consumption. Animal welfare is definitely a reason to avoid it, just as cheese being one of the pleasures of life is a reason to eat it.

>I take it you also don't enjoy a good cut of cheese with a fine wine? A shame.

Mate, I'm a wog. Of course I drink wine. I ate a cheese sandwich 5 minutes ago and can still taste it. I just felt that your invalidation of his argument was weak.

Haha, fair enough. (I had to google "wog", to be honest!)

Just wait 'til they tell you about ham...

The harm is not just about the pain of those animals. Livestock farming pollutes a lot more than plant-pased food, it's a major contribution to global warming.

I feel like this is the number 1 concern and argument against livestock farming, global environmental "pain"

The cycle of methane lasts something like 20/30 years. If the number of livestock is constant in the world, their emissions will be too and they won't accumulate. Reducing our consumption of meat would help, especially if we can get all the world on board, but total elimination would be a waste of time and resources.

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