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Comment by saiya-jin | Hacker News Reader

Which animal harm do you mean by having cows for milk? Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows, the cost of it is almost the same as basic milk where I live. I can tell you from my daily personal experience those are some of the happiest non-wild animals you can meet in person.

I mean if we move away from it, yes technically there will be 0 harm possible because we will have to kill all the diary cows, and prevent their offsprings from ever again being born. But thats kind of argument like killing all humans apart from me will end all of human suffering, technically true but not what we want.

Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors. Not judging or arguing for/against, but its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste.

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1. Cows, like humans, only produce milk after giving birth

2. These cows, in order to get pregnant in the first place, are artificially inseminated (and it isn't a very nice process)

3. What do you think happens to the offspring if it's male and thus uneconomical to keep?

The fact that these statements (which are incredibly obvious if you have an eighth grade education or higher) have to be spelled out is a testament to the power of the milk lobby that people think there are some bucolic scenes where farmkids go to milk Bessie each morning, who produces day in and day out without fuss.

The fact you’re getting downvoted so much also illustrates how much our species is willing to hide our head in the sand and buy the milk lobbies’ lies.

I just really like cheese and yogurt and milk and other cow milk products.

It doesn’t change the suffering and abuse involved in making it. Downvoting parent won’t make that go away even if you don’t like hearing it.

I love cheese too. I was eating some almost every day growing up in cheese country. But I gave it up once I learned the cost of making it in term of animal abuse and pollution.

We mostly gave up raping and pillaging so maybe one day we’ll also vastly reduce the abuse we inflict onto the billions of animals we “raise”…

I did not downvote, just wanted to share that me, and maybe many like me are not buying the milk industries’ lies. I would support legislation that increased quality of life for cows and all animals.

At least in Germany, and presumably most places in Europe are the same or similar, milk can be labeled organic without the animals ever being grazed. Though apparently they always have access to an outdoor area.

Even milk that's specifically sold as being from free grazing animals in actual fact only requires them to be on a pasture 6h a day for 120 days a year.

https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/lebensmittel/leben...

Far from being easy and cheap, I think in Europe it's close to impossible to buy milk from cows that are predominantly free grazing. Even though, from what I can tell, cows are perfectly capable of being outside year round in most of the continent.

> its not equivalent nor replacement in ie nutrition nor taste

Speak for yourself, it might not have the same nutritional value (but also not the same amount of hormones and/or antibiotics), but there are a few oat based milks (e.g. Alpro This Is Not Milk) that have almost the same mouth feel as cow milk (personally, I find that too fatty and prefer the non-fatty tasting oat milk).

> Its easy to buy bio milk which comes from free grazing cows

Uh huh, and how many people are doing that, especially close to the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder? There are plenty of plant based milk with a hefty trend markup, but least here in Germany the discount supermarkets have plenty of cheap plant based milk that is the same price as cow milk, and you don't have to squeeze milk from an animal for that.

> Plant based 'milk' aint no milk, just drink with some flavors

Do you also say "peanut butter ain't no butter"?

"Milk" has meant "fatty white liquid" since forever. The oldest surviving cookbook in the English language references "almond milk."

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