CASH COW

Ten Myths about the Dairy Industry

Élise Desaulniers

@edesaulniers

The emotional attachment to milk is a victory for an industry we ought to challenge seriously.

Milk consumption became possible with the advent of agriculture and animal domestication over ten thousand years ago

• -200 000 : homo sapiens in Africa
• -13 000 : first domesticated goat
• -8 000 : first domesticated auroch

John Hawks, "Still Evolving (After All These Years)", Scientific American 311, 86 - 91 (2014) 

Today, a mere 25 percent of the global population exhibits
lactase persistence

Yet dairy is given a prominent place despite evidence that high intakes of dairy products do not reduce the risk of osteoporosis and may increase the risk of some chronic diseases.

Harvard School of Public Health

Scientific articles funded by beverage manufacturers are four to eight times more likely to be favorable to the product than independent articles. No study funded by the industry reached conclusions that went against its interests.

Lesser and al., 2007

"Upon this industry, more than any other of the food industries, depends not alone the problem of public health, but there depends upon it the very growth and virility of the white races."

President Herbert Hoover, 1923

Text

Text

reducing costs is the only

way to increase revenues for a dairy farmer.

the daily effort now required from a cow is on par with jogging six or more hours a day or competing in the Tour de France.

John Webster, professor emeritus at the Bristol Veterinary School of Medicine in the United kingdom.

We don't need an undercover investigation to know that a large number of dairy cows spend their lives chained, suffer from being separated from their calves shortly after birth, endure inflamed udders and bleeding hoofs, and inevitably end up at the slaughterhouse.

When we’re about to consume milk, even if we know it has been produced under unacceptable conditions, we can still tell ourselves that it could have been produced without any suffering. This is obviously a very bad argument. But I think that this mere possibility is enough for us to stop feeling guilty.

Martin Gibert, Philosopher

Bastian et al., 2012

R v. Teeple  (2002)

In many organic farms there is little difference in approach between the methods used to rear dairy calves and those used on non-organic farms

Canada Organic Agriculture Centre

Environmental Working Group, 2011

Lesser et al., 2007

Text

Conventional milk
14 

Organic milk
10

Soy milk 0,31

Text

FOSSIL FUEL REQUIRED TO PRODUCE  

1 LITER OF MILK
(IN CALORIES)

Pimentel 2006

ÉLISE DESAULNIERS
@edesaulniers