Malamine Not The Only Problem With Milk
In Wake Of Melamine-Tainted Milk Scandal, Peta Releases
Top 10 Reasons Not To Drink Milk
Melamine Isn't the Only Thing That Milk-Drinkers Need to Worry About, Group Warns
Auckland — In light of the melamine-tainted milk scandal, which has killed at least four babies and sickened 53,000 others, PETA is reminding milk-drinkers that cow's milk is also loaded with cholesterol, fat and other contaminants – including cow's blood and pus, pesticides, hormones and antibiotics – which, over time, can be just as dangerous as ingesting melamine.
PETA points out that eating fat- and cholesterol-laden dairy products can lead to serious health problems – including heart disease, obesity and diabetes – which can send milk-drinkers to an early grave. And since more than 75 per cent of the world's population is lactose-intolerant, putting on a milk moustache can mean suffering painful abdominal cramps, bloating and diarrhoea.
The following are PETA's top 10 reasons not to drink milk:
1) Cows are not milk
machines. After years being kept constantly pregnant and
being forced to produce about 10 times more milk than they
naturally would, dairy cows are slaughtered.
2) "Moo"
is not your first language. Human babies don't say "goo goo
moo moo", so why treat them like calves? Humans are the only
animals who drink breast milk after infancy and the only
animals who drink milk from a different species. It makes as
much sense for people to drink cow's milk as it would for
dogs to drink giraffe's milk!
3) Cookies and cramps
don't mix. Studies show that more than 75 per cent of the
world's population is lactose-intolerant. Can you say
"abdominal cramps, bloating and diarrhea"?
4) Dairy is
pusitively scary. There's more in that glass of milk than
you think. Dairy products are commonly contaminated with
blood, pus, pesticides and antibiotics.
5) There's veal
in your cereal. Milk fuels the cruel veal industry.
Considered by-products of the dairy industry, male calves
are dragged away to veal crates when they are just hours
old.
6) Milk is bad to the bone. Contrary to a popular
milky myth, studies strongly implicate dairy foods in
causing, rather than preventing, osteoporosis, because their
high protein content leaches calcium from the body.
7)
Milk does the planet bad. Bad for mother cows, milk
production is also bad for Mother Earth. It's a major source
of water pollution: just one dairy cow produces 120 pounds
of waste every day – as much as two dozen people could
produce – but with no toilets, sewers or treatment
plants.
8) The white stuff isn't the right stuff. Milk
is formulated to meet the nutritional needs of calves, who
have four stomachs and gain an average of 115 kilograms in
their first six months of life. It's mad for humans to chug
moo-juice!
9) No grain means lots of pain. Every glass
of milk takes a meal away from hungry people. Crops which
could be used to feed the hungry are instead used to feed
dairy cows. It takes a huge amount of grain cycled through
cows to produce a very small amount of milk.
10) A milk
moustache is a real heartbreaker. Devoid of fibre and
complex carbohydrates but loaded with saturated fat and
cholesterol, dairy products have been linked to heart
disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and certain
types of cancer.
"All cow's milk – whether it's poisoned with melamine or not – is an unhealthy mix of contaminants, cholesterol and fat", says PETA director Jason Baker. "The best bet for people who care about their health is to switch to healthy and humane soya, rice or almond milk and give dairy products the boot."
For more information, please visit PETAAsiaPacific.com.
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