milk-where does it come from?

[juicylucy]

Rice milk is worse.
I didnt like soya either to start with but i buy the soya cream..alternative to single cream and that is lovely in my coffee.
i didnt know there was such a thing until a vegetarian friend told me about it.
I have forced myself to like the soya milk because i dont agree with the way that dairy cattle are raised and treated.
and it doesnt sit comfortable with me that an animal has had an unnatural life to supply me with something i like.

[Al B]

The chefs are all advocatiing that we eat more British veal because this removes the need for 2 day old calves to be transported abroad. Veal here is reared in open barns , not crates, and the calves at least have a half decent, if short life. If they are sent abroad - which hundreds of thousands are - then their lives are dreadful. It won't stop unless there is another market for them here - British veal is the only viable alternative to our impoverished farmers. I think that ALL CO-OP milk is guaranteed NOT to have come from farms where calves are transported abroad to be reared in conditions that are illegal here! Calves are unfortunately a bi -product of the milk industry and this won't change - but eating British veal can at least make some difference to their futures...

[saint-spoon]

I shall make it my mission to source British pink veal locally in the not too distant future although having four major supermarkets within a five mile radius has meant that all of the local butchers have been forced out of business so it’s a bit of a hike out to the nearest one. Our dairy farmers have a hard enough time of it as it is so if we can help them by buying what is essentially a by-product of their business then all the better; the bonus being that the little boy calves will have a nicer existence at the same time. As for soya milk? No thank you, I have a hunch that somewhere along the line there’ll be to some degree some destruction of the environment, less than fair trade standards for workers and all other manner of things that we’d rather not think about. I’d much rather know that a calf has died having had as good a life as it possibly can than try and ignore fact that are conveniently greyed out by the manufacturers of such products. Just my opinion.

[chickenchaser]

Good for you SS!

You will let us know where to buy it if you find it in a national chain, won't you

[Mousey]

HI i have been veggie since jamie oliver did his chicken out campaign with hugh last year, i have also been vegan for a few months but this is very difficult as milk is in everything. I have read many books and studies on the consumption of cows milk for humans and have decided for myself its not natural and should be avoided. Since watching the programme and going veggie i cannot believe how we treat our animals., its only because we buy this stuff that they sell it, how many of you would by a battery farm egg?? i Have given up preaching to people about what damage they are doing to animals as they would rather ignore it and not think about it.
I do not agree with soya milk and also believe it causes some allergies, I do drink very small quantities of goats milk, approx 2 pints a month, i know i am allergic to cheese and only eat eggs from my chickens. I cannot believe people support the cruelty in the uk because they would rather not think about it.
Viva have a lot of interesting information which is worth reading.
I just wish people would take responsibility for their own decisions and actually find out about the damage they are causing.

[silky]

I’ll ask my local butcher about veal tomorrow. I use all the local small shops if I can, for I believe that they are making a living, while the supermarkets are making a profit.

[Mo]

It's hard to support small local shops AND get the free range stuff you want - I used to buy an occassional cake from a baker, but if I go to S--- or T--- they have cakes made with free range eggs.

[silky]

Perhaps I’m luck , our butcher’s wife is also a cook and she bakes pies (meat as well as fruit) cakes, tarts, etc and she used free-range eggs that are also sold in the shop.

[saint-spoon]

I have read many books and studies on the consumption of cows milk for humans and have decided for myself its not natural and should be avoided......... and only eat eggs from my chickens.

Fair enough drinking of another mammals milk isn’t in the natural order of things, but then again keeping chickens with the purpose of consuming the by product of their reproductive cycle doesn't seem to be overly natural either.
Forgive me if I come over as being anti, I’m not trying to be. Believe it or not I do respect those amongst us who choose to forgo meat or animal produce (to whatever degree they deem right and proper), I just have different views and ideas. I personally think that it’s important to see beyond the obvious and to try and get to the heart of the truth. Is humanely killing a veal calf any worse than shooting crows because they are eating you cereal crop? From what I have read it would appear that crows have a much higher level of intelligence and sapience than cattle; after all crows live by their wits and in some parts of the world have learned to use tools, a trait not yet picked up by the domesticated veal calf.

[Dinchy]

A word in defence of the dairy farmers. It is possible that the way in which dairy cattle are kept might be improved if he could make a decent profit from selling his milk. At present supermarkets (obviously the dairy industry's biggest customer) are allowed to dictate the price that they buy their milk for. This is rediculously low so that we go to the supermarkets to buy milk from them, and with it lots of other things. The dairy farmers do not make a profit and infact it has been known for them to make a loss selling to the supermarkets, and obviously the more milk that is bought from supermarkets the more this unnatural pricing continues as demand from supermarket customers for cheap milk increases. People complain about milk beng more expensive from a milkman, but he is selling at a more realistic price allowing some profit for the farmer and processors.
How can things hope to improve if the big chains are allowed to carry on in this way?

[Bowdon]

A word in defence of the dairy farmers. It is possible that the way in which dairy cattle are kept might be improved if he could make a decent profit from selling his milk. At present supermarkets (obviously the dairy industry's biggest customer) are allowed to dictate the price that they buy their milk for. This is rediculously low so that we go to the supermarkets to buy milk from them, and with it lots of other things. The dairy farmers do not make a profit and infact it has been known for them to make a loss selling to the supermarkets, and obviously the more milk that is bought from supermarkets the more this unnatural pricing continues as demand from supermarket customers for cheap milk increases. People complain about milk beng more expensive from a milkman, but he is selling at a more realistic price allowing some profit for the farmer and processors.
How can things hope to improve if the big chains are allowed to carry on in this way?

Well said there. I noticed on the side of milk in tesco's "we pay a premium to our dedicated farmers" thats a lie. Having lived on dairy farms all my life, I love the countryside and the country way of life but I hate the way its rapidly fading away. Our villages are becoming commuter suburbs, houses bought by wealthy city people pushing country property prices beyond ridiculous so they can fulfill this "Lets move to the country its a safer upbringing for our children" fashion made popular by certain TV programs. Now not only does this affect property prices, this affects everything in the countryside as a whole. Villages rapidly increase in size as (ugly) housing is built to cope with the amount of people moving to the country, but these people also dont use local butchers, farm shops etc they still continue to use the big supermarkets for all their food. The very cheap prices that the supermarkets pay farmers along with the fact that people read to far into things, such as the way some livestock have been treated on ONE farm, on ONE TV news report and think I'm never eating or drinking this product again, means a decline in the industry which means more farms closing and being put up for sale. Therefore the once beautiful country village now has more land available to expand and become yet another suburb with guess what built in the middle of it, a tesco express!. The majority of the population created this world we live in, the way things are. Through the 50's and 60's the world was brought closer together,better communications. The world as a whole since became more career/business driven, leaving behind a self sufficient way of life and relying on supermarkets who in turn rely on farms to produce and grow more to keep up with the demand for the population, therefore creating the kind of farming we see today. I can assure you that every farm I have lived on and been to the conditions have been excellent for the livestock. Where I live, the cows are not just seen as a bunch of things that produce milk (200+ and my dad can tell each one from another and their names, even from right across a field!), they are well looked after, well fed, get plenty of time grazing out in the fields. Im not denying some animals are treated badly, but that is a tiny amount in comparison to the fantastic farms we have in this country. You should support the British farmer as much as you can, not just dairy, everything you possibly can. If you need to buy fruit/veg/eggs etc go to your local farm shop and buy from there before you go to a supermarket. Bit of a rant there but I had to explain the problem as a whole and we need to change our ways otherwise our beautiful countryside wont be around for much longer.

[Steve the Gas]

Well put

[wendy]

You are so right, if we don't support our British farmers we soon won't have any.
Then we will have no control over animal welfare, if all our food is from abroad.
Wendy

[Bowdon]

and as you may know rules, laws and restrictions concerning animal welfare ar'nt as strict throughout the rest of europe as they are here in Britain.

[saint-spoon]

There are of course other very positive aspects to the production of diary and those farms that support it. Take for instance the plight of the horseshoe bat, a species that I am lead to believe relies heavily on the beetles and other insect life that in turn rely on cows producing quality pats. There are also fungi that grow exclusively from cow poo. If we didn’t have the farms then the countryside would be a far poorer place. Everyone to their own convictions but like it or not the human as a species has done particularly well by adapting to the environment and in particular we have managed to farm our food meaning that we aren’t reliant on nature to provide. We are opportunist omnivores by trade, our biggest asset is our brain which requires a lot of energy to run; this brain could only develop to the degree that it has by our species consuming high energy foods such as meat. We have learnt to domesticate the food sources around us, and by coincidence most cultures around the world have harvested milk in one form or another be it from a cow, horse, camel or yak. I think that it is sad that we have hidden the darker side of our food production, such as veal calves, so that we can all feel better about ourselves. If you think about it dairy production is actually far more sustainable in the long run than intensive arable food production or stripping the sea of everything.