Thursday, September 13, 2007

China fact of the day - milk

I still eat meat, albeit I'm trying to stop eating beef all together. Pork on the other hand will be hard for me to give up, so tasty. Plus pigs can feed up leftover human foods, less damaging to the land, no grazing needed. I could care less for chicken, but I usually get chicken or vegetarian burritos at Chipotle.

"In China, for instance, people are eating double the amount of meat they used to a decade ago."

Link to article here.

Another thought, dairy cows also pollute a lot. I don't see environmental groups targeting the Milk ads? Fact, humans are the only mammals that consume milk on a regular basis in adulthood. In the US, Americans are milk faithfuls, drinking several gallons a month.






















Other than calcium, what other benefits of drinking milk are there? Calcium pills are abundant and affordable these days. It seems obvious that the dairy farmers and milk industry boards sponsoring the Got Milk? ad series benefit the most from us consuming more dairy.

I'm not saying drinking milk is bad, but a glass a day is probably over-rated and driven by commercial interest, not health. It leaves a huge carbon footprint when a cow is generating methane and eating up perfectly nice grasslands.

Don't even get me started on the stupidity and short-sightedness of celebrity endorsements in environmental causes, diseases, Toyota Prius and world-poverty issues. The talking heads sure haven't been hesitant to promote milk drinking either!

Some interesting facts about milk via MR blog. One particular comment:

"2. In some parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline."

This is true where I live. However, I don't think it should be a cause for concern. If anything, we are drinking way too much milk. More importantly, gasoline prices have a lot of catching up to do. The market price of gasoline, without US meddling in the middle east, government subsidies and interferences from OPEC, etc, world-wide gas price should be a lot higher. And it will only get higher as fossil fuels are finite resources. Quit whining you polluters! (me included)

2 comments:

Amy said...

Hey Cec!! Why are you trying to stop eating beef? Environmental reasons? I actually try to eat it once in a while cause normally I barely eat any meat so I don't get enough protein/iron. I know, I can probably get this from beans or something, but meat is often easier.

Also, I hope that people in China start drinking more milk!!!! Because I bought stock in ADY .

Chad said...

I eat mostly chicken (about 2-3 times a month I eat red meat) and soy milk. Like Amy said, it is hard to not eat red meat cause of the iron/protein. I heart fish!