Welcome to #Februdairy. This month, farmers are fighting back against “Veganuary,” in which people pledged to go vegan for the mont of January, with the campaign “Februdairy” to promote dairy products. The dairy industry knows that milk sales are declining as plant-based options become more popular, so this is their attempt to win back consumers through a social media campaign. Vegan activists like myself are using the month to show the dark side of dairy – the reality of dairy farming, the inherent cruelty, the health risks of consuming dairy, and more. Join in, but keep it civil. Use the hashtags #Februdairy, #legendairy and #FARM365 if you want to join in our fight!
For Februdairy on the blog, I thought it would be good to not only write some new posts about dairy but also revisit some of my old ones. Here is what I believe to be my earliest post on the dairy industry and its decline.
It is estimated that around 11,000 years ago “dairying” practices began with the transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture. Archaeological evidence supporting this includes bone growth patterns of cattle: calves would be killed before their first birthday so that humans could exploit their mothers for milk; cattle that were full grown at the time of slaughter would be used for meat consumption. As time went on, cattle became even more of an integral part of human culture: “Cattle bones represent more than two-thirds of the animal bones in many late Neolithic and early Bronze Age archaeological sites in central and northern Europe.” Researchers believe that in those regions, dairy products were an advantage because they could “hedge against famine.”
The above highlights an article recently published in Nature, which details the link between dairy products and human settlement. What’s interesting to me is why the consumption of dairy products has…
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The Paw Report 