I know this is the third post I'm doing in a relatively short amount of time, but I've just received an e-mail from the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine (which happens to be one of my favourite organizations!) announcing that Quaker Oats is planning on doing a campaign this October promoting dairy consumption. According to PCRM, "MilkPEP, a milk promotion program funded by the dairy industry, is behind the promotion."
As PCRM points out,
"Milk is one of the top sources of saturated fat in the American diet, exacerbating America's No. 1 killer: heart disease. It also increases the risk of certain cancers. Just two and a half servings of milk per day increase the risk of prostate cancer by 34 percent. And research from the Iowa Women's Health Study shows that women who consume more than one glass of milk per day have a 73 percent greater chance of developing ovarian cancer, compared with women who drank less than one glass per day."
This is shocking news in itself-- but when you consider the very big fact that the dairy industry is cruel and unfair for the animals, it becomes even more horrifying that Quaker Oats would promote the consumption of milk at all.
Why is the dairy industry cruel? Here's a very brief list of some of the reasons:
- Mother cows are taken away from their babies.
- Cows are usually kept in cramped, confined conditions.
- Female cows are artificially inseminated, and must be repeatedly impregnated in order to keep producing milk.
- Male calves are often sold to spend the rest of their lives in veal crates, while female calves are either cycled back into the dairy system or slaughtered. Veal calves are purposely given low-iron diets so that they become anemic, therefore having pale flesh. They are not allowed to run around, because exercise would toughen their muscles and make their meat tougher.
- Cows are often fed corn and other "foods" that are unhealthy for cows to eat.
- Animals have the right to be free. They are not "tools" for ours to use. Cows should not be our milk-producing machines. If dogs, for example, were treated the way cows are on dairy farms and "milked" to provide a product for human consumption (after all, all mammals produce milk), there would be public outrage (rightfully so!). Cows are curious, sentient creatures, just like dogs are. It is cruel to treat cows the way they are routinely treated, and it is wrong for them to be "owned" at all.
- Many more reasons!
PCRM has a petition that you can sign to tell Quaker Oats that promoting dairy is not acceptable. You can sign the petition by following this link!
