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Why don't we all drink human breastmilk?

13

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,059 ✭✭✭WilyCoyote


    We can't just be milking any woman - if we want this to be a sustainable eco-business, we need to start with wimmin from Jersey.

    http://cdn.snookinicole.celebuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/08/Nicole-Snooki-Polizzi-Beauty-Blog-600x450.jpg

    Gimme Gimme Gimme


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,028 ✭✭✭✭--LOS--


    Deank wrote: »
    And along comes Captain Sensible.

    Soft argument in fairness,

    Well that's put simply because its not something people stop and think about, so the obvious might need pointing out. People consume dairy because they think we need it, that's usually what people tell me at least, we need milk for calcium, not many people would stop and think, hang on, that's rubbish, there are much better plant sources of calcium. And not only that but milk is harmful to us and linked to lots of diseases. When you think that you need it, you don't even question the morality of it. People need to realise first its unnecessary in order to understand the cruelty of it. People tend to excuse the harder argument of animal welfare, sustainability etc when its falsely viewed as a necessity.

    There is no reason to consume it other than you want to.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,720 ✭✭✭Sir Arthur Daley


    Best milk of all is goats milk, lovely stuff.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,609 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    --LOS-- wrote: »
    Well that's put simply because its not something people stop and think about, so the obvious might need pointing out. People consume dairy because they think we need it, that's usually what people tell me at least, we need milk for calcium, not many people would stop and think, hang on, that's rubbish, there are much better plant sources of calcium. And not only that but milk is harmful to us and linked to lots of diseases. When you think that you need it, you don't even question the morality of it. People need to realise first its unnecessary in order to understand the cruelty of it. People tend to excuse the harder argument of animal welfare, sustainability etc when its falsely viewed as a necessity.

    There is no reason to consume it other than you want to.

    Dunno where the cruelty comes in.
    If we're going to breed cattle for food it makes sense to utilise them fully and drink the milk as well.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭recylingbin


    --LOS-- wrote: »

    There is no reason to consume it other than you want to.
    Untrue.
    Them bones, them bones need calcium.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    Untrue.
    Them bones, them bones need calcium.

    Did you miss the rest of the post where LOS stated that there are plenty of other sources of calcium?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭recylingbin


    KERSPLAT! wrote: »
    Did you miss the rest of the post where LOS stated that there are plenty of other sources of calcium?
    But are they as delicious as fresh pint of milk that's been chilled to 2-4 degs? I think not.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,720 ✭✭✭Sir Arthur Daley


    Plenty of calcium in mars bars.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    But are they as delicious as fresh pint of milk that's been chilled to 2-4 degs? I think not.

    So her statement that you drink it only because you want to is in fact, true :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭recylingbin


    Plenty of calcium in mars bars.
    yup. And dairy milks.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    Plenty of calcium in mars bars.

    Aye but a Mars Bar won't cool me tea down!!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭recylingbin


    KERSPLAT! wrote: »
    So her statement that you drink it only because you want to is in fact, true :)
    No. I drink it because it's a source of calcium.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    Ah here, I'll let you read over the few posts again and you can get back to me tomorrow


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,720 ✭✭✭Sir Arthur Daley


    KERSPLAT! wrote: »
    Aye but a Mars Bar won't cool me tea down!!

    Stop the kettle before it boils out.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,001 ✭✭✭recylingbin


    KERSPLAT! wrote: »
    Ah here, I'll let you read over the few posts again and you can get back to me tomorrow
    Cheers.
    BTW, you never answered my pm.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    --LOS-- wrote: »
    ok before this gets too silly, I know it's AH and all......


    Conor ye, if you stop and think about it, it is very weird to drink cows milk that is food for baby cows. However drinking human milk is not the answer :D Cows like women only produce milk during pregnancy for the purposes of feeding their respective babies. Cows and women don't continue to produce milk beyond the time necessary for the babies to grow because.......... we don't need it! It's not necessary, it's just a habit. But we still like using milk so thankfully we have so many alternatives like soy milk, almond milk, rice milk, oat milk, hemp milk etc etc, there's so many now. So why would you still use cows milk?

    Haven't tried the others but soy milk is vile, would rather put water on cereal than that plant piss.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    Cheers.
    BTW, you never answered my pm.

    I was eh... busy...

    <.<
    >.>


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,194 ✭✭✭foxy farmer


    You don't need to be pregnant to lactate. Regular sucking of teat or nipple will stimulate the mammary glands into producing milk. Fact.
    Drinking raw unpasteurised cows milk is a risky exercise. The Chinese don't put milk in their tea.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,398 ✭✭✭whatdoicare


    How would we get enough womens to agree to produce enough milk to supply the world?

    I'm sure if we did try it, it'd turn out like ten women in the EU volunteered and got paid loads - making milk super expensive so to combat this and drive prices down like a million women in some third world country were kidnapped and sold to a factory in some other third world country, where they were hooked up to milking machines 24/7 and pumped full of hormones to keep them producing.

    Then we find out that it wasn't policed properly so we're all infected with some super bug and there's no cure.



    Then.....Zombie apocalypse.


    True story.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 397 ✭✭The Purveyor of Truth


    Some do.

    Oh and: MeMyself&Irene.mp4


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,695 ✭✭✭bur


    Cows would also have better diets than most women.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,328 ✭✭✭conorh91


    ScumLord wrote: »
    No, we've been eating all these things for longer than we've been this species. It's like saying it's weird dogs eat dead birds, they eat dog food don't they.

    No it's not. That's a really terrible comparison. Other species do not have the consciousness to allow them to even consider inconsistencies in their approach to their diets.
    The fact that we've been eating dairy and eggs for thousands of years is also irrelevant. That claim is tantamount to appealing to long practice.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,028 ✭✭✭✭--LOS--


    kneemos wrote: »
    Dunno where the cruelty comes in.
    If we're going to breed cattle for food it makes sense to utilise them fully and drink the milk as well.

    We don't need animals for food of any kind, everything we need we can get from plants. It's easier to recognise the suffering involved in beef production, most people grasp that an animal was killed for the meat they eat, with dairy there's a disconnect where you think it's ok to take cows milk because you're not killing the cow. But the dairy and beef industry are interlinked, one contributes to the other, a dairy cow suffers the same fate as beef cattle and is also used for meat, only this time after a life (much shorter than it should be) of being continuously impregnated so that we can take the milk, the calves depending on their breed and gender will either become part of the dairy industry, raised for beef, raised for veal or culled outright. So the dairy industry is more cruel for that reason.
    Untrue.
    Them bones, them bones need calcium.

    well who am I to argue with an ad :P

    There's more calcium in a serving of kale than milk though

    Haven't tried the others but soy milk is vile, would rather put water on cereal than that plant piss.

    Even with soy milks, there are so many types and brands, they vary a lot in taste unlike normal milk, I prefer the long-life ones, they don't have that strong taste that the fresh ones do and I also hate the sweetened ones. There's so many non-dairy milks to try, it can be trial and error, you might not like them right away and they suit different purposes as well. Try coconut milk in porridge and it makes it taste really creamy and sweet without any sugar, doesn't work well in tea/coffee though imo.
    You don't need to be pregnant to lactate. Regular sucking of teat or nipple will stimulate the mammary glands into producing milk. Fact.
    Drinking raw unpasteurised cows milk is a risky exercise. The Chinese don't put milk in their tea.

    The first bit, seriously? Any female mammal will only produce milk during and after pregnancy.

    I drank raw milk until my early teens :o But people misunderstand what pasteurisation is, it's not a removal process, there's pus and blood in all the milk you drink, and that's allowed but they prefer to call that 'somatic cell count', so don't kid yourself that the milk you drink isn't harmful.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,609 ✭✭✭✭kneemos


    --LOS-- wrote: »
    We don't need animals for food of any kind, everything we need we can get from plants. It's easier to recognise the suffering involved in beef production, most people grasp that an animal was killed for the meat they eat, with dairy there's a disconnect where you think it's ok to take cows milk because you're not killing the cow. But the dairy and beef industry are interlinked, one contributes to the other, a dairy cow suffers the same fate as beef cattle and is also used for meat, only this time after a life (much shorter than it should be) of being continuously impregnated so that we can take the milk, the calves depending on their breed and gender will either become part of the dairy industry, raised for beef, raised for veal or culled outright. So the dairy industry is more cruel for that reason.



    well who am I to argue with an ad :P

    There's more calcium in a serving of kale than milk though




    Even with soy milks, there are so many types and brands, they vary a lot in taste unlike normal milk, I prefer the long-life ones, they don't have that strong taste that the fresh ones do and I also hate the sweetened ones. There's so many non-dairy milks to try, it can be trial and error, you might not like them right away and they suit different purposes as well. Try coconut milk in porridge and it makes it taste really creamy and sweet without any sugar, doesn't work well in tea/coffee though imo.



    The first bit, seriously? Any female mammal will only produce milk during and after pregnancy.

    I drank raw milk until my early teens :o But people misunderstand what pasteurisation is, it's not a removal process, there's pus and blood in all the milk you drink, and that's allowed but they prefer to call that 'somatic cell count', so don't kid yourself that the milk you drink isn't harmful.

    Still no cruelty in milk production.It's a byproduct of beef production.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 483 ✭✭emer_b


    Whoever said "there's no point crying over spilt milk" never went to the effort of expressing a bottle.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,062 ✭✭✭Tarzana


    --LOS-- wrote: »
    I drank raw milk until my early teens :o But people misunderstand what pasteurisation is, it's not a removal process, there's pus and blood in all the milk you drink, and that's allowed but they prefer to call that 'somatic cell count', so don't kid yourself that the milk you drink isn't harmful.

    It doesn't really matter if there's pus and blood in there. If the milk is pasteurised, the milk, and whatever is contained within, isn't harmful.

    As for not needing to eat animal products. Certain nutrients are much more bioavailable when coming from an animal product than from a plant.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,016 ✭✭✭✭vibe666


    You don't need to be pregnant to lactate. Regular sucking of teat or nipple will stimulate the mammary glands into producing milk. Fact.
    Drinking raw unpasteurised cows milk is a risky exercise. The Chinese don't put milk in their tea.
    fun fact, about 3% of women who have had a baby continue to lactate permanently after they have finished feeding them.

    my sister-in-law recently told myself and my wife (who is currently breastfeeding) that she is one of this tiny percent of women and that she regularly donates her milk to a local milk bank even though she stopped feeding her youngest over 3 years ago. she said that sometimes even the sound of a crying baby can set her going, which can be a tad inconcenient if it's in a supermarket or something. :eek:

    i don't think you'll get any for your frosties though, (aside from it being too sweet anyway!), i'm pretty sure that needy kids get first dibs.

    interestingly enough (and I know this is AH so nobody is probably that interested), breast milk really is liquid gold for newborns. if anyone is in any doubt and thinks the whole "breast is best" thing is guff, brazil has cut infant mortality rates by 2/3 by setting up milk banks everywhere and normalising breastfeeding through celebrity promotions and advertising to the point where almost everyone does it, and for those that can't do it themselves, they can still get a supply from the milk banks. :)

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/brazils-maternal-milk-banks-model-globe


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,251 ✭✭✭cyning


    --LOS-- wrote: »
    The first bit, seriously? Any female mammal will only produce milk during and after pregnancy.

    No any woman can lactate. Well unless they have IGT. It's not easy: and a massive undertaking: it's called adoptive breastfeeding. You have to pump (preferably with a hospital grade double pump) numerous times a day, once women start producing drops of milk many will start to take things like fenugreek to boost supply. Others will take motilium. It's unlikely they will have ever have a full supply (particularly if the baby they are adopting is older) but is certainly more than possible. It's quite interesting really.

    And I've never tasted my own breastmilk: and I'm feeding my second and have spent 21 months feeding in total: Rightly or wrongly it utterly grosses me out! I can't ever see breastmilk becoming a thing, except for people who are quite sick. Milk banks do amazing work and quite literally save babies life's, but as a commercial enterprise it wouldn't sit right with me.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,016 ✭✭✭✭vibe666


    It's actually great as a topical ointment for nappy rash etc.

    I had a severe rash on my arms as a side effect of done medication I was taking and nothing would shift it, not prescription creams our pills from the doc or several other things tried.

    2 weeks later and it had only gotten worse, when a friend suggested my wife's breast milk. 2 days later it was almost entirely gone except for some slight redness, and a few after that it was totally gone.

    Yes it was a bit gross putting it on, but I was desperate at that point and it was 100% effective. :)


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,638 ✭✭✭Teyla Emmagan


    It's supposed to be quite sweet. I think the idea of sweet milk grosses me out far more than knowing where it came from. It's just mammal's milk, I would drink it if I was hungry enough.


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