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This Pasture-to-Plate Panto Has a Long Run
Vets warn that using high protein feeds
to boost milk yields can cause liver disease and mastitis,
or give cows udders so enlarged that they kick themselves
as they walk
As the dairy industry vainly seeks money from processors
to return its "successful" White Stuff pantomime
and, failing this source, to milk the subsidies for a pound
or two, and while the trade is having to increase the pasteurization
process in efforts at overcoming threats of pathogens surviving
the mucky journey from cow to carton, VEGA learns how its
concern over the white stuff harks back to "those good
old days" of organic farming from contented cows.
For 'twas ever so. "The slightest acquaintance with
the methods of the farmer, the dairyman, and the milkman shows
that pure milk is an unknown substance on our tables. Secreted
perchance in healthy mammary gland, the fluid is drawn through
unwashed rustic hands into a pail placed under the dung-splattered
udder and belly of a cow who spends at least half her time
in a dark and noisome byre, carpeted with a slush of decomposing
urine and feces and papered with splashings of the same, while
the air is thick with the bacterial flora of these admirable
culture media and of the bovine alimentary canal." The
British Medical Journal (1902, i, 440) a century ago donned
its wellies and weighed in with all the delicacy of a muck-spreader.
It is still not far from the essence of reports that might
emanate from the Meat Hygiene Service or Food Standards Agency
today.
But there's more for the BM to fling. "What wonder that
the bottom of a milkcan nearly always exhibits a rich sludge,
and thus serves the purpose of a cesspool or septic tank?
It has been calculated that the inhabitants of Berlin consume
in their milk 3 cwt of excrement per diem. Even in the milk
of one of the most model dairies of this district, where hand-washing
and teat-washing are supposed to be de rigueur, have I seen
this sludge, which the milkman said he could not understand,
because he always strained the milk through a cloth before
sending it out! And on arrival in the city do we not daily
see a row of milk-carts in the bright and perfumed air of
Station Street, where milk is being poured from big cans into
smaller ones through dirty cloths, which between their services
lie about anywhere?"
All this portends the scourge of milk-borne threats of tuberculosis
and other zoonotic infections as well as the origins of BSE
with, and especially for lactovarians, a steady source of
vitamin B12. The remarks are innocent of the concern over
the saturated fat and burden of toxic contaminants such as
PCBs and dioxins that milk and its derivatives unload into
modern diets (in which animal- and fish-derived fats comprise
just under three-quarters of average British consumption,
nearly half of which originates in animal milks). The BMJ's
commentator appreciates some of the environmental aspects.
"When, in addition to the chances of pollution, we recall
the contaminated water with which in country places the milkcans
are often washed, the contaminated atmospheres of shops and
cellars in which the milk retailed to the poor is usually
stored, we no longer wonder that milk, even from a healthy
cow, occasionally makes people ill."
They don't write in the BMJ with that conviction any more;
nor do they pause to bash the Boche nor counter the conjuring
of the Countryside Alliance's images of good clean rural living
before those dreadful townies began to ask questions.
Mastitis is a common problem in dairy cows, affecting over
36% of the UK dairy herd. Around 22% of all dairy cattle are
culled each year with 3.6% culled due to mastitis. Click
here for more statistics.
Farmers use antibiotics as a quick fix rather than investing
in prevention by better husbandry.
Adverts such as these regularly appear in the Farmers
Weekly. Drug manufacturers advertise antibiotics direct to
the farmer, although they should be prescribed by a vet.
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