
The Milk Situation - bookofjoe
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/style/milk-dairy-marketing.html
======
johnpowell
When I was towards the end of mouth/neck radiation I wasn't able to swallow
anything, even water, for about a month.

So I was just using TwoCal® HN in my feeding tube. I was using six cans a day
which is about 3K calories. I still lost 35 pounds. I ended up under 100
pounds. I am 6' tall. I was never a big guy. But I got bad.. I have a picture.

[https://i.imgur.com/UQVgJIP.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/UQVgJIP.jpg)

I don't get out in the sun much. That brown around my neck is burns from the
radiation. It has been a year and that burn is still there. If anyone wants to
know what it is like to have a sunburn inside your mouth feel free to ask.

But I hit a point where every joint in my legs and fingers ached and I didn't
want to get out of bed because it hurt so much. I hate milk, I never put it in
my mouth. But I started putting the fattiest milk as possible the feeding
tube. In a week my aches went away.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> But I started putting the fattiest milk as possible the feeding tube.

I'm curious whether this was just whole milk (~3.5% fat), or if you went up to
fat-added milks like half-and-half (~10%) or whipping cream (40-50%).

~~~
hansthehorse
I had/have mouth neck cancer. The mouth part was at the very base of my tongue
where it enters the throat. The hole they dug via robotic surgery on my tongue
is 1x1x.5 I was told half of all people who undergo this end up with a
permanent feeding tube so I should try my best to keep eating. Started
radiation 2 weeks after surgery while I still couldn't swallow my spit. I
ended up mostly surviving on the softest and most calorie dense concoction I
could think of - yogurt with both caramel ice cream sauce and maple syrup
mixed in. After 6 months I had learned both what pain really was and what
morphine withdrawal meant in real terms. I've had 3 clean PET scans since but
I sometimes lie awake wondering if I can force myself to go through it again
if the test comes back positive. The 24/7 pain of that 6 month stretch will
change the way you look at things in your life.

~~~
johnpowell
That is the fucked thing about cancer. It is never over. Even if you come up
clean in a PET it is always still there. Lingering. Forever..

The mental game after you recover is nearly as bad as the actual treatment.
When I was between scans I did fuck-all because I could be dead in a month so
I will just watch reruns of "Come Dine With Me".

~~~
PebblesRox
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.

This xkcd has a poignant illustration of the uncertainty:
[https://xkcd.com/931/](https://xkcd.com/931/)

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scythe
America has been "souring" on dairy milk, but it took us three tries to find
some at the store last week.

I think what is also happening is that milk substitutes are being consumed
more often by people who otherwise would not have drank milk, or not as much.
People don't have to _switch_ to drink oat milk. They just have to buy it and
pour it in a glass. The dairy industry may be targeting these people.

Another thing that is happening is that the United States is becoming less
white. Europeans have the highest incidence of lactase persistence; Africans
and South Asians have somewhat less (with high regional variance); and people
originating from other regions have almost none. The culture surrounding
products like e.g. ice cream is not the same for lactose-intolerant people,
who are limited to a few flavors.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
Why do people still drink dairy milk? I watched a video on factory farming and
switched to almond milk ever since. What's the big deal?

~~~
lazzlazzlazz
I like some almond milks quite a lot. But how can you possibly think it's the
same as dairy milk — they're almost incomparable. Dairy milk is rich,
delicious, less "candy" tasting. It's full of wonderful fat, whereas most
alternative milks are thin and sweet (or bitter and chalky).

It's strange when people forget how important _taste_ is.

~~~
silveroriole
Soy milk is the only replacement I found that still has a fatty feel and taste
to it. And it doesn’t taste disgusting like most supermarket milk. I think
some people find the fatty film of milk/soy to actually be a downside, so they
like the thinner replacement milks.

~~~
GordonS
Hmm, I guess it depends on individual taste. I've tried several nut milks, oat
milk and soy milk.

The nut and oat milks tasted good, with the oat milk in particular bring
surprisingly close to dairy milk. But the soy milk I found absolutely
disgusting - it didn't taste anything like dairy milk.

I do wish nut milks weren't so "thin" tho - if you look at the ingredients,
there aren't actually very much nuts in them; they are mostly water. I'd
gladly pay a bit more for a higher nut (and, ergo, fat and protein) content.

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moab
There are now clear environmental and animal rights reasons to avoid red meat
and dairy. Unfortunately, animal rights motivations don't seem to cut it for
most of my colleagues and friends, who are by and large highly educated.
Arguments about whether cows are "alive" or "feel pain" the same way humans do
inevitably conclude with an acknowledgement that they probably do in all
likelihood, but too bad, they taste good/produce animal products we like, and
thus it sucks to be them. Or "too bad our ancestors have been doing this for
hundreds of thousands of years".

Thankfully, most are swayed by environmental arguments and have eliminated
their red meat consumption. Far fewer have given up milk, probably out of
long-standing habits of milk consumption with cereal/coffee.

Just like the choice of whether we hurt or inflict pain and enslavement on a
fellow human (a choice which has taken centuries to reverse), there's a choice
of whether we enslave another sentient species for the sake of our tastebuds
and convenience. I hope the decline of the milk industry continues, and that
more of these farmers can successfully switch into more ethical and planet-
friendly sources of revenue.

~~~
nine_k
I wonder what are your views on wildlife, where animals live often in quite
poor conditions, and are regularly brutally killed and eaten. Isn't properly
organized farm life a better option for e.g. a sheep?

I'm not being ironic here; I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
moab
It's a great and tough question, and to be totally honest I don't have a fully
formed view on this. It does seem like a life lived on a farm with humans
could have significantly less suffering than a live in the wild. If the animal
is (i) not being used for some byproduct, e.g., being repeatedly inseminated
for milk (ii) has enough volition, or freedom to roam, and reproduce in some
(possibly controlled) manner, it seems like such a life could be quite good
for an animal. There are probably many small family farms that keep animals
for pleasure and not to raise for meat that practice this sort of ethical
farming.

One argument against this sort of intervention comes from my experience living
with our family dog (we've had him for five years). He is a calm and
intelligent dog who I feel has had a good life, but I feel sometimes that it
is a very restrictive one. He can't do whatever he wants, and is separated
from other creatures like himself. My feeling is that his life was worth
living, but there is an element of guilt when I think about how free he is,
and once he passes away I don't think I will keep a pet in a future family I
start.

It's very hard to say what these creatures who cannot speak up for themselves
really want, and whether we should interfere with their lives to prevent
suffering that's inherent in nature.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Please let me know if you have any
books/resources to recommend. I'm planning to read Singer's Animal Liberation
soon, which will probably discuss this question.

~~~
throwaway34958
I would highly recommend Fellow Creatures by Christine Korsgaard. There was a
good review in the NYRB, if you have access:
[https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/03/21/christine-
korsga...](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/03/21/christine-korsgaard-
what-we-owe-a-rabbit/)

I don't have any background in philosophy or ethics, but I found it relatively
accessible and well-argued; it helped to crystallize a lot of my thoughts on
the topic.

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vmarsy
This article might be a "submarine" article for it, but I'm actually glad A2
milk is getting more popular, and now even Costco carries it.

I grew up in France and drank milk without problem my whole life, but when
moving to the US, I started noticing dry-patches on my arms, and digestive
discomforts after breakfast.

It took me a while to pinpoint the root-cause, but after some experimentation,
I figured out it was either the whole-wheat bread, or the milk. Today I'm
pretty confident this is the milk.

For a while I thought this had to do with some difference in
UHT/pasteurization process (all milk in France is shelf-stable until opened,
whereas here it has to be refrigerated at all times). But then I realized then
that this A2 milk is popular in Australia, and I had never heard of this A1/A2
distinction, but apparently France's cow is 100% A2 only, so I tried their
milk, and I don't have any digestion nor dry-patch on my arms anymore. Maybe
it's placebo effect, but it works for me, so now I'm back at drinking milk.

A1/A2 apparently isn't as big of a deal for processed dairy (Cheese, yogurts),
but I buy the one imported from France/Switzerland, so those are probably A2
anyways.

~~~
zkim
I'm not familiar with the term 'submarine' in this context, does that refer to
some sort of stealth advertising?

~~~
unwind
I believe it's from [1] by Paul Graham.

[1]
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

~~~
amock
I can't immediately find a source with a date, but I'm pretty sure using
submarine to mean undisclosed happened before Paul Graham was born.

~~~
portlander12345
OP used the term specifically to refer to PR-generated articles in prestige
media like the NYT, which was probably a direct allusion to Graham’s essay.

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GordonS
> In an online survey by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy, seven percent of
> respondents said they believed that chocolate milk comes from … brown cows.

Unless they asked 4-year olds, this _surely_ , can't possibly be true?!

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
Aren't most dairy cows brown? Maybe they're just being good Bayesians.

~~~
phillc73
I think most dairy cows are Holstein-Friesian, so black and white (with some
regressive red and white, although Guernsey are also usually red and white).
Brown dairy cows (Swiss, Jersey) are the minority of the milking population.

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beloch
“The Canadians have a system where they can only produce what they can sell,”
she said. “If you produce more milk than you can sell profitably, they don’t
pay as much for it.”

One thing this article leaves out is the massive subsidies that dairy
producers receive in many nations, especially the U.S.. Even as demand has
sank in the U.S., production has steadily increased, and the federal
government has had to throw its weight around to force U.S. milk down the
throats of other countries. Despite it's supply management system, Canada is
now a consumer of U.S. dairy. This is because Trump made that a condition of
lifting tariffs and negotiating NAFTA 2.0..

Because of supply management, dairy products in Canada are _significantly_
more expensive than they are in the U.S.. Yes, it's not consumer friendly, but
it does let dairy farmers do fairly well and maintain good quality of their
product. In the U.S., the government effectively pays for a large percentage
of every glass of milk consumers drink. When that milk is, instead, exported
to Canada, additional export subsidies are applied that earn farmers even more
money than they do on milk sold domestically. Then the Canadian government
slaps tariffs of several hundred percent on this massively subsidized dairy to
bring it inline with Canadian dairy products (which are controlled but not
subsidized). Amazingly, it _still_ often winds up cheaper than most Canadian
dairy when it hits Canadian supermarket shelves.

The end result is that American taxpayers are paying Canadians (and their
government) to drink U.S. milk, just so that U.S. dairy production can
continue to grow far past domestic demand. Don't feel sorry for your local
dairy farmer. Even if you're not drinking their products, you're already
helping them out plenty just by paying taxes.

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INTPenis
From my perspective I'm trying to maintain my health while also working many
hours at a computer each day. At 30+ I don't need milk anymore. I'm not a
growing child, or calf. ;)

My whole family has developed lactose intolerance, I'm the last one left. I
chose to take milk out of my diet pre-emptively and replace it with oat milk
for cooking, several years ago.

Partly because it's an unnecessary source of fat. I loved milk, used to drink
it like water. Now I drink water like I used to drink milk.

Sometimes I'll mix lactose free milk and oat milk for luxury cooking.

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shrubble
"The already-low price of milk, which is set by the federal government, is
projected to drop even further this year."

Interesting, and worthy of more prominence in the article IMHO.

