Cows are gentle, interesting animals. They don't advertise anything unless someone spraypaints a slogan on their sides. The
California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) has done almost everything short of that in its increasingly bullish efforts to push consumers in the direction of the dairy case. For the last few years, it has bombarded the airways with frantic attempts to boost sales of cow's milk, even running negative ads against its opponents, à la the race for the presidential nomination. But cow's milk is neither good for the human body nor good for our friends the cows, as consumers are realizing in spite of all the industry's misleading attempts to make them think otherwise.
Despite the factory-farming regimen of drugs and genetic manipulation used to increase milk production - which have left Betsy looking more like a tractor-trailer than a cow, rendered her lame, and given her an often painfully infected udder - according to the
USDA, per capita consumption of cow's milk has been steadily decreasing since the 1990s. It seems that more and more Americans are becoming aware of the negative health and animal welfare implications of drinking cow's milk and are switching to soy, almond, and rice milks (or other plant-based beverages - there're even oat and hemp milks now) to enjoy with their cookies and cereal.
In an attempt to stop this healthy new trend, the dairy industry has begun a frontal assault on any milk that didn't come from a cow's udder. One national dairy trade group is so rabid about the situation that it has tried to get the
Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of the word "milk" for these increasingly popular products, despite the common use of terms such as "soy milk" and "coconut milk" over many generations. ...