Lessons in Right livelihood from Dairy Industry & New Zealand earthquake & tsunami
Posted on November 22nd, 2016
Shenali D Waduge
On 13th November 2016 New Zealand was struck by an earthquake immediately followed by a tsunami. The news came after a series of exposures on the New Zealand dairy industry and the cruelty inflicted upon cows. In Nepal immediately after the Gadhima festival that killed close to 300,000 animals a devastating earthquake struck. In Pakistan too hundreds of dogs were killed and their dead bodies were thrown on the roads, no sooner a suicide bomb left an entire generation of lawyers killed in one city. Japan is one of 10 countries which is cruel to animals and constantly faces earthquakes and tsunamis. The manner that nature punishes for destroying elements of nature comes unannounced and is catastrophic. The 2004 tsunami affected countries across Asia and even Africa. Nature’s message beckons us to rethink morality and ethics applying not only to humans but to animals as well and questions right livelihood and the need to develop greater harmony with nature and compassion for all.
These two photos capture how nature protects its own following the New Zealand earthquake wherein no harm has come to the cows.
According to eastern dharmic religions, humans and all elements of nature remain sacred. Buddhism in particular promotes all sentient beings including animals to be treated humanely. The Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christiantiy and Islam are more human-centred religions. Over the years new religious customs have ended in immeasurable cruelty towards animals making believers believe that God rewards those that sacrifice animals in His name and offers blood of an animal in the name of God. Would any God supposed to have created the world demand that they kill that which He has created?
Nevertheless Blood Fiestas are the norm throughout the world to celebrate saint days by torturing animals – donkeys are beaten, paraded and crushed in Spain, goats are paraded and thrown from the church tower, chickens are hung and have their heads pulled off. The Old Testament is full of such blood rituals. References to animal sacrifice appear in the New Testament, such as the parents of Jesus sacrificing two doves (Luke 2:24) and the Apostle Paul performing a Nazirite vow even after the death of Christ (Acts 21:23-26). Muslims during Hajj pilgrimage sacrifice lamb/goat, camel, cow during Eid al-Adha and millions of animals are sacrificed for this. Hindus hold goat sacrifices for Shakti. Goats are also sacrificed for Durga pooja. The cruelty that these animals go through knows no words to describe. These are religious related cruelty. However, cruelty takes shape at another angle for profit. The dairy industry is one such.
Dairy farming is basically high producing dairy cows. From ancient practice of hand milking cows, twice a day inside a barn has now ‘advanced’ to the use of all types of machines, cows injected with hormones, with no qualms about separating calves from their lactating mothers and the immoral methods adopted that should make people rethink taking dairy milk. Every glass of milk you drink is a glass of cruelty filled with inhumanity.
The cruelty in the dairy industry is shocking and questions the value of profit from the pain given to another life. It questions how people can consciously forcibly and artificially impregnate cows through artificial insemination each year to produce milk? How ethical is it to rip a baby from its mother knowing the calf is wailing with grief. Is it no different to a baby ripped apart from its human mother? These mother cows cry for their babies for days. These calves are thrown into trucks driven thousands of miles away and slaughtered. We have UN agencies working on baby rackets but why are they silent on the sufferings of these calves? Over 2million calves just 4 days old are sent to slaughter (that’s the total Tamil population living in Sri Lanka!).
http://www.farmwatch.org.nz/born-to-die.html
Farmwatch has exposed the tortures of New Zealand’s 2million bobby calves whose life lasts just 4 days. How would a mother feel if her baby was taken away days after delivery, killed and dumped? Would a mother like to have her helpless baby being violently kicked, hit and thrown like these helpless calves before having their throats slit? Can nations that allow such atrocities qualify to be preaching human rights?
http://milkiscruel.com/ (a disgusting cruel video footage questioning how human we are)
http://safe.org.nz/nz-dairy-industry-exposed When you watch the video the first thought that comes to mind is why can’t these men who work on these farms find better and more humane employment without treating animals just 4 days old in such an inhumane way. It was Buddha who promoted right livelihood. With the manner nature is striking with venom it is a perfect time to rethink of earning a living, making profit while not harming or hurting other sentient beings including animals.
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=cattle&graph=calf-slaughter )
The fate of some calves is worse – they are said to be kept isolated for 3 months and killed for veal. How many sitting to enjoy a ‘good veal’ on their plate know that they are eating a calf kept isolated from its mother and then killed?
The suffering of their mothers get worse. The artificial impregnation and the forced production of milk make them suffer arthritis, mastitis of their teats and other painful ailments. When they can live 25-30 years their life is cut short and ends in 4-5years. Their fate ends up inside your hamburger.
Environment too is impacted – waterways are polluted, methane produced by animal farming affects global warming.
If anyone watching these videos does not feel nauseated by the cruelty they witness by the violence inflicted upon innocent cows they are not worthy to be called humans.
How can any company be happy making a living and enjoying profits by causing such inhuman and vicious harm to beings that cannot speak but still have the same senses all humans possess? They feel, they cry with pain, they hurt, they are emotional, they love their family, their children just like us humans. Why are we then being so cruel to them?
New Zealand
· Produces 21.3billion litres of milk annually.
· Has over 5million cows
· 1.8million hectares land used by dairy industry.
· 4.379 litres of milk is produced per cow per year.
The immediate response is that milk is needed. If so, does it have to be milk stolen from a cow who wants to give it to her calf? There are enough of alternative milks – almond milk, soya milk etc. The moral question is … is it worth drinking dairy milk knowing it is coming to you through a cycle of pain that of both mother and child?
The next question is – is dairy milk really healthy? The countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis are the ones where people drink the most milk and have the most calcium in their diets.” So says Amy Lanou Ph.D., nutrition director for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, D.C.
Moreover, today’s milk is really another processed food. Milking cows are given antibiotics and most are also injected with a genetically engineered form of bovine growth hormone (rBGH). A man-made or synthetic hormone used to artificially increase milk production, rBGH also increases blood levels of the insulin-growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in those who drink it. And higher levels of IGF-1 are linked to several cancers. This next raises the question of whether we want to force cows to undergo untold cruelty including separating it from its calf to eventually end up drinking processed milk that is not even nutritious but could even be harmful to us? These are thoughts that should enter everyone’s mind and help re-evaluate their position on being part of the demand-supply chain that invariably leads countries and companies to make money from a wrong livelihood and inadvertently contribute to their bad karma.
Can we not find better ways of making a living other than make profits from cruelty?
Nature has a way of sending messages and it is upto us to decipher these, learn lessons and re-adjust our attitude and thinking.
Shenali D Waduge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDA3gzvdk-w Cruelty in New Zealand dairy industry
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/290865/shocking-video-of-dairy-industry-emerges
November 22nd, 2016 at 5:34 am
Drink Cow urine. Bottled by RSS. Guaranteed no natural disasters.
By the way India is the biggest beef exporter, if not the second.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-id9bkHJr0I
watch this how cows are valued and humans are beaten, they are not human they are Dalits.
Shenali what about a cow guard vigilantes like in India under Modi.
November 22nd, 2016 at 10:04 pm
Renin and lactase are enzymes necessary to break down and digest milk. They are all but gone by the age of 3 in most us. There is an element in all milk known as casein. There is 300 time more casein in cow’s milk than in human’s milk. That’s for the development of huge bones. Casein coagulates in the stomach and forms large, tough, dense, difficult-to-digest curds that are adapted to the four-stomach digestive apparatus of a cow. Once inside human digestive system, this thick mass of goo puts a tremendous burden on the body to somehow get rid of it. In other words, a huge amount of energy must be spent in dealing with it. Unfortunately some of this gooey substance hardens and adheres to the lining of the intestines and prevents the absorption of nutrients into the body. Also the by-products of milk digestion leave a great deal of toxic mucus in the body. It’s very acidic, and some of it is stored in the body until it can be dealt with at a later time. Dairy products cause more weight gain instead of weight loss. Casein, by the way, is the base of one of the strongest glues used in woodworking.
Proteins are delicate necklaces, composed of different colored beads called amino acids, which occupy assigned places in a string that is the protein. When digestive acids and enzymes break down proteins, the amino acids are used as building blocks for the body’s new proteins. When an intact protein is delivered from one part of the body to another, it conveys an unbroken and uninterrupted message. Milk from one mammalian species to its young is the perfectly designed mechanism that delivers lactoferrins and immunoglobulins to that happily receptive infant. Nature’s way is to produce many more proteins than are required. The wisdom of this mechanism takes into account mass destruction. Enough protein messengers survive to exert their intended effects.
In homogenized milk, an excess of proteins survive digestion. Simple proteins rarely survive digestion in a balanced world. When milk is homogenized, it passes through a fine filter at pressures equal to 4,000 psi, and in so doing, the fat globules (liposomes) are made smaller (micronized) by a factor of ten times or more. These fat molecules become evenly dispersed within the liquid milk.
Milk is a hormonal delivery system. With homogenization, milk becomes a very powerful and efficient way of bypassing normal digestive processes and delivering steroid and protein hormones to the human body (both the cow’s natural hormones and the ones they were injected with to produce more milk). Through homogenization, fat molecules in milk become smaller and become “capsules” for substances that bypass digestion. Proteins that would normally be digested in the stomach or gut are not broken down, and are absorbed into the bloodstream.
The homogenization process breaks up an enzyme in milk (xanthine oxidase), which in its altered (smaller) state can enter the bloodstream and react against arterial walls causing the body to protect the area with a layer of cholesterol. These micronized fat globules are much “sharper” than their larger forebearers, and serve to abrade arterial lumen (the innermost linings of these blood vessels). Such chronic irritation triggers a protective mechanism whereby the body plates out cholesterol onto the lumen to protect it from the constant irritation produced by the micronized fat globules. The end result is atherosclerotic plaquing.
Combined with two other phenomena of our culture – high level consumption of hydrogenized vegetable oils (another source of this intra-lumen plaque) plus the onslaught of refined sugars and flours (which trigger high level bursts of another potent intra-luminal irritant known as insulin) – this unavoidable side-effect of drinking homogenized milk produces the rapid acceleration of cardiovascular disease now routinely seen in young people.
In theory, proteins are easily broken down by digestive processes. In reality, homogenization insures their survival so that they enter the bloodstream and deliver their messages. Often, the body reacts to foreign proteins by producing histamines, then mucus. And since cow’s milk proteins can resemble a human protein, they can become triggers for autoimmune diseases. Diabetes and multiple sclerosis are two such examples. The rarest of nature’s quirks results after humans consume homogenized cow’s milk. Nature has the best sense of humor, and always finds a way to add exclamation marks to man’s best-punctuated sentences. One milk hormone, the most powerful growth factor in a cow’s body, is identical to the most powerful growth factor in the human body. Hormones make cells grow, and don’t differentiate between normal cells and cancerous cells. We’re not designed to intake hormones; we make all the ones we need.
Some doctors who believe that milk proteins cannot possibly survive digestion. They are wrong. The Connecticut cardiologists Oster & Ross discovered that Bovine Xanthene Oxidase (BXO) survived long enough to compromise every one of three hundred heart attack victims over a five-year period. Insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) had not been discovered when Oster and Ross made their magnificent observations and conclusions. Bovine Xanthene Oxidase did not set the scientific community on fire. Too many syllables for headline writers. Insulin-like growth factor presents the same problem. Cancer has just two syllables. IGF-I has been identified as the key factor in the growth of every human cancer.
Homogenized milk, with its added hormones, is rocket fuel for cancer. One day, hopefully, the world will recognize that cow’s milk was never intended for human consumption. We can get all the calcium we need from a healthy, balanced plant-based diet. What we don’t need is all the degenerative disease that dairy products contribute to.
And if you think that raw, un-pasteurized, un-homogenized milk is a wholesome food, think about this: Even raw un-pasturized cow milk was never a healthful food for humans. It’s only a proper food for baby cows, and even they quit drinking it when they mature. Humans are the only species that “sucks the teats” of other species. Humans’ best food for the first 2 to 4 years is human milk, and after that, even human milk is not proper human food. Plus, the calcium in milk is not well absorbed due to the lack of magnesium, and even when raw, it still contributes to osteoporosis. And even the naturally occurring hormones in milk from cow’s not treated with Bovine Growth Hormone still contribute to cancers.
Prostate cancer is the fourth most common malignancy among men worldwide and its incidence and mortality have been associated with milk and other dairy product consumption according to the international and interregional correlational studies. Also high intakes of lactose and dairy products, particularly milk, are associated with an increased risk of serous ovarian cancer.
IGF-1 or insulin-like growth factor 1 is an important hormone that is produced in the liver and body tissues. It is a polypeptide and consists of 70 amino acids linked together. All mammals produce IGF-1 molecules very similar in structure and human and bovine IGF-1 are completely identical. IGF-1 acquired its name because it has insulin-like activity in fat (adipose) tissue and has a structure that is very similar to that of proinsulin. The body’s production of IGF-1 is regulated by the human growth hormone and peaks at puberty. IGF-1 production declines with age and is only about half the adult value at the age of 70 years. IGF-1 is a very powerful hormone that has profound effects even though its concentration in the blood serum is only about 200 ng/mL or 0.2 millionth of a gram per mL.
IGF-1 is known to stimulate the growth of both normal and cancerous cells. In 1990 researchers at Stanford University reported that IGF-1 promotes the growth of prostate cells. This was followed by the discovery that IGF-1 accelerates the growth of breast cancer cells. In 1995 researchers at the National Institutes of Health reported that IGF-1 plays a central role in the progression of many childhood cancers and in the growth of tumours in breast cancer, small cell lung cancer, melanoma, and cancers of the pancreas and prostate. In September 1997 an international team of researchers reported the first epidemiological evidence that high IGF-1 concentrations are closely linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer. Other researchers provided evidence of IGF-1′s link to breast and colon cancers.
Bovine growth hormone was first synthesized in the early 1980s using genetic engineering techniques (recombinant DNA biotechnology). Small-scale industry-sponsored trials showed that it was effective in increasing milk yields by an average of 14 per cent if injected into cows every two weeks. In 1985 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States approved the sale of milk from cows treated with rBGH (also known as BST) in large-scale veterinary trials and in 1993 approved commercial sale of milk from rBGH-injected cows. At the same time the FDA prohibited the special labeling of the milk so as to make it impossible for the consumer to decide whether or not to purchase it.
Concerns about the safety of milk from BST-treated cows were raised as early as 1988 by scientists in both England and the United States. One of the main concerns is the high levels of IGF-1 found in milk from treated cows; estimates vary from twice as high to 10 times higher than in normal cow’s milk. There is also concern that the IGF-1 found in treated milk is much more potent than that found in regular milk because it seems to be bound less firmly to its accompanying proteins. Consultants paid by Monsanto, the major manufacturer of rBGH, vigorously attacked the concerns. In an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in August 1990 the consultants claimed that BST-milk was entirely safe for human consumption. They pointed out that BST-milk contains no more IGF-1 than does human breast milk – a somewhat curious argument as very few grown-ups continue to drink mother’s milk throughout their adult life. They also claimed that IGF-1 would be completely broken down by digestive enzymes and therefore would have no biological activity in humans. Other researchers disagree with this claim and have warned that IGF-1 may not be totally digested and that some of it could indeed make its way into the colon and cross the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. This is of special concern in the case of very young infants and people who lack digestive enzymes or suffer from protein-related allergies.
Researchers at the FDA reported in 1990 that IGF-1 is not destroyed by pasteurization and that pasteurization actually increases its concentration in BST-milk. They also confirmed that undigested protein could indeed cross the intestinal wall in humans and cited tests which showed that oral ingestion of IGF-1 produced a significant increase in the growth of a group of male rats – a finding dismissed earlier by the Monsanto scientists. The most important aspect of these experiments is that they show that IGF-1 can indeed enter the blood stream from the intestines – at least in rats.
Unfortunately, essentially all the scientific data used by the FDA in the approval process was provided by the manufacturers of rBGH and much of it has since been questioned by independent scientists. The effect of IGF-1 in rBGH-milk on human health has never actually been tested and in March 1991 researchers at the National Institutes of Health admitted that it was not known whether IGF-1 in milk from treated cows could have a local effect on the esophagus, stomach or intestines.
Whether IGF-1 in milk is digested and broken down into its constituent amino acids or whether it enters the intestine intact is a crucial factor. No human studies have been done on this, but recent research has shown that a very similar hormone, Epidermal Growth Factor, is protected against digestion when ingested in the presence of casein, a main component of milk. Thus there is a distinct possibility that IGF-1 in milk could also avoid digestion and make its way into the intestine where it could promote colon cancer. It is also conceivable that it could cross the intestinal wall in sufficient amounts to increase the blood level of IGF-1 significantly and thereby increase the risk of breast and prostate cancers.
Despite assurances from the FDA and industry-paid consultants there are now just too many serious questions surrounding the use of milk from cows treated with synthetic growth hormone to allow its continued sale. Bovine growth hormone is banned in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The European Union has maintained its moratorium on the use of rBGH and milk products from BST-treated cows are not sold in countries within the Union. Canada has also so far resisted pressure from the United States and the biotechnology lobby to approve the use of rBGH commercially. In light of the serious concerns about the safety of human consumption of milk from BST-treated cows consumers must maintain their vigilance to ensure that European and Canadian governments continue to resist the pressure to approve rBGH and that the FDA in the United States moves immediately to ban rBGH-milk or at least allow its labeling so that consumers can protect themselves against the very real cancer risks posed by IGF-1.
A new study out of Harvard University showing that pasteurized milk product from factory farms is linked to causing hormone-dependent cancers. It turns out that the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) model of raising cows on factory farms churns out milk with dangerously high levels of estrone sulfate, an estrogen compound linked to testicular, prostate, and breast cancers.
Milk from modern dairy farms is identified as the culprit , since large-scale confinement operations where cows are milked 300 days of the year, including while they are pregnant. Compared to raw milk from Mongolia and rural China, which is extracted only during the first six months after cows have already given birth, pasteurized factory milk was found to contain up to 33 times more estrone sulfate.
Evaluating data from all over the world, a clear link is identified between consumption of such high-hormone milk, and high rates of hormone-dependent cancers. Contrary to what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the conventional milk lobby would have you believe, processed milk from factory farms is not a health product, and is directly implicated in causing cancer.
November 22nd, 2016 at 10:55 pm
Nalliah,
I learned a lot from reading your comment above, alerting me to the wisdom many decisions I make routinely regarding the consumption of milk.
Thank you for the effort you put into writing this informative comment.
November 22nd, 2016 at 11:20 pm
Dear Shenali,
The Abrahamic religions are “human centered” in that they theorise that the God created the world and all its animals for use by his central creation: the human.
Thus, in their view, all animals were created and gifted for the sole benefit of man, including their use for food. It is only a SIN to WASTE that resource, but it is NOT A SIN to kill and eat those animals without “undue” cruelty.
In our Buddhist religion, all sentient living beings are sacrosant, and and we are forbidden to cause pain and suffering to any of them.
The Abrahamic religions are much more practical in their view in conveniently allowing lower orders of living things to be killed and eaten at will, as long as it done without undue cruelty or waste.
In contrast, we Buddhists are limited in our choice of food to fruits, vegetables and animal products that can be obtained without causing pain and suffering to animals. That is a serious, and often very impractical, limitation that most of us routinely violate.
Most Buddhist laymen who stick strictly to the teaching of the Lord Buddha are old people hurrying to gather merit in their Pin Pettiya in fear of further extending their Samsaric journey, and not attaining the blissful state of Nirvana.
I am now on the verge of joining that select group of vegan upasakayas, but unfortunately my sins will not end by avoiding the eating of flesh for I will have to give up my love for Sri Lanka as well!
Too many attachments! Quite a dilemma, don’t you think?
November 22nd, 2016 at 11:44 pm
Shenali accurately describes the cruelty of the dairy (and the even eorse meat processing) industry.
The cows confined in these automated dairies are not allowed to move one foot in their position in the milking rows. They eat at the front, defecate at the rear from and onto automated delivery/ waste removal systems, drink from pipes and urinate into funnels, while their teats are petmanently attached to automated milking suction cups. All the hormones and chemicals needed to maximize productivity are delivered in the feed and water automatically by computer controlled meyering sydtems.
They have no freedom whatever from the day they are mounted in place in the milking row to the day they fail to deliver and are dismounted and sent to the slaughter houses to be served up as meat, God’s gift to man having served it’s purpose to the end no longer than a few joyless years.
There are massive dairy farms along major freeways in the USA running through rural countryside that can be detected by the foul stench long before you see the forms themselves.
The product that is sold in the thousands of supermarkets and warehouse superstores in clean gallon-size plastic jugs and quart-size paper cartons hides the truly awful, ugly and downright cruel process that delivers that beautiful white “wholesome” milk for the benefit God’s greatest creation:man!
November 23rd, 2016 at 1:03 am
“In contrast, we Buddhists are limited in our choice of food to fruits, vegetables and animal products that can be obtained without causing pain and suffering to animals. That is a serious, and often very impractical, limitation that most of us routinely violate.”
When you buy from supermarket you don’t cause any pain to anyone.
Most Buddhist laymen who stick strictly to the teaching of the Lord Buddha are old people hurrying to gather merit in their Pin Pettiya in fear of further extending their Samsaric journey, and not attaining the blissful state of Nirvana.
Pin Pettiya will only extend your life in Samsara. Nirvana can be realised at any age , no need to wait until old age. Have to give up both Pin and Paw to attain it.
I am now on the verge of joining that select group of vegan upasakayas, but unfortunately my sins will not end by avoiding the eating of flesh for I will have to give up my love for Sri Lanka as well!
Vegans can be LTTEres too ! All Upasakayas are not Vegans. Your main SIN you have to give up is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE of thieves, which is easy to do. Normal people do not love thieves – most love their motherland except thieves.
If you UNCONDITIONALLY LOVE thieves, you should be the father of the thieves. Parents normally love their children UNCONDITIONALLy.
November 23rd, 2016 at 1:23 am
Kalawedda (Gonsal ),
You are such a Mahadenamutta on Buddhism, why have you still not attained Nibbana?
When you buy milk/meat at a supermarket, you are encouraging someone else to cause pain or suffering; didn’t know that Mahadenamutta?
Don’t hang around here; get moving on practicing what you preach!
November 23rd, 2016 at 1:35 am
When you buy milk/meat at a supermarket, you are encouraging someone else to cause pain or suffering
When you worship a thief treating him as God, don’t you know you are encouraging someone else to cause pain or suffering millions of people ?
Please hang around and pay respect to Buddha instead , you will reach Nirvana.
November 23rd, 2016 at 2:03 am
Kalawedda (Gonsal),
There you go again, talking in riddles! I don’t worship any thieves!
But you do following Katussa (Lorenzo)’s as his lapdog, serving the GREAT CENTRAL BANK Pal Horu of the Yamapalanaya undermine and demonize MR.
November 23rd, 2016 at 3:15 am
Please buy organic or free range milk and not industrial or factory farmed milk or eggs as vegetarians. Industrial or intensive farming is cruel so always buy free range or organic milk and eggs as vegetarians.
November 23rd, 2016 at 3:41 am
Always buy milk from a farm where animals are able to move freely out in the open or from small household farms where animals can roam freely. At Keels and Food City supermarkets eggs are labelled as free range or organic (which means the hens are able to roam freely) so only buy those eggs only. Milk powder unfortunately is not labelled but if possible buy fresh milk from someone who actually keeps a cow or cows. Unfortunately this may not be possible in a town or city environment but if living in a more rural area this is possible.
January 24th, 2017 at 3:20 pm
Dear Shenali, I think your valuable articles needs to be written in Sinhala language as well. If you like to give permission I will translate them to Sinhala and published on Face Book.