meat is murder

Raw Milk sales are soaring…

IT might sound udderly unbelievable, but the latest food fad to hit Wales is… RAW milk. Straight-from-the-cow, unpasteurised milk is regularly drunk by more than 100,000 Californians and is equally popular in New York.

Now the craze is hitting our shores with farm shops in Wales are reporting a sharp increases in sales. Advocates of raw milk, which is sold in green- topped bottles, claim that it is high in immune-boosting nutrients and disease-fighting antibodies. Steve Oultram, who owns Newbridge Farm Shop in Ewloe, said that his family had been selling raw milk for more than 50 years, but had noticed that it had become more popular recently. He said: “There’s no doubt that the demand for raw milk is increasing all the time as more people are made aware of it. We have people coming here from considerable distances, not just from Wales, but from as far as Aberdeen and Brighton. We’ve even started sending it out through mail order because of the demand.” And Mr Oultram said some of his customers had used the milk to help them combat illnesses. “One person who used to come to us had quite an advanced cancer. She said that the milk was helping so much that she wasn’t having to take as much medicine,” he said. “And another guy has been buying it for his son who has bad eczema, and he’s said that it’s made a tremendous difference.” But it’s not just raw milk that is becoming ever more popular – raw cheeses are on the up too. Jill Pateman, who owns Merlin Cheeses in Ceredigion, said: “20 years ago it just wasn’t accepted. But now society is more affluent and as people have more of a choice, they are opting for raw dairy more often.” But raw dairy is not without its critics. There have been reports it could be banned in Wales and England – as it has been in Scotland for more than 20 years. Legislation introduced in January this year means that Welsh retailers of raw milk must now have a licence, as well as carry a warning on the bottle that the milk is not pasteurised. They are also forced by the Food Standards Agency to have a sample of the milk tested every three months to check that it contains no harmful bacteria.

Wales’ Food Standards Agency warns: “This milk has not been heat treated and may therefore contain organisms harmful to health. The Food Standards Agency strongly advises that it should not be consumed by children, pregnant women, older people or those who are unwell or have a chronic illness.”

See the ‘White Lies‘ campaign for an explanation of the health detriment caused by drinking dairy.

White Lies is the first review of its kind.

The evidence is overwhelming – cow’s milk and dairy products are neither natural nor healthy, in fact they are harmful to health and have been linked to a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Many of the key findings were discussed at the public talk on May 24 2006. Hot topics that the campaign and report cover include:
 
Heart disease – What it is in milk and dairy products that can cause heart disease and how following a plant-based diet can reduce cholesterol and even reverse heart disease.

Diabetes – Research shows that drinking cow’s milk at an early age is strongly linked to an increased risk of type 1 diabetes in genetically susceptible people. Several different theories have been suggested that attempt to unravel the actual mechanism by which cow’s milk causes diabetes; they all share a common theme.

Cancer – Nutrition plays a major role in cancer; a poor diet is the second largest preventable risk factor for cancer (coming close behind smoking) and an increasing body of evidence now links the consumption of cow’s milk to certain cancers. What it is about modern dairy farming practices that concerns scientists studying certain cancers including cancers of the breast, ovaries, colon and prostate? And which types of food can protect against these, and other, diseases?

Obesity In 2004 the UK Foods Standards Agency reported that 25 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women were classified as obese. The British Medical Association warns that childhood obesity levels have soared in the UK. Part of the problem is the increasing lack of physical activity but diet plays a major role in the obesity epidemic. The World Health Organisation blames the rise in obesity on a shift away from diets high in complex carbohydrates towards diets high in saturated fats and sugars. How do dairy foods contribute to the rising levels of obesity and what is the difference between ‘good’ fats and ‘bad’ fats?

Osteoporosis and the calcium myth Osteoporosis is a growing problem in the UK; one in two women and one in five men will suffer a fracture after the age of 50! The science shows that shows that dairy is part of the problem rather than the solution, White Lies reveals why it is not the best source of calcium and describes how best to promote bone health in the young and old.

Pinta pus Milk containing up to 400 million pus cells per litre may be legally sold for human consumption! That means that one teaspoon of milk could contain 2 million pus cells! Find out why.

ASDA has to recall lamb because it is unfit for human consumption…aside from the morals of eating babies I would suggest that this is further evidence of modern meat processing harbouring problems and fears that are so easily avoided.

Customers of ASDA in Gloucester are being alerted to a product recall of lamb meat and offal that was not meant for human consumption.

The meat, supplied by Welsh Country Foods Ltd, may contain residue of veterinary medicine and is considered unsafe to eat.

The warning has been issued to city council environmental health officers by the Food Standards Agency.

The alert says that the products have removed from shelves by the store and any of the items that have been bought should be returned.

Detailed product information is available in store at ASDA.

Customers who may have eaten the products and who subsequently feel ill should consult their GP’s.

Further information is available to customers from the city council’s environmental health team on 01452 396303.

Increased meat production could risk increased disease to humans. Also rather sadly and entirely avoidabley increased disease and death to animals. Oh well, so long as we can guzzle sausages 5 meals a day like some decadent eating machine from Planet Zog we should find ways to house the animals in sheds of pain and misery even further away from humans and wild animals. Our meat machines must be kept pure.

U.N. agriculture officials warned Monday that the risk of diseases being transferred from animals to humans may increase as a result of livestock practices that mean animals are too highly concentrated in confined spaces.

The practices are the result of increasing demand for meat and poultry, which has accelerated industrial production, the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organization said.

“There is no doubt that the world has to depend upon some of the technologies of intensive animal food production systems,” said FAO livestock policy expert Joachim Otte. “But excessive concentration of animals in large-scale industrial production units should be avoided and adequate investments should be made in heightened biosecurity and improved disease monitoring to safeguard public health,” he said in a statement.

Globally, pig and poultry production are the fastest-growing sectors, with annual production growth rates up to 4 percent over the past decade. As a result, most chickens and turkeys in industrialized countries are now raised in facilities with 15,000 to 50,000 birds. Meanwhile, industrial pig and poultry production relies on a significant movement of live animals, which raises the risk of transferring diseases.

A new book being published this month called ‘Devil in the milk’ is to reveal the link between milk and illnesses such as diabetes, autism, and schizophrenia. So even if you can’t turn vegan at the thought of your money being used to fund calves being torn from their mothers and dairy cows living their entire short enslaved lives hungry and exhausted, you can learn why it’s of benefit to your own health.

THIS GROUNDBREAKING BOOK is the first to be published internationally that examines the link between one of the proteins in the milk we drink and a range of serious illnesses, including heart disease, Type 1 diabetes, autism and schizophrenia. These health problems are linked to a tiny protein fragment that is formed when we digest A1 beta-casein, a milk protein produced by many cows in New Zealand, Australia and other western countries.

Milk that contains A1 beta-casein is commonly known as A1 milk, whereas milk that does not is called A2. Originally all milk was A2 until a mutation affecting some European cattle occurred some thousands of years ago. Herds in much of Asia, Africa and parts of southern Europe remain naturally high in A2 cows. A2 milk from selected cows is now marketed in much of Australia, and in parts of the USA and New Zealand. In Devil in the Milk Keith Woodford, Professor of Farm Management and Agribusiness at Lincoln University in New Zealand, brings together the evidence published in more than 100 scientific papers. He examines the population studies that look at the link between the consumption of A1 milk and the incidence of heart disease and Type 1 diabetes; he explains the science that underpins the A1/A2 hypothesis; and examines the research undertaken with animals and humans. The evidence is compelling: we should be switching to A2 milk. This is an amazing story, one that is not just about the health issues surrounding A1 milk, but also how scientific evidence can be moulded and withheld by vested interests, and how consumer choices are influenced by the interests of corporate business.

The BBC reports how spinal cord and spleen weren’t removed from the bodies of cows. It could be argued that if the cows weren’t slaughtered and were allowed to live a life free of brutal murder then no one would be being bothered by the curse of the possibly dangerous spine in the first place.

Meat firm fined over food safety

A leading meat company has been fined for failing to remove “risk material” from the carcasses of two cattle.

Scotch Premier Meat Limited was ordered by Aberdeen Sheriff Court to pay £1,800 after pleading guilty to breaching food safety regulations.

The firm, based in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, failed to ensure part of the spinal cord and part of the spleen was removed from the cattle.

The offences happened in January and March last year.

Photography
Photography Michael Timney | Slaughterhouse The Task of Blood (2005)

Potential diseases

Both failures were spotted by hygiene inspectors at the site and the company, which has been in operation since 1943, was reported to the procurator fiscal.

At Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Scotch Premier Meat pleaded guilty to two breaches of the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) (Scotland) Regulations 2002.

Fiscal depute Zoe McDonnell said the regulations were to prevent the spread of potential diseases which could be passed on to humans, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).

Defence solicitor Gail Goodfellow told the court the company had not previously breached any major regulations and had a long history of good standards.

The company has taken the matter very seriously Gail Goodfellow Defence solicitor

She added that from May 2006 spleen was no longer recognised as risk material, but conceded that there had been a breach in March that year.

Ms Goodfellow said the offences were as a result of “human error”.

From the BBC, an article about charities pushing to have ads banned that market baby milk to parents. A mothers’ milk is the healthiest thing for a baby. Whether that be from a human to her offspring or a cow to her calf nature has done a better job than people in white coats out to make money.

Baby milk ads ’should be banned’

The charities want women to breastfeed for longer

A coalition of charities is demanding baby milk be treated like tobacco and subjected to a total advertising ban.

The National Childbirth Trust, Save The Children and Unicef blame adverts for many mothers abandoning breast feeding before the recommended six months.

They want the government to extend a ban on infant milk adverts to include “follow-on” milks for older babies.

England’s policy on the promotion of formula milk is currently being reviewed by the Food Standards Agency.

At present, companies are not allowed to advertise formula milk for babies under six months.

But they are allowed to promote so-called follow-on milks, a range for children aged between six months and two years.

Many mothers feel an immense sense of guilt and failure when they move on to the bottle, and this latest debate about advertising is likely to make them feel even worse Dr Ellie Lee University of Kent

The charities accuse baby milk companies of using their follow-on milks to promote their products for younger infants by giving them the same name and logo so as to make them “virtually indistinguishable” to parents.

“In similar ways to how tobacco companies found their way through loopholes in legislation restricting the advertising of cigarette promotion, formula milk companies are finding ways to exploit ambiguity in the law and to continue aggressively marketing their products to parents,” says Belinda Phipps of the NCT.

‘Sense of guilt’

The World Health Organization recommends that babies are given breast milk exclusively for the first six months, and that a mother should continue to breastfeed up to the age of two years.

The charities note that those children who are breastfed are better protected from infections and potentially from even more serious conditions later on in life.

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