Did you actually just include the definition of ad hominem?! You are literally so obnoxious.

The number of people on here saying they don't consume dairy is just


Have used it before, to blank expressions. Just put it in there to make it very clear - sorry if that has offended you in any way!

I'm right there with you on your concern with killing animals. I just think that it's a shame when people use stuff like that to avoid a topic of conversation, or in this case, this well-produced dairy insight - especially when they themselves eat animals. But you said you support veganism, so that's fantastic

Before I went vegan, I too made a switch to local, free-range, grass-fed farms - thinking I was doing a world of good. Cruel practices still exist at these establishments, though often they're afforded a better life. The only problem is that it puts an even huger strain on the environment and world's resources. John Taylor of Bivalve Organic Dairy had the following to say about his farm;

- His daily resource consumption per cow is often around 65kg of grain and 132 litres of water (crazy, right?)
- Cows still need to be impregnated to give milk, so she'll have her baby. The baby stays with her mother for around two days, then go off to a calf-raising facility, where they'll have an individual hutch that they'll be raised in. - Only female cows give milk, so any males born either go to beef-raising facilities or remain on the farm, soon to be sold as grass fed beef
- Any of his cows that begin to drop in milk production are sold into the beef industry, to be slaughtered

Then we can examine the facts;
- 1 gallon of milk takes 1,000 gallons of water to produce
- 19% of animal ag's WW water footprint is related to dairy cattle - so 19% of 2,422 BILLION cubic meters of water
- On John Taylor's farm of 250 cows, each drinks between 30 to 40 gallons a day - so it takes about 8,750 gallons of water every single day just for cows to drink
- With cows consuming around 140 pounds of grain on his farm, and producing 6-7 gallons of milk a day, it can be said that it takes 20 pounds of grain to produce 1 gallon of milk
- On top of cattle consumption, around 150 gallons is used in manure flushing systems and maintenance, per cow, every day
- Unanimous among all farms, dairy cows in the US alone produce more than 2 billion pounds of manure nitrogen every year that are "flushed" off the farm, which then leads to issues like dead zones in the oceans and contained water supplies
- In the US alone, there were 9 million dairy cows in 2012, on 100,000 farms - so if everyone could purchase from John Taylor's farm, resource consumption would be through the ROOF
- Then we know that about 4% of all greenhouse gas emissions is contributed by the dairy industry - about 52% of that methane. The FAO estimates that another 27% of dairy-related greenhouse gases is nitrous oxide, which has global warming potential 296 times greater than carbon dioxide (via FAO).

The resource consumption is just insane. Of all the water on the planet, 2.5% is usable fresh water. Of that, 30.1% exist in aquifers, and 69.5% in glaciers, snow and permafrost. So 0.4% (one hundred-thousandth of the total amount) is usable surface water (x). By 2025, it's estimated that 5.3 billion people, or two thirds the global population, will suffer from water shortages.

It's just...

*will add sources later!

In saying this, I don't want to sound like I'm attacking you. So many of us just don't know - we're all doing the best we can with the information we have, I understand.

No

lactose intolerant so im good