How much Butter people Eat

When people ate butter, they lived happier, healthier lives. I’m guessing you haven’t done much research into this.. Obesity was not as prevalent until our society switched to high carbohydrate and sugar ladden diets. The jury still seems like it’s out for you on this topic because that what the public narrative has been the last 100 years or so… that how our society has gotten to this point.. Do some research before you start mocking dairy farmers. The dumb farmer is another stereotype that you’ve fallen for.. I’ve been studying dairy my whole life – practically and academically. You’re kind of proving one of the points of the article so thank you..

Touche, also one of the greatest threats to a long sea voyage was hunger. Remembering that butter helps with hunger and satiety, you cannot discounts butter’s assistance in reducing mutinies.. lol

Being a hater is bad.. You can condemn humanity for eating meat, but you are guilty of the same thing as a meat eater -plant murderer, torcher, ect, ect..

Hey Alvin, you’re not the sharpest are you? But if calling me an “idiot” somehow makes you feel big, you go for it. By the way, it’s “couldn’t care less” and not “could care less”, but I’m sure a smart guy like you knew that. I personally think you should make more effort to be civil.
It’s an interesting tact you take regarding the effects of cholesterol; choosing not to deny that fatty dairy (and red meats), heavy in saturated fats cause increased levels of cholesterol, instead arguing that increased levels of cholesterol are not harmful, despite the mountain of medical research directly linking the consumption of harmful saturated fats from dairy and red meats with an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Others will have to make their own minds up about the research on this subject. It’s fairly irrefutable as far as I can tell. I personally go with the scientists.
I, like you Alvin, am also lactose tolerant. However, I choose not to consume dairy because of the undeniable cruelty and violence involved in producing it. Let’s also not forget that billions of people around the world are in fact lactose intolerant and cannot consume milk into adulthood without feeling ill. It seems incredibly unnatural in principle to consume the milk from other animals and to do so beyond weening, but yes, if you do it over a number of generations you can build up a tolerance to its effects. But Alvin, just because you can do something doesn’t make it right to do so. I personally choose not to consume dairy for companionate reasons.
So, you’re in favour of ‘humane’ farming and ‘humane’ slaughter. You do know there is no such thing right? Words like ‘humane’ are used in the animal farming industry to try and hide the truth about how animals must suffer to become food, which makes the public feel better about buying and consuming animal products. It’s like saying on a scale of suffering, nine is better than ten. I personally believe any unnecessary suffering is unacceptable. I see what people are doing when they use the word ‘humane’ and I don’t buy it. Consider this Alvin; if a man murdered another man could he argue in court, for a lesser sentence, that he slaughtered his victim in a more ‘humane’ way than another murderer? Would this lessen his crime? Of course not, that would be silly. Murder is murder and slaughter is slaughter however you dress it up. All farmed animals suffer violent deaths. Try and see the truth in this and be honest about it. What exactly do you think a ‘humane’ farm is anyway? Cows fed on grass? Do you really believe that the world’s dairy cow population can be fed on grass? Do you seriously think this is even remotely feasible? You need to research and rethink that idea as it just doesn’t stack up; there’s not enough room.
Finally, you use the way wolves kill their prey to draw a comparison with premeditated, systematic, industrial-scale animal slaughter (150 billion+ animals slaughtered a year!). Why? Humans have evolved to operate on a more civilised, more intellectual, compassionate level than that of animals in the wild. We have the ability to think and to reason and choose not to do something against our instincts because it might be morally questionable. You clearly don’t care about animals and their suffering as not only do you knowingly participate in perpetuating animal abuse, but you seek to justify it. I get the distinct impression that you are a bit of a bully, don’t think things through properly and really don’t care much about animals, but hey, you just keep laughing at me big man and sleep easy

Excellent points Alvin, My faith in humanity has been restored. I think we will look back on the 20th century as an example of what happens when take food advice to the extreme – fat is a necessary part of a healthy diet

Post #1 to Badger,

I asked: What would you do with the ‘vast numbers’ of domestic cattle we have on hand now?

Your response:
“B: Farmed animals are “purposefully breed” (I did say this!) in their billions, for human exploitation. I’m sure you must have heard of ‘supply and demand’? I can’t believe you are incapable of working this out. Sit and ponder this for a moment and see if a solution comes to you. I’ll give you a clue… if farmers didn’t “purposefully breed” animals….”

Since you left this vague….let me see if I can figure out using logic what your solution would be: The “billions of animals” we now have are the “supply” and the populace (those now wanting meat and milk) are the “demand”.

For simplification I’ll limit this examination just to the cattle alone since reducing absolutely all domestic stock of all kinds to zero is a far greater hurdle.

Due to a change in demand there are essentially two possible scenarios – at either end of the spectrum – that would reduce the “supply” of domestic cows to zero:

1) A gradual reduction in demand which would mean that the number of animals being milked or consumed for food would decrease to zero over a longer period of time.

2) A rapid reduction in demand which would mean that the number of animals being milked or consumed for food would decrease to zero over a shorter period of time.

The time period and the rate of change in demand are the only variables here. The end result you say you want remains the same: No more animals kept for meat and milk on this planet.

While either scenario plays out with either a rapid or a gradual reduction in demand there would remain X number of animals still on the farms, those being unsold, essentially unmilked and unutilized for food – being that the farmer could not sell them for their meat or their milk. I would suppose in this case that the more humane among the farmers (do we think they exist?…) would continue to milk their cows and/or feed the calves on hand that could use it or pour it out on the ground. Milk being according to you “unnecessary, unfit, improper, genocidal”, etc thus quite, quite wrong for human consumption. So, into a calf or on the ground it goes.

In the case of a rapid reduction in demand this number of cows remaining on the farm would be huge, if “overnight”, then 100% of the stock on hand would remain unsold, unmilked (for human consumption) and unutilized on Day One.

I’m not certain what would happen in this case. Yes, perhaps millions of farmers would go bankrupt with some reactions similar to the stock market crash of 1929 but for the purposes of this examination that isn’t a concern for us. At any rate, there they would remain on Day One: a billion plus cows and their milk, unsold as humanity switches over to a vegan diet.

No more cattle are being bred so there are “only” those 1.4 billion on hand in this scenario to worry about and dispense with. What happens to them now? Well, with no more being bred, even allowing them to stay on their farms (supported by who?) they would live out their lives, die off and be gone.

So in the case of a rapid reduction in demand – such as humanity switching overnight to a vegan diet – the end result will be (X years down the road) the death of all the cows that were on the farms. So no more cattle there.

One could indeed suggest that all these cattle or a portion of them (number to be determined by you…) be set “free” in some geographic location to live out their lives and even to procreate follow-on generations instead of remaining on the now-bankrupt farms during their natural attrition. The Serengeti, perhaps? But nevertheless, the ones currently in “captivity” , on ranches and on dairy farms would all die off eventually anyway. The only cattle surviving this scenario will be the ones you’ve set “free” on the Serengeti (or wherever you’ve decided…) where they will then have to fend for themselves among new “neighbors” with Nature dictating their future.

The other possible scenario is a gradual reduction of domesticated cattle by a more gradual reduction in demand (over X number of years). But this scenario ends the same as the other: No more cows alive on farms. That’s your goal. Whatever number is still alive down the road in the future would be wild and “free” and living in Nature – where their numbers would be held in check by natural predation, which will include from time to time the young being stalked and killed and eaten (as seen on countless nature programs) without which of course, they would multiply to the point where they would outstrip their living space’s capacity to sustain them and then begin to die off due to starvation.

Notice that the end result in either scenario – or in any variation – of your “final solution” to the domesticated cattle “problem” is still the death of all the cows that were on the farms in the first place. It doesn’t matter whether death comes as a result of being food for man or for beasts on the Serengeti – they WILL all die. You have just determined that people won’t be consuming the meat nor drink the milk before they go.

If you have a different solution that doesn’t end with all the cows on farms today being dead in the future and the ones set “free” being hunted and eaten by predators, do share it. And this time, be very specific not coy and vague.

Post # 2 to Badger:

I asked: Do you admit there is a difference between “factory farming” and humane non-factory dairying? Or is it “all the same” in your judgment?

Your response:
“B: There is not enough land on earth to meet the meat and dairy demands without factory farms – research it…
All farmed animals die brutal deaths in slaughterhouses regardless of where they come from, so in that sense, yes, they are the same.”

Regarding your own claim “there is not enough land on Earth to meet the demand for meat and dairy without factory farms” are you saying the demand is so great that were these factory farms shut down and the stores “go empty” that people would riot? Go to war to re-open them? The world-wide demand for meat and milk is that overpowering?

Then your cause is lost right now. You’ll never come close to shutting down the abusive industry – because according to you people won’t stand for it.

Or – are you saying that if people knew “what really happens” on factory farms that rather than forcing the farms to change they would instead accept empty store shelves and just go vegan? Which is it? Do they eat meat and drink milk because of an overpowering internal demand that you cannot change- or because they don’t know about the abuse or they couldn’t care less?

At any rate I totally disagree with you. Saying that humane non-“factory” dairy farms can’t exist today is of course asinine – they do. The rational among us know that. But I can’t get a rational admission from someone who thinks cows are being “raped”. I suppose even putting a bull in a pen with a cow is morally questionable: I mean they might copulate but, was it really “consensual”…

Your premise that “there is not enough land…” is patently and historically laughable. “Factory” farms are entirely modern things – 20th Century things in fact. Domestication of cattle for dairying alone is upwards of 7,000 years old. Look up the Funnel Beaker Culture.

My ancestors, and their neighbors… and the tribes and nations in which they lived and survived and functioned and thrived, ate meat and drank milk and made cheese…generation after generation… and did so quite successfully millennium after millennium – all without factory farming. Or even machinery or engines.

How could this be? How could they live on meat and milk without factory farms? Because each family and homestead was a “farm”. You must be so removed from your own past and your ancestors that you’ve forgotten that. Either that or your ancestors never kept herd animals for meat or milk because it’s not part of your own history or ancestry – in which case you’d have what right to insist I adapt to your dietary demands? Right. None at all.

Eventually some farmers – likely the more successful ones – remained (alive) and continued as farmers and dairymen. Others, through necessity and by free enterprise and other abilities became carpenters, blacksmiths, soldiers, thinkers and explorers and built the civilization and infrastructure which today you are living off of and benefiting from the foundation of.

While not all remained farmers all in a tribe or region needed sustenance. Farms and herds got proportionately larger and meat, milk and cheese was bought, sold and bartered for as markets were established. But they got by quite well and all this for thousands of years with not a factory farm, mechanized or motorized milking machine or tractor in sight. And then along comes Badger… preaching: “It’s not possible!…it can’t be…not without factory farms and torturing animals!” Tosh. Utter tosh.

Post #3 to Badger:

On a post of yours (April 2) you had written:
“It’s an interesting tact you take regarding the effects of cholesterol; choosing not to deny that fatty dairy (and red meats), heavy in saturated fats cause increased levels of cholesterol, instead arguing that increased levels of cholesterol are not harmful,”

You misunderstood or misrepresented me: I am not “denying” that eating saturated animal fat raises cholesterol and I didn’t say anything as wishy-washy as : “yet it’s not harmful”. I am EXTOLLING the relationship between dietary fat and cholesterol in the body. Higher cholesterol – above 200 – or whatever would normally occur in a healthy individual not on statins – is to be desired in my view. You do what you want, in fact Badger, if you haven’t already, run out to your doctor and get a long-term prescription for statins. May I suggest Lipitor? I have never taken statins and never will. I have zero fear of the cholesterol level naturally occurring in my body but lots of concern with the incredibly profitable drug industry making billions. I’ve lost relatives – watched them suffer and decay without being able to intervene while someone’s making a bundle. So you have at it: Knock your nasty cholesterol down to zero. That’ll make ya healthy. And the sooner the better.

I asked: Do you deny the importance and role of cholesterol in the body?

By your responses we clearly see cholesterol differently. And I am so totally at peace with that…

You ask: “Do you deny that too much LDL cholesterol is bad?”

I don’t know. What constitutes”too much”? What someone has told you or what nature develops and regulates within you as a healthy individual? We need water in our bodies to live but too much can kill you. If I ask you, “Do you deny that too much water is bad?” what would your answer be? Right.

Nevertheless, here’s my stand: I have no fear of the naturally-occurring levels of cholesterol in me, no matter the type: High Density Lipo-protein….Low Density Lipo-protein… due to my diet of meat and dairy. Is that clear enough?

Post #4 to Badger:

Because you trotted out yet again the notion that we shouldn’t drink cow’s milk, I had to ask you yet again to take a position and stick to it:

I asked: Do you define the “naturalness” of human activity by what other animals do? If they don’t do it, we shouldn’t either? If they do – then we should?

Your response:
“B: I’m simply stating some well-known points of contention without wanting to waste my time making points I have already made on this site… keep up”

Could I get an answer in English?
Like “Yes, what animals do is “natural” thus we should do exactly as they do”. Or “No, our “naturalness” is not defined by what other animals may or may not do. We can behave differently but still be “natural”.

How hard can that be to get a definite answer from you? Is English not your first language?

Later, you responded to my point blank question: If doing what animals do is “natural” and correct will you be eating some poop today?

With this:
“B: What? Sorry, that’s a very strange and slightly disturbing thing to say”

Oh, Badger. Not at all. It’s not disturbing at all. Eating poop – sometimes your own – is perfectly “natural”. Not for me of course since I’m an “unnatural” milk-drinking, non-poop eating toilet-flusher. But you are “natural” like the animals. Who eat their poop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia#Vertebrates

Please don’t waste my time with evasion. Don’t post a blizzard of vegan crap telling me how “unnatural” milk-drinking is because no other animals do it but when it’s pointed out that animals also “naturally” eat poop you play this game of evasion. Everyone can see you’re running from answering the question.

Post #8 to Badger:

I’m going to take a break but I’ll hit on this one for now. By the way, thanks for removing any doubt I may have had about your militancy by thrusting the label “DENIER!” upon me (all caps, too!) :

You wrote:
“B: Okay, a CLIMATE DENIER as well. Why am I hardly surprised? Look Alvin, just research it. Life is too short for me to try and educate you on this. The environmental harm caused by animal farming is well documented and scientifically accepted. There is a mountain of fact-based evidence out there to support this. Just look it up and read it. Check out what NASA says if that’s credible enough for you. Thousands of scientists are frantically working on climate change as we speak, and the data shows animal farming is a very real part of the problem. Pretending otherwise is foolish. If you live in America then maybe you don’t get to hear about the realities of climate change as much the rest of the world does, so maybe I could make some allowance for your ignorance on this critically important and deeply worrying subject.”

You know, my own background is in aerospace: Flying both civilian and military. Designing and building aircraft myself. NASA is quite an organization. But very political, maybe it always has been. It’s understandable – since it is a government-funded outfit. “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Are they smart? Not enough to build their own stuff. They don’t actually build anything… did you not know that? If you’re outside the US looking in and see “NASA” mentioned so prominently it must seem like they are the fountain of all genius space creation. My “education”… I grew up in a family with actual rocket scientists in it. Both my uncles and my father. My father designed some of the hydraulic systems for what was the most famed of the X-planes throughout its’ creation and run and those for the Shuttle. Not NASA. Let me say this again: My pops designed the space ships that NASA couldn’t. NASA, is doodley. In so far as it is the expression of the “National Aeronautics and Space Administration” – they “administer” space. Enough of that. If you had talked to an engineer like my father or like Burt Rutan…. you would get an intelligent well-studied answer on any subject – like climate change.

Not that you’ll entertain such inquiry, but here it is for everyone else:

http://rps3.com/Pages/Burt_Rutan_on_Climate_Change.htm

For now, Badger, I don’t expect you to change or entertain a fresh thought or use the gray matter you have left after a long period of drinking nut-“milks”. So I’ll just leave you with the most important thought: Your cholesterol is likely very high (whatever it may be) and you need to lower it. I fervently suggest you ask your doctor to start you on statins ASAP.

It looks like Post #4 I either missed or it didn’t make the cut due to the link in it… so I’ll call this one “Post #4-A to Badger”:

I couldn’t pass this by…
“A cow in the wild would naturally live 20-25 years.”

I suppose that’s possible, physiologically. But is that reality? I’ve seen several documentaries from PBS’s “NATURE” and seen what happens on the African Savanna or in Yellowstone.

I’m trying to picture a “cow” of the type we’re discussing standing there grazing….day in, day out, year in, year out and occasionally trucking on down to the water hole. So the lions just lie there and watch this for “20 years”, is that right?

Badger, you caught me: but it’s not what you think. I don’t get a paycheck. It’s worse than that. Once a week a lorry with the word “MILK” emblazoned on its’ side (direct from the GALACTIC empire distribution hub) visits my secluded cottage on the rugged coast of Downeast Maine. I hear the tires crunching the gravel as it rolls up the long driveway. It stops… the driver’s door opens. I peek through my curtains and catch a capped figure dressed in uniform white dropping off three gallons of full fat whole milk: the “hard stuff”… on my front porch. Sometimes this “delivery” man sees me and gives a wave. Such is the audacity of these demonic deliverers of dairy addiction! But I know: this is my “pay off” for another week of pushing the propaganda of Big Moo on the interwebs. Oh, agony of Faustus! Oh, Richard Burton! I swear by thee I forswear!! I know, I know…I’m strung out on the moo-juice! Also every other week there’s a pound package of butter as well, which is nice. Unsalted. You know I need it pure. Dammit! I knew this would come back to haunt me! And I would have gotten away with it …if it weren’t for you meddling kids!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhqlw2_LHrQ

Post #9 to Badger:

I read the Harvard diet article you linked.

First your comment about “the Western world” is your own belief – it’s not in the article. And not all of the Western world “which gorges on foods high in saturated fats is riddled with heart disease, strokes, diabetes”. France, Switzerland and Spain are in the “Western world”. Those three Western countries have some of the highest consumption of saturated animal fat from meat and dairy, the highest blood cholesterol levels and also the lowest rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) worldwide. They are also among the longest lived.

America – where Harvard is located – is a whole ‘nother ballgame. Americans eat far too much heavily-processed unnatural food : pizza, bread, corn chips, carbs, sugar (which burns out the pancreas leading to Type 2 diabetes) and when they do eat meat it’s not fresh and grass-fed, it’s cured and preserved and low in nutrients and buried inside a fast-food burger and “gorged” along with fries and a sugary shake or soda. People are addicted to coffee too – hence the invasive growth of the coffee shops that sell the brown swamp water.

Speaking about heart disease, the Harvard article recommends “the Mediterranean Diet” because it includes “extra-virgin olive oil or nuts, both rich sources of unsaturated fat” then points out below:

“This study highlighted that low-fat diets are continuing to lose credibility, and that incorporating healthy fats – such as those included in the Mediterranean diet – can improve heart health.”

“Low-fat diets are losing credibility”. I agree.

But the article isn’t sure what a “Mediterranean Diet” is, saying:
“There isn’t one exact Mediterranean diet, as this eating style takes can [sic] incorporate the different foods, eating patterns, and lifestyles in multiple countries that border the Mediterranean Sea.”

So Harvard itself isn’t sure what the Mediterranean Diet is.

They note that “However, there are similarities that define a Mediterranean eating pattern including:

– High intake of olive oil, nuts, vegetables, fruits, and mainly whole grain cereals
– Moderate intake of fish and poultry
– Low intake of dairy products, red meat, processed meats, and sweets
– Wine in moderation, consumed with meals”

I definitely agree that processed meats and sugar are unhealthy, as I noted in my first two paragraphs above. However Spain is a Mediterranean country, I think, and they eat a lot of red meat and also consume dairy, cheese and butter (as well as olive oil) and they have high cholesterol, a long life-expectancy and among the lowest CVD. Is France considered a “Mediterranean” country? Well, whatever. The French have among the highest consumption of dietary fat: red meat, cheese, butter…. and they too, like the Spanish have high blood cholesterol, long lives and among the lowest rates of CVD. Switzerland is NOT a Mediterranean country and they don’t eat a lot of “healthy” fish but here again their story is the same as France: High saturated fat intake (butter, cheese, red meat), high blood cholesterol levels but long life expectancy and among the lowest rates of CVD.

On Cancer the article states: “Researchers once suspected an association between dietary fat and common cancers. However, in adults, the percentage of calories consumed from total fat appears to have no significant association with cancer risk, and there is currently no clear evidence linking any specific type of fat with cancer incidence.”

Why am I reading this article?

On Breast Cancer it says: “In the early 1980s, most nutrition experts believed that dietary fat was a major cause of breast cancer. (28, 29) This thinking was largely based on international comparisons showing higher breast cancer rates in countries with higher per capita fat intake. But as more prospective studies and randomized controlled trials were performed over the next couple of decades, the apparent link between total fat intake and breast cancer has faded.”

What did they just say? The link between fat intake and breast cancer has “faded”?

Next paragraph says this: “The Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial, which was specifically designed to examine the effect of a low-fat diet on the development of breast cancer, showed similar rates of breast cancer in women eating a low-fat diet and in those eating a “regular” diet. (31)”

So, “similar rates of breast cancer in women eating a low-fat diet and in those eating a “regular” diet. ”

I’ll buy that…with scientific reservations. What is a “regular diet” according to Harvard? They don’t seem too sure about what constitutes a specific diet like the “Mediterranean” one, how do we know what they mean by “regular”?

Harvard: “Although studies of different types of fat have largely failed to find a link with breast cancer, some evidence suggests that animal fat intake in young women may be linked to higher risk of breast cancer. In the Nurses’ Health Study II, premenopausal women who ate diets high in animal fat had a 40 to 50 percent higher risk of breast cancer, compared to women who ate the least animal fat. (33) Because vegetable fat was not related to risk of breast cancer, these findings suggest that red meat and high-fat dairy products may contain other factors, such as hormones, that increase risk of breast cancer.”

This above appears incriminatory of saturated animal fat contributing to breast cancer. I tried to find the source of this 2003 study to see where it was done and the particular reporting criteria it was based on. What were these women eating? Fast-food burgers, fries and shakes? That isn’t clarified. Was the red meat and dairy suggested as being a possible cancer cause here the store-bought, homogenized, conventional corn-fed feedlot stuff or the grass-fed organic kind? If they drank shakes, what was in those shakes to sweeten them? What kind of oil were the fries fried in? Since this was a study by the (American) National Cancer Institute it would be correct to assume that these were American women and not French, Swiss or Spanish, correct?

Interestingly, modern farming has done a great deal to reduce emissions by getting better efficiencies from cows- just by giving them better care and being more attentive to their needs . Today 9 million cows in the US produce what 30 million cows produced in 1950s. Being that there used to be 80 million buffalo roaming the plains of central N. America, i think we are making progress. Im sure there is a biological reason though why cow emmitions exist, we just haven’t discovered it.