A new controversial practice is creeping into the dairy industry.
What does it mean for you as a consumer?
Cow Farts and Climate Change
Grass is very hard to digest. In fact, cows do not digest grass... bacteria in their rumen digest grass. Bacteria ferment the vegetation the cow eats into smaller, easier to digest components.
A by-product of this fermentation is methane. Cows release methane as burps or as gas when they poop.
Methane is a form of atmospheric carbon.
Therefore, some people who are concerned about greenhouse gases say that cows are bad because they produce methane.
I covered whether or not that argument is valid in my blog post Cows, Carbon and Climate. It explains that all ruminants--from the ancient ancestor of cows to deer, bison, wildebeests, gazelles, goats, sheep, caribou, elk, and all others--have been ruminating plants and producing methane since time immemorial. The carbon from today's burp will be up-taken by future plants and become the material that next year's plants are made of. It's called the Carbon Cycle. Cows do not produce carbon, they simply facilitate its natural cycle.
But of course there are climate activists attacking the dairy industry, saying that humans need to stop drinking milk because cows are destroying the world with their farts.
And naturally the dairy industry is scrambling for a way to reduce methane production to appear more climate friendly.
Enter Bovaer
After several years of development, a brand of methane-reducing feed additive has been given the green light for use in the UK. Bovaer is supposed to reduce methane production by about 30% by converting it to fat.
Scientists say that rigorous testing has been performed to ensure that it is not harmful to cows or consumers.
Outraged consumers are dumping milk down their sinks and boycotting the brands that are using the product. They claim that
Bill Gates is behind it and they won't let him ruin their food
some people say that the stuff is being added directly to milk, which is untrue--it's being fed to cows
Full Fart Milk
Whether or not the milk from cows fed Bovaer is identical to milk from untreated cows is another question.
The label warns that contact with the product can cause harm to male reproductive organs. That is oddly specific and I suspect that it was found in trials to do just that.
I am not siding with scientists who endorse its use.
Nor am I siding with opponents who make far fetched claims about it.
I do not support the use of any methane reducing feed additive because it conflicts with my food philosophy.
This is the way I view the world: God created plants, animals and bacteria to work harmoniously together. When humans meddle with nature, twisting one puzzle piece while ignoring how that affects all the pieces around it, it ultimately ends in disaster.
America's health and obesity epidemic is because scientists have approved so many chemicals to be added to our food and innumerable problems have been caused by those chemicals.
The best way that I have found to improve my health has been to honor the integrity of my biology and feed myself the cleanest, most natural foods possible--foods that were not tampered with by chemical additives.
It has made a HUGE difference in my health.
Anything that causes that big of a change to a cow's digestive system (remember, a healthy digestive system is the foundation of a healthy body) is going to have unintended consequences on the cow and/or on the people consuming the cow's milk. There is no way that it is not severely altering the microbiome of the cow's gut. It has to. It is simply too short sighted to say that it is safe after so many months of testing.
It will be one more drop in the bucket of harmful chemicals that our bodies have to deal with from food which should be nourishing us. Unfortunately, the food that most people eat is killing them.
Better Alternatives
Cows and other ruminants provide a valuable service to mankind by transforming course, stemmy plants that we cannot digest into nutrient dense food that nourishes us. I can't go eat a mouthful of grass or alfalfa or wild pasture and get much from it, but if my cow eats those plants I benefit from the many phytochemicals that are passed along through the milk into my body.
Rather than trying to fix the earth's problems by throwing a wrench in the works of a cow's complex digestive system, there are ways to help take care of our planet that comprehensively nurture you and the world around you.
Buy grass fed raw milk from cows that are eating exactly what God designed them to eat and therefore are creating the most nutrient dense milk available. This will make you healthier and free you of society's unholy dependance on pharmaceuticals.
Support farmers who use organic hay which was farmed in a way that builds carbon in the soil, which more than offsets methane production from cows.
Reduce your use of petroleum which, unlike the renewable plants that cows eat, is emitting carbon from an unrenewable source.
Buy local foods from farmers who care for their soil, which is the earth's biggest carbon sink. Buying local also reduces the petroleum used to transport food to your table.
What do you think? Should we try to reduce methane from cows?
Comentarios