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3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

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Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#51

The girl pictured (blue eyed, fair hair) is especially suited to cow's milk - it's in her genes. That's how people were able to live north of certain latitudes; by cattle meat and milk. Perplexing. [edit: link to HN discussion on the lactose tolerant mutation] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4710596

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Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are very good arguments for veganism but raw health isn't typically one of them. I'd say reducing cruelty to animals is the best one. But almond or soy instead of cow's milk? That's nuts. [hah pun not intended]

What do you mean by that? I would consider the treatment of dairy cows to be at least comparable to raising cows to kill them.

What? They're not force fed and then slaughtered.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by that? I would consider the treatment of dairy cows to be at least comparable to raising cows to kill them.

What? They're not force fed and then slaughtered.

Slaughter is not necessarily the worst part of their life.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#54
post #37
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any growth hormone making it to the milk is likely to get denatured by pasteurization and further digested in the stomach.

Interesting. I've never heard of this fragility of hormones, could you expand a bit?

Growth hormone is a peptide. Heat denatures peptides, and our digestive tract is specifically designed to break them down into their constituent amino acids.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#55

It's sort of criminal that they're even allowed to label bean juice as milk. Im not 100% convinced of the necessity of drinking milk or that height is particularly a good proxy for health as a metric. But vegans should be under no illusions that almond milk or soy milk is any kind of milk substitute. And if they're giving it to infants instead of breastfeeding or formula, it's borderline neglect. I think that there a…

> And if they're giving it to infants instead of breastfeeding or formula, it's borderline neglect.

?? That's not what the article is about. They are talking about older children and comparing to cow milk, not formula.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#56
post #35
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Artificial growth hormones may be banned, but endogenous ones[0] are unavoidable. Cow's milk evolved to make calves grow, this is not an avoidable minutia when attempting to comparatively characterize milk alternatives as stunting growth, but likely the central finding. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_somatotropin

Unavoidable? Hardly. You just have a veal industry on the side. Milk has been produced for millennia before hormones of any type were added. Furthermore Canada has milk production quotas so, depending how they're set, hormones might not be necessary to max production at all.

You didn't understand GP comment. Cow's milk is the single thing that grows calves hundreds of Kg in a few months. It has growing hormones in it, naturally.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are very good arguments for veganism but raw health isn't typically one of them. I'd say reducing cruelty to animals is the best one. But almond or soy instead of cow's milk? That's nuts. [hah pun not intended]

What do you mean by that? I would consider the treatment of dairy cows to be at least comparable to raising cows to kill them.

I think it's very possible to raise dairy cows without stress. Of course you have to milk some dairy cows or their bladder will get sore (and maybe burst).

It's possible to do a lot better than we do when slaughtering; but even with the best methods there's going to be up to a second of bewilderment if not pain and terror.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are very good arguments for veganism but raw health isn't typically one of them. I'd say reducing cruelty to animals is the best one. But almond or soy instead of cow's milk? That's nuts. [hah pun not intended]

A large fraction of humanity never drinks cow's milk, and they lack a gene needed to digest it.

Yeah but I wouldn't replace with it with soy/almond. I'd use -- well almost anything else. Water. Mashed vegetables and fruit. Some milk products such as yoghurt/whey/buttermilk/quark.

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there are very good arguments for veganism but raw health isn't typically one of them. I'd say reducing cruelty to animals is the best one. But almond or soy instead of cow's milk? That's nuts. [hah pun not intended]

What do you mean by that? I would consider the treatment of dairy cows to be at least comparable to raising cows to kill them.

There is a farm near where I lived some times ago, in France south west, where the cows are choosing when they want to be milked (assuming it's the good word for it).

The farmers owned 2 or 3 machines where the cow goes when it wants to give milk, and get out whenever it feels about it.

There's a video on their website where you can see it http://www.lafermeduramier.fr

The cows can go outside whenever they want and sleep on some kind of mattress.

I think they're having quite a cool life

Re: 3-year-olds consuming alternative milks were 1.5 cm shorter on average

#60

It's sort of criminal that they're even allowed to label bean juice as milk. Im not 100% convinced of the necessity of drinking milk or that height is particularly a good proxy for health as a metric. But vegans should be under no illusions that almond milk or soy milk is any kind of milk substitute. And if they're giving it to infants instead of breastfeeding or formula, it's borderline neglect. I think that there a…

And if they're giving it to infants instead of breastfeeding or formula, it's borderline neglect. Nothing borderline about it. Babies still die of malnutrition in developed countries, when it happens it is often from vegan diets. I don't think that various vegetable derived products having "milk" in their names is the biggest part of the problem though.

I don't think it's reasonable to say "often". It seems like known cases were heavily covered in the press and involved criminal prosecutions. From what I can see, it seems to have been running around one death per year in developed countries.

I agree that it's clearly a life-threatening risk to give babies vegetable milk as a substitute for breastfeeding or formula.

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