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Why I Don’t Drink Milk
The realities of modern dairy
My parents come from India, and even though they are vegetarians, dairy was a big part of my cultural heritage. Americans mistakenly think Indians worship cows — thus the phrase “holy cow”. This is not true.
Indians don’t worship cows, but they do highly respect them.
The Indian cow can take inedible grass and garbage and turn it into nutritious milk. In ancient times, this could be the difference between healthy children and starving ones. So the Indian cow was associated with mother.
I still remember as a little girl visiting India for the first time being fascinated to follow my grandmother downstairs to fetch milk. We lived in a condo in Bombay. Every day a dairy man brought his cows to the condo. Those who wanted milk brought their buckets to him. He would milk a cow straight into your clean container.
My grandmother would gently heat the milk on the stove before cooling it for us to drink.
In India, once upon a time, cows were treated with kindness. Calves were not killed. Female calves would provide milk, male calves could be neutered and used to pull plows.
Unfortunately those times have passed. Now there are too many cows wandering the streets of India with injuries, and since oxen are no longer…
