Donkey’s Milk.

1. Joshua
   November 8th, 2006 at 12:58 pm

   Yea. This is prety nasty.

2. dead_red_eyes
   November 8th, 2006 at 2:02 pm

   GROSS!!!!!!!!

3. splinters
   November 8th, 2006 at 2:18 pm

   Yes, I believe this is gross also. Yet millions of Americans , who might also find this offensive, support factory farmed dairy by drinking cow’s milk daily, or eating cheese or yoghurt. This not only displays lack of compassion, it comprimises their health and well-being. I often propose to non-vegan’s that they might try drinking from the teat of their cat or dog, to see what reaction they have. How is this different from drinking from genetically manipulated cows who have NO quality of life and make way for the brutal veal industry?

4. Kirsten
   November 8th, 2006 at 3:56 pm

   As someone who works on a dairy farm, I just have to shake my head at the comment made by splinters.

   With regards to the article, I find it somewhat gross in that it doesn’t seem all that hygenic, but given the date the article was published, it doesn’t seem all that out of the ordinary or strange. Neat bit of info though.

5. megmeg
   November 8th, 2006 at 3:58 pm

   I don’t think it’s gross… we drink goat and cow milk so why not donkey milk? I loooove milk of any kind bring it on! And no Splinters, I would not drink the milk from my cat or dog because that would be awkward and cat or dog milk probably doesn’t have the nutrional value that cow/goat/donkey milk would because each type of animal milk has specific nutrients in it. That’s why puppies can’t be raised successfully on kitten milk and vice versa (sometimes they can but they’re usually sickly). Humans have evolved to be able to digest cow/goat/donkey milk and not cat and dog milk. That doesn’t mean we HAVE to have milk though (not trying to knock you for being vegan, that’s pretty cool in my book).

6. dead_red_eyes
   November 8th, 2006 at 5:23 pm

   Sheeps Milk & Goats milk make damn fine cheeses and butters. People were drinking that crap long before cows were so domesticated.

7. The Vegucator
   November 8th, 2006 at 8:07 pm

   Several things:

   Kirsten: why do you “have to shake your head at the comment made by splinters”? Everything that splinters says is true. There is nothing remotely natural about human beings drinking the lactic secretions of non-human land mammals. Roughly 80% of adult human beings are lactose intolerant, in fact, and the costs of overlooking this fact and continuing to drink milk and eat dairy products anyway generates millions and millions of dollars per year in entirely preventable treatments for stomach, esopageal, and intestinal diseases and cancers, as well as diabetes.

   This is not “animal rights” propaganda either, but is backed up by a plethora of sceintific evidence arrived at through research that was motivated purely by experimental interest and not by an antecedent AR agenda. Check out the website of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (www.pcrm.org), or read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell (a Cornell research scientist whose lab has earned the equivalent of over 75 years worth of National Institute of Health grants for his work on the links between diet/nutrition and public health). Campbell marshalls an overwhelming amount of evidence for the conclusion that animal products are a direct cause of most of the worst diseases of affluence afflicting our country today (and RUINING our medical system, due tot he fact that we spend over a trillion dollars a year treating these diseases that (a) are preventable and that (b) can’t be fixed with medications and surgeries that only treat symptoms and don’t get to the root cause (which is TOO MUCH ANIMAL PROTEIN).

   Human health, moreover, is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the irrationality of supporting the dairy industry. The cruelty that these animals are made to suffer is unspeakable (repeated artificial insemination on an annual basis, the administration of bovine growth hormone, the forced ingestion of GMO corn feed laced with chicken feces (bovine animals are grain intolerant, by the way, so forcing them to ingest corn (a) causes them tremendous discomfort; and (b) creates tremendous amounts of methane, a green house gas), the total restriction of their natural instincts, the shortened life span, the inability to graze on grass pasture (which is what their chambered digestive system evolved to eat). I haven’t even mentioned the most egregious wrong of the dairy industry, which is that it is directly respnosible for the veal industry. Cows don’t lactate unless they give birth, and a full one half of the births are males (which, of course, cannot give milk). Guess where the males end up? Veal crates and beef stockyards–some of the most brutally cruel locales on planet earth. Don’t take my word for it: read the industry manuals themselves. You can find summaries of them in work by Peter Singer (he stitches his account together from citations from industry standard manuals).

   As for megmeg’s suggestion that cow’s milk deliver’s nutrients that other mammal lactate can’t, I’d like to hear the scientific basis for that one. The fact of the matter is that none of us would find milk remotely appealing if we hadn’t been raised to think that a totally unnatural and unhealthy substance was somehow wholesome. This fact has more to do with the influence of the dairy industry (who incidentally provides nutrition curricula “free of charge” to public school districts) than it does with the wholesomeness of milk. Recent studies have shown (many of them are cited in the T. Colin Campbell book listed above) that milk has no positive effects whatever for keeping bones strong, and that actually leeches iron and other nutrients from one’s system. Leafy green vegetables are much better sources of the right kind of calcium than milk, which has the devasting health drawbacks listed above.

   As for dead_red_eyes’s “damn fine cheeses and butters”, I agree that they taste delicious. The problem is that our aesthetic preferences are neither here nor there when it comes to determining whether a particular action is morally justified. The fact of the matter is that it is impossible to produce cheese and butter without being implicated in morally unjustifiable practices. When one adds to this that eating damn fine cheeses and butters are costing us hundreds of billions (indeed, up to ONE TRILLION) of dollars annually in medical expenditures related to heart disease, esophageal and intestinal cancers, and adult onset diabetes, the claims that milk is “natural” and “healthy” start to look pretty ridiculous.

8. bob
   November 9th, 2006 at 10:49 am

   Dog milk is great - makes good cheese too. You might also try pig cheese, or better HUMAN cheese!

   As for donkeys, I’ve had a great “Polenta con ragu’ d’asino”!

9. Joshua
   November 9th, 2006 at 12:41 pm

   ok im not going to say anything negative about splinters comment

   my roomates are both vegan as i once was.

   but keep it to your self i respect everyone and the life choices as long as they dont try to change my views

10. splinters
    November 9th, 2006 at 8:29 pm

    i’m not trying to change anyone’s views, just presenting some things that don’t get talked about very much- especially since the institution has a pretty tight hold on our eating habits

    but if i did want to change anyone’s views
    it is for their sake- their health and the sustainability of our environment
    and for the sake of decreasing suffering- is that SO wrong?

11. Robert Jonasson
    November 19th, 2007 at 4:18 am

    You guys need to get educated! I own 9 donkeys and I love drinking warm sweet donkey’s milk.Donkeys are wonderful animals.Their milk makes kids thrive!I always milk my donkeys when I’m raising a foal.I am a consultant on donkey milk production.I have French friends who produce donkey milk 12 miles west of Toulouse.I am educating all of my donkey breeding friends in the United States as to the virtues of donkey’s milk. donkguy@comcast.net

12. Mary1231
    June 27th, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    Working w/ children in the medical field for over 20 years has convinced me to think “outside-the-box”.

    A high percentage of children who are allergic to casin (milk protein) of cow’s milk, are also allergic to soy products such as milk or formulas. Conversely, we have been finding evidence (from studies and private practice cases) of success (w/ improved tolerance to no adverse reactions) to goat’s milk and in one case, reindeer milk (due to where the child lived and readiness of availability). These alternatives to cow and soy milk were proven to help these children get the nutrition they needed to improve their health.

    So, to the rest of you who may frown at the idea of donkey’s milk, don’t…for you never know where a positive direction may come from, and where it might lead.

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