This morning I watched a television program for children about milk and saw a picture of happy cows grazing on a beautiful green field. For some reason in our minds milk production is associated with this beautiful picture of happy grazing cows among beautiful meadows. It is still a true story for many countries, but not for Japan. This country in not rich in fields and 70% covered by mountains, so there is no possibility of grazing cows as well as to buy the land.

Milk became a drink for the common people only in Meiji era after the westernization. In 1863, Mr. Tomekichi Maeda studied the technique of milking and treatment from the Dutch man Mr. Pero, and he started the first Japanese milk processing and retail business in Yokohama. Meiji government promoted the nutritious value of milk as dairy farming was considered as one way of developing Hollaido. With more and more food being imported, market was flooded with diversified and internationalized food, and Japanese dietary habit was quickly being matured. Commercial dairy farming had started about 100 years ago in Japan, and it started developing in full scale when school lunch was introduced in primary schools. School lunch with milk, bread, margarine and 1 or 2 side dishes can be said as the first step towards westernized diet. Compared to the rice and vegetable growing, dairy farming had a benefit of generating income monthly and consistently despite the weather conditions. For those reasons, dairy farming grew its popularity rapidly.

So what are dairy farms like today? Unfortunately, in Japan there are no freely grazing cows, but small facilities where cows can only stand.

There are three types of farms in Japan:

Stall barn – A stall is the space allocated for each cow, and in the stall barn each cow is tied up in a stall. A stall barn does not require big space, and a majority of Japanese farms use this system.  It’s convenient for farmers because cows can’t fight, it’s easy to take care of them and it doesn’t occupy much place. Land is really expensive in Japan that’s why such cowsheds are so popular. Cows cannot move about by themselves, so it requires more labor in milking and feeding. In this style, the herd size is generally around 50 cows.

Free stall barn – it’s a freestyle stall. At certain hours, cows can move around in a small territory called a relax area, but still most of the time they spend in small and narrow stalls. Farmers don’t really like this type of stalls because when cows are fed together in a separate place they can fight for food.

• The third type – free-grazing cows in the meadows, like that beautiful picture from a TV commercial – it’s a rare type for Japan, except for small private farms such as Shimizu and Nikahora.

In 2012, there were 20 100 dairy farms in Japan, many of them produce cheese only, some produce butter and cream or milk. But only a few farms provide their cows with free grazing in green meadows and mountains! Luckily, a certain law was adopted in Europe that prohibits keeping animals in stalls and enforces strict rules for keeping and grazing cows. Similar laws are not adopted in Japan and it is the reason why farmers only care about their profit and not much about animal’s comfort and milk quality.

You may wonder if cows’ life quality can influence milk quality. The answer is – YES! It has a direct effect and is really important.

A lot of information is available on this topic. Here is some of it briefly: we all know that natural food for cows is grass. With what kind of food are cows provided by Japanese farmers? Definitely, it is not grass. A diet of grass, however, is high-fiber and of low nutritional density and does not result in a high milk yield. The milk produced on this diet would be enough to feed a calf, but it is not enough to satisfy market needs. So modern dairy cows are fed a low-fiber, high-protein diet of grains such as corn and soy along with animal by-products. Most of the feed is imported from abroad (USA and China) recently. Milk produced by cows that eat natural grass has a bright white color; cows fed on artificial feed give milk with a slightly gray color. The food for milk cows – is a specially combined feed. Feed is  a complex homogeneous composition of different nutrition components peeled and chopped to a desired consistency and micro additives created by science-based recipes and provides “full feeding” for animals. It surely contains animal proteins: meat of different animals, wool, feathers and leather. The surprising fact is that it is not forbidden to include animals downed on roads and cats, dogs and horses taken to euthanasia in feed in the United States. It also contains added vitamins, flavorings (without it cows would not eat the feed), plastics, pharmaceuticals, grain, soy GMOs and much more. And, of course, antibiotics are added to water and feed worldwide! Antibiotics prevent cows from getting sick very often. You probably know that cow’s milk and meat contain antibiotics. Regarding the hormone rBST / rBGH (for rapid growth and increase of milk volume), that is given in shots to animals in many countries and luckily forbidden in Japan.

Secondly, think about it: can a cow be happy and healthy in such conditions? Of course not! Smart people found a way: antidepressants! Cows in small stalls are provided with antidepressants, just like dolphins in dolphinariums. Without antidepressants, clever dolphins  easily commit a suicide, but cows get mad. Surely, antidepressants can’t make cows happy and healthy. Constant stress raises cortisol level in cow’s blood system and penetrates into milk.

Cows are not able to be healthy for a long time not only because of stress hormones. Naturally the average life expectancy of a cow in is about 20-25 years. How long can a cow live on a farm? Dairy breeds of cows reach physical maturity at one and a half years. At that age they are fertile and, as a consequence, begin to lactate (for this reason cows are actually kept). Depending on the tasks that farmers have and on the breeder farms types, the average life expectancy of cows is about 3-4 lactations, after that period owners get tired of treating their cows from leukemia, mastitis, and other diseases. So cows are usually sent to fattening stations, after that they go to a slaughterhouse. According to this information, cows are kept on farms for about 4-6 years. By the way, milk produced by cows with leukemia is not thrown away, it simply goes throw pasteurization.

Man is the only mammal that consumes milk after weanling. When we name cows milk as one of the important routes of human exposure to estrogens, the general response of Western people is that “man has been drinking cows milk for around 2,000 years without apparent harm”. However, the milk that we consume today may be quite unlike that consumed 100 years ago. Milk that you can find in supermarkets takes the second place after vegetable oils in the oxidation. In Japan, all the milk primarily goes throw homogenization process and then pasteurization (heating milk to kill bacteria, viruses, and enzymes).

In my childhood, I could see the white layer of fat on the walls of milk containers, collect the cream and sour cream even from the pasteurized milk bought in a store. Nowadays milk is homogenized. In this process, natural fat grains break into smaller particles. However, milk fat contacts oxygen and converts into hydrogenated fat. It means that fats become oxidized that can be called “rusty”. Such fats are bad for your health.

We have a reason to think about this, because it is a similar situation in the whole world!

You may ask if it is possible to live without milk.  I thought it was very difficult to avoid dairy products in my diet. But now my family drinks nuts and seeds milk, which is much healthier. Many people consume dairy to get calcium, it is different and a big topic (about how calcium is absorbed), and I would like to note that almond milk contains a lot of calcium as well. Broccoli is also an excellent source of calcium. My family eats at least one big broccoli  every day. If you do not like broccoli itself, you can add it to your green smoothies or fresh juices. Soy milk, rice and almond milk are popular in Japan now. So you always have a choice! My family and I have given up dairy long time ago. It’s easy and fast to make your own Almond milk at home, please check a recipe here. To find out more about milk, I can recommend the following sources:

• A great documentary film “Got the facts on Milk”: https://www.youtube.com/user/MilkDocumentary
• German doctor Walter Veith (the most interesting lecture in my opinion): https://youtu.be/E-PQCCiw_Zs 

• An excellent site based on various research articles in English: Anti-Dairyman George Plimpton. http://notmilk.com/

I would also recommend you to read books written by a Japanese doctor Hiromi Shinya. He helped people with cancer in Japan and in the US, observes the nutrition and diseases of the Americans and the Japanese. Based on his own experience and the experience of his patients, he wrote a book about the danger of dairy products. He is a member of the committee that is against dairy products in Japan. The organization is trying to stop the forcing milk consumption in schools and kindergartens. The committee has already shown results: in some parts of Tokyo and other cities compulsory milk consumption has been abolished, including the area where I live in Bunkyo-ku Tokyo.

Stay healthy and cruelty-free!

With Love from Japan!

Tonya

Sources:

1. The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health by T. Colin Campbell, Thomas M. Campbell II
2. Whitewash: The Disturbing Truth About Cow’s Milk and Your Health by Joseph Keon, John Robbins
3.  No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution by John Robbins
4. Magazine Dairy Japan «Japan Dairy Farming». http://www.dairyjapan.com/
5. Hormonal effects of cows’ milk on human health by Sato A and Ganmaa D.
6. Dr.NK.Sharma ”Milk: a silent killer”.
7. Union of concerned scientists website. They Eat What? The Reality of Feed at Animal Factories http://www.ucsusa.org
8.  Behind the dolphin smile by Richard O”Berry
9. Documentary film “The Cove”
10. Hiromi Shinya, MD  «The enzymes Factor».
11. Japan Dairy Association website www.j-milk.jp/
12.  Anisman H, Matheson K. Stress, depression, and anhedonia:caveats concerning animal models. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2005
13. Antidepressants. http://www.animalresearch.infoThe truth about milk in Japan