The Secret Teachings of Milk
7/6/24
I am food
I eat him who eats food
I have conquered the whole universe
I am luminous like the sun
As is anyone who knows this
That is the secret teaching
-Bhrigu Valli, Taittiriya Upanishad
The rumen is an alchemical factory, transmuting base materials into an enlightened form, which concentrates in the udders of mother cows. The two most profound leaps in organic energy organization from less ordered base materials occur in photosynthesis, harnessing the power of sunlight and carbon dioxide, and then the transmutation of photosynthetic grass into milk by ruminants. Fruit is a direct gift of photosynthesis and milk is the fruit of the cow. Fruit and milk are the only two foods designed for the purpose of being eaten.
Cows are complex organisms that collaborate productively in dynamic ways with both higher and lower trophic levels to organize the whole system. Their milk supplies all necessary nutrients but iron. It is evident that some amount of animal foods is needed to complete a “natural” human diet, but the complexity of animal lives should be respected by making the energy transfer as efficient as possible. Milk is the most efficient animal food.
Currently, in the US, there are 87 million head of cattle, with around 76% directed towards beef production and 24% directed towards dairy production. 10 million cows are currently being milked for dairy and around 10 million more are being raised to replace them. 67 million head are being raised for beef alone, without making use of dairy from this population of low-milk-yield cows.
Cattle raised for beef will each produce on average 630,000 calories worth of retail beef, while dairy breeds will produce 450,000 calories of retail beef. A single dairy cow, over its lifetime, will produce an average of 16,000,000 calories from milk. Only around 25% of the milk is needed to support their growing calves for 6 months each, leaving 12,000,000 excess milk calories, enough to feed an average-sized person for 14 years.
If the US cattle industry were curtailed to maximize efficiency through dairy production, with the only beef coming from dairy-breed steers and retired cows, the total cattle population could, over time, be reduced from 87 million to 29 million. This is close to the 30 million bison estimated to have roamed the plains before the European arrival. The population of milking cows would only need to rise from 10 to 12.7 million cows to make up for the entirety of the lost calories from the beef-centric market. This could be reduced further with greater local attention to massive food waste.
A 2017 study found that current pasture lands can support 27 million head of cattle. Desertified areas and agricultural lands that have been used to supply feedlots can also be rehabilitated into grasslands through directed herd grazing in the tradition of Allan Savory’s holistic land management, where cattle and other animals replenish the soil through their natural behaviors. The destiny of humanity is neither to disturb nor avoid touching the balance of ecosystems, but to guide them towards greater order. Just as cattle are the greatest farmers of the grass they eat, and both soils and ecosystems degrade without them, so too are humans the natural farmers of lower trophic levels. Cows would cease to exist if they held no use to higher trophic levels. And so would humans cease to exist if we were not useful to higher levels of organization. Everything is food. The cause of all things is the direction towards which energy flows.
Lactase production is not easily lost when lactose is given steadily from early childhood. Often, lactase production can be rehabilitated by re-establishing a healthy microbiome, decreasing gut inflammation, and gradually reintroducing lactose. There are unique benefits to consuming lactose, much of which are outlined in my article The Forgotten History of Parathyroid Tetany. Lactose shifts the microbiome to carbohydrate-fermenting bacteria that outcompete protein fermenters that would create toxic putrefaction products. These beneficial bacteria also prevent the absorption of phosphate, the oversupply of which is a major cause of aging and disease. Milk itself has a high calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, thereby compounding this beneficial effect. Haley, from the case study on parathyroid tetany, has completely resolved tetany by switching from lactose-free to lactose-containing milk. And for those yet to tolerate lactose, the fermentation of dairy into yogurt both decreases lactose and forms colonies of the same beneficial bacteria, lactobacillus and bifidobacterium, that would otherwise form in the gut from lactose feeding. Eating these bacteria directly has much of the same benefit as consuming lactose.
Milk allows humans to acquire the most important animal nutrients while preserving the most animal life as possible. Milk supplies the necessary nutrients that a plant-only diet lacks, b12, retinol, and k2, as well as more available forms of b6 and zinc. The necessary beef that should only be a consequence of dairy production supplies absorbable iron that milk is relatively deficient in.
Proponents of an “artificial” diet fortified with supplemental nutrients overestimate our knowledge of nutrition. Ancestral diets that make use of both plants and animals offer a time-tested guarantee of adequacy. This heuristic model can be further shaped by modern nutritional knowledge but should not be superseded by it. Milk is a favored ancestral food amongst most cultures and the cow has historically been venerated for its resourcefulness, with even the Hindu cosmology showing the birth of the universe atop an ocean of milk. Milk is liquid light, and those who drink it become luminous like the sun.