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I'm from Europe, the culture is I bet a bit different but the laws of economics still apply. If a farmer can produce the same product in larger volumes and cheaper, it will have an advantage over the competition and start taking a bigger share of the market.

The competition will catch up, etc. it's the same thing. But there is this very powerful marketing message that these things only happen in the US, which is not at all true.

It's all these pictures of happy cows and farmers at the supermarket, that create an unrealistic perception of how animals are raised.

I think you are right, unless factory farms are simply forbidden they will continue to exist for the sheer force of economics.

But do most people actually even know what the numbers on those eggs even mean? http://www.krakowpost.com/9096/2015/04/healthy-living-what-d...

It seems like it's just not very effective, most people are looking for the cheapest alternatives as one would expect - https://polandin.com/36653246/consumption-of-ethical-eggs-st...

There just aren't enough pastures to raise enough cows that way to meet demand. Otherwise, it would have been done already, its much cheaper to let cows roam around eating free food, instead of having to pay for it.

The reason why factory farms exist is to meet the increasing demand. Farmers have every economic incentive to try to raise the animals in the cheapest way possible.

Still the cow is a prisioner, it has its childs taken away at birth and shot and gets impregnated immediately after, to keep producing more milk.

If the cow stops producing as much milk, it gets shot as well. Even if the cows lived a live chilling in the fields, all of this would still happen.

it's possible to bake some very tasty cakes without milk, but it involves trying new recipes and techniques.

Just checked. Apparently, one 5th of the EU budget goes to support livestock - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/12/nearly-a...

A lot of it under the form of crop subsidies:

> This land, and other targeted subsidies for livestock, is worth between €28-€32bn (£24-£27.9bn) in CAP direct payments per year for the animal farming sector, 18-20% of the EU’s total budget.

That seems like pretty heavy subsidizing to me, although in the US I have the impression that things are worse.

I think a lot of the europeans perception of the livestock industry comes from advertising, all those pictures on the supermarket of happy farmers next to happy cows and pigs, I think that's where a lot of it comes from.

Here is a source: https://www.globalagriculture.org/report-topics/meat-and-ani...

> Livestock is the world's largest user of land resources, with pasture and arable land dedicated to the production of feed representing almost 80% of the total agricultural land. One-third of global arable land is used to grow feed, while 26% of the Earth's ice-free terrestrial surface is used for grazing.

There is this illusion in european countries that factory farming is a thing of the US, when in fact for example in Ireland factory farming it exists too - https://beyondthepaleireland.com/2017/07/28/factory-farms-on...

And it couldn't be any other way, its economics. If one farmer starts feeding the animals with cheaper food and have better milk yielding cows, he would have a competitive advantage over other farmers, and start taking over a larger part of the market.

When I saw your post I thought it would a Mom and Pa farm down the road with 5 cows, but this actually looks like a small (to medium?) size factory farm to me, well marketed.

Those huge structures are I imagine grain silos to store feed -https://www.google.com/search?q=de+backer+family+dairy&rlz=1...:

How many cows do they have? Apparently farms with more than 100 cows make up just 0.3 percent of the total dairy farm population.

You can clearly see that it's a factory-like installation. Are all those people part of the family or full-time employees? I bet several are employees.

At least it does not come from across the world it's local so less impactful.

> use to make the richest ice cream that you’ll ever taste.

The other day I tried one of those plant-based Magnum ice creams, I couldn't tell the difference and actually liked it more.

> irresponsible production of plant based food (soil erosion, destruction of entire ecosystems and replacing them with plant fields

In most cases, this is actually done to create feed crops like soy and corn. Most of the agricultural fields in the world are used to feed animals either used for slaughter or for dairy and not to feed people directly.

Feeding the same amount of people directly instead of feeding animals and then eating them could be done with a fraction of the agricultural resources.

Dairy production is actually one of the most environmentally impactful things that we do, if we want to go that route.

Yes, you're right its fat and protein, I meant to say that it looks like melting fat.

And what about relative amounts? I would expect it to be more concentrated in cow's milk than in plants. It's usually the dosis that makes the poison so it would be interesting to know the amounts and its effects in humans.

I have a hard time thinking that wheat and barley are that addictive, cheese however I can see it as being quite addictive.

> I regularly order locally-produced milk from very small scale farmers

Not a specialist here, but I think I'm generally well informed and just trying to use some common sense. You probably pay a bit more for that milk than at the supermarket, right?

Most people in your country don't do what you do, they buy it at the supermarket. The dairy products at the supermarket simply don't come from those farms.

Do you think it would be possible for everyone in your city to consume milk that way?

Would there be enough farms to produce enough dairy that way at a reasonable price that most people would be ready to pay? I'm going to guess that probably not that would not be sustainable.

Still, in the end, the economic incentives for that farmer to produce more milk are the same. The farmer would be incentivized to use better milk yielding cows, get rid of the males, feed the cheapest possible food to the animals.

I don't think you need fortified milk either, but if you are worried about it you can take it, that's what I meant.

There is no indication of lack of calcium in vegetarians or vegans, many studies have shown it.

Most likely, its your expectation of how much calcium is actually needed and how essential dairy is that has been shapped through years of advertising and missinformation.

Actually, its the opposite vegetarians and vegans have usually stronger bones. Dairy has been actually linked to more bone fractures in general - https://nutritionfacts.org/2017/01/31/why-is-milk-consumptio...

Eat a balanced whole food plant-based diet and you will be absolutely fine and actually much healthier in general than with a standard diet.

> There exists whole industry of keeping cows and producing diary in humane way.

These are usually market gimmicks. They say a cow is pastured raised if they leave it out an hour a day, grass-fed if it gets fed half the diet in grass the other in grains, etc.

The costs of raising cattle and producing dairy in that way would simply not allow to meet the demand and it will never happen. Factory farms are the reality of what it takes to produce dairy for so many people.

Ultimately, in the end the result the animal dies a horrible death after having lived often a horrible live, so there is nothing humane about that.

There is this common internet illusion that these things only happen in the US. It's a myth, of course, it absolutely happens in Europe too and everywhere in the western world.

How could it not, its economics and its a business. The goal is to produce the maximum amount of dairy at the lowest possible price, to fulfill an ever-increasing demand.

Maybe the agricultural factories are usually not of the same size as in the US, but the techniques and the consequences are the same.

Still the majority of the world population is lactose intolerant and should not be consuming dairy at all.

The ones that can digest it, do it usually less well than they think they do. Mild chronic diarrhea is prevalent is western countries, and a degree of dairy intolerance could very well be one of the factors.

It gets worse for most people with age, as elderly people can become lactose intolerant, fully or only slightly. This does not happen overnight, its a progressive thing, many people gradually stop being able to properly digest dairy.

The point was that drinking milk is something humans have only very recently in our evolutionary history have adapted to doing, so we are still adapting and a lot of us can't do it very well at all.

At least, a lot of us do it a lot worst than we realize, and there are a ton of people with recurring mild digestive issues which should not be consuming dairy daily at all, but keep doing do due to the public perception that its a healthy thing to do when in fact it's not.

You don't have to that at all, of course. First of all, nobody really knows how much calcium you really need per day, all those estimates are ballpark estimates at best.

The estimates of 1000mg or more have been pushed for decades by the dairy industry.

You can get calcium from greens like kale etc. eat a bit of brocolli, eat pulses like beans and lentils, use tahini as a sauce, drink fortified plant-milk.

Just eat a well-balanced plant-based diet and you will be absolutely fine. Studies show that plant-based diets don't cause brittle bones at all on the contrary.

You can get all the nutrients that you need, calcium included from a plant-based diet. The only thing you need to supplement is B12, which is produced by bacterias in the dust.

And as everything is so clean, we don't eat a lot of dirt anymore so that its advised to supplement. Animals don't have it too on factory farms, they get injected with it together with the anti-biotics for health reasons.

So might as well take it directly, otherwise calcium is not an issue at all in a plant-based diet and this can and it has been easily shown.

Edit: Check this YouTube playlist on bone health for more info - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5TLzNi5fYd_ACcY8TDQC...

Dairy actually has hormones called caso-morphines that bind to the same brain receptors as I believe heroine (of course not as potent).

So it's addictive in nature, this addition is probably meant to keep the calf close to the mother and away from harm.

But the addiction can be easily broken and after a while you start finding cheese actually a bit gross because its essentially solid melting fat.

As far as I know for people looking to eat in a less environmentally impactful way, eating only pork, chicken and eggs and removing the dairy and beef is great already.

One thing implies the other, as it's impossible to produce enough dairy for so many people using the methods you mention, that is why most dairy people consume comes from factory farms in the first place.

Dairy price would sky-rocket and become a luxury item, and few people would be able to afford it several times a day every day, as its so common today.

The point was that its actually a very unnatural thing to be doing, and that we only evolved very recently to be able to even do it.

Also, there is a whole spectrum to it. You don't have to be 100% medically diagnosed as lactose intolerant, it might cause you ocasional digestive issues without you even know it.

Like those unexplained, once a month or once every 3 months diarrheas that many of us take as a fact of life, it's actually not normal and might very well be dairy that is causing it for a lot of people.

Hehehe You can do it with plant-based milk too, don't worry.

For babies, not for adults. Adult animals in most species can't even drink milk, they can't digest it anymore past infancy.

Biologically this means that the infant would release the mother so that they could have another child, so there is biological adaption on most species to not drink milk past a certain age.

And we have it too via lactose intolerance, which is normal.

However, some relatively small percentage of humans developed the ability to drink milk around 10k years ago in Turkey, but it's not perfect. It gets worse with age as one would expect.

Human babies shouldn't drink cow's milk, it's completely unnecessary and there are questions about it's effect on long-term human health.

Calcium can be easily obtained from plant foods without any problem as well, and in a better form better managed by the human body - https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/calcium/

> "A meta-analysis of cow’s milk intake and hip fracture studies showed no significant protection"

> "milk may sometimes increase bone and hip fracture rates"

Milk and all it's derived products have lactose, so they should be avoided by people that can't digest them properly, which includes, for example, most African Americans and Native Americans among many others.

It's a gradual thing that gets worse with age, you become more and more lactose intolerant. If you find yourself having frequent diarrheas say once a month or so, consider cutting on dairy and see if it improves, you might be slightly lactose intolerant without realizing it.

This is large scale Matrix-like exploitation at its finest like only humans can do.

Copying the genes of a single animal hundreds of thousands of times, killing the males at birth, plugging the females to a milking machine, feed them corn and soy which is totally not their natural diet and injecting them with tons of antibiotics, hormones and god knows what else.

I wonder what could possibly go wrong? All completely unnecessary and with a tremendous environmental impact.

I hope that the 2020 updated new dietary guidelines will reflect the fact that dairy is completely optional for a healthy diet even for infants, and even not recommended for most non-caucasians as they are usually lactose intolerant.

Turned it on just now, thanks for sharing I didn't know that existed.

Strange, nowhere in the article does it say how did they know that the views where inflated by 150 to 900%. How did they even know, without Facebook admitting it?

I don't think they did, because even if they settled for 40M they say the process is without merit. Where does that information come from?

Pretty true. For example, some of the worst applications I have ever used are by far timesheet applications.

It's a product with a completely captive audience, that cannot go to the competition. If you don't fill your timesheet, you don't get paid its that simple.

Typically these are either built-in house, or are an expensive third party product with terrible usability, bought by managers who might not even have to use it.

If an application's audience is captive which is by definition the case of most enterprise applications, there is no incentive to care about user experience, unlike public internet applications.

You mean B12? This is produced by bacteria in the dust. It gets injected to animals in factory farms, that's why they have it in that environment. We can also take the supplement directly.