This is Why You’re Probably Drinking Pus
You’re drinking pus.
That is, of course, only if you’re drinking milk.
Or consuming any other dairy products.
Mastitis
According to the USDA, 1 in 6 dairy cows in the United States suffers from clinical mastitis.
The Mayo clinic defines mastitis as, “an inflammation of breast tissue that sometimes involves an infection.”
It might sound strange to hear cows and “breast tissue” mentioned in the same piece of writing…but when we consider that cows must be pregnant and have a baby to produce milk, and their bodies produce milk in order to feed their babies, a cow’s udder really is analogous to human “breast tissue.”
Cow’s milk is meant for “breast feeding” their baby calves.
Just like human women who are nursing can develop mastitis, so can female cows who are “nursing,” or rather, being milked.
An industrial milking operation. Credit: We Animals Media
When humans don’t take her baby away, a mother cow only produces enough milk to feed her baby. Which amounts to about 1 gallon of milk per day.
But according to the Humane League, “through selective breeding and the use of artificial hormones, modern dairy farming practices have drastically increased average milk production to 7.5 gallons per day.”
A 750% increase in milk production from what would naturally occur.
That’s a lot of stress on a cow’s body. Combined with unsanitary conditions, which include living in waste, dairy farms can be a breeding ground for infection.
A dairy cow wading through a “sea” of poop. According to undercover investigations, poop was observed as deep as 3 feet “where cows were made to stand, eat, walk, and try to rest,” at this particular dairy farm in North Carolina. Credit: PETA
Which makes sense why 1 in 6 cows in the US suffer from clinical mastitis.
Pus
When a cow is infected with mastitis, somatic cells are secreted into her milk.
A cow suffering from mastitis. Credit: Vet Times
According to Nutrition Facts, greater than 90% of the somatic cells in a cow’s milk that is infected with mastitis are neutrophils, the inflammatory immune cells that form pus.
The average somatic cell count in U.S. milk per spoonful is 1,120,000.
90% of 1,120,000 is 1,008,000 pus cells in a spoonful.
So in a single spoonful of milk, there are over 1 million pus cells. On average.
This wasn’t a survey of milk produced by only cows infected with mastitis. This was a survey of all milk produced in the US.
Even if only 1 in 6 cows suffer from mastitis, the milk from thousands of different cows are combined in the industrial process. One cow with mastitis can infect an entire batch. There’s pus in all commercially produced milk.
So on average, in every spoonful of milk in America, there are 1 million pus cells.
That means in an 8oz glass of milk, there are about 16 million pus cells.
We’re literally drinking pus.
Other Yummy Things in Milk
According to the CDC, milk can be infected in the following ways:
Germs from an animal’s poop can get in milk
Germs from an animal’s skin can get in milk
Germs in the environment (including the barn and milking equipment) can get in milk
The dairy animal’s udder can be infected (mastitis)
The dairy animal can have a disease (for example, bovine tuberculosis)
Insects, rodents, and other small animals can get in milk
Conditions in the milk processing plant can be unsanitary
Cross-contamination from dairy workers can happen—for example, through contact with dirty clothing or boots
So pus, poop, small animals, rodents, insects, and general bacteria/viruses can all get into our milk.
And yes, the milk is pasteurized. But that doesn't remove the contamination. It just cooks it.
So we’re drinking cooked pus, poop, small animals, rodents, insects, and bacteria/viruses.
Yum!
What About Cheese?
Dr. Alan Goldhammer, founder and director of TrueNorth Health Center, author, distinguished speaker, and research scientist, says that we can think of cheese as “coagulated pus.”
According to Milkfacts.info, the cheese manufacturing process consists of the following steps:
Standardize Milk
Pasteurize/Heat Treat Milk
Cool Milk
Inoculate with Starter & Non-Starter Bacteria and Ripen
Add Rennet and Form Curd
Cut Curd and Heat
Drain Whey
Texture Curd
Dry Salt or Brine
Form Cheese into Blocks
Store and Age
Package
Cheese takes milk and concentrates it while adding salt and removing moisture. Everything - fat, saturated fat, salt, pus, poop - is concentrated.
Industrial cheese production. Milk from thousands of different cows are combined into one vat. Even if only 1 in 6 cows are infected with mastitis and secreting pus, their milk can infect an entire vat.
And yes, the milk is pasteurized. But this doesn’t remove the contamination. It just cooks it.
So when we’re eating cheese, we’re eating coagulated and cooked pus, poop, insects, bacteria, etc.
The Nature of Animal Products
Animal products come from a live animal.
Live animals poop and pee and get infections and diseases. They have fingernails and hair and scabs and bile and other gross body fluids.
The very nature of animal products and the system that produces them is prone to contaminating our food with gross stuff.
Plants, on the other hand, don’t have any of those things. Plants don’t poop. Plants don’t get mastitis. Plants don’t have fingernails. There’s nothing gross about plants.
Milk and cheese may seem normal to us because that’s most likely what we grew up eating. But when we take a step back and consider how they’re produced, it’s very clear how gross it is.
If given the choice, I’ll skip the pus and poop. I’ll just use soy milk in my morning latte 👍
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