Chapter 39: Milk, Mathematics and Magazines
I was watching the News on TV last night and it appears that Chinese interests have bought (at least one) dairy in Victoria and have approached Council for approval to construct a shed to house 1,000 dairy cows to produce 10,000 litres of milk a day to export fresh to China. This is in the middle of a traditional dairy country with ‘rolling green paddocks as far as the eye can see’. The pictures of the type of shed showed that the cows stood in pens or ‘crates’ just large enough to hold each of them and ate hay placed outside the bars. The question behind this news segment was ‘do we want this type of development’ in Australia?
The contrast between the traditional grazing herds and the ‘imprisoned’ shedded herd was extreme. Why would someone want to use such a system, and the answer is, of course, to make money, but what of cruelty and quality of life to the animals, how good is the product that is produced, also, ultimately, should we be drinking milk at all?
Our genes are set for the hunter/gatherer era of 10,000 years ago and that is the body’s reality, but our modern reality is far different and this difference produces many problems that need to be answered to align these different realities. Epigenetics is presumably doing what it can, but modern diseases are showing that we are running into severe problems. In other words, we need to understand and choose our course of action and not be led by marketeers into buying things that may be harmful to us or to our longevity.
I am going to use the Mathematics of the Mind to look at this problem, which is basically a problem of self-interest of those involved and also as an example of how the mathematics should be used. Firstly, The Mathematics of the Mind is a general mathematics of concepts and the way that it was derived was by using an operator that I called Truth to ‘pull’ the appropriate ‘bits’ out of the indeterminate, and, to make sure that only the Truth was used, I used the logic of the Half-truth.
Truth is a measurement, and due to the logic of entanglement, which is a requirement of probability space (in which we probably exist), forces our view of the world to become determinant so that we can ‘see/sense’ the things in our field of view. However, the Mathematics of the Mind is a general mathematics, and as such must be iterative and more accurate as more factors are considered, but it can be seen that it needs Truth as a requirement, and this is what makes it so valuable in problems such as in this example. The aim of the mathematics is truth, not a solution, because there is no way that a decision can be made between the biased parts unless a method is defined, such at a 50:50 vote, or 75:25 vote. To reiterate, our aim is to clarify the situation so that a decision can be made and the more factors considered, the ‘better’ the solution that can be made. Truth is the underlying operator and every relationship must be visible and examinable.
So, back to the beginning to see why a company would want to use such an unusual system to obtain milk. ‘Industrial farming operations have largely replaced small farms, and the “pasture spring” and “little calf
… standing by the mother” that Robert Frost saw on his family farm a century ago are lost artefacts – relics of an obsolete way of life. In the decades since 1950, American farming has undergone a major transformation, and mom-and-pop farms are mostly gone – either acquired by large corporate operations or plowed under for new housing subdivisions. For instance, between 1954 and 2007,even as demand for dairy increased by 40 percent, the number of US dairy farms plummeted from 2.9 million to 65,000… today, 99 percent of the farm animals raised in the United States live in steel and concrete factories with no resemblance to a traditional farm.’ (Meatonomics, David Robinson Simon, p xxi)
We have to arrange these attractors or concepts so that we can judge them, but Truth (or God) requires that ALL relative attractors be considered. This latter requirement is fundamental to the Mathematics of the Mind, and it can be seen that the usual methods of decision-making pay ‘lip service’ to this requirement where the decision is taken between ‘interested’ parties, and as we have seen, interested parties should/must not have a vote. In other words, what I am saying is not much different to negotiations, but there are CRUCIAL differences that are fundamental and must be changed if the social sciences are to become a science. These precepts are the fundamentals of the mathematics that drive the social sciences.
Let us list some of the attractors, bearing in mind that there will be some that we miss, some more important than others and of course, who and how will the decision be made. That last point is inherent in the chapters on Eusociology and more will be considered later.
Australia has a reputation for producing ‘clean’ and healthy food because it is a developed law-abiding society and to allow the ‘modern’ developments of shedded milking cows, as described above, is a threat to our reputation. The Chinese are trying to use the lowest cost method and may be trading off our reputation, whether that is intentional or not. Should they be allowed to export, from a country with a high reputation something that will be shown to be, more than possibly, a very inferior product that would command a superior price if marketed as a Product of Australia?
What is the difference between the traditional method of grazing and shedded grazing. The cow is an animal that has had a long history and is not much different to us, but it has specialized as a grazing animal, and we have changed it (slightly) by genetic selection. Its brain is similar to ours because the brain has been a component for hundreds of millions of years and contains the 5 traditional senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste) as well as balance and the seventh sense that changes the thinking process of the brain as the food supply changes and the eighth sense that seeks out food that contains needed compounds. The ninth sense is consciousness that produces choice/creativity. These senses are in our mind/brains and allow us to function in a changing world. We have needed these senses, otherwise they would have atrophied over time, to produce ‘normal/able-to-compete’ offspring. Shedded cows lose this ability and the milk becomes ‘deficient’ to some unknown extent because they have to eat what they are given.
Apparently it is more efficient to bale hay and transport it to shedded cows and feed them there so that they don’t use energy walking around grazing and so use this energy to produce more ‘milk’. I say ‘milk’ because the shedded cow has to eat what it is given, which negates the senses that our mind/brain has evolved since the Cambrian and is not what nature intended. If ‘mixed’ good quality pasture was used, there might be a chance that the cow would be adequately fed to produce top quality milk, but I doubt that ‘natural’ pasture exists. I have made the point that ‘milk’ will be exported as milk at the premium price that safe, clean Australian milk commands.
The question then becomes ‘is milk a real food for humans?’. ‘A study of elderly Australians found that those who consumed the most dairy had twice the risk of hip fracture compared to those who consumed the least.’ (p 195) ‘There are two reasons why consuming dairy can lead to problems with bone density like osteoporosis. First, dairy’s acidic pH causes the body to release calcium (an alkali) from bone to counter the acid’s effect and restore healthy pH. Second, high levels of calcium consumption over long periods of time impair the body’s ability to regulate production of the hormone calcitriol, which controls calcium absorption and excretion. Inappropriate calcitriol production can lead to excessive release of bone cells and reduction in bone mineral density.’ (p 195)
‘Doctor Benjamin Spock wrote the bestselling book Baby and Child Care and, a decade after his death, remains one of the most influential pediatricians on the planet. Spock staunchly opposed feeding cow’s milk or other animal foods to children of any age…. dairy products: Nondairy milk, particularly soy milk has real advantages over cow’s milk and other dairy products. These products are free of animal fat, animal protein, and lactose sugar, while still providing excellent nutrition.’ (p 197)
‘Because natural selection among prey animals like cattle favors those whose young grow quickly, bovine infant formula, or cow’s milk, has triple the protein content of human’s milk. This high protein content helps calves gain 2 pounds a day during the first nine months of their lives. It also helps human children who drink lots of cow’s milk grow faster than those who drink less. This rapid pace of growth might appeal to parents who associate fast growth with good health. However, clinical studies question this need for speed, finding that children who grow quickly are more likely than others to develop cancer later in life.’ (p 193)
These negative paragraphs show that milk is not very suitable as a food, and in fact it could be called a ‘convenience’ food along with meat. In the era of no refrigeration, herds of animals were a means of preserving food in the form of meat and milk as well as using marginal land that was not suitable for hunter/gathering. Hunter/gathering was the means of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of years as it is shown that ‘modern research suggests that people seeking to improve bone density should exercise more and eat plant-based calcium sources like kale and spinach (a plan that seems to work for herbivores like horses and elephants).’ (p 196) It would seem that this is our ‘natural’ food.
Given that milk and meat do not provide antioxidants and other phytochemicals, they must be considered as a second-class food and a ‘convenience’ food, even if we have been eating them for so long that about one third of the world’s population has evolved adults able to drink cow/goat/sheep’s milk. A clarification might be in order here, in that phytochemicals are used by the body for longevity, whereas milk is designed for growth and protection in the early years of life, and so lifelong use of milk makes it a second-class food, as well as the problems associated with children drinking it.
This idea of ‘convenience’ food can be extended to include all of the selected fruits and vegetables that have been genetically modified over the last ten thousand years. They have been selected to be larger etc. and contain less phytochemicals through size and the use of pesticides etc., contain more sugars for taste etc.
The third class of modern food could be called ‘fast’ food and I would characterize it as containing the three food groups that are difficult to find in the wild and we are (somewhat) ‘addicted to them. They are salt, fats and carbohydrates/sugars and are added to processed foods for a number of reasons that are generally not in the consumers’ best (health) interests. This labelling, if somewhat crude, allows insight into the role that meat and milk play in human evolution. Whilst there is not a lot wrong with a little grass-fed meat in the diet, the current feed-lotting and feeding corn to fatten-up animals changes the fats from omega-3 to omega-6, and that imbalance may lead to depression as seen in chapter 48: Depression, Fish-stocks, Fatty Acids and Anti Aging.
This indicates similar forces at work in shedded dairy cows, and as mentioned above, the quest for money changes the lives of animals and the results affect us in our diet, usually for the worse.
Conclusion: the purpose of the Mathematics of the Mind is to ‘lay-out’ the relevant concepts without bias so that a decision can be made. Taking into account the animals’ suffering, the fact that milk is a ‘convenience’ food that should be consumed with caution, but is a major player in Australia’s reputation for clean and ‘real’ food that is produced in an ‘acceptable’ manner for all concerned, should this modern approach be allowed here?
I, personally, believe that, for the reasons above, feed-lots of all descriptions should be banned because they produce ‘hidden’ perversions into our food supply. The decision should be the consumers’ as to whether they purchase and eat these products, but that decision requires knowledge/ determination/reading. Two thirds of the population is overweight/obese and clearly this very significant proportion is costing the country dearly for their choice because of the associated medical problems.
Prediction: the Mathematics of the Mind requires a prediction because it is iterative and changes as more concepts are brought in, so continuing the paragraph above, the overweight/obese are not only raising medical costs to the community, they are ‘skewing/corrupting’ our evolution. The future resides in Survival of the Best and women’s’ choice of mate is crucial as outlined in the chapters on Eusociality, and knowledge/ determination/reading is one of the selectors, so a ‘rough’ guide to a woman’s choice is that the male be within the average of the Body Mass Index.
Overweight/obese people are not eating/exercising ‘properly’ and they feed/exercise their children in the same way so modern diseases increase in the community and in the light of this chapter, the magazines that cater for women must be considered as ‘dumbing down’ their readers. I appreciate that the magazines do not want to aggravate/alienate practically every sector of production, but clearly they have a duty to inform consumers properly and should devote a couple of pages to these real/undumbed issues.
darrylpenney 