Do you know:-
- what’s common between you, a deep ocean whale, and a bat hanging in some dark cave?
- something that’s common between a mouse and an Elephant?
- something that came before we speak or even think?
Yes, it’s The Milk (Well…. kind of obvious after these pics and the title)
It looks normal, but just think about it. How strange and amazing this thing is.
It’s like nature’s welcome gift to every newborn.
Something we don’t have to ask for, work for, or even chew.
Just there. Waiting.
How did this scenery change?
But then you look around… and the scene feels completely different.
Milk, something that’s been a quiet, sacred bond between mother and her child for over 200 million years, is now just a product.
Boxed. Branded. Shipped. Sold.
Lined up on shelves under bright white lights. Something that we can measure in litres.
It’s everywhere now. In your coffee. Your cereal. Your protein shake. Your dessert. It’s not a bond anymore. It’s just… an ingredient.
Don’t you wonder: — When did that happen?
When did something so personal become just another thing to buy?
To really answer that question… we have to stop looking at milk like it’s just a product.
Because as long as we see it only as something we buy, we’ll never understand how it got here, from a symbol of love to a thing with a price tag.
Maybe the best way to begin… is to go back. To where it all started. To where milk itself came from.
A Brilliant Invention
The thing is… we’ve gotten so used to the milk that there must be a time when nature invented it. We forget it must have a story as well. A purpose. An evolution.
Sharing is not always caring
We rarely stop to ask, Why Milk?
After all, sharing food seems easier, right?
Why didn’t nature just design mothers to pass their food directly to their babies? Why go through the trouble of producing milk?
To see the problem with that, let’s picture a one-day-old lion cub trying to nibble on a fresh deer with the rest of the pride.
What problems might it face?
Looks like there are many:-
- First of all, a tasty meal may not always be available; it is a jungle, not a restaurant.
- And even if it is, chewing and digesting a deer is not a child’s game.
- Plus, no single meal can provide all the nutrition that a child needs.
- And what if deer have some harmful bacteria in them?
Relying on outside food is risky, especially when you’ve just come into the world and can barely open your eyes.
You’re too small. Too slow. Too soft.
You don’t know what’s safe.
You can’t chew. You can’t hunt.
You can’t even ask for what you need.
So nature had to come up with something better. Something safer. More reliable. More personal.
And it did.
An excellent invention
If a mother’s body can grow an entire baby from… why not grow the baby’s food too?
That’s what evolution did. It came up with exactly what was needed:
The Milk.
But, for this to work, the system had to be really smart, not just emotionally beautiful, but biologically precise.
It had to get two things exactly right:
- The milk had to match the baby’s exact nutritional needs.
- It had to arrive at just the right time, in just the right amount.
And, of course… nature nailed it.
Nutritional Needs
Think about this. Not all milk is the same. Every species makes milk tailored to its babies.
Human milk? Packed with sugars and fats to feed the developing brain.
Elephant milk? Loaded with protein to help those giant calves grow strong, fast.
Each one is like a custom-made formula, designed specifically for the Nutritional needs of the infant.
Isn’t it brilliant?
Timing and quantity of milk secretion
And just like the nutrients, the timing and amount of milk are no accident either. They’re tuned, almost perfectly, to what the baby needs.
Take elephants, for example. Their calves take longer to grow up, so they need milk for a much longer time.
Lions, on the other hand, grow up faster, so their mothers stop producing milk sooner.
The same goes for quantity. Bigger babies need more. Smaller ones need less.
Nature figures it all out. Quietly. Precisely. No measuring cups. No nutrition charts. Just that sharp Evolutionary knife that scales everything precisely for the survival of the fittest.
The Purpose of Milk
So, nature came up with a brilliant solution to a real problem.
And after everything we’ve looked at, some things become pretty clear:-
- Only a Mother secretes milk, not all female mammals.
- She produces it for her child only, not for anyone else.
- And that too, for some specific period and a limited quantity per her infant’s needs, not her whole life.
- And it would be Suitable for the nutritional requirements of her child, not for some other species, of course.
This conclusion is evident in the definition of milk itself.
So, Where Did All Of It Come from?
At the cost of repeating, I want to highlight the conclusion we have reached so far:-
Milk is made for babies. In a certain amount. For a certain time.
But then you look around and there’s milk everywhere. Supermarkets, advertisements, protein shakes, dessert recipes, breakfast tables.
Nearly 6 billion people consume it, not just as children, but for their entire lives.
And that leaves only one question:
How???
How are we producing so much milk when nature never designed it to be available like this?
We don’t need the answers from someone else here. We all know that milk is a business. And we all know how a business works.
So let’s imagine having a conversation with Mr. B.
Mr. B runs the dairy business. Someone whose only goal is to keep the milk flowing and keep the profits growing.
Since it is only in our imagination, we can assume Mr. B is being honest in this talk and not trying to hide anything.
We’ll use the cow as an example. And I’ll throw in a few real-world facts along the way.
So, let’s start the questioning:-
Sorry, Breastfeeding Is Not Allowed Here.
First of all, Mr. B, how do you get the milk at all?
Wouldn’t the baby drink all the milk?
Yes, it would. But why would we let that happen?
We separate the baby from its mother within the first 24 hours.
What, within 24 hours??
Of course. Why wait?
That early milk is the most precious; it’s what we call liquid gold. It sells for much more than regular milk.
Mother’s milk is quite different from the usual for the first few days. It is essential for the child. This milk is what people call ‘liquid gold’ or Colostrum.
Sometimes, separating them so early affects the cow’s milk supply. But don’t worry, we’ve found workarounds.
Are We Really Smarter Than A Mother?
What kind of workarounds?
Using our “intelligence,” we know what types of hormones are released in a cow when it has a calf nearby, and once we know it, we don’t need that calf. We can just inject that hormone into it.
Brilliant. Isn’t it?
But still, sometimes cows just try to oversmart us. She won’t just give milk until her baby is around. She thinks only her child has a right to it.
But don’t worry. We have figured out a way for that as well. We use “khaal baccha” to fool the cow.
Sorry, what?
Yeah, “khaal baccha”. A ‘skin baby’.
It is a practice where a dead calf’s skin is stuffed with hay or sawdust and kept in front of a cow.
And using this technique, we succeeded in making her believe that it was her child who was drinking the milk, not us.
What? How cruel you can be?
How much of a fool can you be?
Did you expect that a mother would happily sacrifice their milk for you?
Hey Baby. I’m Sucking Here. You Suck At Some Other Place.
But how do you raise baby calves then? Don’t you need milk to raise them?
Yes, we do need to raise calves. But we can’t “waste” Milk on them. After all, milk is a highly valued product.
We just use cheaper milk replacers.
This ensures that the final product reaches the ultimate customer who can afford its price. Poor calves can’t afford it.
They are just a “part of the process.” They should be fed at the least cost.
Of course, with these milk replacers, baby calves don’t grow strong. But they grow. And that’s good enough for us. We can use them in future milk production.
Sorry, It’s a Boy.
I can understand why you raise female calves.
But what about the males? They’re not going to produce milk.
No… we don’t raise them. They won’t lactate. They’re not useful to us. We only need a few, just enough to maintain reproduction.
The rest are just… by-products.
But don’t worry, there’s a market for them too. We sell them to butchers. They get scrapped, used, and processed.
Nothing goes to “waste” here. After all, it’s a business.
What????
Why so surprised? Didn’t I already tell you about the ‘skin baby’? Where do you think that skin came from?
Also, haven’t you ever wondered why only a few bulls are there compared to cows?
Do you think we are in a charity business here? After all, raising a male calf is a very costly affair.
I’d never thought of it like that.
I know.
A Life of Constant Pregnancy.
But lactating would stop after some time. How do you keep producing milk continuously?
Simple, once they stop producing milk, we inseminate them again.
And guess what? We no longer need to rely on the natural mating process. We do it artificially now.
We extract semen from bulls and implant it in cows, causing them both “some pain”.
But who cares? After all, pain isn’t a cost for us to bear.
Do you keep repeating this cycle… again and again, throughout the cow’s life?
Of course.
But the constant pregnancies and the nonstop milk extraction break them. Their bodies wear down very fast.
Even though they’re meant to live 20 years, most don’t last beyond four or five.
Still, it works out for us.
Because keeping an “ideal” cow alive, one that isn’t producing, just sitting there, eating food? That’s not a luxury we can afford.
It’s obvious that overusing and quickly replacing them is more profitable.
I’m scared to ask this, but… what do you do with them once they’re of no use?
That one’s not too hard to guess.
We sell her. To the same butcher where all her sons went.
And if, for some reason, the law doesn’t allow it, then we leave them out on the streets. Let them die of hunger. Or from eating plastic.
Either way, it saves us the cost.
Hey, God. Extra Large Udders Please.
Even after all this… I still don’t understand how you meet such an enormous demand.
Milk was meant for babies. How can there possibly be enough of it for almost all of humanity?
Oh, we don’t wait for nature to do the work. Our strategy begins before the cows are even born.
We selectively breed cows with unnaturally large udders, designed to produce far more milk than their bodies were ever meant to.
With our technology, we’ve managed to create cows that produce more milk than an elephant.
Of course, it causes them pain. Udder infections. Trouble walking. Spine issues.
But until they fulfil their final purpose, until they give us enough milk, we don’t really care.
Everything Is On the Menu Here.
This is… gross. How can you treat a living being like a machine, just to produce milk?
It’s a business, man. Milk is in demand. People are ready to pay for it. There’s a huge market out there.
And markets don’t run on soft hands. They run on cut-throat competition.
You treat milk as a product that you can consume.
We treat the producers as machines that we can use.
Nothing complex.
You are the reason behind this pain. This blood.
The reason behind the redness in milk… is YOU.
But I never asked for this violence.
It doesn’t matter what you’re asking for.
The only thing that matters is what you’re ready to pay for.
If enough people are ready to pay for human blood, then there will be an industry for that, too. We’ll go as far as the law allows.
And when the demand grows big enough… We will also change the laws.
But here’s the thing:
Once you start seeing milk for what it truly is, a natural gift from a mother to her child, do you really think any of this madness could continue?
So honestly, the question doesn’t fall on us. It falls on you.