Cow's Milk--Good or Bad?

    Today Hubby and I were out having fish and chips at the nearby mall when I noticed a little media frenzy outside the establishment.  Being me,  I just had to go and and see what all the fuss was about.  I was expecting to see a local dignitary or some hiphop boys spinning on their heads.  Instead, there was this sedate little group of happy families with small children holding up big signs.  A closer look showed that their cause was a woman's right to breastfeed in public.


    They had handmade signs that promoted breastfeeding and the ladies were demonstrating their enthusiasm by doing just that in public.  The babies weren't cooperating, though; they didn't appear to be very hungry.  (You can show the baby a breast, but you cannot make him drink.)  The husbands were highly supportive, however, proudly looking on as their wives breastfed, or tried to, right there in the middle of the mall.  They all appeared to be Chinese, by the way.  I suspect that Muslim mothers wouldn't even consider that, though I don't know for certain.
  

   The signs they were holding were the most interesting part for me.  One said, "I don't want to eat in the toilet.  Do you?"  (I guess that's where mothers have to go now in order to breastfeed.)  Another read, "Breastfeeding is not obscene!!!"   And there was a third, all in Chinese kanji except for the word "baby,"  that apparently said something like this:


    Baby cows should eat cow's milk,
    Baby people should eat people milk.


     And those folks were definitely putting their money where their babies' mouths were.  


     Oddly enough, this is the second time in 24 hours that I've heard references to cow's milk not being good for people.  Yesterday I chatted at length with a fellow who was discussing calcium.  He said, "Look around this big room.  Do you see any baby cows?"  Duh!  Of course I said, "No."  And then he said, "No calves here, and yet lots of people in this room drink milk to stave off osteoporosis.  They don't know that taking in too much calcium by way of cow's milk may actually cause osteoporosis rather than prevent it."  (You could google it if you wanted more info on that.)  


    Considering that chocolate milk is probably my favorite beverage of all time, I was sad to hear such news!   Well, I guess I've milked this subject for all it's worth, so it's time to mooove on!