Re:America's Biggest Milk Producers Are Going Bankrupt
by masonic on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @03:14AM
(#21978043)
production was threatened. So civilian demand was boosted.
Re:America's Biggest Milk Producers Are Going Bankrupt
by JumpCrisscross on Tuesday January 07, 2020 @03:40AM
(#21978157)
> When production is "threatened", artificially boosting demand would be the exactly wrong thing to do
There was wartime demand. Dairy farmers invested to meet it. War ends. Demand goes down. That capital must now be written off, re-purposed, or the demand re-started. We chose the last option.
Production as in productive capital or productive potential.
Infant mammals. Adults consuming the milk of another species is recent. (About 10,000 years in humans.)
We have mixed evidence for the benefits of milk. It was a rich source of calories when those were scarce. Today, it might promote obesity. And good advice for some is bad advice for others. For example, milk boosts iron at the expense of vitamin D; that makes it favorable for light-skinned people at high latitudes [1].
Milk's branding as a superfood essential for kids is a product of post-war propaganda [2]. (TL; DR The U.S. government boosted dairy demand to feed soldiers. After the war, that production was threatened. So civilian demand was boosted.)
[1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/e144
[2] https://dairymarkets.org/pubPod/pubs/EB9505.pdf