The commercials disgust me because they are nothing like the truth. Cows in California live their whole lives wallowing in shit. No grass. No singing. No ‘beauty competitions’. No competition with Wisconsin.

Don’t get me wrong- I’m sure cows in Wisconsin have sucky lives, too. But they don’t claim their cows are happy.

Anyone who lives in California, who has travelled the Central Valley, has seen exactly how cows are ‘raised’.

I’ve seen the websites of the lots and dairies on the internet, and I don’t know where they got their pictures from, because it is not the sight you will see from the freeway. They post fake pictures.

Anyone who has driven on the freeways in the Central Valley has seen, been exposed to, and smelled exactly how California Cows are raised. The smell stays in your car for miles. Imagine living in that shitsmell.

The truth of the matter is that there are a few small farms that allow cattle to roam and graze. On yellow, dry grass. Because the Central Valley is essentially a desert. But it doesn’t look good in commercials. And they don’t pack 1000’s of head of cattle on their foothill locations.

Although some pockets in California get a bit of rainfall, the majority of California shares it’s climate with that of Armenia and Egypt. It’s the perfect climate to grow dates, pomegranates and olives- all of which grow in a dry climate. There is a reason there is a huge Armenian base in California.

We do have rivers and lakes that we have sold the water rights to southern California, and to which we have subverted a bit. We use some of that water to grow crops that would never normally grow in California.

What we don’t do is subvert that water in order to water grassy fields in which to allow happy cows to roam.

The companies who have made those lying commercials should be sued, if for nothing more than ‘truth in advertising’ abuse.

I will say it again- I live in California, and I am surrounded by the feedlots.
Stinky, smelly, disgusting feedlots where the cows stand up to their ankles in their own waste. No grass. Ever.

Nobody will sue me for saying this, because nobody can. There is too much photographic (and just plain smelly) proof otherwise.

Cows in California live in nasty, small, smelly, dirty feedlots up to their ankles in their own filth. Not “happy’. Truth.

I’m definitely starting to think that the unhappiest cows come from California. I’ve been on Dairy farms in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York and Ontario (I have a friend who is a dairy manager) and none of them have had their bovines in conditions even close to as shown here. Yet both examples from California that I have seen have been similarly disgusting.

Of course we should tighten organic standards, but we should also outlaw (or impose much more restrictive regulations) on the kind of massive factory farm that this article criticizes. It would raise the price of all milk and meat, but people have been able to afford milk and meat for 1000’s of years without concentrating them in such inhumane and unsustainable ways.

Several times I drove by farms that were identified as Organic Valley producers, and they didn’t, from the road, LOOK like huge confinement-only places.

For what it’s worth, I always chose Organic Valley whenever I could. I very rarely have access to it here in Vegas, since Organic Valley doesn’t ship as widely as Horizon does. I won’t buy Horizon products–I feel like their “organic” label is just marketing and isn’t worth the extra money. I feel comfortable with Organic Valley, just from the information I’ve been able to gather here and there. I’m sure there are problems with it, as there are with any company, but I think it comes a lot closer to encompassing some of the things we think of when we think of “organic” than other companies do.

Sorry I can’t be more helpful than that.

For several reasons, among them: organic milk sold nationally is almost always “ultra-pasteurized.” This method of pasteurization cooks the milk at high temperatures (over 200 deg. F) which wreaks havoc on milk proteins. As a result, ultra-pasteurized milk often tastes “cooked” and can be problematic when used for food prep (e.g. puddings and sauces), in addition to affecting digestibility and nutritional content.

Go here:

http://captaincrabtales.blogspot.com/2009/03/tom-and-irene-frantzen-organic-farmers.html

and here:

http://www.mosesorganic.org/attachments/broadcaster/foy09.html

http://www.realcaliforniamilk.com/happycowstv/tvcommercials