Yes, you read that right: There is pus in your milk. And the U.S. has more pus in its milk than any place else in the world. Let’s dive into this disgusting situation.
Mastitis is the potentially fatal and very painful inflammation of a cow’s mammary glands and udder tissue. On modern dairy farms, cows are subjected to intensive genetic manipulation and produce abnormally large quantities of milk. This unnatural production, combined with physical damage inflicted by milking equipment, causes mastitis. This infection generates pus, which gets into the milk.
Cows infected with mastitis have higher “somatic cell counts than uninfected cows. Because mastitis is so prevalent, the U.S. dairy industry continues to demand that American milk retain the highest allowable somatic cell concentration in the world.
The USDA reports that one in six cows on U.S. dairies suffers from mastitis, and this miserable infection is responsible for one in six cow deaths on dairy factory farms.
Dr. Michael Greger explains:
This level of disease is reflected in the concentration of somatic cells in the American milk supply. Somatic cell counts greater than a million per teaspoon are abnormal. … When a cow is infected, greater than 90% of the somatic cells in her milk are neutrophils, the inflammatory immune cells that form pus. The average somatic cell count in U.S. milk per spoonful is 1,120,000.
That’s a million pus cells per spoonful of milk. Grossed out?
As if pus in your milk weren’t terrible enough, cows on dairy farms suffer immensely. Watch.
Fortunately, you can avoid drinking pus and contributing to this despicable industry by switching to a healthy and compassion vegan diet.
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