How Many Cows Will Die To Feed Your Chocolate Addiction?
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

NotMilk.com
October 2011

171,000 cows plus 244,000 male calves equal 415,000 bovine deaths per year to support milk chocolate consumption in America.

Today is Halloween, that time of year when home owners intentionally stock up on discounted bags of mini chocolate candy bars which not enough kids will stop by to consume, so that the candy givers then feel personally obligated to eat by the dozen.

Why do drug clinics ban the consumption of milk chocolate? They know that America's most addictive opiate-laced food is that sweet brown candy bar representing society's biggest trick-or-treat.

This year, 415,000 cows will die as a consequence of their role in producing the milk that becomes the major component of milk chocolate. For them, the Hershey's Kiss is a kiss of death.

Many people adjudge milk chocolate to be equal to or better than sensual intimacy. There is physiological rationale for such cognitive reasoning. Naturally produced internal secretions of steroid hormones regulate and define the human intimacy response. Exogenous hormones can produce feelings of comfort, well-being, and euphoria. Milk chocolate is an excellent source of morphine-like substances and steroid hormones.

In the vegetarian movement, milk chocolate is what keeps pretend-vegans from becoming true vegans. So-called compassionate activists would sooner swallow live goldfish and bite the heads off of chickens than give up their milk chocolate habits.

The average American cow produces 18,000 pounds of milk per year. A herd of 488,000 cows must be milked to obtain the necessary ingredient for their milk chocolate cravings.

Each year, one of those cows gives birth to a calf. Half of the calves are males, and are destined to die at the hands of a butcher. Thirty-five percent of those milking cows are "culled" out of the herd each year, sent to slaughterhouses.

Ergo, 171,000 cows plus 244,000 male calves equal 415,000 bovine deaths per year to support milk chocolate consumption in America.

Four hundred and fifteen thousand cows will die this year because you and most of your friends, neighbors, and relatives love milk chocolate, and cannot stop swallowing the substance representing America's foremost addiction. Three billion pounds of milk chocolate are consumed each year in America.

Called a "comfort food," chocolate is addictive due to the presence of concentrated naturally occurring milk opiates known as casomorphins.

Since 90% of chocolate candy bars are composed of concentrated milk and sugar, Mars, Hershey's, and Nestles bars can accurately be called brown cheese with sugar. Each pound of milk chocolate requires four pounds of whole milk. Three billion pounds of milk chocolate will require 12 billion pounds of milk on this addictive American holiday of horror.

Although it took Milton Hershey two years to produce his secret milk chocolate formula, we now know that Hershey's milk chocolate contains 50% sugar, 40% milk solids, and 10% cocoa solids.

Milk chocolate manufacturers begin with whole milk, but fat makes milk rancid, so that the milk is dried, and milk solids are used in the secret formula. According to USDA, it takes 7.4 pounds of whole milk to manufacture one pound of dried whole milk powder. Accordingly, a giant ten pound Hershey's Kiss (yes, they sell them) would contain 5 pounds of sugar, one pound of cocoa butter/liquor, and 4 pounds of milk powder. It would have taken about 29.6 pounds of milk to produce that 10 pound Hershey's Kiss.

Chocolate is made from cacao beans which grow within pods. Beans are fermented, dried, then roasted, much like coffee beans. They are then squeezed to produce chocolate liquor. The addition of sugar and milk produces milk chocolate.

Chocolate consumption has been linked to hundreds of subtle and not-so-subtle human conditions from headaches and indigestion to heart disease and death.

The next time you are faced with that all-so powerful milk chocolate urge, take responsibility for your actions. One bite of a milk chocolate candy bar constitutes abuse to two very wonderful creatures, the cow and the human consumer.

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