Under Calf-Food Wood

Brussel sprouts plants looking a little worse for wear

“Nice cold, ice cold, fresh milk!” The catchy slogan from the 80s TV ad still trips off my tongue. I've been brought up to believe that cow's milk is healthy, good for our bones and for our bodies in all sorts of ways, and have been pouring it on my breakfast cereal and whitening my teas and coffees with it ever since.

Up till three weeks ago, that is. Since coming back to Wales I've begun an attempt literally to wean myself off it. Not just liquid milk but cheese too. And yogurt. Cheese and yogurt formed a staple part of my diet before, partly because they taste so good. I've even been avoiding things with milk in the ingredients, like most biscuits and cakes. Thankfully I'm not alone in this insane quest, as my girlfriend is joining me.

But why? What have cows ever done to me? One stood on my toe once, actually.

It's more to do with what the dairy industry is doing to our planet's health. And when I say dairy, it's the beef industry too. All the calves of the dairy cows who aren't lucky enough to become a dairy cow themselves (and that includes all the male ones) will become beef.

There's the pollution of watercourses with slurry. There's the methane emitted from each and every cow which is a powerful greenhouse gas and is one of the major drivers of climate change. And there's the huge amount of land used up by cows, not only pasture but also crops for their feed (including soy which is causing Amazonian deforestation). This land would be much better put to growing plants for human consumption, as the energy ratio is far lower (energy used to grow the food : energy gained in eating it), or simply re-wilded.

It's the sheer scale of animal agriculture that's causing such a problem. The film Cowspiracy is contentious but it does state the case for veganism very well, it's worth a watch.


We've been exploring milk alternatives. After trying oat milk and hemp milk, both of which were acceptable but quite pricey, I suggested we try making our own oat milk. We had a large bag of organic oats already. So we..

1) took some out (200ml-worth)

2) rinsed them

3) filled up the jug to over 1 litre

4) whizzed it up with an electric whizzing device

5) put the mixture through a muslin cloth into a jug

6) poured the jug into a bottle

7) put the bottle in the fridge

8) washed up!

We are enjoying our home-made organic oat milk. It takes a little more time to make than buying it at the Co-op, and needs a bit of a shake before use, but it's an awful lot cheaper! And we've been having fun experimenting with what to make out of the oat mash left in the muslin cloth - floppy chocolate biscuits and a thin lemon and raisin oatcake have been two innovative snacks we've come up with recently. Yum.