Most children in the U.S. today have few opportunities to see sizable animals other than their pets without going to a zoo. However, one way we city folk do get a glimpse of non-zoo animals is by taking a drive in the countryside. Of all the animals we can spot through a car window at 65 mph, the most likely are cattle and cows. Although in terms of domesticated animals raised for food worldwide, goats do outnumber bovine, it is these larger, lumbering cattle and cows that dominate in the U.S. Unfortunately, they usually get mentioned in the news media only when a controversy arises about the slaughter of cattle for beef. Whether I choose vegetarianism or not, I would like to claim equal time for reflecting upon them with gratitude. Especially time to reflect upon milk.
It was indeed the dairy cows we saw more often when I grew up in Wisconsin At that time, containers of Borden's milk were conspicuously adorned with the face of "Elsie the Cow." It was a cartoon drawing of Elsie smiling broadly, so happy was she to provide us her milk. Today, Elsie is much less noticeable on the carton. All the brands of milk other than Borden's in one grocery store I've checked had no picture of a cow on the container. Also, Carnation no longer tells us their milk comes from cows. ("Contented cows," they used to say.) You might think that the milk was synthesized by humans.
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| Krishna and milk-maidens with cow |
It is in regard to this matter of milk and gratitude that one of the biggest misunderstandings between faith-traditions has occurred. Our English language contains the phrase "sacred cow," meaning something that is protected unreasonably and illogically. The phrase has its origins in a Western colonial attitude that looked upon the poorer people of India as being stupid for not slaughtering the cows, even when people were near starvation. Westerners interpreted the taboo on killing cows as a misguided Hindu obstacle to advancement. The truth was that Indians down through the centuries knew better. If slaughtered, the cows would have been only a fleeting source of food (and not a convenient one without refrigeration). Kept alive, the cow provided a life-giving stream of milk for years (as well as providing dung, which, when dried, was burned for fuel, thus preventing deforestation in an arid landscape).
Other cultural misunderstandings about milk have continued into the present. Children have been encouraged to drink milk without an exception for lactose-intolerant children. Those who have suffered most have been children of African-American descent because a genetic ability to digest cow's milk evolved in Europeans but not in people of Africa, where the landscape was not appropriate for fat dairy cows.
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| from The Seventh Seal |
Nevertheless, it was a great shift in human history 8,000 years ago when people domesticated animals for milk, also leading to the development of nourishing yogurts and cheese. In Ingmar Bergman's otherwise dark, existential movie
The Seventh Seal, when the hero drinks from a restorative bowl of milk, sunlight reflected from the milk brightens his face. Not a bad symbol, even though Elsie did not make it into the credits.
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Are there ways you try to remain grateful for the food you eat? What are those ways?
(The movie still from The Seventh Seal,
© 1957 by A. B. Svensk Films, is used through Fair Use.)
1 comment:
When I was a child, our family would always say "grace" before we ate our dinner together. That is where I first learned the word "grace" -- not knowing it could mean anything other that kind of prayer. Somehow, growing up, I got out of the habit. But it seems like such a simple idea.
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