Milk is one of our most ancient foods. It is also one of the most controversial ones. This controversy is a recent phenomenon. It stems from our disregard for animal rights and the impact of processed milk on human health.

Opponents of milk are right when they point out the abuse of dairy cows and the extreme processing the milk undergoes. At one time, milk was one of the more natural processes in farming. A bull would impregnate a cow – an actual bull, before the age of artificial insemination. She was pregnant for nine months and then a baby cow was born.

Afterwards, from the calf’s birth, the farmer would milk the excess dairy by hand, for drinking, butter and maybe cheese. That’s it. But with the rise of factory farming, milk is now a most unnatural operation. Today’s average dairy cow produces six to seven times as much milk as she did a century ago.

Should we blame the milk or ourselves for this mess?

And our mishandling of food is not confined to milk alone. Most of our food now is industrially farmed and processed. Industrialization has destroyed our food.

And the result is not very difficult to perceive. According to a study published in The Lancet, we are living in a sick world. More than 95% of us are ill. Over 95% of us have health problems, with over a third having more than five ailments. Just one in 20 people worldwide (4.3%) had no health problems in 2013.

The findings come from the largest and most detailed analysis to quantify levels, patterns, and trends in ill health and disability around the world between 1990 and 2013.

Happiness lies first of all in health. Failing on health front means we fall on every other front. A thing is judged by the result. All our technological, scientific advancement and all the talk of development is hogwash. Because it’s killing us and it’s killing the planet.

We have no idea what we’re doing. Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Life is only as complicated as we make it and it’s so easy to make life complicated.

What has worked for countless generations will work for us also. There is hardly any need to reinvent the wheel.

Let us get back to good ol’ milk. Milk has always stood for motherhood and for life.