**Warning, this episode is both very gross and very sad**
Take us back to the good old days when the air was clean, the grass was green and the milk was pure and unadulterated. Straight from the cow, gallons of creamy goodness for all to drink. But while Granny’s farm may have been fine, milk wasn’t always some magical pure product.
In fact, there was a time when milk was goddamn disgusting.
Let’s go back to the 1800s when there were hundreds of whiskey distilleries in New York State. Some lunatic had the great idea to feed the leftover rank grain goop to the cows. Weirdly, they noticed that this increased their milk production. Thus began the distillery dairies.
All across America and Europe, dairies joined forces with distilleries, serving the boiling slurry, or swill, which was said to be acidic enough to corrode iron, to their cows. Day in, day out, with no water or grass to graze on, the poor cows were chained up in a windowless metal shed right next to the distilleries without as much as a nip of whisky to drown their bovine sorrows.
Needless to say, the heifers got bloody sick. With ulcerated sores all over their body, including on their udders, many cows' teeth went rotten and fell out from the hot acidic food. Most lost their tails, some their hooves and an unlucky few, their legs! But every day the distillery milkers would come, no matter the condition of the cow, to extract their milk.
Milk is a generous term here. The resulting liquid was described by Robert Hartley, a man who wrote a book to expose the horrors of these distillery dairies, as having an unnatural, bluish tint or riddled with reddish brown pus.
But surely people wouldn’t drink it if it looked so bad. Well, that’s where the dairymen got clever. Not only did they add a bit of river water to make the milk go further, but they also discovered you could fix the colour by adding flour, plaster of Paris, and chalk!
Now, to get that lovely yellowish creamy layer on top that people crave, just a dash of pureed calf brains. Apparently, it really did look like cream but it coagulated when poured into hot coffee. (We just threw up in our mouths). And to preserve the milk, dairymen added formaldehyde to stop the decomposition. Yep. Formaldehyde.
You can just imagine the health department inquiries. One investigation discovered insect larvae in the milk (likely from the river water). Others found milk containing sticks, hair, blood, pus and manure. In fact, one estimate said that people consumed more than 2,000 pounds of manure in a given year.
As you can guess, many people got sick and died. So why were people still drinking the damn stuff? And why wasn’t anything being done about these horrific distillery dairies?
No one listened to Robert Hartley or took notice of his book. So it was up to Frank Leslie. Frank found a particularly pus riven bottle of milk on his doorstep one morning that was udderly disgusting so he decided it was time for a shakedown. See, Frank was a newspaper guy and after analysing the specimen, he dispatched his corps of reporters and artists to the headquarters of the poison. He wanted everyone to know the truth about what was happening in those disgusting metal sheds.
Families started turning the milkmen away. Angry mobs began to form outside distillery dairies and milk carts. Unfortunately, the distilleries were a powerful lobby group and successfully blocked any serious inquiry into the dairies and stymied calls for reform. Sound familiar?
But by 1862, thanks to Frank Leslie’s work, regulations finally came in banning the swill milk trade. 50 years and a slaughterhouse scandal later, the Pure Food Act was signed and later on in the 1930s, pasteurization became a standard procedure. Milk was pure again but sadly, the animal cruelty necessary to produce it remains to this day.
So, anyone thirsty?
SOURCES:
Indiana Medical History Museum: Dr. Hurty vs Embalmed Milk, by Haley Brinker
Australian Raw Milk Movement: Health benefits of Raw Milk
New York Times: How we Poison Our Children
Smithsonian Magazine: The 19th-Century Fight Against Bacteria-Ridden Milk Preserved With Embalming Fluid, by Deborah Blum
Smithsonian Magazine: The Surprisingly Intolerant History of Milk, by Daniel Fernandez
Atlas Obsura: The 19th-Century Swill Milk Scandal That Poisoned Infants With Whiskey Runoff, by Tyler Moss
FDA: The Dangers of Raw Milk: Unpasteurized Milk Can Pose a Serious Health Risk
New York Times: The Swill is Gone, by Bee Wilson
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Will 00:00
It's 1858 in New York City, and Frank Lesley has just gotten out of bed. He's probably shuffled his feet into some slippers. He's wrapped himself up in his luxurious bohemian Dressing gown.
Rod 00:14
it would be really fancy patterns too. I love the way they used to dress
Will 00:17
Still yawning, he ambles his way downstairs and like every morning he does the first thing that you do when you're living in New York City in the 19th century.
Will 00:26
No, no, no, no, no, you're going out onto the front porch to get your milk and your paper. But this morning, when he stretched down to get his milk, there was something a little bit different. It was pink and brown and oily. A little bit like this that I've had made up for you as a
Rod 00:26
Poopoo
Rod 00:48
No that's a creme brulee.
Will 00:50
Yeah, it was certainly some relation to milk but stained and riven with pus. They were good at recognising pus back in the day.
Rod 01:02
I suppose there was a lot of it around but I look at that and I think creme brulee.
Will 01:05
Okay, okay, so this one is made by me without any pus. There's no pus. I just thought I would recreate the moment for you
Rod 01:11
you don't even care about authenticity any more man. you would have normally in the past you would have gotten pus, generated yourself if necessary.
Will 01:18
Now, Rod, you've probably heard people say it milk tasted better in the olden days. You know, back on Granny's farm where he's got it
Rod 01:26
dragged a cow and strapped it to the bench and then to sucked the milk straight out of it
Will 01:30
straight into the cereal.
Rod 01:32
No, no, no, no, you take a mouthful of cereal, and then off the teet and a mouthful of cereal and off the teet. That's how we used to do it when I was a farmer. Child.
Will 01:41
I don't know if it's true or not. I have had milk close to the cow. It was a while ago.
Rod 01:45
So you've never had milk in the olden days.
Will 01:47
No, I have never had milk in the olden days. This is this is one of the things I want to talk to. But you know, this this argument that milk tasted better fresh from the cow. It's one of the arguments raised by people who are big fans of raw milk.
Rod 01:59
Yeah, I'm not because it's too close to the reality of it all and I don't want that. I don't think reality. milk comes from cartons and glass bottles.
Will 02:08
Yeah, so raw milk drinkers reckon that raw milk is not only tastier, but they reckon it's got a whole bunch of health benefits.
Rod 02:15
They also reckon it never goes off.
Will 02:16
Yeah, no, it's weird. So the Australian raw milk movement. They reckon fresh clean raw milk is nature's perfect food. A single food that nourishes an infant animal meeting all of its needs and so that's actually true
Rod 02:27
do you wanna actually know what's nature's perfect food. It's semen. I've got the book natural harvest, full of semen recipes. That's a real book.
Will 02:35
They also reckon that they reckon there are studies showing raw milk is superior to pasteurised milk in protecting against infection, diarrhoea, rickets, tooth decay and tuberculosis. Children receiving it grow better than those receiving pasteurised milk. I'm not I'm not here to judge that. That's not the topic for today. That's why we do know raw milk comes with a lot of dangers because pasteurisation kills a bunch of bacteria but that's also not what I'm on about today. I want to turn to those fond memories, those fond memories of milk back in the day. Because here's the thing. While Granny's farm might have been fine, milk wasn't always some magical pure product. And in fact, I'm going to tell you a story about a time when milk was just goddamn disgusting.
Will 03:29
Welcome to The Wholesome Show,
Rod 03:32
a podcast that guzzles the whole milk of science. Surely, there was an opportunity to say it sucks it straight from the teet. You coward.
Will 03:40
It doesn't have the word whole.
Rod 03:42
The whole teet in its mouth. The whole teet of science in its mouth.
Will 03:49
Oh, I'm will grant.
Rod 03:50
I'm Rod Lambert's I forgot my name.
Will 03:54
No one really knows when it started or who came up with the idea. Maybe it emerged as the city industrialised and the population boomed. Maybe it emerged as early capitalism and the city got evermore cutthroat.
Rod 04:06
There was literally no horrible story that doesn't start this way.
Will 04:10
I am. I am a sucker for early capitalism. Maybe it was just a bit of ethically dubious cost cutting.
Rod 04:18
We're still on par.
Will 04:19
But we can point to the first cries of alarm. In 1842, Robert Hartley was the secretary and founder of the new Temperance Society of New York. People that don't want you drinkin Beer
Rod 04:32
Beer was an alcohol then was it?
Will 04:33
I think so. I think at the time it was whiskey is what they don't like. Beer was like Alright, well, that's temperance that there are no alcohol people so so don't do any more of that.
Rod 04:43
Here's the trick temperance people. You don't like drinking? Don't drink. I'm done. I'm done. Weird. You don't like gay marriage. Don't get gay married. So just stop it
Will 04:54
so I'm not a fan of the Temperance No. But yeah, you don't have to drink alcohol it but anyway. But there is a weird overlap here. Hartley, who was the secretary of the New York Temperance Society, he wanted to put the distilleries out of business. Like that's his goal. He's like, so many distilleries. It's bringing all of these ills into society. Can we get rid of them? And he noticed a strange thing. He said at the time, there were hundreds of whiskey distilleries in New York State. I think there were 1000s in the state and hundreds in New York City like they were they were hundreds lots and lots of distilleries.
Rod 05:26
Were talking about people in the apartment, basically
Will 05:28
I think I think some are definitely factory sized. And some would probably more Yes, your apartment,
Rod 05:33
which is not a good idea.
Will 05:34
It's not it's not. But the thing that Hartley realised, is that they were super competitive with each other. And in fact, they were selling whiskey at the price of grain. Like if it took, I don't know, I don't know the conversions. But if it took a kilo of grain, or what do they use in America stone of grain.
Rod 05:55
one bushel
Will 05:56
a bushel. If you got a bushel of grain, then you sell it for the same price as the bushel of whiskey, which is dumb. Like there is no business that works that way if you're selling,
Rod 06:07
so they're undercutting each other so much that it became less than cost to produce it.
Will 06:11
And yeah, they were at zero margins in the whiskey. And he was thinking, Well, surely if they're so marginal, we can drive them out. But where are they making profit? They've got to be making profit on something
Rod 06:23
hookers?
Will 06:24
No, no
Rod 06:26
baby smuggling.
Will 06:30
they're not that evil
Rod 06:30
genital piercing
Will 06:31
they're close. So Hartley had a look around at what they were doing to make profit. Well, like all businesses, but distilleries had to diversify, they had to look at other ways to make income and you can look at your waste products and say, Okay, what can we what can we do with the waste products that we've got? The waste product products of distillery
Rod 06:53
are gross,
Will 06:54
yes. Yes. The words I saw slop, or slurry, or swill, or sludge that came out of fermentation. So basically, you get all the it's horribly grain, put it in the fermentation tanks. And then they extract off the the liquid alcohol, the whiskey and they do some processes to that, put it in bottles and put fancy labels, but then there's a sludge, a sort of gross poridge type thing. Yeah. That came out. And they had no use for it. And I'm thinking, Oh, can we get some sort of use for it?
Rod 07:24
I'm thinking your alternative health store soaps. Is it kombucha? Yep.
Will 07:30
Whiskey mash soap. So yeah, probably.
Rod 07:33
Gee that would sell
Will 07:34
Can you guess what they might have done with?
Rod 07:37
I'm thinking from the start, they called it milk. Instead of oatmilk. I'm gonna try it at the cafe tomorrow. can I have your whiskey sour milk substitute
Will 07:47
probably would have been better. But no,
Rod 07:49
at least it doesn't have dairy.
Will 07:50
There was a horrible genius. We don't know who the genius is. But they fed it to cows. And,
Rod 07:57
ah,
Will 07:59
the weird thing that they noticed. And this is this is a lesson for everyone out there. Be careful about what you're good at. The cows produce more milk when they were fed on the whiskey mash afterwards. I'll come to some numbers later. What the fuck,
Rod 08:14
really? So that, of course made them think maybe we shouldn't. Just like antibiotics and chickens.
Will 08:20
Maybe there are limits. Maybe there are limits? No, they didn't think that no. So there's a New York Times article from 1860 that I read that is great on this,
Rod 08:27
I probably read it too.
Will 08:28
Hence, a stable of cows became a necessary part of the economical arrangements of every distillery. So they became known as distillery dairies. So they will be whiskey distilleries in the main bit of the business. And next to it, they would have a dairy. And Hartley thought, Okay, if I can show people, the horrors, the truths of the dairies, maybe they'll stop buying the milk and it'll drive the distilleries out of out of business. So do you want to know about the horrors of the of the dairies
Rod 09:00
very much
Will 09:02
in 1841, or 42? Hartley and a few of his temperance buddies took a tour, as as much as you're able to take a tour he, he asked people on the street, he did take some tours. There's some evidence of him going into some distilleries, and distillery dairies, which is weird, because they should have known that he is obviously the enemy. He's a temperance guy, and he wants to drive you out of business.
Rod 09:23
But does he wear a badge? I'm temperance, dude. Was her a reverant? Did you say?
Will 09:30
No, not as far as I know,
Rod 09:31
in my head, they're all priests
Will 09:33
he could have been. He could have been.
Rod 09:34
So he wasn't necessarily worrying, distinguishing paraphernalia. No, like, alcohol is terrible. drink bad cows Good. If you're in charge of temperance in New York, people would know who you are
Will 09:48
sure, maybe okay, but maybe not. He came out with his his book, which had, of course, a 19th century title.
Rod 09:55
I'll get comfortable. I gotta make a toilet and come back
Will 09:58
and historic both scientific and practical essay on milk as an article of human substance with a consideration of the effects consequent upon the present unnatural methods of producing it for the supply of large cities.
Rod 10:10
So the abstracts in the title got it.
Will 10:11
Anyway, he's gone, the unnatural way that we make milk in large cities. First thing he argues in his book, and it's just just to get a geographical context here. He had look in New York. He reckons in his book, it was clearly happening across the Northeast of America, all of the big cities there, but he reckons it's throughout Europe as well, in the vicinity of the city of New York and Brooklyn, and indeed, wherever grain distilleries are bound, either in this country or in Europe, distillery slop is extensively used for feeding cattle.
Rod 10:44
European claims as well.
Will 10:45
Yeah, in London and other places where brewers grains can be obtained, they're in great requisition for milk dairies, while in the grape growing countires, the refuse of grape is used for the same purpose. In other cases, decayed vegetables and sour and putrid offers and remnants of kitchens are in populous places carefully gathered up as food for milk cows.
Rod 11:04
So this is really the origin story of spongiform bovine and syphilis?
Will 11:09
No, it does. It doesn't connect with that, but it's offal. it's like cow's shouldn't eat that. I mean, I think we've talked about cows being fed bad things before.
Rod 11:21
Don't feed cows cows.
Will 11:24
But also don't feed them distillery slop as as
Rod 11:28
I'm not convinced yet, you haven't told me a story that makes me worried. I'm happy except for the milk that look like pus. Oh actually had pus.
Will 11:35
All the distilleries would build little little or large metal sheds right next to the distillery, then they'd have cows in there. Sometimes 1000s of them. And this is downtown in New York, windowless metal sheds, obviously, all through Summer they're as hot as they can be an author and dark as you can get. The cows would be in stalls where they were chained up. And they would stand there or kind of lie down awkwardly for their entire lives. That's where they were. They would eat there, they would shit there, they would get milked there. They lived for it seems usually nine months,
Rod 12:19
nine months!
Will 12:20
maybe they would die at 18 months. after the fermentation vats and they'd pump out the slurry into just a channel. It was like this sort of sloppy porridge into a channel directly from the fermentation vats
Rod 12:35
bet it smelled awesome.
Will 12:36
Well, the whole place smelled wildly bad, wildly bad. And I'll tell you some of the smells in a bit
Rod 12:43
to be fair, New York would have stunk like shit anyway,
Will 12:45
this would have been the centre of it. Anyway, so the slurry came out of the fermentation vats basically boiling. And it was said to be acidic enough to corrode ion
Rod 12:55
Oh fuck me.
Will 12:56
And it was pumped into channels that sat right in front of them. And the cows would be force fed basically this day in day out. No water, no grass, no anything else that they would eat
Rod 13:07
so this was this Soylent
Will 13:12
this is their everything. this is their everything. when the cows were first introduced to this boiling acidic slop, like when they're calves i This one is horrible. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. typically they refuse to eat for a few days. And then because there's no other food, they would eat.
Rod 13:32
So aside from everything else, it was still hot as it went past. So I had to get through this extremely heated oats by the time it gets to them
Will 13:41
it's been boiling in the fermentation vats
Rod 13:44
so it's dropped down to like 80 degrees or something like that.
Will 13:47
It is literally it's boiling acidic, forgotten slurry, and it's and it's it's gotten nutrients in it, yes. But it is just the same nutrients day in and day out and there is nothing else
Rod 13:59
The capacity for inhumanity
Will 14:03
blows my mind. Hartley reckons when they started to eat they did eat and they would eat 32 to 40 gallons a day, which is I think 32 gallons is an old fashioned barrel like a barrel of this
Rod 14:18
which is like 9 million litres
Will 14:20
cows eat a lot
Rod 14:21
they do
Will 14:21
I get it but this is a vast amount of food
Rod 14:24
although because that was a liquid as well they were drinking it and eating that was everything so
Will 14:28
they got no water they got no grass that was it
Rod 14:31
fucking monsters. imagine coming up with that. But I suppose these people literally thought of animals as machinery. Literally animals are machines. God gave man dominion over all things
Will 14:43
I just want I just want to say in this this is this is a window on time on people being horrible. There are still a lot of people in the world that are quite horrible to
Rod 14:52
animals. Yes, fucking monsters.
Will 14:54
So how do you think the cows went?
Rod 14:56
Probably pretty good. They actually got fitter and happier than any cow has ever been measured to be
Will 15:00
so they're eating, you know, they're in the dark, they get no exercise, no movement, eating the boiling acidic slop. And of course, they're covered in their own manure, like they are literally just shitting in place and these people never clean these places out.
Rod 15:14
I'm gonna go with the theory that the shit is not firm.
Will 15:19
Oh, my God. I didn't think that
Rod 15:24
not a lot of oh, maybe some fibre. But I don't think they would have much bulk in their stools.
Will 15:30
As far as gross episodes go, this is
Rod 15:32
this is eyes wide open, we need to know this is a need to know.
Will 15:35
So they'd have ulcerated sores all over their bodies, including on their udders where they're getting milked all the time. And that's probably what's leading to a lot of the pus in the in the milk.
Rod 15:43
So they would have been hand milk still are the machines by then are you going to get to know
Will 15:47
it's definitely hand milked
Rod 15:48
So humans wandered in there. Oh, yeah. And when squeegee squelch? Yes, I assume they're filthy immigrants who had no more right to be there than the cows.
Will 15:55
We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that. Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Rod 15:59
Sorry for pre empting
Will 16:01
the cows had no teeth, because they all rotted out from the hot acidic food. they don't need to chew anything.
Rod 16:08
It's just a waste.
Will 16:09
Usually their tails had fallen off. I don't know why. Sometimes their hooves and sometimes their legs.
Rod 16:15
Yeah, I imagined the feet would not be in good shape. But they've their legs would fall off?
Will 16:20
Yeah.
Rod 16:21
It's not something you hear very often. call the vet. why? my cows legs fallen off. So I imagine them dissolving
Will 16:30
in the manure in the acid
Rod 16:33
to be fair, they could dissolve from the inside out or the outside in in these environments. Maybe it's a combination.
Will 16:39
Do you wanna know something great? Everyday the distillery milkers would come no matter the condition of the cow unless it was dead and get out the milk.
Rod 16:48
So disease, yeah, whatever.
Will 16:51
The undercover journalism that happened here was people illustrators doing engravings. so weird like that, like this is and so I think these are sort of, some of them are representative
Rod 17:02
from memory and amalgamations
Will 17:05
engravings of people winching up a cow, like literally there, it can't stand anymore and they've got a strap under his belly. And they're winching it up to the ceiling so that they can still milk it and it's just like, fucking monsters. You want one more grotesque thing?
Rod 17:20
Yeah, as many as you got. Because I mean, we need to know.
Will 17:23
Well, we said before that the slop helped more secretions of milk. It was said that the cows in this condition were impressive milk producers, making somewhere between five and 25 times more milk than their grass fed counterparts
Rod 17:38
One guess. Alot of it wasn't milk?
Will 17:45
the impurities of the animal's body passed off with milk. Oh my god.
Rod 17:50
I'm gonna say not milk. I'm just gonna say liquids.
Will 17:58
Just
Rod 17:58
look at all the not milk we have here. I mean, I know I've heard stories of times when milk was scarce. I think what I mean World War II, where they padded out with chalk and water and stuff.
Will 18:11
We'll get to that.
Rod 18:12
I'll take chalk and water.
Will 18:13
We'll get to that.
Rod 18:14
Oh, good.
Will 18:15
What did the milk taste like?
Rod 18:16
Yep. Well, to be clear, that jar you handed me I'm not tasting that? Because it wouldn't mix with the beer that we're drinking.
Will 18:23
No that's the reason. You don't you need to match your beer.
Rod 18:26
otherwise it's a caramel milkshake? For sure.
Will 18:28
Obviously, we don't have any samples. No one time I couldn't find any actual whether there were chemical analysis and there were scientists doing analysis but we've got his reports. Hartley said, As might be expected, the cattle under this most unnatural management become diseased and the lascent secretions not only partake of the same nature but are impure, unhealthy and innutritious. Now, I've seen some descriptions say that the resulting liquid was thin and had an unnatural, bluish taint. Or sometimes it would be reddish with brown pus. So I get I guess, if there's pass around, then that's what you get, you get the pink flavour. Otherwise, it would be a sort of thin blue sort of thing.
Rod 19:05
There's blue around you get blue in it.
Will 19:07
Yeah. And so this is what ended up on Frank Leslie's doorstep. This is not what the distillery men would normally put out, because they had standards, they want it to look like normal milk. And so they did a few things. Okay, to improve it.
Rod 19:23
Look, it's not the milk that stresses me. It's the fact that people are such shitheads and I'm not saying were because it's not worth it. It's just different versions. It's same shit without a brand new technological shovel.
Will 19:34
It is shocking how much you could just divorce a situation just go Oh, whatever.
Rod 19:39
Peter Singer right, you know, the originator of animal liberation, etc. ethicist extraordinaire, Australian is over at Princeton, abused or loved. He's even come out recently and said, You know what? I've re thought it's possible to ethically eat animals, okay? It's possible, but I mean, the caveats I've only seen the summary is you give them a delicious life. For starters, they live beautifully. They go to play school, they get it they get their own Game Boy, yeah, station, you're up with the kids. Yep. I know the lingo is they listened to the rock music, they get to wear the fashions, and then at the end of it, or they kind of you know, get wafted to sleep probably for mushrooms or something. I know
Will 20:21
how nice would that be?
Rod 20:22
But I mean, the idea that yeah, there are ethical ways to make animals not I think I think suffer and you can eat them.
Will 20:29
I'm happy to take that. I imagine there are others that don't, but you can put up that at the spectrum to say there are ways
Rod 20:35
there are better ways.
Will 20:36
There are better ways, whether they attain everyone's standard of ethics, who knows, but there is something that is a lot better. Some that's a lot worse.
Rod 20:44
Unfortunately, most of it a lot worse. And this to me just like it's gross, there's no question that shoots gross that the idea that everything's horrible, the treating other people terribly feeding it to them. But the monstrousness to animals is
Will 20:56
how did they get from thin blue or pus pink milk to something that they could sell?
Rod 21:03
I'm guessing not with much difficulty.
Will 21:06
Well, a little bit of difficulty. They'd add a few things and, and I'm gonna do some a little bit different here because I want to do a science show. Just down under the table there right is a blender. I've got a few ingredients. Alright, fill yourself up some some pus milk first. So the first thing is, your job is to try to get this back to white. The first thing that would they would do is they would thin it out a little bit using some river water. We know they did this. We know they did this because there's their science that shows that and because
Rod 21:48
Do you know what I love most about that? I mean the sticks and bits of leaves but also Okay, we got to make it look more normal. What kind of water can we use? I get let's get the fuckedest one.
Will 21:58
I think the thing is there is only fucked water back then
Rod 22:01
but I mean, come on. I know to be fair, they could have gone to the urinal troughs.
Will 22:05
That's true. So here's some of the normal things that they would use. Let's get some white things. They had flour,
Rod 22:12
the basic ingredient of all good milk.
Will 22:14
I'll give you all of these
Rod 22:15
fuckyeah flour. Is that sugar?
Rod 22:17
flour? They would use burnt sugar, obviously. Well, no, this is the thing. They'd use flour, or eggs, burnt sugar, plaster of Paris and chalk into their milk. But sometimes they get a bit more creative, particularly if you want to get that nice yellowish, creamy layer on top. And for this you'd add a dash of pureed calf brains.
Rod 22:37
So can I just pour it all in or should I experiment along the way?
Will 22:40
No experiment along the way. I couldn't get pureed calf brains sadly. And so instead I got you some bacon fat. Yeah, you can twist that and now on off down there and just
Rod 22:50
find Trump NO NO NO was milkshake No, we're
Will 22:58
not white yet.
Rod 22:59
Not vaguely white. So maybe we need more stuff.
Will 23:08
I did start with actual milk. But I started with very nice milk here. You can try the egg
Rod 23:11
definitely an egg because I love egg. This was a time years ago when a buddy of mine like when we were like 19 His parents went out of town and they just got a new fancy house. And we thought this is an opportunity to get really stoned and try the new juicer. We thought what can we juice? so reduced all kinds of things we got to the point we went okay with just everything in the fridge. What happens if you juice a boiled egg?
Will 23:34
What happened?
Rod 23:35
So it goes well and disappears. I turned to his guns and then at the end of the thing that the juice just goes through it with one thick foul smelling blob of yellow gunge. So if you do so well there you get something horrendous that defies description. Hang on that didn't work.
Will 23:54
That didn't make it white. We're gonna need a lot more white things in there.
Rod 23:57
I'm just gonna fill it with sugar now because that's what we do today with all foods. All the sugars going in.
Will 24:03
I think we're gonna need a lot of white stuff like it's got to be plaster of paris. try the bacon now. Like this is the okay bacon is fake. they used pureed brains.
Rod 24:14
It's like an old flour. Now it's white. I know how to make horrible death milk. I was worried I don't get it all over our equipment. Fine chop. Yeah, horrible.
Will 24:36
But didn't do it. A free Friday. It was some garlic to be delightful.
Will 24:44
Yeah, it's close to an omelette. It's actually not a terrible omelette.
Rod 24:47
Very sugary omelette. Yeah,
Will 24:49
that is a doable. We got it wrong but you can imagine that their milk they got it to a stage where they could sell it and they
Rod 24:55
it is the chalk and plaster of paris.
Rod 24:57
part of me wants to drink at this to find out but I wont. just throwing up on camera something I promised myself, I wouldn't do any more
Will 24:57
They did sell it. I think it's probably a whole bag of chalk. And so you can imagine how hideous the milk would be. And there are all sorts of stories of this. Like in one case, a family reported that their milk
Will 25:15
raw egg and bacon fat.
Rod 25:17
Yeah, that's what worries me, not the river water. So there were stories like
Will 25:21
one family reported that their milk appeared to be wriggling.
Rod 25:26
And it's supposed to be this alive. Oh, man, I know it's a byproduct and it's organic, but shouldn't actually be alive. This one reached out and grabbed my child. That's a problem.
Will 25:39
This is the stagnant river water that the milkman had used
Rod 25:43
you did not say stagnant before
Will 25:45
now. Well, that was stagnant. That was definitely stagnant that I got you. That's why. And he noticed it was apparently full of tiny insect eggs that had grown into tiny insect larva, causing the wriggling. Another Health Department found milk containing sticks, hairs, insects, blood and pus. And of course,
Rod 26:08
nothing. Nothing makes me feel better than stray hair.
Will 26:11
I didn't ask you to put any hair in there. I don't think hair was there
Rod 26:14
you did turn around for a moment I put hair in there
Will 26:17
as I said before, they they're getting milked in their own shit. And so this meant that the milk is basically also a steady stream of manure. And one estimate reckoned people consumed more than 2000 pounds of manure in a given year.
Rod 26:33
Yeah, and we eat five spiders in our sleep. I mean, come on. I'm gonna go with 1000 I think you're exaggerating.
Will 26:39
I'm not even sure if 2000 pounds is possible. Like I don't know. No, it's not. That's not maybe all of the people in the city. I don't know.
Rod 26:44
but also, you do the milking and the bum bum is back there. I know there's poo on the ground. But do they milk it onto the ground and then scoop it up like is the poodle spraying?
Will 26:56
But still wants does the milk sold?
Rod 26:59
Course it did because it was the only milk they could get or it was cheaper.
Will 27:03
There are definitely times when it was probably the only milk that they could get because you know in middle of a big city it was actually really hard to transport milk from the country. So imagine you're in the country you call it countryside you can probably get fresh beautiful milk like pristine it's lovely. Fresh from the cow it's raw nothing's pasteurised, but it's probably you know, travelled 20 minutes. in the city, it takes days and days to get in from the country. The swill milk as it it came to be known as raw
Rod 27:31
Swill milk. coffee. Yes, please milk? I'll have the swill
Will 27:36
Oat milk, almond milk or swill milk. They branded themselves as either pure country milk, or Orange County. I just love the orange, Orange County, Orange County was a nearby county or sometimes they use Westchester. So though we're using counties nearby to say yes, we're from that and it's like, no, you're not. You're not literally not. And in fact, that's how they got done in the end.
Rod 27:59
tax evasion, like you might as well. Also I thought Orange County was in California., Yeah, more than one. Like Nika.
Will 28:06
Now you can guess. People got a little bit sick thinking this milk.
Rod 28:12
What do they ever know down the cause? I mean, I'm surprised
Will 28:15
Well, you know what, for a long time they didn't like the main use for this milk was feeding babies. Children, obviously, you know, feeding children and babies but But absolutely, they're using this. Mothers are winning off breast milk and and using cow milk. And they're using the swill milk because it's cheap and available. And 1000s of babies would. One article had this as shrivelled to death from uncontrollable diarrhoea, of course, they'd
Rod 28:43
fucking would shit themselves drained
Will 28:47
more in summer. And so they call it the summer sickness. And they didn't know what was going on for a long time, like all throughout the 1830s and 40s and 50s. Okay, what could it be? That's what baby's doing. But it could have been absolutely this, this foul foul milk
Rod 29:02
It's called the it's going to be the next diet phase amongst celebrities. This country. Yes, it kills babies. But if you're 30 and feeling a little chubby, do you have a 21st to go to? Is there a wedding coming up? Why not try dysentery, swill milk, you'll get it tomorrow.
Will 29:18
But you want to be able to stop in time, you want to be able to stop the swamp. So yeah, that was like 8000 babies a year. And they didn't really understand why. But the correlation seems very much that it's babies that were drinking this well, milk, got a figure and it's just, it's just feral. But you know what happened? So Hartley published his book 1842. And no one cared, merge and that no one took any, any notice of the whole thing. Some people reckon it was because because people just like the distilleries, they're like, whoa, we want to drink whiskey that year and temperance got I don't care about your arguments,
Rod 29:54
and there would have been none of that. We didn't invent tribalism either.
Will 29:57
Maybe it was too scholarly. He went for the hair. It didn't go for the gut. It took Frank Lesley. So Frank was the guy that came down in his dressing gown and saw that saw that jug of milk
Rod 30:10
and went riddled with pus. Did he immediately know it was possibly looking at that's possible? Or is this like that's not milk? Ah,
Will 30:16
actually, the first thing that it says is, well, I don't know if he did, he must have known. It was something that it's looks gross and something or something oily and pink and brown. And there's the New York Times article that came out 1858 And this would have happened like just earlier that year, the disgusting dose of milk and pass fairly threw his illustrated newspaper into an emetic convulsion. Now, here's the thing. Oh, Medic. Yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. Frank. Frank Lesley, owned his own newspaper, and the other people to fuck with never will. That's the saying never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel.
Rod 30:53
Yeah. So who has an emetic? Ken Olson? Which means thrown out? Yeah, no, no, I'm well aware. One of my least favourite things in the universe. You know, I don't like I don't like the idea of being buried alive. Yes. But close. Second is I don't like vomiting. I really haven't vomited in literally, I've been with my wife now putting forth is all other deaths. All other 21 years I've been with my Yeah. She's never never even heard or seen me throw up. I've not thrown up once. Even in that period. I'm not a chunderer. So when I hear a medic, I'm like, I'm out. I don't care what it's for.
Will 31:26
I don't like chundering. But I've done it.
Rod 31:29
I don't remember the last time honestly, I think the last one throat might have been about 25.
Will 31:33
There's a there's that one day I want to do a science experiment because I don't. I'm not in.
Rod 31:41
Yeah, there are. There are people that say that they are sympathetically I'm
Will 31:45
definitely I want to test if there are sympathetic barometers. So what I get is a roomful of 100. Sympathetic vomit is in a warehouse, it's a concrete warehouse. And I get one person who is like, able to throw up on command.
Rod 31:58
I gotta go for I know the guy
Will 32:00
and and see if we can get the whole room just going bad.
Rod 32:04
And so I want to do phase two with sympathetic players. So they're walking around and they see dogshit or whatever, and they really smell and they immediately can't help themselves.
Will 32:11
There is no sympathetic pool.
Rod 32:12
Are you a psychologist?
Will 32:15
Sympathetic, bro. Can you imagine that? No, actually, I can always remember when I was me and my mates when we're like in primary school, and someone's like, Oh, I gotta get out of town. And I was like, yeah, that's weird. Let's go working. It's not. It's not to be glued. That's not a big leave and
Rod 32:28
make it a little more pathological
Will 32:30
bound to know the worst of this horrible story. The New York Times wrote on him, Leslie analyse the specimen. So he did, he did do the analyst analysis, and then dispatched his corpse of reporters and artists to the headquarters of the poor. I mean, core a core core of a report crops isn't his word. Yeah, right. It's dangerous. His core of reporters and artists, thank you to the headquarters of the poison. And in his recent addition, so I think Leslie put out he Leslie rank ran something called Frank Leslie's illustrated newspaper. And it was newspaper but he had a lot of pictures. So he was he was big and smart. He divided I think, up to his next seven editions to just hammering that. He went furious. He was furious, messed
Rod 33:13
with my morning, son of image, should they not?
Will 33:17
And the thing is, he got his illustrators to go into the distillery dairies, and draw pictures and then do engravings of them to publish. And so this is the first time people are actually seeing images of what it looks like in these and they're not photographs, but it definitely five people artists, renderings, renderings, yes. lithographs again, and here, and this is New York Times in his new in his recent additions. He has reproduced pictures that are true to life, and so shocking that the very word milk or the sight of the dainties into which it enters an important component turns the stomach. So throughout his newspapers for the next while, he did a whole series and he kept the fight going, like First off, he documented this is what it looks like in the distilleries. This is where the cows are, this is how they're treated. And then he followed back when the distilleries pushed back. He's like, alright, and fuck them too. And fuck them and all of them, and then the
Rod 34:07
horse eroding, like and go for all the shoes that they were the sons of bitches, it's going down.
Will 34:12
So first off, he then published maps of where all the cities milk was made, like all the distilleries, so that would lose her. He showed the conditions of the cows, I can't get you don't like the mats. I liked them. I just don't understand. And then he showed the street corners where the swell milk was sold. The dairies where it's produced. And well, in addition to his here's what he said about the immigrants before. In addition to detailing the putrid conditions of the distillery dairies, the illustrators portrayed Irish dairy workers in offensive ways that stirred up anti immigrant animus this this it also led to some of the artists being attacked by the furious milkmaids.
Rod 34:47
The examples Well, well, look at that these were all tropical over in
Will 34:52
my bum. These were all the Irish Irish guys that are working in these distilleries and I guaranteed they have shitty jobs. Remember that? They are the bottom of the pile here. They're not the owners. And they're calling the milkmaids. And they don't want to be called milkmaids. Because the bad news can't be away because here's a picture of the the distillery note sorry, the the newspaper illustrator in a top hat and And Spats, kind of stalking, and he's getting he's getting harassed by the milkmaids. And then they call them milkmaids in the newspaper. Okay, then he took out full page ads in all of the other competing newspapers. He's like, Come and check out my newspaper. I've got the shit. No, he advertised. Are you aware of what kind of milk you are drinking? And apparently people were just furious. Like, people would just like walk in hell, that they were they were furious at
Rod 35:42
this whole thing. What a predicament for the newspaper owners to like, we want the advertising dollars, but we're gonna He's gonna pay us to advertise for our enemies.
Will 35:49
Absolutely. And this is I mean, the New York Times is a competing newspaper at this point, but they are absolutely covering the story that like Frank Lesley has. He's the man who's gonna open this thing. And we're all I think the whole city. And I think this is this is the uncovering of this story. But remember, this is probably in a lot of cities around America and probably at the time, and people were furious. You know, hundreds of families New York Times was saying turned the milkman from their door. angry mobs began to form outside distillery dairies and milk carts. The mayor had a bunch of milk waggons searched and their drivers arrested and find as engaged in nefarious business. I think this is where they got them for false advertising. They said it's pure country milk and then like it you know, from the country stuff. At least one law
Rod 36:32
Sorry, just back out just down from the the picking on the delivers. Seems a little harsh. I know. I also if they're bagging people out right next to the distilleries, I'm going to assume their momentum alcohol involved just to keep things really energetic bubbling
Will 36:46
along. Yeah, keeping your distillery guy drinking the milk or drinking the whiskey. You're gonna get mad when you get drunk as well. But of course, the distilleries you know they're not taking this lying down. Yep. And they are connected to Tammany Hall. Talked about Tammany Hall before this. And so, Tammany Hall, sent in their guy to go and do the investigation. They appointed appointed one particular guy Michael to Michael to me, who was known as butcher Mike at the beginning. Cool. Because he like meat. I think so. In charge of the Board of Health, to go investigate. Frank Leslie's team. They did it. They did a stakeout and watch that the owner that this ultimate butcher Mike turned up at the mansion of the distillery owner like in the middle of the night, so there's like he's clearly in the pocket of the distilleries here. And apparently he's in the pocket a big plus. Well, well, he's in the pocket of whiskey and he's like, apparently he sat down and had a glass or two with whiskey with the dairyman and concluded that swell milk was as good as children as ordinary milk. And anyone who refused to drink it simply had a prejudice.
Rod 37:51
That's the classic turn it around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the racist. You're racist. Oh,
Will 37:55
yeah. So so they stymied the investigations for a while they were married, they managed to hold them off for a while. He ran a series of one sided hearings, designed to make the dairy critics and health authorities look ridiculous. And he even went so far. This is butcher Mike. Although he got a new nickname at the end of this. It became swell milk mark or not lovely Mike swamp to me. I don't know what your mics will make to me. It's two nicknames is like pretty much cuddly, cuddly llama. He went so far as arguing that soy milk was as good or better, better, better better for children than regular milk.
Rod 38:32
It's so fucking Trump. Not don't double down, quadruple.
Will 38:35
Exactly. Go further.
Rod 38:36
Go further. Bullets full of nutrients. If you don't have enough iron in your diet, you're getting healthy.
Will 38:42
Just you, you terrible, terrible human. Absolutely. Monsters. Public outcry eventually got so strong. Yeah, by 1862 driven by Lesley's work, the other papers got involved. And there was enough public pressure that finally saw regulations banning the swell milk trade in 1862. And so
Rod 39:03
a couple of decades at least a decade it ran.
Will 39:07
Yeah. it went for about three. But here's the thing, like so this is the this is the beginning of the swill milk trade. But for the next 50 years or so, milk was still horrible. Like it's probably not as bad as it was at the worst point. Still a lot of dairies are keeping milks. They believed keeping milk safe by adding formaldehyde off of ice to keep it keep it from going sour and it would add a sweet taste and going off would like an embalming and I'm gonna throw a lot more milk in bombed. So this was the first regulation and it took took another 50 years and more food scandals, all sorts of disgusting practices to be honest. before finally in 1906, President Roosevelt signed in the pure food act took another another 30 years for pasteurisation to come in until there was eventually pretty safe milk. But this was the worst period in this swill milk where they were just selling absolute garbage. It was just disgusting.
Rod 40:08
People shirts, how do we make money? I don't care as long as I make money
Will 40:12
you know, I read this and I was just like, Okay, this is this is gross, but it's the it's the willingness to be utterly barbaric.
Rod 40:23
Like a barbarian with the animals fucking the consumers just dropping monsters. You don't need that much money. Plenty of things like this still going on?
Will 40:31
Oh yeah, we know that there's a whole bunch of industrial farming that is still happening it is not as bad as as as the situation is 50 is not great. And we do have food regulation and here's the thing, you know, raw milk people they're like, you know, drinking milk from Grandma's cow that was fresh and beautiful. I don't doubt that that was probably fresh and beautiful. There's dangerous, and I doubt it was I don't know it is leagues better than whatever they are selling here. But your regulation has made the worst disappear. Yes, maybe there are some elements that we don't get in raw milk but I am such a fan of regulation for food
Rod 41:08
faqeer because I mean things you can't get in raw milk short, but we can get them elsewhere.
Will 41:12
Next time you're drinking milk. Just be glad you don't have pus visible. I feel like pus is the most New Zealand whatever.
Rod 41:20
Always for me as well. That's all I'm thinking the whole time what do you think
