7 June 2013 - QA 4

Gurudev, cow slaughter is on the rise in India. Can any stringent laws be passed in Parliament by which this can be banned?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: It is unfortunate that the percentage of cows present in India today is just 20% of their number before independence. The animal wealth of our country has reduced to a great extent, and is much lesser today than what it used to be.
We are facing a big shortage of milk in many places in the country. You must have heard that the sweets sold in some of the markets in North India are not safe for consumption at all. They mix urea and some other chemicals to manufacture the sweets. There is so much adulteration happening in such places. People add chemicals to make Khoya (a natural additive obtained from milk that lends thickness and solidity to sweets) which they then use to make mithai (Indian sweets). So many people have died because of this, and still many people are suffering. People resort to adulteration only when there is a shortage of basic materials. If there is no shortage, there would be no adulteration. Then it would be more expensive to practice adulteration (using expensive chemicals and artificial substances).
We have to make efforts to increase the animal wealth of our country, and also strive to increase the numbers of cows in our animal population.

Recently I came across a research in which they have identified the difference between the milk from Indian cows and the milk from cows imported from Europe.
The protein that is found in the milk of imported cows is called A1 protein. A1 protein causes high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. A lot of diseases happen because of A1 protein. On the other hand, there is another kind of protein also, called the A2 protein.
The A2 protein is found in mother’s milk, and it is also found in the (Indian) cow’s milk and goat milk. So a mother’s milk, goat’s milk and Indian cow’s milk are the same (in composition). Do you know how? In India, for many years the cow has been respected and revered as a mother. So this consciousness or thought in our tradition has changed the DNA of the cow to generate A2 protein rather than the A1 protein. The milk from the Indian cows is so potent and useful that it is also used as a medicine for the treatment of cancer.
So cow slaughter should be stopped at any cost. A strict law should be passed against this, but more importantly, people also should be made more and more aware of these facts.