Truth About Food Supply: Dairy

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Americans have been drinking milk for a long time. European colonists brought cows with them beginning in the 1600s. At first, people just drank the milk their own cows produced. Most city dwellers ate cheese and butter but did not drink fresh milk on a regular basis. But over the course of the nineteenth century, more and more Americans got used to drinking fresh milk.
In the early 1800s, dairies began to open in cities. These dairies would be set up near distilleries (which made liquor from grain) or breweries (which made beer from grain). The dairies fed the cown nothing but the "spent" grain that had gone through the distilling or brewing process because it was very cheap. Instead of walking freely through green pastures, these cows were kept confined in dirty pens, where they often developed diseases. Their milk was thin and not very nutritious because the cows lacked the vital nutrients they got from grazing in pastures.