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don't tell iceland
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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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So….
That’s enough internet for the day:
Apparently, somebody is selling whale cheese
So many questions. How does one go about milking a whale? How do you make cheese from milk with a thickness similar to No. 4 Fuel Oil? Who was the first person to attempt to milk a whale? Who is buying up all these whale dairy products? Is there such a thing as a whale milk cheesecake?
So I elected not to look into it, because I doubt that zoos are selling it. Which means it’s likely sourced from whalers
Japan, Iceland, Norway, are all actively fishing commercially (though Japan uses the cover of “scientific” expeditions to justify it.)
According to their process page the whales are guided into a harness and then milked. Whether or not we should believe it, I cannot say.
I wouldn't believe it. The profile photos of their 'team' look AI generated.
Nothing is found when searching for their names. There's not a thing out there about "Chief Scientist" Mark Linneaus, although he claims to have had an academic career. If he in fact "dedicated more than 20 years to investigating how diet and environment shape mammalian milk production", it is surprising that his name is nowhere to be found on Google Scholar.
Not to get started on the pictures of their alleged cheeses. There's red flags all over the website. At least they don't accept orders, so it looks more like a joke than a scam.
It's a shame though, I would love to try sustainably produced whale cheese.
The street address doesn't exist. April fools
Must be an April Fools prank.
215 Juniper St. Pismo Beach CA doesn't exist.
Well the reviews are from the Oculus marketing lead, a, Simian Field Reseacher (sic) and an independent shoe salesman. Two of them even have the same picture. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this isn't real.
Plus they're touting it as the new sustainable future of dairy. That alone is an insane thing to claim. There are fewer than thirty thousand gray whales in the world. They produce eighty gallons of milk a day. That's about twelve cows worth if you ignore that most of it is going to be drunk by the whale's calf.
Yup.
I’m thinking it either flopped or was never a thing.
I doubt it’s something that could be reliably commercialized.
Plus cow dairy requires constant breeding in order to keep the cows milk supply up. Just like humans, they only produce milk after giving birth and for a limited time.
Breeding cows in captivity is pretty standard fare these days.
I'm not sure whale breeding is an industry that currently exists. Nor is whale sperm harvester. As if milking a female whale is complicated enough.
But why is this any more disgusting than cow milk cheese or goat milk cheese?
Well.
I hate to break it to you… but the whales probably aren’t milked more than once.
My guess is it’s sold by whalers.
They talk about their process. It involves a whale harness, and divers to do the milking of wild whales.
I'm honestly still wondering if this is an elaborate joke 😆
Edit: from their FAQ:
Further down the page:
I'm still not convinced it's real...
Sorry. I can't resist this any longer
What do you think happens to dairy cows after their milk production declines? Or their male calves?
That'd be my bet. I'd bet they aren't even "milked". The probably just take it out of the body manually. I assume whales probably carry a lot of milk though, so if someone is killing whales I guess it's good it's being used for something... although that gives more profit to the whalers so maybe not.
According to their process page the whales are guided into a harness and then milked. Whether or not we should believe it, I cannot say.
The pics of the team seem a bit AI to me, also when googling their names there are no clear links connecting those names to whale dairy besides that website. This (and how unrealistic the process sounds) leads me to believe that this is not real.
they look like stock photos. the address at the bottom (Pismo beach CA) seems real enough. (at least the address comes back to deep sea.)
Dunno if the process is real. It seems... not likely to produce a whole lot of cheese, really. I'm a little curious as to the actual prices, though. If it's like... insane-per-pound.... maybe there is enough interest in it. But given how many whales get taken to commercial fishing; I imagine there's likely to be some on the market.
The address doesn't exist. Juniper street doesn't go up to 215
aaand they're sold out
That earthly address does not exist. Pismo Beach is just that, a beach. (You can successfully dig for clams there, or you could when I was a kid.) And there's no street by that name anywhere in the vicinity. Looks like an elaborate April Fools joke.