Why wont vegans drink milk?!
Answers: I understand that they wont eat eggs because they may feel like they are killing a potetial baby chick but if a cow on a farm is humanly treated and the calf allowed to nurse why couldn't you milk the cow and drink it? How does that harm the cow or the environment? I'm not talking about big dairy farms where they take away the calves and hook the cows up to machines. I just don't understand why drinking milk isn't concidered a proper thing to do. What do vegans feed their children to keep them healthy and their bones strong? Without taking calcium suppliments which often come from animals how do you get calcium in your diet?
Consuming the breast milk of another species is unnatural, unnecessary and repulsive. (Would you suck an udder?)
The U.S. has consumed more calcium in more forms in the last forty years than any other culture on earth, and yet it has the highest rate of osteoporosis. Why? Simple. Excess protein inhibits calcium absorption. This has been proven and published in medical journals time and time again. Eat less protein, and the calcium found in leafy greens, nuts and lentils is more than enough to satisfy dietary needs.
Dairy cows are injected with hormones and antibiotics, and their food is laced with pesticides. (This is to decrease the amount of insects attracted to their feces, a major problem in industrial dairies.) Residue from the hormones, antibiotics and pesticides are found in milk. These have been linked to cancer and compromised immune systems.
You say you're not talking about big dairy farms where cows are milked by machines. The obvious follow up question is: Where the heck do you get your milk? All milk from grocery stores is from corporate operations, and all of them, even Horizon Organic, milk by machine and take calves away at birth. (The boy cows, by the way, then have the genuine thrill of becoming VEAL! Yippee!)
Vegans just don't eat animal products at all. It's their choice. And all vegetarians and vegans need to understand their bodies and take supplements of some sort. Otherwise they'd be in trouble.
They won't drink Milk simply because it came from a cow who is pretty much kept within walls. They can still take supplements to make up for the nutrients they missed. If you ask my why they do this, I don't know.
It comes from a COW is why! LOL (its an animal)
beacause they think that they are taking milk that isn't theirs and they are taking the milk that the calves need to grow up healthily
I'm not entirely sure but I know it has to do with the conditions.
Basically they don't think it's right or fair to impregnate cows take the calf away from the mother, and the put the cow in a barn and milk the cow - then repeat process. It is unnatural but so are alot of things that we take for granted
I guess in a way they are right it's probably not the most pleasant things for the cow. However I love milk so I'm not about to stop drinking it.
ayyyyye, other foods be havin' calcium...
it's because the cows that get milked aren't always treated well. they are often abused and given hormones to make them produce more milk.
organic milk is much better because there are no hormones, but you still have no idea whether or not the animals have been abused.
that's why.
Cows produce milk to feed their babies – just like humans. It flows for the best part of a year and then stops. More milk requires more babies. That’s the reality of dairy farming – the visible, obvious side of the industry. But there is another, cruel, much darker side to dairy which few see much and even fewer know about.
Drinking milk is cruel - it’s also unnatural. Only humans drink it after weaning – and milk from a different species, at that. It’s no more natural than drinking badger’s milk or cat’s milk. Designed for calves, many humans find milk hard to digest and the result is allergies. Hormones in milk are linked to ovarian, breast and prostate cancer, as well as juvenile-onset diabetes. The saturated fat, cholesterol and animal protein it contains are linked to many other diseases.
The modern dairy cow is bred to produce over 10 times more milk than her calf would drink – an enormous physical burden which takes its toll on her body
Despite relentless claims by the dairy industry, milk is neither the only nor the best source of calcium and has little effect on bone strength. Broccoli, spinach (cabbage), watercress, nuts, seeds, soya and other plant foods are better and healthier sources.
Desperation
Despite the myth of contentment, a dairy cow is the hardest worked of all farmed animals. She nurtures a growing baby inside her while simultaneously producing milk - up to 120 pints a day. To keep the flow going, she is forcibly impregnated every year and her babies are taken away a day or two after birth – year, after year. Professor John Webster describes the removal of the calf as the ‘most potentially distressing incident in the life of the dairy cow’.
“The dairy cow is exposed to more abnormal physiological demands than any other farm animal. She is the supreme example of an overworked mother.”
Professor John Webster, Bristol University’s Veterinary Science Department
The separation of dairy cows and their newborn calves is traumatic for both. Desperate cows can bellow for days in the hope of being reunited with their infant
Separation
Cows produce milk for a reason. They are female mammals who need to feed their young – just like us. And the process which makes it happen is also the same –pregnancy, birth and suckling. No babies, no milk! The final, cruel twist is that dairy cows are allowed to suckle their babies for just a day or two, after which they are taken away. The magical process of reproduction has been perverted – cows are no longer seen as mothers producing food for their babies but milk machines.
A dairy cow’s milk begins to dry up nine to 12 months after giving birth, when her calf would be weaned. This is bad economics so, to keep the milk flowing, she is artificially inseminated two to three months after giving birth. The result? A crushing double burden of pregnancy and lactation for seven months out of every 12. It inevitably takes its toll – excruciating mastitis (udder infection), lameness, infertility and low milk yield. A quarter of all UK cows, mostly under five years old, are killed every year - physically exhausted.
Not a banned veal crate but a legal calf stall. After separation from their from their mothers, calves are imprisoned for up to eight weeks - no maternal affection, exercise or the comfort of other calves
Female calves mostly follow in their mother’s footsteps and replace the cows who are killed each year. The first six to eight weeks of their lives are usually spent in tiny stalls, making exercise and socialising with other calves impossible. No mother’s milk for them, just commercial milk-replacer. At 15-months-old, artificial insemination begins – as does their gruelling life as a milk machine.
A combination of stored milk, blood and tissue can result in an udder weighing up to 75kg. The strain on a cow’s legs is enormous and can lead to agonizing sole ulcers
Click here for a video clip of lame cows
Distortion
Her young would suckle five or six times a day but milking takes place only twice. Up to 20 litres of milk can accumulate in her udder, making it protrude between her hind legs. This distortion results in an unnatural stance and lameness. Over half the UK herd suffers this way every year but many animals go untreated because as long as they produce milk, they are still profitable.
Pure male dairy calves are useless to dairy farmers. Many are transported long distances to Continental veal farms at only two weeks old, while others are simply shot at birth.
Destruction
Male calves can't produce milk. If they are dairy/beef crosses they are sold to beef farms, with calves as young as seven-days-old enduring long journeys to and from livestock markets. Around 40 per cent of UK beef comes from the dairy herd.
Pure dairy males simply aren't 'beefy' enough and many are exported to Continental veal farms, suffering terrifing journeys and slaughtered at only a few months old. Others are simply shot in the head shortly after birth, worthless by-products of milk production.
Dirty, crowded cubicles can be home for half the year. Hard flooring produces leg problems and bacteria from slurry spread, causing mastitis
Click here for a video clip of a typical cubicle unit
Incarceration
You see cows in the summer when they’re at pasture. The other six or seven months are spent indoors on hard concrete, adding to leg and foot problems.
Many of today’s dairy cows are now too big for the indoor cubicles they inhabit, finding it difficult to lie down, rears protruding into the slurry covered aisles. An unnatural diet of high protein feed can release toxins into the bloodstream and cause inflammation of sensitive foot tissues.
Antibiotics to treat mastitis are painfully injected up the teat canal. Many farmers inject their entire herd, whether infected or not
Contamination
Mastitis is excruciatingly painful and there are over one million cases a year in the UK. Routine use of antibiotics has failed to control it and milk from infected cows containing up to four hundred million pus cells per litre can legally be sold for humans.
“There’s no reason to drink cow’s milk at any time in your life. It was designed for calves, not humans, and we should all stop drinking it today.”
Dr Frank A. Oski, Former Director of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University
Think about it- you are drinking milk- something that cows give to their babies- not to us. We are drinking another species milk. Do you think a cow would want to drink a humans breast milk? Cows don't suckle each other as adults- why should we be drinking milk as adults. It's used for a growing period only!
Plus milk has pus in it. Gross!
Guess what has calcium in it- good for strong bones!
kale, collard greens, mustard greens, cabbage, kelp, chickpeas, broccoli, red beans, soy beans, tofu, seasame seeds. Plus you get your iron in them- something you don't get as much of if you consume dairy. And the Vitamin C that is in those veggies help calcium absorption. Plus consumption of dairy has been linked to osteoporosis.
And you can get all these lovely additives by drinking milk: acne, anemia, arthritis, fibromylagia, poor immune function, and heart disease (just to name a few).
I could go on- but I think you get my point. I think drinking milk from another species is weird, just as weird as if you saw a monkey in the zoo sucking on a mother lion.
Plus- Vegans don't consume anything from an animal!
Milk comes from a cow, a cow that was artificially inseminated so that she will start to produce milk. When she gives birth, the calf is taken away. If the calf is female, she will follow in the footsteps of her mother, if male, it will be fed an anemic liquid diet and kept in a crate so small that he will not be able to stand for the duration of his 3-4 month life.
Half of dairy cows in the United States have mastitis, which is an inflammation of the udder that is caused by bacterial infection. This means that hundreds of millions of somatic cells (pus) get into every single glass of milk.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the annual production of milk from one cow was 3,300 kg. Just one hundred years later that number has jumped to 8,500 kg/year. This is caused by injecting the cow with growth hormones to produce more. You can imagine the stress on the cow and her udders.
Humans are the only species on Earth that drink milk past infancy and we are the only species who drink milk from another species. Weird when you think about it, eh?
We get calcium from the plant-foods that we eat. Dark greens, beans and legumes, fruits, and whole grains, as well as fortified grain or soy drinks.
Some cultures consume few or no dairy products and typically ingest fewer than 500 milligrams of calcium per day. However, these people generally have low rates of osteoporosis. Many scientists believe that exercise and other factors have more to do with osteoporosis than calcium intake does.
EDIT** TO CF UP NEAR THE TOP, DAIRY COWS ARE SLAUGHTERED ANYWAY AFTER THEY ARE "SPENT".
Sweetie, expand your views. Think outside the box!
Even humanely treated cows have a shortened lifespan. Their bodies are forced to repeatedly be bred just to give us milk.
A cow, left to its own life can live 20 to 25 years. A factory farmed cow gets about 2 years. 5 if she's a really good producer. An organically raised, home farm cow can get as much as 10 years. But the average is 8.
8 years of forced pregnancies and having your baby taken away from you. Since there is no "retirement home" for cows, when she can no longer produce - she is shuttled off to the butcher and inhumanely slaughtered. She ends up a can of Alpo.
Ain't life grand?
Her male offspring will be taken away from her to be butchered. Her female offspring is consigned to the same sad life as her.
Mind you, milk is very bad for us in the first place. Our bodies lose the ability to digest milk by the time we are 8 years old. Dairy gives us all kinds of problems. Heart disease, stroke, cancer.
The average American eats 100 pounds of meat a year. But 600 pounds of dairy a year.
Milk is not a good source of calcium. Of the 350 milligrams of calcium in raw milk, only 35 milligrams are bioavailable after processing. You get more calcium than that from a dozen almonds.
This idea of raw milk as a good source of calcium has given a lot of folks over to "leasing" cows on home farms to get their own raw milk. However, studies have shown that ANY animal protein that is consumed forces our bones to excrete calcium in order to digest it.
Greens and grains are a much better source of bioavailable calcium that has NO negative impact on our bodies, or the environment.
Mammal produce milk to feed their young. It's a strange notion for an adult human to consume milk from a cow. Milk also contains a lot of pus and other yuckiness. A cow has to have a baby to produce milk, calves are taken from their mothers so humans can take her milk. The dairy industry perpetuates the veal industry. There are a lot of reasons not to drink milk, and most milk alternatives are enriched with as much, if not more, calcium and vitamin D found in milk. I'm not saying it's the right choice for everyone, but there are good reason.
well, even those small family farms kill off the elderly cows and males calves. so indirectly it supports that killing industry.
as for calcium, think of how the animal got it..the cow got it from grass and grains and stuff...so can we.
the real source of calcium is the soil...plants and animals are just intermediary carriers of the mineral.
Humans are the only mammal to drink another mammals milk. Why? It is gross! Would you want someone milking you? Milk isn't the best source of calcium anyway. Babies are fed breast milk until they can eat veggies. Veggies are the best source of calcium!
Edit: Compost or Poop isn't extracted by artificial means!
1) I'm not a baby calf, so why would I drink cows' milk?
2) The aforementioned treatment of dairy cows in the vast majority of farms. No matter how kindly the animals are treated, they are still killed in the end.
As for eggs, the reason vegans don't eat eggs is because of the way the hens are treated. The eggs they lay are not fertilized so none of them can possibly become a chicken.
Veganism is a philosophy that seeks to eliminate animal exploitation. We actually do not avoid eggs because of their potential for life as a chicken; the eggs you buy in the grocery stores are not fertilized and would never have grown into live birds.
Instead, we avoid eggs and dairy because of the disgusting, inhumane, abusive and exploitative conditions under which they are produced. It IS about the big dairy operations where they artificially inseminate, sell calves to veal, pump cattle full of chemicals and use them up after a fraction of their life spans. Just like it's about battery cages, debeaking, force moulting and wholesale slaughter of useless male chicks.
Maybe not every operation involves all of those things, but the vast majority of the eggs and dairy on the market do. And even smaller, "happy" food type operations sell their animals to slaughter when they stop producing. It's a business. The animals are a commodity. None of them want to feed, water and medicate animals that don't produce.
Besides the inhumane treatment, most of us recognize that these foods simply aren't necessary. We're the only species of mammals that drinks milk beyond infancy and the only species of mammals that drinks the milk of another species. It's nonsensical to argue that another species' milk is somehow a necessary part of our diet. Same thing with eggs; we just don't have any dietary need to consume a bird's reproductive waste. Lastly, for some of us, health is a concern. If you're interested in the link between animal foods and disease, check out The China Study by T. Colin Campbell.
Because it's a product of an animal, plan and simple.
There are other reasons that I can't drink milk but many more as to why I wouldn't want to anyway. They inject the cows with hormones to have them produce more milk and then attach them to machines. They are on those machines so often being milked that they develop sores on their utters. Those sores have puss in them that goes into the milk and the USDA allows a certain percentage of puss to pass through for human consumption. This is why milk goes bad so quickly. So, not only are you drinking the hormones that they put into the cows, but you are drinking infection. Yummy.
WRONG about the eggs
there is NO "baby chick" if there is NO rooster in with the hens!!!
hens lay eggs regardless.
why dont they drink milk - because they are told not too...
not all dairy cattle are raised equally well.. some never get outside...
what happens to the calves ?? they become veal..
I am not Vegan or Vegetarian
I think eating meat is ok but beleive most people eat too much
I have my own HENS for laying free range eggs.
by the way - if everyone stopped drinking milk - we would have to slaughter millions of dairy cattle
in my opinion, and this is a generalization, surely doesn't apply to every vagan; most are just in it for ego...
Not all cheese has animal enzymes added.
Not all egg laying hens are encaged and tortured (you can get cage free/free range)
Not all dairy cows live a life of misery... and not all are on hormones (look for rBST / BGH free milk)
it depends on the farm, if they're trully concerned they can drive out to a farm and take a look and if its decent they can buy that brand... but most don't care in the slightest about the animal beyond how it can impress their peers.... furthermore when they try to force people to go vagan (aka idiotic) it actually encourages people to eat meat by making them think that being vegitarian isn't good enough anyway