I'm vegan, but thinking about returning to dairy/eggs. How do I find out if a company doesnt exploit animals?!
Answers:
Drive around to see some local farms, see if you could set up a meet with a famer or two, take a tour of the farm, see if they sell in the local farmers market. OR, meet them at the farmers market, then ask for a tour of the farm before buying.
If you fund the dairy industry you're also supporting the veal trade. If you are worried about getting protein/calcium, you get protein from fruit and veg. And for the calcium, your body produces calcium naturally, too much calcium and other acids which come along with milk causes your body to TAKE calcium from your bones. Resulting in LOSS of calcium. Human bodies do not need eggs/milk, humans are the only creatures in the world which carry on drinking milk AFTER breastfeeding. The only milk you need is your mothers. Any free-range, happy chicken/cow company can say they are free-range, from the 1 hour the cow is spent outside a day, the others cramped in a small box.
Cows need to have a baby to produce milk, and everything has to be more medical than natural these days, so they basically rape the cow, then take the baby away from them. And this process is continued ALOT through a mother cows life.
Do you know what a chicken egg is? An embryo? Baby chick? Nope. The eggs you eat from the stores are un-fertilised eggs, basically the hens monthly cycle. Hens period, as some may call it. And baby boy chicks can't lay eggs, so what do they do with these? Even if they are 'free-range eggs' the eggs don't come from the boys. So what they could do is sell them off to a dog/cat food industry and mince them up. Even for chicken nuggets you get a McDonalds! and because they are not killed on their farm, it's still kind, and good to the animals.
If you can find a genuine 'free-range' company, just think about what you are eating, and what happens behind the curtains.
I know you didn't ask for a speech but, I felt it might be needed!
Vegetarian all my life, vegan for a year.
Interesting question. I work for a cheese-making goat dairy and in the six years I've been there, the goats' quality of life has been quite good, but the thing about dairy is that there are all of those offspring every year that have to be sold off for meat, so one way to think of dairy is that the by-product of you eating cheese is that there is a meat animal being slaughtered because of the cheese.
I am vegetarian and am allergic to eggs and dairy
Simply taking a cow's milk originally intended for her young is exploiting her.
Making use of a hen's menstral cycle is also exploitive.
The dairy and meat industries go hand in hand - you can't have one without the other, really.
If you buy milk, you're also contributing to the veal/meat industry.
I personally think that once you're vegan and truly believe that it's the right thing to do, you'd never even for a second consider going back to eating animal products.
You should buy some chicks and raise them! That's what I did, all I eat is eggs from my own chickens because I know they're happy and well treated and they're cheap to take care of. I drink almond milk though, so I don't know how to help you on the dairy aspect.