Vegan friends: What are your thoughts on organic dairy and eggs?!

As I see it, the main difference between vegetarianism and veganism lies not in the degree of the suffering of animals, but in the question of whether we have any right to 'use' animals at all.

The vegan position is that using animals is plain wrong. If you look back to the discussions around the ending of human slavery, there were plenty of people who tried their best to improve the conditions of slaves. All very noble, but ultimately it ignores and also undermines the stark moral choice about whether slavery is right or wrong. Had we gone down the 'welfare' route, we might still have slavery, only with slaves living in much better conditions. From the vegan perspective, this is the same route that 'free range' and 'organic' production methods are going. It's not that we wouldn't prefer to see the end of excessive cruelty to animals where modern farming exists, it's just that we think it shouldn't exist at all.

As far as eggs go, the eggs that you would buy in a supermarket are produced using modern farming methods where only females are raised from chicks and there are no males to fertilize the eggs. As a result, many vegetarian will eat them. Many will also prefer to eat 'free range' or 'organic' eggs, believing that these eggs are therefore cruelty-free. If only.

Ignoring the vegan principle of not using other animals and moving to discuss 'welfare', even 'free-range' and 'organic' production is far from cruelty-free. It still relies on 'sexing' the chicks after hatching, that is discarding (killing) male chicks immediately after hatching, leaving just the females to lay the eggs. It is this killing, often by just throwing live male chicks into large bins to be crushed, suffocated or later gassed to death) that even these more 'humane' methods of egg production do not address. This is also why I would argue that even free range and organically produced egg production is not truly vegetarian as it relies on the suffering and killing of chickens, albeit the males rather than the females laying the eggs.

Similarly, organic dairy still relies on the terrible trauma of removing calves from their mothers and the slaughter of the male cattle and those cows whose milk production declines. The only exception I have heard about is a Hari Krishna farm where calves stay with their mothers and milk is only taken after the calves have suckled. This model is great from a 'welfare' perspective, but not 'commercially viable', so you'll never find this model in your local supermarket.

So my thoughts are that organic and free range production is equivalent to the slavery 'welfare' argument. It should be recognized for what it is, a 'veneer' which legitimizes and deflects our attention from the ongoing system of abuse and exploitation of animals.

Well, you did ask :)

Yes, there are ethical issues. Organic dairy can in some cases be crueler, because the cows are not given antibiotics when they get infections. And no matter how you slice it, dairy is theft at best and reproductive slavery at worst. Calves will still be taken from their mothers, males will still become veal, and the cows will still be killed when their production declines. And why are humans drinking milk from a cow?

Same with eggs: Baby male layer chicks will be killed at birth and hens will be killed when production declines. Unless you can see the conditions in which the hens are kept, there's no way to ensure they're treated humanely.

I think organic, free range, grain fed, non-GMO, cruelty-free, etc., are always better than factory farming and a vegetarian lifestyle is about making better choices, not necessarily perfect choices. Having said that, vegan is vegan, so I do not personally consume animal products. I am vegan for health, animal rights, and environmental reasons. If I go back to being vegetarian, I will definitely seek out those alternatives.

dairy is a huge thing with me, to me consuming dairy (whether or not its organic or even free range) is always the ultimate cruelty.
http://wayfaringvegans.weebly.com/a-sens…
http://wayfaringvegans.weebly.com/cows-n…
eggs are wrong too because its still animal exploitation

As a Vegan, you would not be consuming Milk and eggs(animal product, and to you yucky-puck). As a carnivore I think eggs are good eating, and milk is not to drink(for me, but lots do).

Vegans claim not to use anything from animals. "organic" or not, eggs and dairy come from animals.

"Organic" has nothing to do with animal welfare.

~vegan~