07.09.07
Why Don’t You Drink Milk?
Behind the Mustache; a short documentary by Farm Sanctuary.
“Why don’t you drink milk?” When you are vegan, like I am, you get asked this question a lot. People often think the milk industry is quite benign. However, I’ve noticed there to be a lot of misconceptions about the dairy industry like this classics: they don’t need to kill cows to get milk; cows always produce milk; and cows enjoy being milked.
In fact, dairy cows are killed to make ground beef. They are usually killed when their milk production declines. Their muscles and bodies have been taxed to the limits from the stress of creating artificially large quantities of milk. This makes their flesh very tough and stringy; unusable for steaks and other cuts–so it is ground up, and thus tenderized, to be made into hamburger.
Moreover, cows do not produce milk spontaneously for no reason. Like all mammals, they produce milk after giving birth to feed their babies. So every year, cows are impregnated to get them to lactate. But because the industry wants the milk to sell to human consumers in the forms of milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, butter and other products, they don’t let the mother nurse her young. Her baby is taken from her usually within 24 hours of birth. The love the mother has for her baby is completely inconsequential to the industry. It turns a deaf ear to her heart-wrenchingly mournful cries of separation.
Cows are also manipulated via breeding, drugs, hormones, and milking techniques to produce as much milk as possible, which causes them to carry around extremely heavy, painful udders. If they were allowed to nurse their young in a natural manner, they would never have such large quantities of milk in the first place, and would never experience this discomfort. But that is not the case. Large, swollen udders are the norm in the dairy industry, and a cow’s only temporary relief from this is when she is being milked. This is vastly different from saying “cows enjoy being milked” which implies they lead a good life. Such a comment ignores the fact that they are often branded without pain-killers, raped by artificial insemination techniques, have their babies stolen from them, live in filthy mud and excrement pits or chained continually in concrete stalls, and suffer a host of other abuses and neglect.
This explains some of the reasons for why I don’t drink milk. Of course, one would also want to do it to help stop global warming, topsoil erosion, water pollution, deforestation, and a host of other environmental ills.
One would also want to do it for health reasons too. Dairy products are linked to increased risks for certain types of cancer, diabetes, heart diease, obesity, and other health problems. Think about it: cows milk is to help baby calves put on hundreds of pounds in a few short months; it can’t be that good for us.
On another note, what sort of sicko first got the idea of nursing from a cow? As an adult, I certainly would not ask my mother for a shot of her milk, so why would I think its a “natural” to nurse as an adult from the breasts (teats) of another species?
Honestly, we should be thankful for all that we have taken from animals over our years of life– their flesh which we have eaten, their skins and furs which we have worn, their lives which we have used to entertain ourselves with in circuses and rodeos, etc. And in gratitude, we should recognize the pain we’ve caused them and give them back their lives and freedom.
It is time for our society to manumit the animals. We no longer need to live off of their flesh, skins and bodies. As people who believe in truth, justice, and compassion, we must stop supporting industries that cause animals to be needlessly imprisoned, exploited, and harmed.
To this end, please adopt a vegan diet and lifestyle. Here are some tips to help you edge towards veg.
This text was written in 2007 by Freeman Wicklund of FreemanWicklund.org, and it may be freely reprinted or distributed in any e-zine, e-mail, newsletter or blog as long as this sentence and its Web links are included.
Justin Leaf said,
July 9, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Right On!
Carolyn said,
September 4, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Just goes to show that a bigger brain is at times detrimental not beneficial. What other species on the planet holds captive, tortures, and slaughters another species for her bodily secretions? Did anyone ever think about what is actually in the bodily fluids and secretions of beings made of flesh and blood? Doesn’t appear so.
Use that bigger brain to tame yourself!
Farmer Bob said,
July 28, 2008 at 11:14 pm
Hey Guys, farmer bob again, im not in the dairy industry myself, i raise beef cattle & hogs but thats besides the point, i found a video that gives the veal industry a better break, you can find it @ http://www.vealfarm.com/veal-farm-tour/index.asp . In the video description above, it is stated that AI is a form of rape. I disagree, for AI to work properly, a cow must be in heat, otherwise your time and efforts in the AI prosess will be wasted. Cattle aren’t like humans, they don’t mate for pleasure, and the whole sick idea behind rape is to pleasure the rapist, since the rapist is a 1/2 cc tube, i dont think AI could be considdered a form rape. Also, not all daries use AI, i know a local farmer who still uses a bull on all 110 of his milk cows.
Thanks for taking the time to read
-Farmer Bob