Over the short period of my vegan diet, I’ve had many people tell me that what I’m doing is unsafe. Others have said that it’s ‘useless’ and that my diet alone can’t make any difference. So, I decided to write about why I did it. However, ethical veganism is an extensive subject and there are far too many aspects to cover in one article. Thus, I decided to begin with the issue closest to my heart: animal cruelty (in dairy production. Meat is a whole other topic).
Most dairy cows in mass production are given little or no chance to graze freely in green pastures and eat fresh grass, unlike what is portrayed on the cartons. They live in damp, enclosed spaces, are forced to walk on concrete slabs, and are surrounded by the constant noise of heavy machinery. Calves are immediately snatched from their mothers at birth (boys are usually sold off to the meat industry) and confined in tiny, isolated boxes with unsanitary conditions. Imagine if that were your beloved dog or cat!
Like any other mammals, cows lactate only for their babies. To mass-produce milk, humans brutally fake insemination to get the cows to lactate. Very often, cheap metal rods are painfully shoved into the females’ vaginas. Other times, a rotary milking parlor (rotolactor) is used (shown in the picture below). Many ‘humane milk’ or ‘organic milk’ factories use this. I saw this firsthand when I visited the Pride of Cows factory. I can’t say that the cows enjoy their life.
The rotolactor is a noisy, unnatural process and the constant milking takes a huge toll on the cows’ bodies. In the wild, a cow with a newborn will produce a gallon of milk per day- far less than the fifteen gallons that an average dairy cow is forced to produce. A cow needs a comfortable place to rest, especially during lactation. This physical trauma leads to premature death, lameness, infertility, and mastitis to name a few issues. Up to a third of dairy cows are estimated to have bovine mastitis- the painful inflammation of the mammary gland and udder tissue.
Bovine mammals require a fiber-high diet; they naturally graze grass and other similar vegetation. But lactating cows require more nutrient-rich food. So to meet the legal dietary requirements and increase milk production fast, dairy producers end up overfeeding cows concentrates and grains that are high in starch instead of fiber. This causes a buildup of acids in the rumen (part of the stomach) which causes acidosis if occurring for prolonged periods. This usually leads to diarrhea and the cow may develop damage to the feet that causes lameness.
Although cows in organic systems receive better diets and care, many dairy cows are injected regularly with painful growth hormones (rBST). This not only harms the cow but causes several health problems in humans, which I will be addressing the next part of this series. Chances are, any processed food from a restaurant or package you buy contains dairy from a cruel mass-production factory containing all the things I mentioned above.
The dairy industry is an awfully uncompassionate one. Millions of dairy cows suffer excruciating pain every day just for us to have a few minutes’ worth of palate pleasure. It isn’t worth it!