The ethical problems behind dairy are probably of the least obvious ones in the consideration of an average omnivorous or vegetarian consumer. Especially for those who - like me - were used to seeing cows happily munching away the grass and lying in the sun on the green pastures when they were kids. Drinking milk and consuming milk products is encrusted in our cultural mind as something so very natural that we don't give it any thought at all, nor do we question the ways that this stuff gets onto our table. But is it not a least bit troubling that humans are the only animals who drink the milk of another species and do so far beyond infancy..?
That being said, it is even more troubling to realize how little we actually know or care about milk production (and I'm speaking from my personal experience here).
The fact is that cows (or goats, sheep or any other animal we use for their milk) do not naturally produce milk non-stop throughout their whole life just because their stomachs turns grass into the white liquid and because people "help and alleviate the burden" by milking them.* Milk is not nature's or animals' gift to humans. (Is anything?)
As all the other mammals on earth (including us), they naturally produce milk for a period of time after giving birth in order to feed their young. Thus, to maximize milk production and the farm’s profits, cows are artificially re-inseminated shortly after giving birth over and over again. Dairy cows are deliberately bred to produce ten times more milk than a calf would naturally drink. This and the continuous pregnancies put an enormous strain on the young cows’ bodies, often resulting in udder tumors, infections and breakdown. As soon as their milk production declines – at about 4-5 years of age – dairy cows are sent to slaughter, even though they would normally live for over 20 years. Their bodies are so bruised and exhausted by the time they arrive to slaughter that the meat can only be ground up for use in burgers.
Most cows never get to nurse their little ones – calves are separated from their mothers at only few days of age. Female calves are added to the dairy herd or slaughtered for the rennet in their stomachs that is used to make cheese. Male calves are either slaughtered at birth, raised for beef or sold to veal farms, where they will spend the remaining few months of their fleetingly brief lives in confinement (in tiny individual cradles where they can never turn around nor lie down) and darkness, fed an iron-deficient diet in order to keep their flesh pale. That is why, even after refusing to eat any meat, but by continuing to consume dairy, we are directly supporting the cruelty of the meat industry.
The processes are roughly the same whether it is an industrial farm or an organic (bio) farm. I deeply encourage you to read this beautiful letter posted by the Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary to take a little glimpse at the faces of organic and free-range farming.
*This may sound exaggeratingly stupid to many, but it was more or less the image I had before I started digging into those questions.
Posts
