Brock Press

Issue date: 11/10/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Erika Hughes

By way of reason or ethics, most people understand my choice to not consume the flesh of other animals. Many people however, fail to see the inherent cruelty and preposterousness behind consuming dairy and eggs. In the interest of brevity, I will focus on addressing a question that I am all too often asked "what's wrong with dairy?" Allow me to divulge.
Dairy is unnatural. Like all mammals - including humans - cows produce milk for their own babies. Human consumption of cow's milk is as unnatural as drinking the secretions from any other species such as dogs, pigs or other humans. Humans are the only animals to consume the milk of another species and to continue to consume milk past infancy. I find this particularly interesting considering 75 per cent of adult humans are lactose intolerant.
The dairy industry is inherently cruel. Dairy cows are subjected to continuous cycles of impregnation via artificial insemination, birth, bereavement and intensive milking in order to provide a constant supply of milk for human consumption. Many people are unaware that cows MUST be impregnated and bear a calf to produce milk (just like humans).
Within hours of giving birth, calves are ripped away from their mothers. Mother cows grieve extensively for their babies by frantically pacing, desperately bellowing, refusing to eat/drink, travelling great distances in search for their babies, or withdrawing in silent despair. Dairy cows can live up to 25 years under natural conditions but they are occassionally transported to slaughter at a mere four years when their milk production declines. Their repayment for a lifetime of slavery is to be slaughtered and processed into low quality beef - translation - hamburger.
The veal industry was created as a direct result of the dairy industry to capitalize on the millions of useless male calves born to dairy cows. Because male calves cannot produce milk, they are either killed at just a few days old for "bob veal" or are raised to produce "white" veal. On veal farms, calves are tethered by the neck and confined to tiny crates to restrict their movement so their muscles and flesh remain tender and pale. Being unable to move or turn around, these babies experience complete sensory deprivation and are denied all opportunities for natural behaviour. At four months old, they are dragged to the slaughterhouse where the horrified baby calves have been known to seek comfort by attempting to suckle the fingers of their very killers.
Now that you "got informed" there is no denying the inherent cruelty involved in dairy production and the atrocious alliance between the dairy and veal industries. I hope that people can get past their unwitting beliefs that the dairy production (and egg production which also involves the barbaric disposal of unwanted male offspring, inhumane processing, and eventual slaughter of sentient birds) is less abusive than meat production just because it doesn't involve immediate death. Clearly dairy production involves the abuse, enslavement and eventual slaughter of sentient beings. Please don't support and perpetuate this intentional cycle of cruelty.

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