why do vegitarians not eat dairy because it is not hurting the animal?

Answer 1

cows milk is meant for baby cows, not humans.....like duh.

Answer 2

For the simple fact that a cow's milk is designed to turn a 50 pound new born calf into a 500 pound animal in 6 months. America is a country of humans that are never "weaned"! Cows milk is designed for cows, just like human milk is designed for humans! The dairy industry has turned milk into a "product" & altered it to the point where it is of little or no value in the human diet. All that hype stating that "milk makes a body good", is just a marketing tool. Many people are actually allergic to dairy products & that's why they CRAVE them! Milk is a well known reason why many children have re-occuring ear infections in America! Every vegetarian has a different reason for omitting dairy foods from their diets!

Answer 3

Milk production DOES hurt the cow. Dairy cows are treated cruelly - they are overworked and forced to keep having babies so that their milk will continue to flow. Many cows die with exhaustion. Not only that, the male calves that are born are sold to the veal industry for meat, as they will be unable to produce milk and are seen as useless to the dairy industry. Vegans feel that by supporting the dairy industry they are in fact supporting the meat industry, a fact that I personally agree with. For more information on the horrible ways dairy cows are treated, check out this website www.milkmyths.org.uk

Answer 4

Vegetarians can drink milk. It's vegans that do not. Buying milk is harmful to cows because of the way they are treated in todays farming economy. The majority of milk companys use factory farms. In factory farms, cows are crammed into small living spaces where they can barely move. They are injected with chemicals and added hormones so the company can have a larger milk supply and make more money. They conditions of the cows aren't very healthy and it's not good for you either! the chemicals they inject the cows with end up in the milk you drink. Also, factory farm cows are more prone to disease which ends up in your milk as well. Organic milk is the best way to go if you have to drink milk. It's a lot less cruel and they don't use as many chemicals. However, if you can it's best to remove cows milk completely unless you live on a farm yourself and are making sure nothing harmful or disgusting is happening with the cow/milk.

Answer 5

I agree with "mandi m" and like her short answer -- milk is for the babies.

Every mammal in the world only drinks milk as a baby, then never again. Lactose intolerance is a misnomer as once you stop consuming mother’s milk, you will naturally become lactose intolerant as it’s not needed anymore; you can move on to other foods. No mammal in the world drinks the milk of another animal – only humans. Really weird behaviour. Just like humans, cows only produce milk when pregnant; or injected with hormones to fool the body to thinking its pregnant. See?

Oh, and people in China (how many billions of them) do not consume dairy at all; it’s taboo and milk is seen as something for babies and decrepit old people.

Answer 6

Animals still die, and still suffer for dairy. Anyone who thinks otherwise does not understand factory farming, or even farming in general. A little thought makes it pretty obvious why this is so.

When a dairy cow stops producing a lot of milk per year they slaughter her. The male calf's she has from being raped (the dairy farmers themselfs call this device the "rape rack" so don't yell at me for it.) to induce lactation, are sold to veal farmers. (Cows don't lactate for no reason just as human females don't.)
There is no retirement village for retired cows. They are killed too, and suffer longer, and worse then animals raised just for flesh.

"There is bit of Veal in every glass of milk"

Answer 7

This is, in fact, not true. http://goveg.com/factoryFarming_Cows_Dairy.asp
http://goveg.com/factoryFarming_chickens_egg.asp

Also, even if chickens and dairy cows had huge, lush fields, a mother to care for them their whole life long, as we are led to believe, people would still be vegan, for other reasons. Like health. Cows milk is made for baby cows, that need all the fat and calories, etc.
Humans don't.

Also, people may still think it's mean to take the milk from the cow or egg from the chicken, even if it's not "hurting" the animal, for the simple reason that they believe it's not supposed to be like that.

I hope this explains well enough, and maybe influences your decisions some.

Answer 8

Many vegetarians eat dairy products. Some vegetarians even eat red meat-game only though, so venison that is farm raised is out while hunted is in. There are a lot of reasons for being a vegetarian--some do it because our bodies aren't suited to eating meat (our digestive tract bears a strong resemblance to herbivores and little to carnivores) others have the opinion that raising intelligent, feeling things to kill them for food is wrong, still others don't eat meat because modern farming methods are inhumane (incredibly so), and there are lots of other reasons.

That last reason is one of the two most common reasons among vegetarians for not eating dairy (the other is lactose intolerance). Dairy cows live a miserable existence thanks to modern farming methods--dairy cows are in fact the main reason that farm animals are exempted from animal cruelty protections. Most dairy cows today live in huge barns maybe the size of a football field. Their space in that barn is a stall with their heads stuck through a slot wide less wide than their jaw wo they can't move forward or backward, not that there's anywhere to go. Since these facilities are automated, they are almost constantly attached to milking machines, only taken off if they get sick. Which doesn't happen very often, because the food that rolls past them in a gravity fed conveyor is packed full of good stuff like steroids (ones that encourage milk production, not to make them buff) and antibiotics. So much of the stuff that not only do the cows have great difficulty getting sick and stay strong enough to live 18 months to 2 years (after then milk production drops--I'll get back to that) but with all those steroids small children tend to grow hooters. Not a bad deal if you want your 9 year old daughter to get out of the house, gut your 9 year old son may not be too fond of wearing a bra (current FDA limits on steroids in dairy cattle were developed as a direct result of this)

Anyway, once milk production drops (like I said after 18 months of that sweet existence if the cow is lucky, 2 years if it isn't) a dairy cow costs more in maintenance than it produces so it's time for it to go. Don't think it's outlived it's usefulness though--there's still plenty of good eats in that cow (among other things). Not for people though, which considering the diet of a dairy cow is probably a good thing. All those steroids and antibiotics have made that cow unfit for human consumption, but the leather is still usable, the gelatin in those bones still make great gummy bears, part will go into white lithium grease--in fact that cow will be used in over 200 products until all that's left is it's skeleton. And even that's been useful, since someone got the idea that those bones can be ground into powder and mixed into animal feed (why an herbivore like a cow would want to eat bones is beyond me, but I'm not someone looking for a way to get rid of millions of cow carcasses each year so what do I know). Now since the Brits gave the world mad cow disease (and yes, I blame the British. those bastards!) these carcasses no longer go into cow feed-instead it goes into chicken and pig feed (also herbivores by the way)--instead they get those same chickens and pigs ground up and put into cow feed--probably not the best idea since nobody has any idea how to safely dispose of mad cow infected material (right now it's disposed of in the exact same manner as nuclear waste) so keep your fingers crossed.

So I'd have to guess that either you don't know how modern farming methods treat dairy cows, or else you don't think it hurts a cow to spend it's entire (though pretty short) life not only caged but held motionless, fed almost nothing that's a part of their natural diet and constantly milked (put clothespins or alligator clips on your nipples if you want to know what that feels like). My guess is the first.

btw-I didn't mention anything about the fact that a barn with between 5000-10,000 produces a lot of poop. I'll be happy to go into that if you want to ask another question.

Answer 9

I personally would hate to be impregnated against my will, even right after being pregnant. I would also hate to have my child taken away from me right after birth because if the child drinks the milk, there is less for others. Of course, good organic companies do it a little different, but the majority of the milk industry does it like this and I would hate for it to be done to me!

Answer 10

Lacto vegetarians do use dairy. I use only organic grass fed free roaming cow's milk and free range organic eggs from a local farm.

Have you seen what they do the cows at your average everyday dairy farm?

Answer 11

There are some veggies who do; Vegans are the ones who will not eat dairy.