Why don't vegans drink milk or eat eggs?

Question

I don't understand this because my friend lives on a farm and has cows and chickens. She told me that if cows are not milked they will die. Why don't vegans drink milk if it is in no way harming the cow? I also don't understand what the point of not eating unfertilized eggs is. What else would happen to the eggs if people didn't eat them? Other animals would probably eat them, but that's the same as people eating them, because people are animals. Another thing I would like to point out is the fact that animals do indeed eat other animals, so why is it considered wrong for people to eat animals? Please no rude remarks because I am in no way meaning to insult anyone. I'm just confused.

For the few people who said eating those eggs is killing chicks, it's not. We eat the unfertilized eggs, not the ones with chicks in them.

Answer 1

Good lord the ignorance runs rampant here, doesn't it?

Cows will not die if they aren't milked. Cows do not naturally produce milk all the time. They produce milk only after they've had a baby, just like humans. It is breast milk for their calf. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated. They have the baby and the baby is taken away. If the baby is male, it goes to a veal crate. If the baby is female it's recycled back into the dairy or beef production. The cow is pumped full of hormones to artificially increase milk production. Machines milk the cow for as long as they can until she naturally starts to reduce her milk supply. Then she is artifically inseminated again and it starts all over. When she starts to lose profitability she is sent to the slaughterhouse to become food.

Eggs (unless specified) are unfertilized. Chickens in battery cages can't open their wings or stretch their legs. They're stacked in cages & each one has a space smaller than a sheet of paper. They have their beaks and toes cut so they don't peck or scratch the others to death. You can't make money from them if they're dead. A chicken lays one egg every 26-28 hours naturally. They are forced into molting and laying more than is natural by artificial light/darkness and starvation.

When chickens do lay fertilized eggs (to create more chickens naturally) the chicks are sexed. If they are female, they go into the laying production. If they are male, they are thrown into piles, smothered or crushed, or are ground up alive. There is no need for male chicks, there is no profit with them.
When chickens start waning on their production, they are sent to the slaughterhouse to be killed & sold as low-grade meat or stock (any kind of meat product where you can't see the bruising.)

That's why.


As far as why is it "wrong" to eat them, it depends on who you ask. I don't necessarily think it's wrong. I don't think it's natural, considering we recoil at the sight of roadkill instead of salivating and running over to sniff it, which is what any biological carnivore or omnivore would naturally do.

Not to mention we don't eat meat raw or we get sick. We aren't designed to eat it. We don't have the nails or teeth to kill other animals and eat them raw, nor do we have the speed to chase them down. We cook the meat and make sure there's nothing left in it that can hurt us before we eat it. No true carnivore/omnivore has to do that. I, personally, don't support the inhumane methods by which they're bred, raised, and treated so I choose not to support it.

I don't think it is wrong for carnivores or omnivores to eat meat. That's their biological way. We are not carnivores nor natural omnivores.

p.s. to the poster who said to ask a vegan if their shoes are leather: No vegan is going to wear leather shoes. You aren't going to be able to "trick" us like that. *rolleyes*

PumpkinKing: Really? I'm not vegan? Gee, good to know. I said I don't necessarily think eating meat is wrong. I also expanded on that thought by saying because it's not natural for *US* to eat it; but that it's perfectly natural for a carnivore/omnivore to eat; and we aren't naturally omnivores/carnivores.

Answer 2

First of all, google "factory farming". Enough explained. Second, even if the eggs or milk come from actual farms that are humane, there's still really good reasons not to eat them. First of all, eggs and milk produced from humanely raised animals are hard to find. Just because something's labeled as free range, organic, cage free, and grass fed, doesn't mean its cruelty free. Also milk has blood and pus in it (the usda allows one eye dropper full in one glass) and eggs are unfertilized in farms, meaning it's just a chickens period. Vegans don't want to eat blood, pus and periods...PERIOD.

Answer 3

I am learning a lot about this as my daughter in law is a vegan. I was concerned about her health. The first time, her hair was falling out. However, she educated herself more and now is in great health. I am not vegan or vegetarian but becoming more conscious of what I buy and where from, organic, cruelty free, etc. However, early man was a meat eater. They clearly hunted and ate meat. If Eskimos did not eat meat now, they would die from starvation, so that argument cannot be made. According to the Bible, early man was vegetarian, and after the flood permission was given to eat meat. For priests it was commanded to eat meat of sacrifices. In the New Testament the option is given to be vegetarian or not and for each to respect the other's choices. Seems a good place to be.

Answer 4

Cows will not die if they are not milked. Just like all mammals, they first have a calf before they produce milk.
If the calf is removed and fed separately, then the cow needs to be milked.
If a cow is not milked ( just like if a mammals baby dies) then eventually she will re absorb the milk. The pressure will build up in her udder and cause her to stop producing milk.

Vegans decide what to eat depending on their beliefs.
They believe certain things about their relationship on earth with animals. It is a religion.

Everyone makes decisions everyday. Some are based on fact and some are based on beliefs. What is right and what is wrong is almost always based on beliefs because that is a value judgment.

But it is all food. And you are right, eggs are food.

Answer 5

A vegetarian might eat eggs and drink milk because no animal dies from it, but a vegan doesn't consume anything produced by an animal. It's a philosophical choice...

Answer 6

Vegans just try to stay away from any food thats animal related; whether its actually an animal or came out of animal, they don't want anything to do with it. I personally respect the decision they have made and look up to them a great deal. Giving up all animal related substances is so hard to factor into your life. It's a huge life altering experience.

Answer 7

They don't eat eggs or drink milk because they don't wish to use any animal products and those 2 fit within the criteria of convenience.

Jess---"As far as why is it "wrong" for us to eat them, it depends on who you ask. I don't necessarily think it's wrong."---if you don't think it's wrong than you aren't a vegan.

Answer 8

well the only reason cows need to be milked by people is because their babies, who are the ones who should be drinking the milk, are taken away from them way too early in life. so if we just left them alone instead of impregnating them continuously and stealing their babies then they wouldnt need us. and it is harming the cow, they often suffer from infections of the udders and are usually kept in horrible conditions and treated like money machines rather than sentient beings. do you not think it doesnt bother a mother cow who just gave birth to have her baby ripped from her? and i dont eat eggs because of the conditions under which the hens are kept. they are only given a cage the size of a piece of computer paper, if that to live in for their entire lives. they are stacked and crowed in ammonia filled barns that give them respiratory problems. and cartons with the "free range" sticker on them arent regulated by any government body so any farm can put that sticker on whether or not their hens are kept in cages. even if the hens really are "free range" this usually refers to the hens being crowed onto a dirty barn floor where, again, they dont have enough space to move around. some wild animals do indeed eat other wild animals because they must to survive. we do not need them to survive. also other animals do not factory farm their prey. they are in the wild where they each have a fair shot at survival and normal living conditions. they also catch their food themsevles and eat it raw. it is very possible that you will get sick and even die if you eat raw meat, so obviously its not "natural". if you reall want to compare it other wild animals then if you cant catch it with your bare hands and eat it raw, then how would be natural. i have nothing to gain by saying all this, im not getting any money or anything, so when people tell you this is all BS then you should ask yourself why they are saying that? obviously someone in the milk industry will say different because there is profit to be had

Answer 9

In response to the first part of your question - there is an entire industry that makes money off of milking cows to an extreme. They are milked a LOT more than they "need" to be. The people are making money off of these animals - and a lot of vegans and vegetarians do not like the breeding of these animals specifically so that they can milk them in as unnatural a way as possible. The animals are not necessarily treated with respect.
And as far as other animals eating other animals, humans are supposed to be the most intelligent animals on the planet. We can farm and plant veggies, fruits, make bread, etc. Wild wolves, lions, etc, do not have the convenience of a kitchen, supermarkets, or agricultural skills that humans have. Because we have learned alternate (and healthy) ways to eat, it is not necessary to pen up animals in very unsatisfactory conditions just so that they can be killed so that we can eat them.

Answer 10

I felt like I needed to put a response since this is still one of the top pages that Google directs you to if you have questions about why vegans don't drink milk. I'm not saying the vegan lifestyle is wrong, but lets get some other facts in here other than what vegans consider misconceptions of the human race as a species....

Our bodies were designed to eat raw meat way before we ever knew how to cook meat. We have the teeth needed to shred raw meat, and not all meat from every animal is tough and hard to chew. We are omnivores and Omnivores are opportunistic hunters, which means if we get our nutrition from vegetation, we eat that; if we get it from vegetation and meat, we eat that too. We aren't forced to eat meat, but some people prefer to. This is because we are opportunistic hunters. Cows are omnivores, which means if given the chance, they would eat meat, if it was available. They don't have to, but if necessary for survival, it can become part of their diet. Humans are the same. The only reason we have more difficulty now eating raw meat, is years of eating it cooked has left us without the bacteria needed to break down raw meat easily. We don't have the defenses against food born pathogens like we use to, but our bodies still also have trouble digesting cooked meat too. Just because we have small fangs, doesn't mean we weren't meant to eat meat. Our ancestors started cooking with fire, which lead to us being able to eat more types of meat, leading to less restrictions on what we could scavenge and eat for survival. Because of this, we started developing bodies and digestive tracts suited to that diet, but today's meat is full of stuff we don't need like steroids, antibiotics, growth hormones, etc. Our methods of eating meat today are inhumane and disgusting.

We are naturally omnivores, which mean, if suited, we eat both meat and vegetation. There are people who eat road kill, most people recoil from it because, most of the time, it's decayed and full of stuff we know, could make us sick, it also stinks and who wants to sniff rotted, decayed meat, even though we were probably more like scavengers when we first evolved, but again, we've lost the tools necessary to deal with raw, or decayed flesh. However, there are people out there who live healthy lives, just like vegans, but on a completely raw meat diet.

The only difference between us and animals is, animals don't put their food source in inhumane methods of food production, because they live solely on instinct and haven't evolved mentally the same, as humans. There have been cases of animals killing from more than necessity, but they don't usually torture, or keep their pray in unhealthy living conditions before eating it.

Answer 11

Many vegans are vegans because they prefer to eat vegetables and vegetable based products - not because they have a problem with other people consuming animal products.

Some people don't drink milk because they're lactose intolerant. Some people just don't like milk or eggs.

It isn't wrong hon, some people take issue with the ways animals are treated, the hormones they're given, and the way they're farmed.. (kinda like .. the way vegetables are farmed!) Some people have to have a cause.

Some people use leather, fur, lanolin, wool and other animal by-products as well.. like gelatin, glue and dyes. Feathers and other animal bits are decorative.

To each their own.