what is wrong with drinking milk?

Question

for people who advocate a vegan lifestyle i would like to know why they are opposed to milk and dairy products. i mean as long as the animals are treated humanely in the milking process what is so wrong with it?

Answer 1

only if it is strait from the cow...

Answer 2

So how do YOU see that the animals are treated right? I certainly do not have the resources to put the huge dairy industry out of business. Nor do I have a lactating cow in my back yard to get good clean milk from.
Other side no milk belongs to another species. I would no more drink rats milk or dogs milk. Neither would kill me any faster than Cows milk. I suffered all my child hood with many illnesses from Dairy allergies. Much due because of all the PR that to be healthy a child must have that product. Not truth, PR. I would not wish that on another soul.
http://www.notmilk.com/

I hope some one is able to answer your question in a manner that you are honestly able to weigh the Pros & Cons on this subject. I admit I am a little rabid on it.

Slainté(to your health)

Answer 3

Though there ARE troubling issues of cruelty and inhumanity involved in the industrial production of dairy products (which I'm sure you'll hear about from another vegan), I prefer to talk about what's natural and what's not.

Cow's milk is for baby cows. There are millions of people drinking a baby formula made especially for another species that, incidentally, grows to be hundreds and hundreds of pounds. And people wonder why there's an obesity epidemic in the US! There's nothing natural about it. There isn't a single other animal in the world that drinks the milk of another species.

Humans make milk, too, and we give it to our babies. I guess we *could* drink breast milk as adults, but why would we need to? Most of us are capable of eating solid foods, not to mention that many of us would find that to be unappealing.

Chances are if you're not of northern European descent that you're lactose intolerant to some degree anyway. Many northern Europeaners have a genetic mutation that makes digesting it possible. My family comes from the area that is now northeastern Germany / northwestern Poland, and I'm STILL lactose intolerant.

Answer 4

You have a pregnant cow, she has twins one girl and one boy. The boy cow is useless in the dairy industry so he is either killed for pet/baby food or sent off in a tiny crate for the veil industry. The female calf is straight away taken away from her mother so that she gets none of her mothers milk, she will no be bred to be the same as her poor mother. Now that her mother has had them calves she is full of milk meant for her calves, however there is no calves to suckle from her. The milk farmers come along with their painful machienes and take away much more milk then the mother can comfortabley produce. In the milk that you pour onto your cereal everyday is paricles of puss and blood!

Hope my little story helped you understand how cruel the dairy industry is.

Answer 5

Are you contributed anyway for humane treatment of animals?
Or are you really concern and have any idea about it?
Have you personally visited to any dairy cow industry recently, and knowing the process from breeding up to slaughterhouse?
Or have you ever seen footage of modern "standard" dairy farm?

If you personally seen the "milking" is not humane, will you stop drinking it immediately?
Or if you realized the welfare is not guaranteed and tendency of being exploited to supply the demand of customers, will you take any action against the cruel animal farmers and condemn them?
If you understand that modern dairy milk contains plenty of chemicals and dozens of animal hormones, will you being contented?

Dear idkanymore, breast milk is only for babies. Obviously, you may treat the cow like a mother...may not wrong. But exploiting her is moral sin.

If you ask me, my religion never stop me from drinking dairy milk, and regarded as sacred. After knowing the current reality, I become a veggie, and not even consuming any dairy product, or offering it in the name of God.

Answer 6

The dairy and meat industries are linked. They have to keep getting the cows pregnant so the milk keeps flowing. What do you think they do with all the male calves? What do you think they do with the cows once their bodies can no longer produce milk because they are too weak? They become meat. By supporting the dairy industry, you are also supporting the meat industry.

Answer 7

I don't drink milk for health reasons rather than some ethical objection, and to copy an old sentiment I'm not a baby cow. Cows milk is intended for baby cows as human milk is meant for baby humans. after a certain age we don't even possess the ability to digest it as we stop producing the relevant enzymes. There is also the misconception that we need it for calcium but name another species other than domestic animals that drink milk of another species. how many osteoporosis ridden rhinos or elephants have you heard of (difficult example i know as I don't know many people that see the above animals frequently but I'm sure you get the point). Green leafy veg is definitely the way to go on that front.

Answer 8

Actually, the dairy industry is very cruel. Male cows are not needed in the diary industry and many baby calves are slaughtered as veal. Cows are often forced into multiple pregnancies to maintain their milk supply (you cannot have breastmilk if you aren't pregnant at least once); cows are injected with hormones and antibiotics to both boost milk supply and to "heal" their udders, which would otherwise succumb to diseases like mastitis from producing so much milk unnaturally.

Also, the human body does not need milk. No mammal alive needs breastmilk after infancy, and the human body stops producing the enzymes needed to breakdown components in breast milk (ours or other creature's) by age 5. 75% of human beings do not make the enzyme needed to digest the lactose in milk; many people are outright lactose intolerant where they have very visible reactions to dairy, but most people suffer from indigestion and bacterial reactions in their colon without knowing it because of dairy. Dairy is also linked with childhood asthma and unnatural bodily mucus.

It's weird to even think about drinking our OWN mother's breast milk now that we are grown, so why be even WEIRDER and drink another creature's breast milk?

Answer 9

Dairy is actually just difficult for adults to digest. Mammals are designed to drink milk as babies only - the older you get, the more difficult it is for your body to digest milk - whether you are lactose intolerant or not.

Trust me, I used to be one of you. I thought all this "milk is for babies" stuff was nonsense, but I've been dairy-free for two weeks now and I'm already feeling better.

Answer 10

Here are some issues with the milking industry. the act of "Milking" itself does not kill cows, but the process does..

Jane is right in that cows need to be milked every day. Thats because we put them in that position of excess enriched food and no calves. Its like lighting a fire and claiming credit for putting it out.

aplogies to those that have seen this answer before, but the question is a regular one so it makes sense the answer is the same.

I am writing this because i have first hand knowledge - owning an arable farm in amongst dairy and beef farms, seeing them approx every other day because we visit them to see about rescue Jerseys.

No scare mongering or PETA videos, these are real observations.

The farms I'm talking about here are nationally recognised as being the best in the industry, they have viewing gallaries and consistantly win awards so we are not talking about the average or less, we are talking about the BEST here. And this is UK farms which are recognised as having the best husbandry in the world.

Artificial incemination every year
Cows would naturally calve every 2-3 years. Dairy farms artificially inceminate them every 11 months.

Hormone enriched feed
The feed they are given is enriched with artificial growth foods. these are always made with cattle meat protiens.

Bribe/feed caged carousels
These suck. They are large rotating carousels where the cows are caged in a space where they cannot move. They have "black boxes" on thier legs which communicate with the main operating computer. They are fed just the right amount of food depending on how much milk they gave yesterday. They have added growth food if thier production drops
One person can milk about 400 cattle on a carousel so there is no time for checking the animals health - they just milk them dry and kick them out.

killing bulls, excess calves and free martins at 1 week old
All bulls are killed at 1 week old. They do not keep any back for breeding as they bring in new blood lines. In the UK we don't use dairy bull calves for veal anymore.
They kill all free martins as there is a good chance they will be barren
Strangly, they feel these animals with colostrum at birth to keep them alive, but then kill them a week later.

excess feeding to produce 60 lites of milk per day
The growth food is all designed to produce excess milk. Cows are naturally designed to produce about 15 litres.

intensive rearing means low husbandry checks
As mentioned above, most automatic dairies have one milkmaid per session, thats it. I know a dairy farm with 1200 cattle and 3 employees. Tell me how they can every check the cattle....

removing calves from mothers after colostrum feed
This is stressful, cows bawl for weeks for thier young, calling them to be fed. Obviously the calve cannot "run to mom" because its in dog food by now.

killing the cow at 7 years old
Cows can naturally live to 20 years old. Production dairy cows are killed after 4-6 births so are never kept after 7 years old.

Hope that helps.

Not saying you should not drink milk, that choice it up to you, but a responsible consumer will want to be aware of the issues involved in getting the milk to the table.

Answer 11

Veganism (also strict or pure vegetarianism) is a philosophy and lifestyle that seeks to exclude the use of animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose. Vegans do not use or consume animal products of any kind.