Milk, a Bond Between Mothers and Babies: Why Moms Should Boycott Dairy
As a vegan mama, I have been forced to think about the dairy industry in a whole new way. The parallels between a cow’s pregnancy and a human pregnancy are undeniable. We both carry our babies for 9 months. We are both mammals and therefore both produce milk for our babies. The main difference is that we get to bond and raise our young, whereas cows in the dairy industry get separated from their calves and their milk gets harvested for human consumption.
When I first started looking into veganism, 4 years ago, I read “The Cheese Trap” by Dr. Neal Barnard. I realized that cows are mammals and like us, they need to be pregnant and give birth to lactate. This means that the milk most of us grew up drinking actually belonged to baby calves. That is something I had never considered before.
In order for a cow to produce milk, the dairy industry has to artificially inseminate her without her consent and take her baby calf away from her hours after birth so they can steal her milk. Those babies, if they are female will be subjected to the same fate as their mothers when they are old enough. If they are males, they will be sold to the meat industry, and will be raised for beef. The bond a mother and baby share does not differentiate between species. Having her baby taken away hurts a mother cow as much as it would hurt us. There are numerous videos online showing the screams of a calf’s mother as they wrench her baby away from her. It is truly heartbreaking.
Now that I am have just become a mother, I can’t ever imagine doing this to another mother. Imprisoning her, assaulting her, taking a baby away and stealing her milk. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable realization to make. Can you imagine if this happened to you? If we took your baby and forced you to give up your milk? That is cruel, inhumane, violent, unjust and abusive.
Did you know humans are the only species to consume another species’s milk and to consume milk after infancy. Cow’s milk is specifically designed for baby calves just as elephant milk is designed for baby elephants and human breast milk is designed for human babies.
I would also like to draw attention to lactation for a moment. Many mothers now choose to breastfeed their babies. I can’t help but think of all the breastfeeding struggles we go through as mothers. Nipple pain and discomfort, blisters, cracked nipples, mastitis, not to mention the dysphoric sensation we might experience while pumping… All things we put with for the welfare of our child, but imagine going through those painful experiences when your baby has been taken away from you, just so you produce milk for another species who mistreats you daily to consume.
Let’s stop conforming unconsciously. Let’s not let billon dollar corporations confuse us and distract us. They are not concerned about our wellbeing or the wellbeing of other creatures. The dairy industry along with the meat and fishing industry want to keep us in the dark. They want us the remain unconscious but the truth is that there is no compassionate way to consume animal products.
We have been conditioned by the media and the dairy industry to believe that we need dairy to survive and be healthy but this is false. Research has proven that countries that consume the highest amounts of dairy are also are the countries who have the highest rates of osteoporosis, because all animal protein is highly acidic. So when animal foods are ingested the human body often leaches calcium from our bones to balance the acidity in the body. For more detailed information on how difficult it is to get truthful nutritional information to the public, read the book “Whole”, by Nutritional Biochemist Scientist, T. Colin Campbell. We all vote with our dollars. By drinking a glass of milk, and eating cheese and butter we are supporting the practice of baby calves to be stolen from their mothers.
Furthermore, about 75% of humans are lactose intolerant. The human body actually becomes increasing intolerant to lactose, the form of sugar present in mammal milk, as it ages. The enzyme, lactase, you are born with, which breaks down this sugar, naturally becomes depleted as we mature. The logic behind this is that past infancy, humans are meant to be weaned off of their mother’s milk. We are not physiologically designed to thrive on the breast milk of another mammal.
Often, they also pump the mother cow full of hormones and antibiotics to increase her milk supply, and the over pumping can cause her to have clogged and infected ducts. Machines are hooked up to her udders everyday to suck them dry. Infections and pus form inside and outside of the udder and the pus is then sucked in with the milk! You can find millions of pus cells, bovine growth hormones, antibiotics, feces, and more. Even in pasteurized milk.
When cows no longer produce optimal amounts of milk, they are sent straight to the slaughter house. When given a chance, cows can live up to 18–25 years but the dairy industry allows female cows to live 5–7 years at the most. It’s a difficult truth to accept.
We have all the tools we need. And it is our responsibility to educate ourselves. And our children. We need to make an educated decision.
There are so many alternatives now, soy, almond, cashew, pea, or coconut milk and they are all delicious! Animals are here with us. Not for us. Let’s not contribute to their suffering.
Suggested readings :
“The Cheese Trap” by Dr. Neal Barnard
“Whole” by T. Colin Campbell
Sources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004072/
http://www.dairyinfo.gc.ca/index_e.php?s1=dff-fcil&s2=cons&s3=consglo
http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/vegdiets/what-is-lactose-intolerance
http://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/lactose-intolerance
http://courses.washington.edu/evpsych/Bloom&Sherman-lactose-intolerance-EHB2005.pdf
