Can I call myself an animal lover and still eat eggs and cheese?
A few months ago, a former colleague posted a reel raising the question of whether eating meat and animal products correlates with being animal lovers. He was talking in terms of nations, though obviously one can bring this right down to an individual, and for the past weeks I’ve been mulling whether I can call myself an animal lover whilst still eating eggs and cheese.
Let’s get the easy bit sorted first.
I love animals. I always have done and I cannot see this ever changing, in fact I can only see my love of animals growing as I age. We’ve had many pets over the years, which we prefer to call companion animals. Throughout my childhood I remember there always being at least one cat in the house, and for Richard (my partner) his family’s choice was for hounds. When we both started living together the rented house we looked at would come at a discount, if we looked after the landlady’s resident cat; we had no issue with this and even though the cat was a rescue and incredibly ferocious when unnerved we had a good many happy years with her — even with her becoming ‘ours’ once we moved out and bought our own home. Since then, we’ve had further cats, saying goodbye to our last several years ago after almost two decades. With an aging mother a flight away, an imminent house move on the cards and other life commitments we decided not to have any companion animals for the time being, though our garden is managed as a haven for wildlife and the local cat population finds this most acceptable — even if they are rather slow (thankfully!).
So, are we animal lovers? Well, yes. Hands up. We are animal lovers.
Now let’s have a think about the trickier part.
Having been vegetarian for about two decades (following a try-out for a few years from the age of thirteen), I still eat eggs and cheese. We both do. The eggs are organic or given to us by fellow plotholders of our allotment site and I know how these are cared for and housed. Cheese, well I’d love to get organic though at the moment budgets are tight and… We’ve cut down on cheese significantly over the past seven months — from almost 5 kilos a month to around 800g every six weeks; the reasoning is twofold, out of choice as a weaning-off process and needing to due to reducing saturated fat and calorie intake.
Now, when it comes to eggs, organic or not, I hope we all know that only female chickens lay eggs. This means that male chicks aren’t needed for the egg industry, so most are killed. This means that in order for me to eat eggs some chicks need to die. That’s a fact. And with my fellow plotholder’s chickens, I know how well they’re treated now though many are rescue chickens, and others bred for laying, so again as part of the overall process chicks have died, most probably through gassing or rotary mincing. Neither is good.
With the cheese we eat, female cows produce milk in the same way human mothers do — to feed their young. Just like men, male cows don’t produce milk so are little required within the dairy industry and again, just like the male chicks, these male calves are highly likely due an early death; this time by a bolt to the head or sticking, which is basically a knife to the throat. Again, neither end is good.
So, when eating eggs and cheese I know that in order for me to salivate over a full-on egg mayonnaise on rye or dairy-laced cauliflower cheese animals have had to die… and this doesn’t sit comfortably with me being an animal lover, and at the end of the day that is what I believe I am.
In terms of eggs, I’ve still to eat a satisfactory substitute, and of course I could just stop eating them. In terms of cheese, there’s been a positive and drastic reduction in our use already. I now use yeast flakes to make dairy-free ‘Parmesan’ (adding them to cashews, bouillon powder and garlic and blitzing) and make a good cheezy sauce with them too, though nothing yet compares to a very occasional rich cheese sauce or cheese on toast! Yes, there are vegan and vegetarian substitutes for dairy cheese, though again costs are higher, taste and texture is often a tad odd and availability of good substitutes locally is low. However, the shelves are forever being updated and I’m watching how to ferment cashew cheez on YouTube, so…
For the time being, I’m going to say the jury’s still out on whether some in society would call me an animal lover whilst I still eat eggs and cheese. I know I love animals, and I know that the move to eating no meat or, fish incredibly rarely and reducing my intake of animal products is down to my love of animals. I know that some people make small steps and others giant leaps and am happy in my life to have done both. In terms of further adjustments to our eating of cheese and eggs I can do more, and will do — an animal dying so that I can enjoy something I eat (or wear) sits less easily in my conscience daily.
I guess another way of looking at this conundrum is by turning the question around. Will I be more of an animal lover once I stop eating eggs and cheese? Well, in my eyes the answer to this question is an emphatic no, though I appreciate others might feel differently.
Whatever anyone else’s views, I’m clear on my own and I’ll continue my path of reducing and eliminating foods that aren’t plant-based from my diet. I’ll also continue with Richard moderating our Facebook Group Planet Vegetaria as a friendly and safe space to post about many subjects, including vegetarian and vegan food, growing, cooking, the environment, our planet, and Mother Nature! Why wouldn’t I… I am an animal lover after all.
