Of course cows don’t “always” produce milk

A couple of weeks back I was having lunch, and my colleague (and friend) asked me, “Do you eat halloumi cheese?”. To which I responded, “I don’t consume anything that involves the rape and torture of animals”. What happened next compelled me to create this article.

Ok it’s true, I could just say “That’s correct, I don’t eat dairy”. But we passionate vegans don’t make our choices lightly. We do believe we take an ethical and moral high ground, apply the addage ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. So that means, in all honesty, I want my friend to also think about the rape, torture and murder of animals in the way I do, and not support this through the consumption of their flesh or bodily fluids.

When I told my colleague my reason, her response initially was one of naive surprise, “Cows aren’t harmed when we drink their milk”, through to “cows are there to make milk for us”.

“Oh really?”, I responded to this person that incidentally is pregnant, “and so why do the cows need to be raped for the birth of calves and then have their babies immediately snatched from them, for us to drink the milk that is intended for those now motherless babies?”.

The look on my colleagues face was priceless. She turned to the person sitting next to her and said, “I thought cows always produced milk, not just when they had a calf, didn’t you?”. The person sitting next to her said, “yes I thought the same” with a slight air of, “I couldn’t really give two shits”.

My immediate response was “In all honesty, I’m astounded at the level of ignorance amongst our species about this harm and abuse of animals”. There was me thinking, ‘Yes, that comment will do it… she will put her halloumi away, and now be converted to a brave new world of compassion and enlightenment’, but before I could get too happy, I realised that the desired result wasn’t to become reality.

Instead, she responded “Shut up, I don’t want to hear any more” and then covered her ears. I suspect, she was also offended that I had used the term ignorant and no one likes to be called ignorant, do they?

I encourage you, please think carefully about where your cow’s milk has come from. It is intended for calves, not for humans. The cows aren’t sitting around in farms, waiting to volunteer their milk to us.

Instead, they are artificially inseminated against their interests (isn’t that the same as rape?), and when their baby is born, it is snatched from the mother, who screams and cries like any human mother would or does.

This information can only mean so much in text and image form, to get a deeper sense of what’s going on please watch these videos.