Why be Vegan and Not vegetarian?

Question

I've been vegetarian pretty much all my life but my friend's Vegan but I don't see why? Cows need to be Milked, so it's not cruel or anything.

Answer 1

You're mistaken.  The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the United States spend most of their lives in large sheds or on f***s-caked mud lots, where disease is rampant. Cows raised for their milk are repeatedly impregnated. Their babies are taken away so that humans can drink the milk intended for the calves. When their exhausted bodies can no longer provide enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers.

Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do: to nourish their babies. In order to force the animals to continue giving milk, factory farmers impregnate them using artificial insemination every year. Calves are generally taken from their mothers within a day of being born—males are destined for veal crates, and females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers.  Mother cows on dairy farms can often be seen searching and calling for their calves long after they have been separated.

After their calves are taken from them, mother cows are hooked up, several times a day, to machines that take the milk intended for their babies. Using genetic manipulation, powerful hormones, and intensive milking, factory farmers force cows to produce about 10 times as much milk as they naturally would. Animals are pumped full of bovine growth hormone (BGH), which contributes to painful inflammation of the udder known as “mastitis.” (BGH is used throughout the U.S., but has been banned in Europe and Canada because of concerns over human health and animal welfare.) According to the industry’s own figures, between 30 and 50 percent of dairy cows suffer from mastitis, an extremely painful condition.

A cow’s natural lifespan is 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the filth, intensive confinement, and the strain of constantly being pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat because their bodies too “spent” to be used for anything else.

Male calves—“byproducts” of the dairy industry—are generally taken from their mothers when they are less than 1 day old. The calves are then put into dark, tiny crates, where they are kept almost completely immobilized so that their flesh stays tender. The calves are fed a liquid diet that is low in iron and has little nutritive value in order to make their flesh white. This heinous treatment makes the calves ill, and they frequently suffer from anemia, diarrhea, and pneumonia. Frightened, sick, and alone, these calves are killed after only a few months of life. “Veal” is the flesh of a tortured, sick baby cow, and a byproduct of the milk industry.

All adult and baby cows, whether raised for their flesh or their milk, are eventually shipped to a slaughterhouse and killed.  There's a chunk of veal in every glass of milk.  Every single veal calf is the child of a dairy cow.

Answer 2

Cows don't 'need' to be milked any more than humans do. Normally their calves would relieve them of that milk, but their calves are taken away at birth so that humans can have the milk. THAT'S cruel.

Answer 3

Yeah, but its like, they believe its part of the cow...but surely, its like us going to the toilet? And if we didnt wouldnt we be in pain?

Answer 4

Cows "need" to be milked? What does that even mean? Cows are not our slaves, they want to live and deserve a right to live freely just like human beings do.

Answer 5

Intensive farming or factory farming of dairy and eggs is just as cruel as factory farming of animals for flesh.

Cows do not need to be milked, that's ridiculous.

If cows were left alone and allowed to nurse their young, they could stop producing milk naturally when it is time to wean their young.

Answer 6

Okay well I hear this all the time as I am vegan. "Milking cows doesn't hurt them, neither does when chickens lay eggs" No it wouldn't if it was done naturally and under thier own terms.

Lets start with chickens even though you didn't ask but just in case your wandering. Laying an egg may not hurt but cutting it's beak off so when it goes insane it cannot kill itself or other chickens may hurt. Their beaks have a lot of nerve endings so it isn't like they do not feel it, this is also done without the use of anesthetics or antibiotics. Been shoved in a tiny cage for your short but horrible life is infact cruel. Never been able to put your feet on grass or even been able to feel the warm sun light on your skin (feathers in this case I guess) or even never been able to fully stretch your limbs is considered cruel by most people. Even if this is done humanly it is still exploitation if you ask me. Chickens lay eggs to make babies and not for humans to eat.

Okay cows make milk for their calves to drink and not for us humans to drink. It's exploiting the animal. They are kept pregnant the entire time of thier also shortened life. The average cow that lives a free live has a life span of 20 years. Cows kept for dairy live for 4 years average. They are hooked up to machines that often break bones. This process is done serveral times a day. They are kept in spaces where thier heads are locked up so they cannot even look whats behind them, they cannot properly or comfortably stand or lay down. No harm? No Cruelty? I think not..

There are heaps of other reasons why vegans refuse to purchase other products to such as furs, certain glues, honey, certain shoes, sugars, candys and other stuff. Just ask if you are interested about anything else.

There is more to becoming vegan than the cruelty factor to, the enviroment also benfits and so does your health. It's a win, win, win situation.

I am not been agressive towards you if it sounds like I was. I hope that I have shed some light on the discusting processess that take place. It's up to you to choose weather or not you wanna listen to a 16yr old dropout or not.

Answer 7

I don't think cows need to be milked at all.  The only reason they would need to be is because humans make them get pregnant over and over again.  They don't treat those cows very well at all, and they take their babies from them after a few hours or a day or two.  Those babies are then either thrown in a ditch and shot in the head or are taken to the veal industry where sometimes they have to live alone in the dark in veal crates until they are killed.  

I still am eating dairy, but I have cut it down a lot and hopefully one day I can break the habit of these products that I have grown to love.

Answer 8

Cows need to be milked BY THEIR CALVES.  Think about it: do monkeys need to be milked?  Do tigers need to be milked?  Do racoons need to be milked?  No, of course not.  Nature designed mammalian mothers to produce milk in repsonse to having given birth.  Nature designed mother's milk to be the perfect food for her offspring.  And Nature designed mammals to produce milk for their infants without requiring human intervention.

The only reason dairy cattle "need" to be milked is because we artificially inseminated them and then removed their infant 24 hours after birth.  With no baby to suckle, they need to be milked.  But congratulating ourselves for putting them out of their misery is like a poisoner congratulating himself for providing his victim with the antidote.  WE did that to her.  And it IS cruel.

Further, the conditions that dairy cows and laying hens must endure are cruel and inhumane.  Dairy cows give birth 2-3 times as often as a cow would naturally breed.  Their baby boys are worthless to a dairy operation, so they are sold to the veal crates.  They are pumped full of hormones and steroids to produce more milk and when their engorged, mechanically milked teats become painfully infected, antibiotics are added to the mix.  Normally a cow would live 15-20 years, but we literally suck the life out of them and they have to be slaughtered at 4 or 5... there's no retirement home for dairy cows that can no longer produce and many of them are lame by that point anyway.  Most laying hens are either crammed into battery cages with half a dozen other birds, or crammed cageless into a shed with tens of thousands of other birds (these are your "humane" cage free eggs - if there's an opening to the outside, they get to call them free range even if most of the hens will never get anywhere near that door.)  They each have about the space of a piece of notebook paper and cannot open their wings.  They have their beaks sliced off with a hot knife so that when the stress of overcrowding gets to them, they cannot peck their neighbor to death.  Male chicks are killed as soon as they are sexed... 280 million of them each year.  When their production slows, they undergo a process called force molting where they are starved and kept in the dark for two solid weeks to jump start another round of egg-laying; if that doesn't work, they are slaughtered for nuggets and dog food.

Your friend is probably vegan because she knows that, if you care about animal cruelty, it's a more complete gesture than vegetarianism is.