$JES 921 Book of Compassion Reverence For All Life Reference Book

Author(s): Pramoda Chitrabhanu, Pravin K Shah
Publisher: JAINA Education Committee

Page 59

11 - THE MYTH ABOUT MILK
the meat trade. No cow lives out her normal life span. She is milked, made sick and then killed.
What happens to the child, the calf? All the calves are separated from their mothers after three days. If the calf is a healthy female, it is put on milk substitutes to become a dairy replacement in two years. The male calves are tied up and left to starve to death which usually takes a week of intense
suffering.
Some are stuffed into trucks one on top of the other and sent to the slaughterhouse illegally to be killed for the veal that people eat in restaurants, which is also illegal. Some are sold to the cheese industry to have their stomachs slit (while alive) for rennet, the acid that is extracted for cheese making. A few are selected as bulls and kept in solitary pens for the rest of their lives for artificial insemination. Sometimes, when they are old, they are left on the streets of a city, to wonder around till a truck hits them (I should know: In one week, I have picked up eight dying bulls).
What is the basic nature of a cow? To devotedly care for her young, quietly forage and ruminate and patiently live out her 20 odd years in harmony with nature. She is not a four-legged milk pump who is to be orphaned, bred, fed, medicated, inseminated and manipulated for single purpose - maximum milk at minimum cost.
THE BOOK OF COMPASSION
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