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REFERENSERNES RESERVED JAINA CONVENTION 2011
Live and Help Live"
whole new meaning when discussing ice cream.
cow. If the baby is a male, he is sold to become veal. Yes, behind every carton of milk, and every block of cheese, is a veal calf. If you're buying dairy products, you're directly supporting the veal industry. Indeed, the veal industry couldn't exist without dairy cows.
Now, just in case you're unfamiliar with the practices of veal farms, here's a quick overview. Once veal calves are sold, at just a day or two old, they are chained inside a crate so small they can hardly move. And that's exactly the point, because the less they can move, the more tender their "meat" will be when they are slaughtered (between 8 and 14 weeks old). Veal calves are also fed an irondeficient diet so their flesh will be white instead of red or pink. They are often seen licking the metal bars of their crates in search of the iron that would be abundant in their mother's milk.
Now, again, I know some may have a problem with comparisons between the suffering of animals and people. But what exclusive right do humans have to the mother-child bond? There is no sure way for us to know what a cow may feel for her newborn, but certainly we can all agree on something called a mother's instinct. We recognize it in all animals. If a cow's love is anything close to what a human mother feels for her baby, we can only imagine the emotional pain we are inflicting, and the injustice we are committing.
As feminists, should we not stand up for all females? Should we not cry out in protest when mothers, human or not, are so blatantly exploited?
Or should we remain silent in denial?
Back on the dairy farm, mother cows cry. moan, and bellow for days, sometimes weeks, after their newborns are taken from them. Some have literally broken their necks trying to run after their children. One can only imagine the depression and distress of losing your baby. Since the cow is still producing milk for her calf, the dairy farmer continues to milk her. She will never know what it's like to nurse the child that lived in her womb for nine months. Instead, her milk will become butter, cheese, cream, and of course milk sold in markets. And when the dairy cow becomes too "spent" after four years of pregnancy after pregnancy to produce milk at sufficient quantities, she is rewarded with a trip to the slaughterhouse, where she will become hamburger. That's right, between almost all hamburger buns are the remains of America's spent dairy cows.
And for what good reason? There is no human dietary requirement for cow's milk. In fact, when you start to think about it, consuming cow's milk seems downright unnatural. Humans are the only mammals that drink milk past childhood, and we're the only species that drinks the milk of another species. Many recent studies now also show that milk may be detrimental to our health. For not only are a substantial number of Americans either lactose intolerant or allergic to milk, but what's worse is that casein, an animal protein abundant in milk, has been proven to be a powerful carcinogen.
In case you'd like to see some of this (and much worse) for yourself, check out this undercover investigation carried out by PETA at a Land O'Lakes dairy supplier in Pennsylvania. When you're finished with that, mosey on over to this undercover footage shot by Mercy For Animals at the Conklin Dairy Farm in Ohio. Gives "I scream, you scream" a
And remember all that talk about calcium and how milk is good for your bones? Well, it's true that milk does contain around 300 milligrams of calcium per glass, but that's only
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