Food Consumption

[Kate]

Do you think it's important for people to be vegetarian, Pescatarian, vegan, or something else along those lines? Comment below your thoughts! 🐔🐄🐖🐟

[Kate]

In general, if a milking animal is not milked for an extended period of time (more than 1 or 2 days for a cow giving a normal volume of milk – dairy cows are typically milked two or three times per day), they are likely to become ill and may develop mastitis, which is an inflammation and infection in the udder.

I want to become a vegan but still drink milk🍶. I don't like to eat meat 🍖 or eggs, but many people have told me that not milking a cow can hurt them 🐄! I don't have any negative feelings towards anyone who doesn't share my same preferences or beliefs as me, I just think that a more plant 🌱 based diet is something that I would defiantly like to try.

[Tiffany]

No milking a dairy cow can hurt her only if she's not nursing a calf. Her calf is taken away(often to become veal) so humans can steal her milk. If you keep the calf with its mother where it belongs, the cow is not hurt by not being milked because she's nursing her calf.
I believe to avoid cruelty one must be all-out vegan. The dairy and egg industries are just as cruel, if not even worse, than the meat industry, and -- no offense to any Pescatarians out there -- only eating fish is also exceedingly cruel because fish farms are appalling and wild-caught fish are often injured and left to slowly die of suffocation in the net before being processed. If you really think consuming milk is doing cows any favors, Kate or anyone else who is considering the same thing, you can read The Pig Who Sang to the Moon.

[Lizzie]

I love milk and I drink lots of it. I used to drink lots of it every day but I have lessened the amount now. I feel like personally and with my stubbornness, no one can tell me what to eat and not eat so I wouldn't do well as a vegetarian or vegan,

[[deleted user]]

I'm staying out of politics but tiffany milking cows won't hurt them in moderation and when done gently, farmers milking their cows to me is better then factories using machines on them.

[Tiffany]

I was talking about factory farmed cows, not family farmed ones (although personally I wouldn't drink any milk, period, because farmers might like about how gentle they are with their cows. Bottom line: If you're making money by exploiting someone, it doesn't pay to do things in moderation.) Besides, even family farms often separate the cows from their calves, causing emotional distress for both animals.

[Samantha]

I respect anyone who wants to be vegan, but I honestly don't understand it. As long as the farmers treat the animals with kindness and be humane, things like dairy and honey don't hurt the animals. I can understand if you don't want to eat them though.

[Tiffany]

The problem is that almost no farmer treats animals with kindness. They have money at stake, after all, and kindness doesn't pay.

[Lizzie]

Then hopefully more farmers will treat their animals kindly

[Tiffany]

I sure hope so, but right now few so.