Let’s talk eggs, milk and cheese, shall we?
We’ve all heard the speech about how we are the only species to drink the milk of another mammal blah blah blah. Yes, it’s true. Up until recently I thought that we were kind of doing dairy cows a favor. They eat thier grass and hay, they get full of milk and we milk them. They eat more grass and hay, produce more milk, and we milk them some more. It turns out there is more to this story.
Dairy cows do not just produce milk. Sure, thier name would insinuate that is what they do, just like laying hens lay eggs. (More on the eggs later) No, it turns out that dairy cows are not a specially bred type of cow that produce milk. Dairy cows, much like people, have to be pregnant to produce milk. So, the farmers who own the dairy cows have to make sure that, yup, you guessed it, the dairy cows stay pregnant. When the mommy cow finally has her calf, she does not get put in a nice little stall with her baby to nurse it. The baby gets taken away. They are fed by machines until they are old enough to either a) get turned into dairy cows (the girls) or b) get turned into veal (the boys) There was a story in a paper a while back where a mother cow broke out of it’s pen and travelled something like 3 miles to find her baby.
The mother cow is then milked. Not by nice warm hands that are gentle on her udders, but by a machine. The machine is attached to the cow and goes to work. This is done day after day. For those of you who have been pregnant, I’m sure you are well aware of what happens to the nipples after you’ve been nursing for a while. For those of you who haven’t been pregnant, I’m sure you have heard about it from your pregnant friends. The nipples get sore. They get dry. They crack. In some cases they may bleed a little. Cows experience the exact same thing. While we are lucky to be able to go to the drug store and buy a cream or salve to put on for this, cows don’t get that. Instead, day after day, they are hooked up to a machine and milked and any blood goes into that milk. This continues until mommy cow is ready to be pregnant again.
Consider that this milk is what your cheese is made out of. And ice cream. Each carton of milk, cream cheese, cheddar or ice cream is probably made the same way, with the same milk from these mass-produced dairys. With those cows, who don’t ever really get a break.
What kind of a sucky life is that? I have never been a huge fan of dairy, the odd ice cream in the summer, some cream cheese on my bagel, but I pay for it dearly as dairy is not my friend. Recently I switched to soy milk and it’s much easier on my tummy as well as my concience.
Onto the eggs. We all have the idea that our chickens are running around on a farm, they have a nice little henhouse where they each have thier own nest, and every day a nice farmer goes out to the henhouse while the chickens are out running around and gathers the eggs. It’s a nice thought, but not necessarily always true.
Imagine the inside of your stove. Now imagine 4 chickens in it. Now stack the inside of that stove with the 4 chickens 5 or 6 stoves high. That is where the majority of your eggs come from. The chickens are crammed in a small cage, fed crap food, and all they do is lay eggs. They have nowhere to sit or lay down, they have no dirt to go scratch in, no space to strech thier wings. They never get let out of the cage, and there are hundreds of these cages packed in a facility. This is why your grocery store can charge you only $1.99 for eggs.
Free run eggs are quite a bit different. Free run means that the chickens are not cooped up in cages. Normally they are kept in a big barn, they are able to run around, but there are also tons of other chickens in that same barn. It’s overcrowded, it smells bad, they ususally don’t get to go outside, but it’s a lot better than what is described above. These eggs cost a bit more than the $1.99 grocery store eggs.
Free range eggs are by far the best. Those chickens lead the good life. Especially if they are organic. They are fed good, whole grain. They have thier henhouse. They get to run outside and scratch in the dirt. Those are the eggs that cost the most. If you are lucky to have a local farmer’s market you can ususally get them for $4 or $5. Now, I know a lot of you will say that $5 is a lot to spend on eggs, but buy purchasing the $1.99 eggs, you are simply supporting the farms that cage thier chickens up 6 cages tall and 4 birds per cage. Not a good life.
Vegans have nothing to do with any animal product. No eggs, no dairy, no honey. No leather. Nothing. While I do still indulge in the above things, I am more careful with my choice. I only buy my eggs from my local market. I have never been a huge cheese fan, but try to buy that locally also, from the smaller farms that are able to hand milk thier cows and treat them well.
I completely support those who have chosen a vegan lifestyle. While I do not follow that lifestyle I am very aware of where the products I buy come from, and even though it’s not entirely cutting certain things out of my life, I feel that it’s important to be aware of where things come from, and then making the decisions that suit you and your lifestyle best.
It’s all in the choices that you make. Not everyone is able to get farm fresh eggs, not everyone can afford to buy small dairy farm milk and cheese. I get that. But being aware of what you are purchasing can make a world of difference. What if everyone refused to buy milk or eggs until the way the animals producing these things get changed? What if we all wanted our chickens to live the happy life with the farmhouse and the garden? What if we all took a stand and said that until our dairy cows are allowed to roam in a pasture of grass, get taken care of for thier sore udders and keep their babies beside them? It’s a small step, but money talks. By making decisions as to what and where you buy these things, gives you the power. The power to take the money away from the mass produced market that doesn’t care about the animal’s well being, and the power to support the people that do.
What’s your choice?