I don't eat meat.
There are a number of reasons for this. One is it just seems cruel to
slaughter animals and eat them. I still eat eggs and dairy, but I know that is not
free from cruelty either. Those animals, when they stop producing,
will also be slaughtered. Then, I read the numbers below, and I have
begun to think more seriously about cutting back on dairy.
In 1950 the average
cow yielded 5,300 pounds of milk. Last year the average cow yielded
23,000 pounds of milk. A Wisconsin Holstein recently yielded nearly
75,000 pounds of milk in a year, which amounts to roughly 24 gallons
a day.
I grew up on a farm,
and I did occasionally milk a cow. I hated it, but never considered
the ethics of it. The cows did, most of the time, seem content. I
moved away from the farm, and for the most part, had no contact with
cows. Then, a few years ago, I visited a farm and noticed the cows
were different from the cows of my milking days. Their udders were much larger. It looked burdensome.
I suspected they were being bred for that, but until I read the above
statistics, I had no idea how much. I found it rather horrifying. The
cows were being treated like machines. I need to move away from this
cruelty.
(These statistics
come from a Vanity Fair article about the Department of
Agriculture. Find it here. Also, here is an earlier article I wrote about cows here before. When I went back and read it, I realized how long I've been concerned about this.)
