Spoiler: milk cows get murdered as well.
A milk cow is productive for about 5 years, after which they usually get slaughtered for pet food.
In that time, they need to have about 3 calves, to continue producing “good returns” amount of milk daily. Two of those calves are not needed to replace the cow, so they get - guess what? - slaughtered and processed to pet food.
Stupid me grew up next to a milk farm and didn’t realize that until way later than I care to admit.
Also, I still eat cheese (reduced amounts) and that’s a moral dilemma for me.
But if you would keep the cows well, milk products could be made quite ethically…
Could be - but that would also mean taking milk away from the calves for a while. Not sure how much milk a cow would be able to continue to give and what the quality would be after the calf has had enough to outgrow infancy.
Now eggs however, those could be absolutely produced without animal suffering. Just be willing to pay more for the eggs so that hens can live free range in natural environments, and still get to continue living when they produce less or even no more eggs until they die from natural causes.
I don’t see a big ethical problem with snatching an unfertilised egg, considering that hens are able to lay like one egg a day. They won’t miss it if you take away a bunch of them and let them breed out the odd one.
Poor roosters. I believe the best solution for that would be the “in ovo” gender detection. One article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003257912300425X - in an ethical egg production scenario, the quoted machine learning could actually be viable: the false positive roosters are simply lucky, and get raised to adulthood / live a happy life ;)
If the reason for false positives is not self-enforcing through genetics, they could even be the normal “fathers of the next generation”.
Assuming, of course, the false positive rate can be lowered enough.
Re: milk - I have to say, for drinking, if you find a good brand, oat milk can be very tasty - I personally even think it tastes better in coffee / cappuccino than regular milk. And cheese - I just happen to have bought this hour for the first time a delicious vegan “Brie” variant: https://vanozza.de/en/produkte.html#brie-pfeffer
I am positively surprised, after the last couple of tries I no longer thought I would see the day - but this one is actually yummy!
For oat milk: tastewise best is Oatly Barista, but Oatly is in bed with investors from fascistan, so I go for the second best option which is also delicious: Lidl house brand vemondo, barista drink. Important: it must be the one produced by Grønvang (https://gronvang.dk/?lang=en) - the one by Green & White from Vlissingen/NL tastes bland / watery in comparison.
I am aware and I do make every effort to reduce and remove dairy (and eggs) from my diet, but I recognize that I fall short of what I would consider vegan. Like if I’m at a party and am offered cake I’m probably going to eat it even though there’s probably egg in it, but I’m not going to order an egg-based dish, same with dairy if we’re having pizza or something. As I get older I’m increasingly lactose intolerant anyway, so I have additional incentive to avoid it.
The important thing is that you make a conscious effort to improve. I am the same. I eat cheese and occasionally eggs - rarely even meat, but I try to overall consume very little animal products.
Absolutely. For me it’s all about harm reduction so as long as I am trying to improve, I can still fall short sometimes without having a crisis of conscience.
Spoiler: milk cows get murdered as well. A milk cow is productive for about 5 years, after which they usually get slaughtered for pet food. In that time, they need to have about 3 calves, to continue producing “good returns” amount of milk daily. Two of those calves are not needed to replace the cow, so they get - guess what? - slaughtered and processed to pet food.
Stupid me grew up next to a milk farm and didn’t realize that until way later than I care to admit.
Also, I still eat cheese (reduced amounts) and that’s a moral dilemma for me.
deleted by creator
Could be - but that would also mean taking milk away from the calves for a while. Not sure how much milk a cow would be able to continue to give and what the quality would be after the calf has had enough to outgrow infancy.
Now eggs however, those could be absolutely produced without animal suffering. Just be willing to pay more for the eggs so that hens can live free range in natural environments, and still get to continue living when they produce less or even no more eggs until they die from natural causes.
I don’t see a big ethical problem with snatching an unfertilised egg, considering that hens are able to lay like one egg a day. They won’t miss it if you take away a bunch of them and let them breed out the odd one.
deleted by creator
Poor roosters. I believe the best solution for that would be the “in ovo” gender detection. One article here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003257912300425X - in an ethical egg production scenario, the quoted machine learning could actually be viable: the false positive roosters are simply lucky, and get raised to adulthood / live a happy life ;) If the reason for false positives is not self-enforcing through genetics, they could even be the normal “fathers of the next generation”.
Assuming, of course, the false positive rate can be lowered enough.
Re: milk - I have to say, for drinking, if you find a good brand, oat milk can be very tasty - I personally even think it tastes better in coffee / cappuccino than regular milk. And cheese - I just happen to have bought this hour for the first time a delicious vegan “Brie” variant: https://vanozza.de/en/produkte.html#brie-pfeffer I am positively surprised, after the last couple of tries I no longer thought I would see the day - but this one is actually yummy!
For oat milk: tastewise best is Oatly Barista, but Oatly is in bed with investors from fascistan, so I go for the second best option which is also delicious: Lidl house brand vemondo, barista drink. Important: it must be the one produced by Grønvang (https://gronvang.dk/?lang=en) - the one by Green & White from Vlissingen/NL tastes bland / watery in comparison.
deleted by creator
I am aware and I do make every effort to reduce and remove dairy (and eggs) from my diet, but I recognize that I fall short of what I would consider vegan. Like if I’m at a party and am offered cake I’m probably going to eat it even though there’s probably egg in it, but I’m not going to order an egg-based dish, same with dairy if we’re having pizza or something. As I get older I’m increasingly lactose intolerant anyway, so I have additional incentive to avoid it.
The important thing is that you make a conscious effort to improve. I am the same. I eat cheese and occasionally eggs - rarely even meat, but I try to overall consume very little animal products.
Absolutely. For me it’s all about harm reduction so as long as I am trying to improve, I can still fall short sometimes without having a crisis of conscience.