Responding to questions and comments from non-vegans

[RachelJune]

Thanks for the reply, Amy :) You mention some very interesting points.

One point I forgot to mention in my initial post is that he is diabetic and has had serious heart problems. This is my main concern for trying to educate him re dairy/meat and health. I don't think I will ever convince him re the ethical side.

[absentmindedfan]

Well he can drastically alleviate both if he does go vegan. And especially regarding Diabetes, Dr Neal Barnard's work is very useful.
With Diabetes every single piece of fish, meat egg or dairy he eats will cause a hike in his blood sugar, so moderation just will not work.
I'll get Sam to post some links to Dr Barnard's stuff..

[Korn]

Hi,
I wonder how your father thinks that sickle cell anemia is related to eating vegan? He mentions that Indians easily develop diseases linked to vitamin D 'here' (in UK?) - and while it's a known fact that lots of people get too little sunlight (= too little vitamin D) because they spend too much time indoors, especially in the months when there's little sun, dark skinned people need more sunlight than light skinned people, which probably would explain why a dark skinned person living in a sunny climate may get too little sunlight/vitamin D when moving further away from Equator - especially if he doesn't work outdoors.



If your writer has indeed studied World races for so many years the example of this people can hardly have escaped him.
Then again what about Polynesians who eat lots of fish and fruit, or that Japanese who do not fry food in fat and eat raw fish? I haven't read the China Study, but I don't think that it is meant to cover the diets in Polynesia or Japan....


Nor does he discuss the possible toxicity to the human body of over indulging in certain vegetables eg, bread.
I don't think the author of the China Study or any other writers of vegan books suggest that overindulge in anything is a good idea. It's totally possible to live on a vegan diet, and still consume far too much of certain plants and far too little of others, which is not at all recommendable. Bread is made of grains, and given the small size grains have, many vegans (eg. people on a macrobiotic vegan diet) would suggest that too much grains is not good at all, because they believe that the best diet for humans must relate to the amount/availability of plants in their local area. Eg., if you live in a place where a lot of tropical fruits grow locally (naturally, not from agriculture), it's better for the body to eat these fruits than if you eat the same amount of fruit in an area where such plants don't grow. Without agriculture, grains wouldn't have existed in the huge amounts they do today.

'Normal' bread is also a highly processed/refined product, which many vegans warn against using too much of.


In short, he is studying abuse of one type of food and deliberatly neglecting to do a comparative study on the food he recommends. Had he done so, this would have been a powerful document indeed.
If he still refers to the China Study, I think the 'problem' people may have with many books is that they are meant to cover a defined topic, and therefore don't dive into all the possible ways to eat an unbalanced vegan diet, eg. with far too much sugar or refined products (like white flour in bread). Also - most vegan literature, if not all, literature compares a 'normal' amount of animal products with a 'normal vegan diet - the reference is not an extreme version of the non-vegan diet.


Our ancestors are dnetally and organically equipped as we are (with incisors etc), as Chimpanzees, and these last will take meat at
every opportunity, even engaging in cannibalism.
Here are a few threads that more or less cover this topic:
Did humans always eat meat? (http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1194)
B12: How natural is the vegan diet? (http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3763)
Are we designed or 'meant to' to eat meat?
(http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7466)

We don't need to refer to other species to see cannibalism, since humans have been cannibals too. The question is: should we really to copy the lifestyle of other beings? Should we eat meat because another species eats meat?

People using dairy products often say that they have serious problems with the idea of giving up dairy foods, and they are also concerned about the 'naturalness' of their diet vs. ours. Maybe it would help them to ask themselves if it can be natural to use dairy products is so natural, when so so many humans lactose intolerant, since milk products are associated with many health problems, and when no other species are living on milk from other animals - or continue to drink milk throughout their lives.

We are not equipped with a body fit for hunting animals. We have only two legs, can't fly, and our sight/sense of smell/hearing abilities are inferior to these abilities ion many non-humans. We may develop tools, but that's different from insisting that we are meant to make weapons.

History goes through changes. When the first person in the history of human development tried to kill an animal, he didn't check with Google if those who lived 10,000 years before himself also killed animals. We're supposed to be part of that evolution, not to use science or pseudo-science as an 'excuse' to keep doing what many humans believe our ancestors did. They raped, killed, ate meat and became 24-40 years old, but there's no reason we should copy them. It's easier than ever to live as vegans, because more and more people understand that even if we can make tools, that doesn't mean that we're meant to make weapons or bombs.



There is no way of establishing that prehistoric humans were vegitarian and indeed the creation of weapons early on suggests a culture of hunting was more normal, indeed necessary to human survival.
The study of the lives of people in eg. India and China suggest that lots of people have lived on a diet mainly based on plants, and I'm convinced that people who may not believe in these studies agree that hunting - or eating meat from other sources - isn't necessary for humans today: throughout history, mankind has gone through periods of hunger, epidemic diseases and other catastrophes, and in such situations, maybe ideas about drinking milk from other species or killing each other/other animals have felt 'natural'. People who live in countries where cars move on the right side of the road feel that it's 'unnatural' to drive on the left side of the road, but it only takes a few weeks to get used to it. What we experience as 'natural' is mainly based on habit from our own past, and not on what some prehistoric humans ate hundreds of thousands of years ago!


The hunt/kill instinct remains strong in humans and can only be supressed by intense cultural aversion indoctrination. This statement is more a theory than a scientific fact, and I believe the reason that more and more people stop eating meat is that they don't feel like 'killers' even if they have been raised to eat meat. If your father feels that he has a strong hunt/kill instinct, this could be just as much a result of having grown up in a culture where killing and eating animals is considered normal as believeing that vegans are vegans only because our instincts are 'supressed by intense cultural aversion indoctrination'. Since he is your father, he would probably notice if you were exposed to such indoctrination by your parents, schools or media. :)



There is no argument that Vegans remain healthier, but since this is not the natural way of eating It would be interesting to hear why someone thinks it's natural for humans to eat a diet that less healthy than another diet - a diet that also is less damaging for the environment. Are we 'meant to' be less healthy that we can? :) Is it natural to damage our planet, harm animals and reduce our health? ;)


they do and have to keep a firm eye on diet.

Most meat eaters are not very willing to admit that they also need to keep a firm eye on their diet if they shall both get the nutrients they need and not too much of the stuff in animals that's not good for them. Read about nutrient deficiencies in non-vegans here. (http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24) The fact is that lots of meat eaters who keep an eye on their diet (50% of them also eat supplements) are having serious health problems. The average European eats a non-vegan diet, but he is also sick 10 years of his life. Since so many diseases are diet related, doesn't this indicate that these average Europeans should keep a much more firm eye on their diet than they do today?


I also think far, far too much sugar is consumed. and that is a vegetable, if you see what I mean. I totally agree that far, far too much sugar is consumed. Invite him over to our forum, RachelJune, we both have threads about the unhealthiness of sugar, overprocessed food, and about overindulging in wheat (he mentioned too much bread). There are many plants that it's not a good idea to overindulge in, but is that really an argument against eating a diet based on healthy amounts of healthy plants? I don't think so... :)

[Korn]

Hi again RachelJune,

I should probably add that I believe that the most important part of any non-vegans explanation about why they aren't very eager about going vegan is exactly what your father writes in the first sentence: "I have serious problems with the idea of giving up dairy foods, especially when I have loved them for so long." I understand this totally. People often continue eating food they know is bad for them even if they get ill - so this isn't a vegan specific thing, really.

Arguments may not be as important as we believe believe they are, which is why I personally think the one of the best way to 'veganize' the world would be to open lots of vegan gourmet cafes and restaurants.

It's actually quite normal that people continue to eat food they know is bad for them - even if they get seriously ill - this isn't really a vegan specific thing.



A tennis court is on fire. Do you a) throw a small amount of petrol on it once a week and see what happens or b) throw water over it and stop the flames? Moderation is the former, complete removal the latter.
:)

Good point - even if the problem may be that people who advocate eating vegan food with a few animal products added may not agree that a small amount of animal products can be compared with putting a little extra fuel on the fire. Of course, reducing animal products to a minimum is a lot better than not doing it, but a known problem with people who have used a lot of milk/cheese etc. in the past is that they may get an allergy-like counter reaction even if they only consume very small amounts of dairy - eg. if they eat a plant based meal in a restaurant that prepares the dish in a frying pan that contains small amounts of butter from another meal prepared earlier.

[RachelJune]

Thanks to Amy and Korn for some helpful responses.

He's coming over to visit at the weekend and we're taking him out for a meal at a fully vegan restaurant in Sowerby Bridge. Hopefully this will be a good way to show just how tasty vegan food can be.

I'll definately point him in the direction of this forum too :D

[cheeky_b]

I would like to add some comments on this as well. The first thing is, your dad took certain things out of concrete social/cultural context.
As I see it, the prehistoric hunter-gatherer are linked to nowadays meat consumption at exactly 0 percent. If we lived in a natural order and wouldn't dominate, if we accepted our death from another predator as nature's way, this would mean a completely different thing. One is to engage in a natural lifecycle and one is to be anthropocentric and justify only human cruelty over other forms of life.
This is because hunting food for survival differs from a lifestyle of an urban, industrialized lifestyle in which meat and other animal products offer a health risk very often. This is the textbook stuff. Note that I also realize plant-based diet can today be risky as well, but I consider it way safer.
Another thing is, the world has in the age of imperialism and the clashes with indigenous societies and remaining hunter-gatherers [negatively] re-arranged lifestyles of all human beings. This is the nature of the predating civilization. Cultures that once were self-sufficient and healthy are today endangered and in lack of plenty.

If veganism was a matter of purely instinctual-based theory, this would be a very shaky matter. The ethics nowadays (at least for me) and moral acting prevail over any scientific evidence of pro-meat arguments. It is highly totalitarian that firm evidence can dominate over animals' experiences, their suffering and misery.

I hope this helps you out. :cool:

[CoCo]

I didn't read through all the comments, so pardon me if this was already addressed, but sickle-cell anemia actually came about as a way for people to survive.
You notice that it's more common in places where it's really warm-- places where malaria is rampant. The sickle-shape of the blood cell is more likely to prevent that malaria from breeding. It was actually an evolutionary tool for survival--and did not come about from a lack of vitamin D.

[love,lee]

In my religion class today, after a long debate over the usage of animals in the bible, the people around me started narrowing in on the fact I went vegan two weeks ago. They started asking me if i was doing this to lose weight (no,) what makeup i used (because you know, em, most makeup is made out of fish scales, and you're wearing a shitload of makeup. killing lots of fish, are we?) if i had a leather couch (yes, but it wasn't my decision to buy it, and i can't magically change it into a cloth apolstered piece of furniture.)

Now all that was rude and all, but what really hit me was how everyone agreed I was going to die of malnutrition, when I've never eaten healthier in my life. I believe I'm getting all my 'nutrients' and don't plan on dropping dead anytime soon.

Am I the only one to go through this, and how should I deal with it next time?!

sorry if this is in thr wrong section-still getting the hang of things
xx

[xrodolfox]

The problem is that your classmates don't have experience to fall back on facts that contradict their fears. Those classmates aren't even arguing with you, but with themselves and their fears about living differently.

Instead of arguments, bring pictures. Pictures of healthy vegans that thrive. Such as Carl Lewis, or people from here.

I'm quite sure you aren't alone amongst vegans in HS getting BS from peers.

[Roxy]

I had a hard time with bullies in high school. My advice might not be the best advice....but I would simply ignore dickheads like that. They're just ganging up on you by the sounds of it. You're not required to prove anything to them. Just be who you are :) They'll soon see that you're not dying of malnutrition, but rather living a healthy, compassionate life.

[Ruby Rose]

I'd agree with Roxy and Rodolfo - the best comeback you can possibly have for ignorant comments like that is simply to continue to be fantastically healthy. Fail to drop dead of malnutrition - that'll show them!

[harpy]

Roxy has a point - they are probably doing it to get a reaction from you and if you just smile and look confident (not easy I know) they will probably move on.

On the nutrition thing, it's worth making sure that you're really well-informed about where you're getting all your nutrients from, not to argue with people but because it will help you to laugh off their silly comments - and because it's a good thing to know about.

[Korn]

Now all that was rude and all, but what really hit me was how everyone agreed I was going to die of malnutrition, when I've never eaten healthier in my life. I believe I'm getting all my 'nutrients' and don't plan on dropping dead anytime soon.

I don't hear this often... some people think we're not capable of getting enough protein on a vegan diet, but as we know, this is not correct. Others think we need cow's milk for calcium, which we also know is wrong. Some thing that we we can't get enough iron on a plant based diet too - but again: this is wrong.

You won't automatically get all the nutrients you need as a vegan, and regarding B12 (which I've written a couple of posts about already ;)), we're having three different situations in parallel, each of which generates confusion:

People think they need what they have been trained to eat, and even if someone start eating more healthy than she ever did, a few people think they will get a lower nutrient intake (or miss certain nutrients) without knowing what they're talking about

Most vegans seem to need a higher B12 intake/absorption than what they'll get from just eating vegan food. B12 has been found in many plants, but very little effort has been put into finding out why some vegan seem seem to develop a B12 deficiency, or how we can find a number of plants that reliably can be used as a B12 source. (Since you're new here, you may not have seen this yet, Love,lee: 50 ways to develop B12 deficiency (http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196)

Most vegans and vegan sites are pretty good at mentioning why vegans (just like non-vegans) may have to take supplements, but a few sites (and few vegans) are not. They don't care if vegan food is natural or not (or think it is less natural than a non-vegan diet), and have decided that they want to try to convince others that vegan food isn't a natural choice for humans, and at the same time give advice to other existing or potential vegans about taking this or that supplement in ways that makes lots of people immediately lose interest in living on vegan food. They go in detail about how unnatural they think the vegan diet is, but rarely go in detail about why vegans need to pay extra attention to B12, or about all the known deficiencies that's common among non-vegans.

If I were in your shoes, I'd just ask them which nutrients they think I miss, and where they think animals get these nutrients from (the animals non-vegans eat are all plant eaters).

Maybe it would help if you showed them this thread....:

Nutrient deficiencies more common in meat eaters than in vegans (http://www.veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24)

[Sarabi]

So we have an extensive thread covering all the arguments against veganism. Let's have a thread responding to all of those arguments. I'll start:

1. Argument: "What's next? Plant rights?"
Response (if the person supports gay rights): "That's the same argument made against gay rights, 'What's next? Polygamy?'"

[puca]

"What do you expect me to eat... Rocks? At the end of the day, fewer plants are killed for a vegan diet than for an omni diet. That is before you talk about the effect on climate change, which is also causing desertification."

That is what I'd reply to something like that.

Or you could just say...

"Whether or not you agree with the idea that the interests of animals should be considered, a vegan diet uses far less water and resources than an omni diet. It's not only nonhuman animals who suffer from the meat industry... Ask people whose crops are failing because of the lack/too muh rainfall, or the displaced indigenous people of the Amazon basin."

ect ect

Veganism is a lifestyle for humans too.

[Shrapnel]

Argument: "If we didn't eat them, cows would take over the world."

Response: "Your stupidity makes babies cry. Please, think of the children."

Argument: "For every animal you don't eat, I'ma gonna eat three! Haw haw! Bet you never heard that one before. Sweet Jeebus, am I clever!"

Response: *punch in face*

[CrunchyMomma]

Argument: "God made animals for us to eat. He gave us dominion over them."

Response: If you are a believer of the Bible, then surely you have read the many passages about how God created the animals and how he saw they were very good. It was never his intent for mankind to have to exploit animals for food or clothing. When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden, they lived in perfect harmony with the animals and lived on a completely vegan diet. Don't believe me? Here are some verses that make it quite plain:

"I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination." (Jeremiah 2:7)


"You shall not pollute the land in which you live.... You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I also dwell; for I the LORD dwell among the Israelites." (Numbers 35:33-34)


"Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:7-10)


By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.(Genesis 1:29-30


Bear in mind I am not, personally, a Christian; however, many people like to argue from the position that the God of Judaic-Christianity created animals solely for human consumption. Reading through these passages we can deduce the following:


1. God created the animals before humans.
2. God intended for humans AND animals to eat from the vegetation, not flesh from other animals.
3. There is much we can learn from the animals and that there are dire consequences when we harm nature.

[Shrapnel]

I like that response CM =) I usually would reply with Jesus' "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Though, I find your post much more thorough.

[Kitteh]

Taken from here (http://www.examiner.com/x-5150-Philadelphia-Vegan-Examiner~y2009m4d9-Ten-stupid-questions-vegans-get-asked)

The following is a list of stupid questions that vegans get asked with some tongue-in-cheek responses for your entertainment. Please note, I could go into immense detail to seriously address each and every one of these questions, but I will save that for later FAQs. Enjoy!

1) Don't you miss cheese?
I miss cheese about as much as I miss drinking Pepto-Bismol as a kid.

2) If everyone went vegan, wouldn't animals take over the world?
Yes, animals would take over the world and cows would be breaking down our doors! You do realize that these animals exist only because we breed them into existence, right?

3) Aren't you hurting plants?
Plants do not have central nervous systems, therefore are not sentient, therefore do not feel pain. C'mon, really?

4) Where do you get your protein?
Newsflash!! Almost ALL foods contain protein and guess what? We don't even need to combine them! This question must be straight out of 1983.

5) Do you eat fish?
Biology 101: Fish belong to the ANIMAL kingdom.

6) Wouldn't cows explode if we didn't milk them?
Why don't you go ask a mother that did not breast feed if her breasts are still intact. The only reason cows GIVE milk is because they are pregnant. Again, Biology 101.

7) Why don't you care about people?

I don't know about you, but I am capable of caring about more than one thing at a time. I guess someone with two children can only care about one of them with that logic.

8) Where do you get calcium if you don't drink milk?
Broccoli, brussels sprouts and most leafy greens offer more available calcium than cow's milk. Brussels sprouts clock in at around 64% absorption and I believe cow's milk clocks in somewhere around 32%. Where do you think cultures that don't drink milk get their calcium, dummy?

9) What do you eat, like salads and tofu?
Sometimes I throw in some iceberg lettuce for variety!

10) Isn't it hard being vegan?
Isn't it hard ripping through the greasy crust of a chicken wing, chewing around the cartilage, then picking the tendons out of your teeth afterwards? The only thing hard about being vegan is dealing with all these stupid, nonsensical questions.

[DavidT]

I love smart answers - but you can really only use them on your friends, who probably know already how 'quirky' and 'extreme' you are (not!).

Seriously, patience and calm explanations are 101% necessary for everyone else. Vegans will know this already but it's worth restating. Otherwise, there's a danger a new vegan might go off the deep end with sarcastic comments memorised from veganforum.com, reinforcing meat eaters' deranged opinions that we're the odd ones.

Keep 'em coming, all the same.:lol:

[Bellarose]

Instead of
focusing on the negative I like to encourage good farm practices which do not
have any of the negative effects of industrial farming. There is nothing
wrong with small farms. The shit is useful as fertilizer and does not
contribute to polluting the ground water. Protein from ANIMAL sources has
been proven to be necessary for the optimal health of a human being. If
there was any way around it I would opt out of consuming dairy and eggs but for
me there’s not. I do at least drink and eat only raw small farm
dairy and small farm eggs. People are NEVER going to stop eating dairy
and eggs in this country. The better way to go in my opinion is to
PROMOTE small farms and raw dairy vs. pasteurized. Raw dairy does not
cause all the health problems mentioned in this article as does the pasteurized
variety. If we give them an alternative that isn’t too
life-altering some will go for that since they can still have their milk and
eggs this way. If enough people change to raw dairy the industries will
shrink naturally.

I HAVE though
tried the alternatives mentioned in the article such as rice, almond, soy milk,
etc. and I just could not stomach it. Nothing beats a nice cold glass of raw
cow milk!

Help me with a thorough retort please. I am talk about how milk obviously is not meant for humans as no other animal in the animal kingdom drinks the milk of another animal.

Can anyone speak to her protein claim?

I am also going to talk about how small farms still slaughter and in a small farm the cow still has to stay pregnant and the baby still has to be mournfully separated. Can anyone help me expand on this argument?

This is a debate we are having in a group of local moms, so others will be reading it.

[harpy]

I think it's up to her to provide some evidence for the protein claim which as far as I know has no foundation at all. I'd ask her if she can provide some basis for the claim, preferably from a peer-reviewed scientific journal so that we can have a look at the data and reasoning.

Here's some material about the cruelty of dairy farming although it would probably be better if you could find something more USA-oriented:

http://www.vegansociety.com/animals/exploitation/cows/dairy_cow.php

[Bellarose]

This is how I responded:

Letter:
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/letter.html
Free-Range Eggs and Milk:
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/outreach/laTimesAd.html
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/outreach/Don%27tKillMyBaby.pdf
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/outreach/Don%27tKillMe.pdf

Shannon,

As far as milk goes, if you use basic logic you will see that there is no way humans were meant to consume it. Your baby drinks your milk, a cats baby drinks her milk, and a cows baby drinks her milk. No mammal drinks the milk of another animal. For that matter, no adult animal drinks milk at all. Please provide some evidence for the protein claim which as far as I know has no foundation at all. Please provide some basis for the claim, preferably from a peer-reviewed scientific journal so that we can have a look at the data and reasoning. My daughter and I are very healthful, and so are many other vegans worldwide. " If there was any way around it I would opt out of consuming dairy and eggs but for me there’s not." There very obviously is a way around it, I think the operative part of that statement is "for you." Small farms still require baby's to be taken from their mother's and often killed. Small farms still kill male chicks simply because they are male. I really hope you will read the letter below. It is definitely worthwhile.

I think your closing statement is what it all comes down to. You don't want to make the switch. Okay, that is your choice, but please don't imply that you don't do it because the problems really don't exist or that it cannot be done healthfully. They do exist and it can be done healthfully. Regarding taste: for me it was a change in the beginning, similar I am sure from your switch from pasteurized to raw, but now it is normal and I absolutely do NOT miss milk in the least. Side note: almost all sweet treats that kids enjoy can be made in delicious vegan versions. Chocolate cake, cupcakes, brownies, pancakes, what have you.

I suppose when it comes down to it, local farms may be the lesser evil but it still requires the suffering and death of animals so you can have milk and eggs. And, can I ask you, is all your milk and eggs locally farmed or do you buy products containing milk and eggs from the main industry? Do you go out to eat and eat products from the main industry? Living near cows on local farms when I grew up, I heard the mother's and baby's bellow for each other when separated and their cries fell on20deaf ears. Tell me, is that humane?
All females used for milk are torn from their babies shortly after birth.
Some try to fight off the attackers, some try to shield their babies with their own bodies,
some chase frantically after the transport, some cry pitifully, some withdraw in silent despair.
Some go trustingly with their keepers only to return to an empty stall.
They all beg for their babies in language that requires no translation:
They bellow, they cry, they moan. Many continue to call for days and nights on end.
Some stop eating and drinking. They search feverishly. Many refuse to give up and will
return to the empty spot again and again. Some withdraw in silent grief.
They all remember to their last breath the face, the scent, the voice, the gait of every baby
they carried for nine months, soundered to, birthed with difficulty, bathed, loved,
and never got to know, nurture, protect, and watch live.

All babies born to females used for milk pro duction are torn from their mothers shortly
after birth. They are barely days old, umbilical chords still attached, coats still slick from
the birth fluids, legs wobbly, eyes unfocused. They are defenseless. They are frightened.
They cry pitifully.
They all beg for their mothers in language that requires no translation.
They beg for the life-sustaining warmth of their mothers’ presence, the heartbeat that
promised life and protection long before they were born, the comfort of their mothers’
scent and voice, the nourishing milk that is their birthright.

Chained in dark, coffin-sized veal crates, they search feverishly for anybody to bond with,
anything to nurse on. Their curious minds cling to any stray object that may break the
endless monotony they are forced to endure, any opportunity to learn and expand.
Their developing bodies desperately need movement, sunshine, play, nourishment, nurture.
Calves destined for veal are fed a nutrient deficient, anemia inducing
diet and are denied any opportunity to move in order to make their
mu s c l e s we a k a n d p a l e enough to be s o l d a s “white veal ”.

In their critical need for iron, they lick the rusty nails that stick out of the cage walls.
At 4 months old, having never been allowed to move or even turn around in their lives,
they are too weak to walk on their own. Men drag them out of their cages by their legs,
tails, or ears, shove them into t rucks, push them down chutes and prod them onto the
killing floor. Still desperate to nurse, many calves try to suckle the fingers of their killers.


Regarding "organic milk," "free-range eggs," and "rose veal":
20 At a time when most animal rights organizations are actively promoting, advocating and rewarding "humane" animal products and farming methods, I am writing to you on behalf of three of the recipients of that mercy.
To the industry, they are known as production units #6, #35, and #67,595. To the "compassionate" consumer, they are known as feel-good labels: "organic dairy", "rose veal", "free-range eggs". To welfare advocates, they are known as "humane alternatives". To each other, they are known as mother, son, sister, friend. To themselves, they are simply what you and I are to ourselves: a self-aware, self-contained world of subjective experiences, feelings, fears, memories – someone with the absolute certainty that his or her life is worth living.
#6, is a first time mother. She is frantic. Her baby is missing. She is pacing desperately up and down the paddock, bellowing and crying, and calling for her lost boy, fearing the worst, having her fears confirmed. She is one of the thousands of defenseless females born into a quaint, verdant, organic dairy farm. She will spend her entire short life grieving the loss of baby after baby. She will be milked relentlessly through repeated cycles of pregnancies and bereavements. Her only experience of motherhood will be that of a mother's worst loss. In the prime of her life, her body will give, her spirit will break, her milk "production" will decline, and she will be sent to a horrifying slaughter, along with other grieving, defeated, "spent" mothers like herself.

She is the face of organic milk.


http://www.peacefulprairie.org/GraphicsNew/letterBodyPic1.jpg
#35 is a two-days old baby, his umbilical chord is still attached, his coat is still slick with birth fluids, his eyes are unfocused, his legs, wobbly. He is crying pitifully for his mother. No one answers. He will live his entire short life an orphan, his only experience of mother love will be one of yearning for it, his only experience of emotional connection, one of absence. Soon, the memory of his mother, her face, her voice, her scent, will fade, but the painful, irrepressible longing for her warmth will still be there. At four months old, he and other orphans like himself will be corralled into trucks and hauled to slaughter. As he will be dragged onto the killing floor, he will still be looking for his mother, still desperately needing her nurturing presence, especially at that dark time when he will be frightened and needing her more than ever in the midst of the terrible sights, and sounds, and scents of death all around him and, in his despair, in his want for a shred of consolation and protection, he, like most baby calves, will try to suckle the fingers of his killers.

He is the face of the "rose" veal20we are encouraging "responsible restaurant leaders" to use.
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/GraphicsNew/letterBodyPic2.jpg #67,595 is one of the 80,000 birds in a family-owned "free-range" egg facility. She has never seen the sun, or felt the grass under her feet, she has never met her mother. Her eyes are burning with the sting of ammonia fumes, her featherless body is covered with bruises and abrasions, her bones are brittle from the constant drain of egg production, her severed beak is throbbing in pain. She is exhausted, depleted and defeated. After a lifetime of social, psychological, emotional, physical deprivation, she copes by pecking neurotically at phantom targets for hours on end. She is two years old and her life is over. Her egg production has declined, and she will be disposed of by the cheapest means possible – she will be gassed along with the other 80,000 birds in her community. It will take three f ull work days to finish the job. For two long days, she will hear the sounds and breathe the smells of her sisters being killed in the gas drums outside her shed. On the third day, it will be her turn. She will be grabbed by the legs and taken outdoors for the first time in her life and, like every single one of the 80,000 "spent" hens, like every single one of the 50 billion annual victims of our appetite, she will fight to go on living, and she will accept no explanation and no justification for being robbed of her pathetic only life.

She is the face of the "free-range" eggs we are encouraging college campuses, businesses and consumers to use.
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/GraphicsNew/letterBodyPic3.jpg These are the "beneficiaries" of the "humane farming practices" that we, the animals' defenders, are developing, promoting, and publicly rewarding by encouraging "compassionate" consumers to buy the products of what we know to be nothing but misery. "Humane" practices that, if any of us were forced to endure, none of us would experience as humane.
We, the activists, know that there is no such thing as compassionate, responsible or ethical farming on any scale. We know that the only humane and ethical alternative is vegan living.
Why are so few of us telling the truth? Why are we describing "free-range" products as "humane" when we know the horror such practices inflict on their victims? Why are we lying to the public, and ourselves, that "compassionate" animal farming is anything but a myth, a marketing scheme, a deceptive label? Why are so many of us offering up the lives of animals by encouraging the consumption of their flesh, eggs and milk, when our only duty is to fight for their lives as if they were our own? Why are we promoting the practice of consuming animals when we know it to be brutal, inexcusable, unconscionable and completely unnecessary? Why are we rewarding consumers for demanding more of the the very thing we are struggling to eliminate? Why are we strengthening and rewarding the worlds' entrenched speciesist assumptions, when our job, our only job, as vegan educators and activists, is to challenge and change=2 0those assumptions by offering a new model of thinking about nonhuman animals, a new model of interacting with them, a new practice of living, a new way of being in the world?
Many of us justify our endorsement of "humane" animal products and our pursuit of welfare reforms by saying that the world is not ready to change, that it may never go vegan, that the most we can hope to accomplish in the meantime is to reduce the suffering of today's doomed animals. But this is not true. This is not a fact. It is a fear – a fear of action, a failure of will, a self- defeating attitude and, ultimately, a self-fulfilling prophesy.
The truth is, the world can change. Indeed, the world has changed many times before, and it has changed in ways that seemed impossible at the time. The truth is, the world will change, but only if we work towards creating that change. It will stay the same if we, the self-proclaimed agents of change, encourage it to stay the same. It will change if all of us tell the whole truth that there is no such thing as humane animal farming, or animal use of any kind, the truth that the only humane alternative is vegan living, the truth that animal fa rming on any scale is an ethical and environmental disaster, the truth that animals are persons like you and me who happen to be nonhuman and who have the same inherent right to life and liberty as you and I. The truth that vegan living is not a "lifestyle choice", but a moral imperative.
We can do better. Indeed, we have an obligation to do better.
I invite you to see for yourselves how much can be accomplished when a small group of dedicated activists commits all of its time and resources to vegan education that is consistent with, not undermining of, our ultimate goal – Animal Liberation – and when the Go Vegan message is central to every single one of its communications, from online resources, to printed literature, to ads, demos, and billboards, to outreach events, to the in-depth exploration of farmed animal personhood detailed in the individual portraits published on the Prairie Blog.
On a shoestring budget, with an all-volunteer core of vegan educators who are determined to tell the whole truth about meat, dairy and egg production, a small, gras sroots organization like Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary has built something that large, wealthy organizations have not only failed to bring forth, but have consistently undermined through years of anti-vegan advocacy: A vibrant vegan world growing in the middle of the nonvegan world, a place where the animal refugees are regarded and represented as the persons they rightly are, a place where the human residents advocate tirelessly for nothing less than total liberation, a Free State in the heart of the human-subjugated world, a place where the principles of abolition are applied in word, thought, and deed. A vegan enclave whose very presence has already changed the world's physical, political, psychological and spiritual geography.
I invite you to experience it for yourselves. Join us in our struggle to expand its reach. Help us make it borderless.
Joanna Lucas,
Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary

[Quantum Mechanic]

Animal protein hasn't proven necessary, though B12 is. However, in this society we can derive this in more humane ways from microbial sources (which are the original sources of the B12 in animals).

Raw milk has not been shown to have any health benefits to pasteurized, although the process of pasteurization does change the texture and, from what I've read, the taste. Raw milk also carries the additional risk of campylobacter infection, so I do not see how this would help any animals to promote raw dairy, as in addition to promoting dairy, this would increase the numbers of humans who get ill from the consumption of the raw milk, thus benefiting no animals.

[Quantum Mechanic]

Animal protein hasn't proven necessary, though B12 is. However, in this society we can derive this in more humane ways from microbial sources (which are the original sources of the B12 in animals).

Raw milk has not been shown to have any health benefits to pasteurized, although the process of pasteurization does change the texture and, from what I've read, the taste. Raw milk also carries the additional risk of campylobacter infection, so I do not see how this would help any animals to promote raw dairy, as in addition to promoting dairy, this would increase the numbers of humans who get ill from the consumption of the raw milk, thus benefiting no animals.