That is the question.  It’s been nagging at me for ages.

Sure, eat dairy.  Cows give milk.  They’re not killed…….   Right?

Well, cows only give milk after they’ve had a calf.  So, the dairy farmers have to continually keep the cows having calves.  How do they do that?  Artificial insemination.  Oh, THAT must be fun for the cows.

She has the calf, and the baby is lovingly allowed to be with Mommy forever, nursing whenever he or she likes.  Uh, no.  The baby is taken away within a couple of weeks so that Mommy can be hooked up to a machine and “milked” so we can have dairy products.

The mommy cow…..  separation anxiety.  The baby cow…… separation anxiety, and very often, slaughter.  Especially if they’re male.  Dairy farmers don’t need very many male cows with all that artificial insemination going on.

And, where do you think veal comes from?  Baby cows.  Betcha they’re mostly male, too.

I knew what veal was a long time ago, and it was the first meat I stopped eating, way before I became a vegetarian.  I became a vegetarian about 10 years ago and initially thought it was fine to eat dairy, until I learned more about what they do to the cows.

I’ve cut out about 75% of the dairy I used to eat, and will continue to work on the other 25%.  It is an on-going struggle and I continue to look for good, non-dairy substitutes and strive to do my best every day.  (Check out my “Perfect Vegetarian” blog post.  Interesting stuff!)

Now, I hear there’s some non-dairy Havarti I need to try?