I’d like to think that veal crates are banned but I’m not at all convinced that they are…???
I don’t drink milk as there are many alternatives…soy…coconut…almond…easily utilised in recipes involving milk…I’m just about to order a vegan cheddar…doesn’t seem to be much more expensive and would ease my conscience…
But…I raw feed my Border Collies so I stay on a mission over the ethics and welfare…
I too hear the cows who have had their calves taken away…they cry for days and during the night…I really don’t get why male calves can’t stay with their mothers and be raised as part of a beef herd…???
And I’ll never get the argument that it’s somehow “better” for helpless day old male calves to be ripped apart from their moms and transported for miles across borders in horrendous circumstances…what sort of life is that…??? Wtf is that all about…???
Milk… the calves have to be taken away so that the cow can be milked for production. Basically the system is to keep cows in a lactating state, which is why they have to have a calf once a year.
We have tried vegan cheeses, as daughter and partner are strict vegans, and out collective conclusion was not to bother as every one we tried was universally disgusting. We don’t bother with fake meat either, or use substitutes for things.
Have a look at the label on your almond milk. You might be surprised as usually an awful lot of sugar and very little almond. Also try to avoid Californian grown almonds as the are wrecking the water table there.
Yes I get that the calves have to be taken away to keep the mother lactating…they produce the milk for their calves not people…what I’m trying to say is why not keep the calves with their moms and raise them for beef…in their country of origin…???
I only use coconut milk so far and it’s fine…haven’t tried soy or almond…will still try the vegan cheddar…but thanks for warning me…x
A lot of calves are raised for beef… I’ve visited a local enterprise where they take in calves/youngsters male and female and raise them for the beef …
I’ll probably get it the wrong way round… but it seems the beef market is divided, something like …females go to Paris and males to Italy…
also, the effluent produced by all these animals… is mixed with the straw and turned into compost… a financially sound sideline…
And on the face of it that would seem a slightly better proposal but it still means calves are taken away from their moms in order to keep them lactating…???
I’ve heard of smallholdings…small enterprises where they keep the calves with mom for many months…maybe not profitable in any corporate conglomerate financial banking shareholder sense of the word but the milk is only taken after the calf is reared…
And why can’t Italy ethically raise it’s own livestock for it’s own people…??? (Or any “country” for that matter…???)
And if there are milk alternatives out there such as coconut milk why not focus on making cheese from an alternative…leave the cows to feed their young…and then raise the resulting beef herd to feed the country of origin…???
Economics. A lot of dairy cows are different breeds from beef cattle, amd male calves from dairy cows are worth very little. It ends up cheaper to kill them than raise them beyond a few months old for poor quality meat.
There are some great small holdings, but it is hard to transfer what works on a family farm to anything bigger because of the power of global markets.
Cheese is cheese because of the properties of milk proteins and the way they react to bacteria. Coconut milk is a completely different thing so to me if you don’t want milk based products like cheese then don’t have them. Spread hummus on toast instead. Trying to make one thing more like another often seems to end up using complicated processes with unessesaary chemicals.
And if everyone focused on buying local seasonal products then things could shift. But often people have to prioritise cheap food, so global markets have the upper hand.
