Nunnu the cow, who lives at Tuulispää Animal Sanctuary, walking along the fence line / Source

Why / Environment / Foods / Cookbooks

Let’s examine the biggest reason to ditch dairy: For the animals.

Most of us didn’t grow up on a farm. Instead, we learned about farming from children’s books, toys, parents, or school teachers.

These lessons are usually general and brief; animals live on a picturesque farm with a farmer and wife who love and care for them. It’s taught that milk comes from a cow, but it’s never explained how.

What we didn’t learn from these sources, we learned from the dairy industry itself. The industry has spent millions of dollars on advertising and media campaigns promoting their products as healthy and nutritious.

They’ve been successful, too. I bet you can name at least two ad slogans for milk right now, right?

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou.

Many people are unaware of what goes into milk production, and that’s precisely how the industry likes it. It’s time to know better so we can do better.

Let’s learn about veal.

Calves lie close to each other in their resting area on a concrete floor scattered with wood chips, at a dairy farm located in Chile / Source

Dairy cows aren’t magical milk machines.

Like all mammals, they only produce milk after giving birth. To keep the supply going, farmers forcibly impregnate them again and again, forcing them to endure an endless cycle of pregnancies until their bodies give out.

Despite a natural lifespan of nearly 20 years, most dairy cows don’t make it past a fraction of that. In industrial dairy systems, cows are “spent” between 2.5 and 4 years of lactation. Since most give birth for the first time around age two, this means they are sent to slaughter at just 4.5 to 6 years old—mere children compared to their natural potential. (1)

Every day, farmers bring hundreds of thousands of dairy cows into the world. But what happens to all those calves? That depends on whether those calves are useful to the industry.

Farmers raise female calves to replace their mothers in milk production. However, male calves have no place in dairy farming. A few farmers keep them for breeding, but the rest go to the veal industry.

Dairy and veal are not separate. They are part of the same system.

A calf chained to a veal crate throughout the winter / Source

Straightaway, it must be said that no industry that profits from the life and death of another can ever be ethical. But the veal industry is particularly cruel.

Male calves are seen as useless by the dairy industry, treated as little more than by-products. Since they can’t produce milk, they’re handed over to veal farmers to be raised for meat.

The process is brutal from the start. Calves are taken from their mothers within hours of birth, never to see them again. Their mothers return to the endless cycle of milk production, while the male calves face a grim fate. Some are confined to veal crates, others placed in group housing. (2)

A veal crate is a small, individual crate that measures 2.2 ft – 2.6 ft (66 – 76 cm). They’re designed to prohibit movement; calves can be tethered or chained entirely immobile while inside. (2)

The system first appeared after World War II. At that time, industrial principles were applied to many things, including farming and agriculture. Generally speaking, the idea was that the less movement possible created the most tender meat. (3)

Group pens, on the other hand, are barns that can house anywhere from two to groups of ten or more calves.

Veal crates used to be the industry standard (in some places, they still are). This standard is changing, however. Several states here in the U.S. enacted bans against their use, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Rhode Island. (4)

According to the American Veal Association, group pens are now the industry standard for all formula-fed veal calves.

Before a calf ends up in a veal crate or group pen, they are removed from their mother. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Dairy cows show obvious emotional distress when separated from their calves so soon after giving birth.

Studies on cow-calf relationships in domestic cattle revealed that merely five minutes of postpartum contact between a cow and her calf is all that’s needed to develop a strong maternal bond.

The same studies also show that the strongest bonds among cows are between a mother and her child. And these relationships last long after the calf matures. (5)

Anguished dairy cows have been known to escape enclosures and travel for miles to reunite with their young. Others have hidden their babies in tall grass, hoping they won’t be found and removed.

Many dairy cows cry incessantly looking for their missing calves.

For every gallon of milk that sits on shelves, there’s a grieving mother who has just had her baby taken from her.

Veal calves are slaughtered young from three weeks to 22 weeks old. In 2022, the United States produced 58.7 million pounds of veal alone. (6) Bob veal, the market’s youngest veal, is made from calves killed when they are less than a month old. About 15 percent of all U.S. veal is bob veal. (7)

The typical dairy consumer likes to imagine milk coming from a small family farm with a big red barn and cows lazily grazing on a hill. Farmers lovingly tend to each cow by hand, squirting fresh milk into a metal pail. Its rhythmic sound is familiar, even though most have never stepped foot on a working farm.

This idyllic imagery is so iconic that in 1935 a Los Angeles milk inspector invented the Dairy Roadside Appearance Program. The program encouraged farmers to clean up their properties, paint barns, and plant flowers to help preserve this farm facade for consumers. (9)

Today, the Dairies of Distinction Program continues in the same way. Attractive farmsteads reinforce dairy stereotypes while hiding the reality of what happens behind closed barn doors.

Now produced at higher levels than ever, milk has become a global industry. And where is most of the milk produced?

On Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), aka Factory Farms. Small and medium-sized farms are driven out of business by these large-scale operations; 86 percent of milk comes from 26 percent of farms with more than one hundred cows. (9)

Dairy farms are getting bigger, too. Farms operated on 893,400,000 acres in 2022, with an average farm of 446 acres. (10)

Whether the cows end up on a large-scale factory farm or instead find themselves on a smaller farm, the process for obtaining milk is mostly the same.

Today’s average dairy cow will spend her entire life enduring repeated forced pregnancies to produce milk. She’s given hormones to increase milk production and antibiotics to combat sickness from the modern farm’s dirty, crowded, and unnatural conditions.

She’ll give birth only to have her baby taken from her within minutes or hours of being born. Still grieving, she’ll be put back into milk production until the cycle begins again.

The dairy industry could not exist without exploiting mothers and their children. And the veal industry could not exist without the dairy industry.

Cattle grazing in deforested land / Source

Why / Environment / Foods / Cookbooks

A closer look at how dairy products and the environment are connected.

Dairy products aren’t just terrible for animals; they’re awful for the environment too. Currently, we’re in the midst of massive ecological devastation.

Raising animals for foods like dairy products is the single greatest human-induced source of environmental destruction.

Dairy farming significantly contributes to air pollution, ocean dead zones (11), habitat loss, and species extinction. It’s also a shockingly inefficient and wasteful use of our limited natural resources. Not only that,  but dairy cows also create a big, giant waste problem:

• It takes 1,000 gallons of water to make one gallon of milk. (12)

• One pound of cheese requires 900 gallons of water. (13)

• Cheese generates the third-largest food source of greenhouse gas emissions. (14)

• Cows produce 150 billion gallons of methane per day. (15)

• A farm with 2,500 dairy cows has the same amount of waste as a city with a population of 411,000 people. (16)

• Dairy Cows create more than one billion pounds of waste in one day. (17)

Learn more about how animal agribusiness hurts the animals and the planet in this comprehensive guide, Environment & Veganism.

Why / Environment / Foods / Cookbooks

Whether you are new to dairy free living or a seasoned pro, these guides are for you.

They’re filled with everything you need to know about buying and cooking vegan and dairy free alternatives. Each guide features an introduction to the issue, a comprehensive shopping guide (links included!), a selection of recipes to try at home, and much more.

There has never been a better or more delicious time to go dairy free.

Why / Environment / Foods / Cookbooks

These cookbooks contain recipes, tips, and tricks on blending the perfect creamy dairy free favorites.

Here is a selection of cookbooks filled with tips, tricks, and helpful knowledge on tasty, easy-to-make dairy-free recipes. From ice cream to cheese to everything in between, these books have it all.

Are we missing your favorite dairy free cookbook? Please reach out.