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> I came away realizing that cattle used for milk production suffer more. I think you could certainly argue that. Beef cows are slaughtered at around 3 years a

> I came away realizing that cattle used for milk production suffer more. I think you could certainly argue that. Beef cows are slaughtered at around 3 years and diary cows are slaughtered at around 5 years but after giving birth with their offspring taken away several times (both have about a 20 year life span). Personally, I don't understand how vegetarians justify it as being much different in terms of animal cruelty. You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit.

williamdclt 6y ago
> You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit Still a net improvement over buying milk and meat isn't it? Also, people are vegetarian for all sorts of reasons. For some it's about eating meat, for some it's about animal cruelty, for some it's about environmental impact, and probably there's plenty of other reasons
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dunefox 6y ago
  I think no milk but meat would be better.
toohotatopic 6y ago
Because they like milk. You can justify anything if you want it to be true. Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die? This comes back to killing humans, one way or the other. How many insects are a foetus? Are poor people not allowed to have children so that insects can keep on living?
- seanwilson 6y ago
  > Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die? Instead of doing nothing because there aren't any perfect solutions, start by aiming to minimise harm when there's realistic options to do so? e.g. avoid cow milk in favour of oat or soy milk. Dairy cows eat crops from industrial farming as well so if you're concerned about insects dying, less diary will likely help e.g. you could make milk directly from soy beans instead of feeding them to cows.
- roebk 6y ago
  I think most people acknowledge that just by existing they’re causing harm. If you cut meat and diary out of your diet, you’re vastly reducing that harm. This isn’t just taking into consideration the cows, it’s also the vast quantities of crops that are grown to feed livestock. The largest study done on farm use was done by Oxford University a couple of years back and they found that “80 percent of the planet’s total farmland is used to rear livestock.” It continues with “freeing up land mass the size of Australia, China, the EU, and the U.S. – combined. This would lead to immensely fewer greenhouse gas emissions. It would also lessen the amount of wild land lost to agriculture, which is one of the leading causes of mass wildlife species extinction.” So for me, it ends at the meat and diary have a huge negative impact on the environment and I’ll do my best to reduce my share by avoiding meat and diary.
lordgroff 6y ago
I think it's quite simple: many vegetarians have no idea of the conditions in an average dairy farm. I was vegetarian for a number of years before I went vegan. I had assumed dairy cows had it reasonably good and it was quite a shock to find out how horrible their treatment teens to be.
Retric 6y ago
You get around 500 pounds of meat from a full grown cow. So, based on average US consumption that’s ~1 cow per 9 years per person. A single dairy cow produces ~100,000 lbs of milk over their lifespan. At average US consumption that’s ~1 cow per 200 years per person. US waste and exports make it hard to sanity check these numbers, but in 2018 there where 31.4 Million beef cows in US vs 9.4 milk cows adjusting for longer lifespan that’s possibly a 5.5:1 ratio.
- natdempk 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, do you have a source for these numbers? It's interesting to hear that one dairy cow's lifespan effectively covers enough milk for two average human lifespans worth of consumption.
  - Retric 6y ago
    After posting that I kept digging and got slightly different numbers. Annual milk consumption from Wikipedia is just over 600lb per year in the US, where another source listed 500 lb (Might be milk vs milk + dairy products or an approximation?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons... For total milk production from Wikipedia “ The United States dairy herd produced 84.2 billion kilograms (185.7 billion pounds) of milk in 2007” https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-an.... Lists numbers of beef and dairy cows. 185.7 billion lb / 9.4 million cows = ~20,000 lb per year * ~5 year lifespan ~100k lb. https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-average-dairy-cow-live/ https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-a... However, I am not sure it’s a clear comparison as this may be excluding calf’s from these counts. Which would drop lifetime production closer to 60,000lb and better line up with other sources. https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-fed-steer https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-f... Suggest a typical cow at 490 lb of beef and this https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/st... gives annual beef consumption of 58.1 lb beef per person per year (2019). PS: Of note dairy cows are also consumed for meat, though generally of lower quality. Which further muddles the issue suggesting that reducing milk consumption might simply increase the number of beef cattle ~1:1 to compensate.
jhardy54 6y ago
> Personally, I don't understand how vegetarians justify it as being much different in terms of animal cruelty. You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit. I've been vegan for years and I wish people wouldn't take this position publicly. I agree with you, but it's more effective to have lots of people consuming fewer animal products than a few people cutting out animal products "100%". (Of course it's never 100%, that'd be impossible unless you left society.) Let's be optimistic about the amount of change that normal people can do instead of chastising allies for not doing enough.
harimau777 6y ago
My understanding is that it's significantly easier to eat a healthy vegetarian diet than a healthy vegan diet. Therefore, it seems to me that vegetarianism is a reasonable compromise.

williamdclt 6y ago

> You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit Still a net improvement over buying milk and meat isn't it? Also, people are vegetarian for all sorts of reasons. For some it's about eating meat, for some it's about animal cruelty, for some it's about environmental impact, and probably there's plenty of other reasons

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dunefox 6y ago
I think no milk but meat would be better.

toohotatopic 6y ago

Because they like milk. You can justify anything if you want it to be true. Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die? This comes back to killing humans, one way or the other. How many insects are a foetus? Are poor people not allowed to have children so that insects can keep on living?

seanwilson 6y ago
> Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die? Instead of doing nothing because there aren't any perfect solutions, start by aiming to minimise harm when there's realistic options to do so? e.g. avoid cow milk in favour of oat or soy milk. Dairy cows eat crops from industrial farming as well so if you're concerned about insects dying, less diary will likely help e.g. you could make milk directly from soy beans instead of feeding them to cows.
roebk 6y ago
I think most people acknowledge that just by existing they’re causing harm. If you cut meat and diary out of your diet, you’re vastly reducing that harm. This isn’t just taking into consideration the cows, it’s also the vast quantities of crops that are grown to feed livestock. The largest study done on farm use was done by Oxford University a couple of years back and they found that “80 percent of the planet’s total farmland is used to rear livestock.” It continues with “freeing up land mass the size of Australia, China, the EU, and the U.S. – combined. This would lead to immensely fewer greenhouse gas emissions. It would also lessen the amount of wild land lost to agriculture, which is one of the leading causes of mass wildlife species extinction.” So for me, it ends at the meat and diary have a huge negative impact on the environment and I’ll do my best to reduce my share by avoiding meat and diary.

lordgroff 6y ago

I think it's quite simple: many vegetarians have no idea of the conditions in an average dairy farm. I was vegetarian for a number of years before I went vegan. I had assumed dairy cows had it reasonably good and it was quite a shock to find out how horrible their treatment teens to be.

Retric 6y ago

You get around 500 pounds of meat from a full grown cow. So, based on average US consumption that’s ~1 cow per 9 years per person. A single dairy cow produces ~100,000 lbs of milk over their lifespan. At average US consumption that’s ~1 cow per 200 years per person. US waste and exports make it hard to sanity check these numbers, but in 2018 there where 31.4 Million beef cows in US vs 9.4 milk cows adjusting for longer lifespan that’s possibly a 5.5:1 ratio.

natdempk 6y ago
Out of curiosity, do you have a source for these numbers? It's interesting to hear that one dairy cow's lifespan effectively covers enough milk for two average human lifespans worth of consumption.
- Retric 6y ago
  After posting that I kept digging and got slightly different numbers. Annual milk consumption from Wikipedia is just over 600lb per year in the US, where another source listed 500 lb (Might be milk vs milk + dairy products or an approximation?) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milk_cons... For total milk production from Wikipedia “ The United States dairy herd produced 84.2 billion kilograms (185.7 billion pounds) of milk in 2007” https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-an.... Lists numbers of beef and dairy cows. 185.7 billion lb / 9.4 million cows = ~20,000 lb per year * ~5 year lifespan ~100k lb. https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-average-dairy-cow-live/ https://albertamilk.com/ask-dairy-farmer/how-long-does-the-a... However, I am not sure it’s a clear comparison as this may be excluding calf’s from these counts. Which would drop lifetime production closer to 60,000lb and better line up with other sources. https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-fed-steer https://extension.sdstate.edu/how-much-meat-can-you-expect-f... Suggest a typical cow at 490 lb of beef and this https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/ https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/st... gives annual beef consumption of 58.1 lb beef per person per year (2019). PS: Of note dairy cows are also consumed for meat, though generally of lower quality. Which further muddles the issue suggesting that reducing milk consumption might simply increase the number of beef cattle ~1:1 to compensate.

jhardy54 6y ago

> Personally, I don't understand how vegetarians justify it as being much different in terms of animal cruelty. You're still paying into a system that's killing animals for your benefit. I've been vegan for years and I wish people wouldn't take this position publicly. I agree with you, but it's more effective to have lots of people consuming fewer animal products than a few people cutting out animal products "100%". (Of course it's never 100%, that'd be impossible unless you left society.) Let's be optimistic about the amount of change that normal people can do instead of chastising allies for not doing enough.

harimau777 6y ago

My understanding is that it's significantly easier to eat a healthy vegetarian diet than a healthy vegan diet. Therefore, it seems to me that vegetarianism is a reasonable compromise.