Why I'm giving up milk

It's his milk. Isn't it about time we left him and her alone?

I'm passing farmland in the train and everywhere I see cows and their enlarged udders and I'm thinking, 'where are all their calves?'

There should be loads of them because that's why all these cows have enlarged udders, because like human mothers they produce milk to feed their babies.

Then reality hits me in a way it never has before - and I've been a vegetarian for 25 years - the reason these mothers don't have calves with them like nature intended is because their milk is going to be bottled, put in ice cream, cheese and yoghurt and all those other things that we humans consume.

So, where are these cows' babies?

Chances are the male calves are dead, well they can't produce milk. The dairy industry is brutal and any animal that doesn't make money is deemed not to have the right to live.

The female calves will end up as dairy cows and the whole sick process will begin again, babies seperated from their mothers, so we humans can drink wholesome* milk.

And that's why I've stopped drinking milkshakes, eating cheese and yoghurt because if I don't do that I'm feeding the demand, I'm breaking the mother and child bond.
I am the reason mother cows are bellowing for their babies.

It's because of me that babies are not nourished by their mother's milk and may end up living out their short, light starved lives in veal crates.

I say not in my name., and that's why I won't drink milk or anything containing milk.

*milk has been linked with breast cancer. In China where they are mostly lactose intolerant - lactose is in milk - the rates are way below what they are in Western countries where milk consumption is the norm.