Nice little breakfast crimes

A network of kidnappers, rapists and murderers.

Hundred thousands of victims.

Millions of witnesses.

Countless daily excuses.

A charge against hypocrisy, manipulation and convenience.

A proof of failure of human ethics.

And a desperate cry for compassion.

Prepare for the most terrible thriller of 21st century. Welcome to reality.

****

[kitchen scene. Nice, daylight. Son sitting at the table, lost in thoughts, stirring in cup. Mum busy, preparing the day]

Mama... why do cows give milk?

To make you tall and strong.

Ohh Mama… seriously!

They give milk to their calve, to help it grow. Like all mammals do.

Yeah, but… why do we drink their milk then? Does it mean that the calve will starve?

No worries. They have enough milk for both the calve and for you.

Ah.

Don’t you want to finish your muesli?

****

At a point, we accepted the answers we got and stopped to ask questions. But sometimes, time is just right to ask the questions again.

Cows give milk because they have born a calve – and only then. The milk is rich in nutrients, to make the baby calve grow. In nature, with the calve growing up, the cow gives less and less milk, until it stops.

Of course it’s difficult to even imagine a cow in nature. Humans have bred a species which needs human (or machine) help to be milked and which is so much focused on the production of milk, that it lost the flexibilities and health which it needed to survive in nature.

So here we are. One species preying another for their body liquids. The other species being dependent, having no choice and no means to defend themselves. Some people nicely call it a symbiosis.

The idea of keeping cows always had some problems, of course. Like actually letting the calve stay with the mum to have the milk. Or the cow stopping to give milk after a year or so. The human solution is obvious: We keep the cows pregnant. I mean, we can use the calves, right? So now, the life of a female cow is a rhythm of artificial impregnation, birth, separation from the calve, next impregnation, birth and so on. No one asks what impact this has on her body – except, maybe, for knowing how much productivity to expect, and how to optimize it. Giving birth is her only purpose, after all. Also, strangely, no one asks the question if it is okay to impregnate her. The philosophy is: It is okay because she doesn’t complain.

It feels so odd to me that I seem to be the only one who finds this deeply disturbing. It is, in human social life, not even acceptable to raise the question at the pancake party why we, without questioning, accept this disrespect of the female body, sexual abuse and abuse of power over the helpless, on an industrial scale. We evolved technology allowing us to control other species, but it feels like we failed to evolve the ethics to use this technology in a responsible way. What is someone using power without ethics? A tyrant maybe.

How did we even blindly accept this idea that it was healthy to daily consume cow breast milk for all our life? And to have cow milk powder in all our products - because it is a habit and it is cheaper than using alternatives?

Becoming tall and strong

I grew up with daily school milk (cocoa, vanilla or strawberry taste). Everyone knows that milk is healthy. Even chocolate is healthy for your kid. Because of the extra portion of milk, remember?

Advertising and publicity projects did a good job spreading the word during the past century. Even official institutions in Germany, like DGE (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung - German society for nutrition), still recommend milk and cheese for daily consume - recommendations which are followed by political decisions, subventions and education. German farmers’ unions point out the potential of milk on their websites and suggest a more modern advertising approach to reach the young generation again.

I learned about the Great Calcium. I did not learn about the hormones and antibiotics, and about why I had this glue in my intestine for 28 years of my life. I sat on the toilet every few days and cried and cursed about the world which was not fair. Afterwards I fell asleep because of the effort. Thank you, milk farming networks, for your kind-hearted intentions.

As a teenager I learned that “Fish do not feel pain. They just get stressed.” – which, obviously, made it acceptable to fish them.

But picking up the question in 2021, there was actually not much information to find about how animals feel pain (or not). It doesn’t seem to be a commonly asked question. The equation is: They are different = we don’t understand them = they are simple = we can use / kill them. That was human logic since ancient times and it worked fine as long as humans put a rod into the water to nourish their family. It was necessary at times and places where there were no alternatives. But farms have turned into factories, rods have turned into trawl nets. The idea of trade, profit and efficiency has turned animals into raw products on a production line, with the final “products” getting frozen, then shipped around the globe. The ancient equation exhausted over its limits.

Research proves that mammals are not that simple – maybe not even that different from us. We share 80% of our DNA with cows and 98% with pigs. This article by Peta describes how cows have way better senses (smell and hearing) than humans. They have best friends who they like to hang out with, and may cry when they get separated from others. They enjoy solving puzzles and feel happy when they succeed. It is painful to get aware of these adorable creatures being mis-bred and mistreated, for the primitive comfort of another species which, for the largest part, doesn’t even make an effort to understand their needs and feelings.

According to this article by Correctiv, Germany still subventions milk production with a low VAT of 7%, though knowing that milk and meat industry are heavy climate change drivers. German companies keep exporting milk in large dimensions. No one really wants to question these nice farmers with the nice cows.

Let’s just have a quick look at the problems which you and me already have heard about, of course:

+ According to the article, growing animal food for meat production means a loss of 80% of nutrients compared to directly grow human food on the fields.

+ Rain forest gets destroyed for soy plantations, soy is shipped to Europe for cheap animal food.

+ Profitability always comes first. Even in organic farms. Animal needs are disrespected / badly understood and the animals suffer.

+ Factory farm animals are treated with preventive antibiotics, consumed by humans through the meat / milk / eggs. This turns humans more and more resistant against antibiotics which are meant to treating illness, and causes more and more hyper-resistant bacteria spreading in hospitals. Humans die of these bacteria.

+ Farting cows are responsible for ~15% of human-caused greenhouse gases.

+ Pet dogs and cats, on a global scale, consume masses of cheap meat, thus contributing to the suffering of other animals and global warming. Call it a sick cuddling bill.

And here are our excuses/ assumptions:

I'm just a human, right? I'm just a small part in the big doomed system, I haven't chosen to be...

I don't have energy to spare to think about these frustrating topics. We are doomed anyway.

Meat and milk are natural! Without it, we would lack nutrients!

Vegan dishes can't get you full.

I need to keep choice in my dishes.

I could never live without milk chocolate.

It's too complicated to replace everything.

But my cheese! My sausage! What to put on my sandwich?

Vegan dishes take more time to prepare. That time is a luxury I can't afford.

Vegan nutrition is too expensive and difficult to do outside of the city.

Well I don't buy chicken anymore because you still... see it.

I plant trees in my work. My part is done.

I don't agree to animal suffering but my husband really enjoys to cook meat, so...

For a vegan, it is still daunting to look up and down the rows of different pizza and tortellini in the supermarket, hoping to find at least one responsible option for the (obviously, few) people who care about it. It is even more hopeless to walk into a random restaurant and check the 30 different meals on their menu. Sorry, we don’t know what to offer you. And you’re not important enough for us to care.

I can’t believe that there’s so few of us who have a heart to feel compassion, or a brain to make responsible choices.

Having the technology and structures to produce animals, it feels like it should be possible to produce food instead. Brands offering alternatives to milk and other dairy products already have the structures in place and offer a variety of products. Vegan restaurants are booming in the cities. Fast food chains like McDonalds and Subway looked at their statistics and realized: 95% of our Vegan products are consumed by Non-Vegans. Doesn’t this sound promising?

Is it really necessary to keep up the old structures? Or is it comfortable? How many generations more will it take until we manage to question what is established, and to allow ourselves to listen to the voice of compassion, instead of learning to silence it for certain conditions (like: other species, or, 100 years ago, other "race" of humans)? Living up to the values which we learn will be an important step towards a society which is more mature. I'm sure that it will also advance the way how we see and treat each other (or our employees,...). Maybe this society would even be considered worthy of living by a galactical congress.

Don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you.

If you’re sympathizing with the thoughts in this article, ask Chat GPT for vegan recipes, or how to replace the cheese and eggs in your favourite dishes. Even if it’s just once in a week :) There are also apps for finding restaurants and cafes with vegan offers.

Little thought experiment: How might the world look like if trade with animals / dairy was not allowed? People are allowed to hunt deer and to hold a rod into the lake. Then kill it themselves, prepare it, have a feast with their neighbours a few times a year. Daily needs are covered by a large choice of plant-based food. All over the supermarket, because milk powder products (=95% of current choice) may not be sold anymore. How many companies would very quickly find milk- and cream-free solutions for their cookies and margarine? If plant-based food was the cheap and easy option for everyone, would it be a good thing?

Sophie