Integritus Prime

In this post, I want to share what really stood out to me from two videos I watched recently. The first is a talk containing ecofeminist perspectives on local animal husbandry on Denman Island, given by my dear friend, Dianne, as part of an online conference called the 2024 Humane Hoax Online Conference. The second is a film called Maa Ka Doodh (Mother’s Milk), which describes the burgeoning dairy and cow and buffalo-based beef export business in India, and was recommended to me by another vegan friend, Kamlesh.

Both videos describe reasons why the slaughter of animals, whether done on a small scale locally as part of the locavorism movement, or done at industrial scale, is anything but humane. As Diane wisely states:

There is no humane way to do the wrong thing.

Dianne Fireweed Radmore

As we open our eyes to what we probably never want to witness, let’s be real about why humane is a hoax at any level:

1. Rape – Cows are raped (artificially inseminated without their consent) over and over so they can give birth, because only mother cows lactate, and the demand for milk trumps any humane treatment whatsoever. Maa Ka Doodh shows us footage of the artificial insemination by people who are trained for only two weeks, and often end up damaging the cows and their uteri. The success rate is a shocking 2% – the worst in the world.
2. Electric Shock – Bull semen is collected by shocking the animals in their anuses so severely that they ejaculate due to loss of control – another abhorrent practice. Imagine that anytime you see a steak, and I guarantee the allure will vanish.
3. Slitting Throats – The preferred method of killing cows is to slit their throats and hang them upside down to bleed out, because this improves the condition of the meat and helps avoid bacteria growth. The animals die from blood loss, while their friends (who will be next) are watching.
4. Living in Urine and Feces – Cows sit, stand and lie down in their own urine and feces because of the lack of cleaning and sanitation. The footage from Maa Ka Doodh clearly shows this while the dairy proprietor is speaking to the interviewer.
5. Separating Mother and Baby – As newborns, calves are separated from their mothers immediately, without having drunk a drop of milk. There is no way to justify such cruelty, except greed to get every drop of milk to make money. If we give up dairy, we can reduce the demand for such barbaric practices.
6. Killing Babies – Male calves are deemed useless in the dairy industry, and left to starve to death, or sent to slaughter for veal.
7. Infected Milk and Tuberculosis – The documentary included a discussion on brucelosis – a disease that the cows acquired from standing in their own urine and feces. This turns into tuberculosis in humans – a serious disease that is also highly infectious.
8. Lifestyle Diseases – Red meat and dairy are linked to cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Essentially, we are going to all this trouble – killing animals and habitats – in order to ascertain early death for humans.
9. Starved to Death – male calves and “used” dairy cows are allowed to starve to death. Old dairy cows are abandoned on the streets of India, where they eat trash and are found with more than 30 kilograms of plastics infecting their stomachs.
10. Staggering Inefficiency – farming animals is hugely inefficient compared to growing plants, in terms of the land, water, and other resources required. If we used the same land to grow plant-based foods, we would need less land and other resources, and be able to feed everyone and restore some land back to forests or other natural ecosystems and habitats for wildlife.
11. Greenwashing – local animal husbandry isn’t progress, it’s greenwashing, according to Dianne, because overall, the number of farmed animals is increasing.
12. Colonialism – Before the British arrived in India, there were no dairy facilities. The British instituted dairies because they were already in the habit of having milk and milk products like cheese. Continuing this practice shows alleigiance not only to pure capitalistic greed, but also to colonialism.
13. Deforestation and Biodiversity Loss – at industrial levels, animal agriculture requires a lot of land, and often forests are cut down to make space for animals to graze, or for animal agricultural facilities (factory farms). Keystone species such as the tiger are at risk when forests are cut down in India. We are all familiar, I’m sure, with the state of the Amazon forest. In general, so much land is already being used and abused for raising animals that it is not sustainable to continue in the same way as human population increases.
14. Climate Change – We know that methane is a more potent greenhouse gas compared to carbon dioxide, and all those burps and farts from cattle are not helping, but in fact seriously worsening the situation, not to mention the global life cycle costs and emissions from processing, transporting, and refrigerating the meat and dairy.
15. Misconceptions – Many people in India think buffaloes are stupid animals, according to the documentary, but they are even more intelligent than cows. Buffaloes have a leader who can scout areas and then lead herds. They know which foods are poisonous, and which plants are beneficial to eat. Another misconception is that too much mother’s milk will kill calves – this is not true.
16. Mental Health – it is well known that people who work in factory farms and slaughterhouses tend to internalize violence and perpetrate it in their homes. The mental health impacts of such jobs are seriously harmful.
17. Hypocrisy – The hypocrisies are clear both in India and Denman Island – indeed globally – we cannot revere animals (as the cow is supposed to be sacred in India), or say we support sustainable agriculture, or say we care about the animals or the climate or human health, and conduct animal agriculture at any scale.

When we look at all the reasons (and this list isn’t even exhaustive), it’s clear that we are on a path to planetary destruction through animal torture, ecosystem collapse, climate instability, and diminished human longevity and wellbeing. One simple action can reverse all of this: eat plants. We hold the power to make a difference at least three times a day, without any significant investment on our part – heck, we will probably even save money, get healthy, live longer, and allow animals to enjoy their lives and families. We can contribute simultaneously to the recovery of ecosystems, the climate, and address poverty and famine while we’re at it by better distributing food globally. It’s a no-brainer, and we humans are smart, right? Let’s start acting like it!

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