"Animals aren't ours to use and my vegan lifestyle is proof we don’t need dairy, or any animal products, to live a healthy life."

Dairying has been a part of New Zealand life for 200 years and is tightly woven into our cultural fabric. It, like all animal agricultural industries, is based on the belief that animals are ours to use. It is a belief system that prevails in our society.

Another widespread belief is that dairy is necessary to build strong bones and to live a healthy life. As a vegan I believe that animals are not ours to use and my dietary choice and lifestyle is the proof that we don’t need dairy, or any animal products, to live a healthy life.

According to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics "appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes".

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Many people do not fully understand the process that leads to milk. Here is my brief overview:

A dairy cow is impregnated. She gives birth nine months later and her calf is taken away within a few hours of being born and put in a calf pen. Her milk will then be collected and processed for human consumption.

The unwanted calves that won’t become the next generation of the industry are called bobby calves and when they are a minimum of four days old they’re transported to slaughter. The journey to the slaughterhouse can legally last up to 12 hours and is extremely stressful for a baby animal that arrives at the destination tired, hungry and thirsty.

The truly heartbreaking part of the whole ordeal is that many calves try to suckle on the hands and legs of the slaughterhouse workers, seeking comfort in their last confused and terrified moments before death. Back on the farm, the cycle carries on until such time as she is "spent" and sent off to slaughter herself.

The method of animal slaughter in New Zealand is supposed to be humane, but is there really any way to humanely slaughter an animal that doesn’t want to die? The very definition of humane is the act of showing compassion. How can killing millions of days-old calves each year be an act of compassion?

We are promised by the industry that the design of the slaughter system ensures the "humane" and "compassionate" killing that we want. We are the ones who decide to buy dairy products. It’s not about the animals, it’s about us. Any type of killing is an act of violence and the slaughter system is institutionalised violence. It's violence that is acceptable and normalised as the necessary means to the end.

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And veganism - the rejection of this violence - is often considered extreme! I am a vegan because I believe animals exist for their own purposes and they are not ours to use.

That animals are sentient beings is, as of 2015, enshrined in our law. Built into this law is the recognition that animals are conscious individuals who value their lives. One of the five aggregates of sentience is consciousness. While they may not have a constant running dialogue in their mind like we do, they can reflect on past experiences to help make future decisions and are capable of a wide range of emotions. They do not merely act by instinct alone; they act on emotion and memory, too. That animals are not so different from us can be irrefutably seen in their genetics. For example, cows share 80 per cent of their genes with human beings.

The large-scale killing of animals for food is considered normal by our society, but just because we’ve always done something doesn’t mean we have to continue to do it. An increasing number of New Zealanders are beginning to transition away from consuming animal products by choosing a diet that does not involve, and affords a healthy alternative to, killing animals.

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