Most people believe that dairy isn’t a bad thing because an animal doesn’t have to die in order for you to get it. But the truth is that an animal does have to die – in fact, many animals have to die – for the sake of that slice of cheese on your sandwich, or that milk in your cereal. If you really care about animal rights, the first things you must eliminate from your diet are eggs and dairy.

If you are a feminist like I am, dairy should really hit home for you. This is because dairy is a business that profits off of the exploitation of the female reproductive system. The entire life of a dairy cow is a never-ending nightmarish cycle of depression, torture and rape. Yes, rape. Many people believe that cows just naturally produce milk and that their udders would explode if we didn’t milk them. To these uninformed people we are actually doing dairy cows a favor by milking them. This however, couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Cows produce milk for the same reasons humans produce milk. They are mammals like us, and produce milk for the sole purpose of feeding and nourishing their young. Cows must give birth in order to produce milk. But in order to give birth a cow must first be pregnant, and in order for a cow to become pregnant, she must be impregnated. This is called by the dairy industry: “artificial insemination”.

Artificial insemination is done by restraining the female cow in what is known as a “rape rack”. A rape rack is a torture device created by a unappologetic vivisector named Harry Harlow (largely famous for his other disturbing creation: The Pit of Despair). This disgusting excuse for a man created this device to force male and female monkeys who had been kept in isolation their entire lives (by him) to have intercourse. He wanted to see how these poor, tortured monkeys would raise their young. The tortures he forced them to endure for their entire lives affected their social abilities to such an extent that when the female monkeys became mothers, they actually killed and sometimes even ate their own offspring.

This same device — this “rape rack” – is what is used today to restrain female cows for artificial insemination. Once a female is restrained so that she will not pose a danger to the person impregnating her (by possibly trying to avoid being raped), they insert their arm far down her rectum to position her uterus correctly and then insert a metal instrument into her vagina. If this was done to a human it would be called “rape”, but because it is done to a cow it is called “artificial insemination”.

I don’t care what species of animal you are, if someone must restrain you to forcibly insert an object into your vagina and rectum that you don’t want there — that is rape. As far as I’m concerned there is absolutely no other word for it.

Cows do not like to be milked. Suckling their young is a much different sensation than being pumped dry by a machine.

When a dairy cow gives birth she has no time to bond with her child. Her child is taken away from her, never to be seen by her again. This causes an unimaginable amount of stress for both the mother cow and the baby calf.

This is the horrifying truth about the dairy industry. This is the truth they don’t want you to know about. By consuming dairy products you are supporting the production of veal.

Veal is a type of meat known for its tenderness and delicate flavor. Veal comes from the meat of cows, but not just any cows – it comes from baby calves. Half of all calves born are male and because they do not have the ability to give milk, they are seen by the dairy industry as a liability. But the dairy and meat industries have partnered up to make sure that they both will still be able to make a profit off the lives and deaths of these poor baby cows. They sell the calves meat as “veal” to people who usually buy it at least partially because it is seen as a status symbol and because of how tender the baby animal’s meat is. To get the meat so tender, it wouldn’t be enough to just kill a baby calf – first they have to weaken their bodies.

When a baby calf is taken from his mother (the dairy cow), he is then chained in a tiny metal, plastic, or wooden crate in a way that makes it impossible for him to turn around, walk, stand, or lay down comfortably. This is done so that he will not have developed muscles. He is kept in this crate, often forced to lay in his own waste. Veal calves are fed a liquid diet of a synthetic formula boosted with chemicals to ward off any disease that thrives in the disgusting conditions the calves are kept in.

Who drinks the milk that should be feeding these baby cows? Humans do.

Veal calves are only a few months old when they are slaughtered for their emaciated, white tender flesh. Throughout the entirety of their short lives they will never know what it feels like to be loved, cared for and nurtured. This is where your money goes every time you buy a dairy product, whether it’s milk, cheese, butter, or any other product made with dairy.

When you buy dairy products, your money is directly funding this:

Many other boy calves will be packed onto a feedlot and forced to eat, sleep, and live their lives in their own excrement until they are slaughtered for beef. The baby female cows are sentenced to a life of rape, torture, confinement, and physical and psychological and emotional stress, just as their mothers were. Cows are also slaughtered for an enzyme in their stomachs called rennet which is used to make cheese.

Once dairy cow’s bodies are all used up and their productivity declines, they are shipped off to slaughter and are ground up to become the meat in your burger – which usually has a nice big slice of cheese melting right on top of it.

Chew on this: milk from a cow (meant to give life and sustenance to baby calves) is melting on top of the ground up dead bodies of hundreds of different cows that spent their life producing the milk that it took to make that cheese. How wrong is that?

Every year, the California Milk Advisory Board spends $37 million promoting the Happy Cows Campaign. They want you to think that the milk you are drinking and the cheese you are eating comes from happy cows that live on big green rolling hills and are actually happy to give us their milk.

The truth is that no cow would want to give us her milk. We have to take it from her. We have to take it from her child. We take so many things from these poor animals: their milk, their freedom, their children, their dignity. Why? Because throughout our lives we have been conditioned by advertisements, rigged lab tests, and bought out scientists who promote dairy products as being a health food, part of a balanced diet, and “doing a body good”. Here are the real facts about what dairy does to the human body:

Can you think of a single other animal that still drinks milk after it has grown into an adult? It would be laughable if an adult human still breast-fed from his or her mother, so why is it considered normal to still be drinking animal’s milk into adulthood? It would seem that in order for adults to drink milk and have it still viewed as “normal” they must drink the milk of an entirely different species of animal. And not just any animal would do, after all, how many people are lining up to drink beaver milk or cat milk? For an adult to drink milk and not be ridiculed they must drink milk from a socially “approved” animal such as a goat or sheep, but most often from a cow.

There is no other species on the face of this planet that drinks milk past infancy from an animal of a different species than their own.

There have been instances where an abandoned puppy is found by a goat or some other mammal who takes the responsibility of raising and suckling her adopted puppy child, but these rare instances only occur out of necessity.

As humans we have no such need for milk. In fact, most people are actually lactose intolerant to some degree. Upon drinking milk humans can feel anything from slight intestinal discomfort to mild gas to full blown diarrhea. It is actually normal to be lactose intolerant because our bodies are not designed to digest milk past a certain age — and certainly not from an animal of another species. The only reason why some people are not lactose intolerant is because somewhere along the line in history they developed a mutation that allowed them to drink milk without feeling discomfort — most likely for them to better survive in the winter months when food was more scarce. We are accustomed to ignoring this discomfort because we are not taught to look for it, or associate the pain we feel with something touted as being good for us.

But you mustn’t forget who is telling us this: the dairy industry!

Milk steals calcium from our bones. Yes, milk has plenty of calcium — but it’s not the right kind of calcium. You see, milk is put through processes to make it more uniform and attractive in appearance to us humans, as well as making it less likely to be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria. Processes like bleaching, homogenizing and pasteurizing. These processes destroy an enzyme called phosphatase. Phosphatase is essential for the absorption of calcium found in dairy products. By destroying phosphatase, the calcium from dairy products deposits into our arteries and joints, causing osteoporosis and hardening of the arteries. Because the calcium is going to our arteries and joints, and not being absorbed and used to help build strong bones, our bodies are forced to take calcium out of our bones to compensate.

On top of that, the excess animal protein in milk causes our bodies to steal calcium from our bones. This is because when humans drink milk from a cow (another species of animal) our bodies becomes acidic, and in order to balance all of that acidity our body takes calcium away from our bones. This is why even though we drink more milk than any other country, we also have the highest level of osteoporosis and heart disease. People living in developing nations who drink little to no milk actually have stronger bones than we do.

Yes, drinking milk is actually bad for bone growth.

Feminists, listen up: milk is not only obtained by raping a female cow, stealing and murdering her offspring, and using, abusing and exploiting her body — but it also causes the number one killer of women in America: breast cancer. The three biggest causes of breast cancer are animal protein, fat and estrogen. All three are found in dairy products. Even if you only consume organic dairy products, you are still getting all the fat and animal protein found in cows milk, as well as estrogen. Even organic milk has estrogen — it’s just a lower amount — and it still does damage to your body. It’s time to take a stand against cruelty to females across all species. It’s time to say an emphatic NO to dairy products!

A very big link to cancer is a protein in milk called casein. Casein was intended by nature to bond the mother cow and her calf. Its purpose was to cause a feeling of bliss for the calf so that he or she would want to continue suckling and stay near to his or her mother and thus be safe from predators. If a calf wants to drink milk and likes to drink milk, they will eventually grow into a big strong adult cow.

The blissful feeling baby calves feel when drinking milk is caused by casein, which when ingested is turned into casomorphins which act as a low dose of morphine. This morphine fix we get from milk is what keeps us addicted to it — and it is even stronger in cheese.

Dairy products do nothing for our health and are unavoidably cruel, even for the most “caring” of farmers. It is impossible to take a baby animal away from its mother and call it anything but cruel. It is impossible to rape a sentient being and call it anything but cruel. And it is impossible to know all of this is going on, but still continue to fund it anyway and call it anything but cruel.

You are responsible for your actions. Saying you care about animals, and yet still supporting the industries that exploit them shows what little value your words hold. Join me and millions of other animal lovers around the world in our fight to end animal cruelty and abuse. LIVE VEGAN!

More Ways to Make a Difference

Going dairy-free is great for animals, your health, and the health of the environment. Here are some more ways to maximize your impact and be ethically consistent:

Go Meat-Free

Go Dairy-Free

Go Egg-Free