What Do We Take From Nature and What Do We Give Away?

Dairy is a resource that is used by adults and children all over the world on a daily basis, but do u ever wonder where ur cold glass of milk that u drink every morning comes from? There are nearly 1.8 million dairy animals living within Canada, each creating around 8000 liters of milk every year. The life of a dairy cow isn’t easy, as they have to work extremely hard to supply so much milk. On best of that, the dairy industry causes all varieties of suffering for those cows.

Dairy farming can only operate because animals like cows give birth to young.

When cows have calves, they begin to lactate. Dairy farmers extract milk from lactation for the purposes of creating milk, yogurt, cheese, and other dairy products for human consumption. Now does that sound fair to you, a young calf being taken away from its mother just when she is most needed, imagine separating a child from its mother? but they\'re just animals, right?\nNot only does this inhumane industry damage the cows for life, but it also damages the environment in many ways.

Dairy cows and their manure produce greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to climate change and due to the increase in global demand for dairy products these feces will keep on growing and polluting the environment, there are over 200 million dairy cows worldwide and that number will keep on going up if we don\'t put a stop to this cruel industry. That isn\'t the only way that it is affecting the environment, to support one healthy living dairy cow takes a lot of water, in fact, it takes 144 GALLONS of Water to produce one gallon of milk.

Top Writers

Marvellous

Verified writer

4.7 (239)

Samantha

Verified writer

4.9 (546)

Writer Lyla

Verified writer

5 (876)

hire verified writer

So if we were to produce 5 gallons of milk, we would need to use 720 gallons of water, that is more than double of what the average American family uses in a day and all of that for a mere 5 gallons of milk. This puts stress on the animal and the environment. But it\'s just an animal, right?\nAs a child, they are separated, and they are put into numbers, numbers that will be their names for the rest of their short harsh lives. The female cow is separated from the male, the female gets impregnated for milk and the male gets slaughtered for meat. The day the female cow is able to produce milk it is used for that sole purpose for the rest of their lives.

It shouldn’t be surprising that this is extremely hard work for the cows and they need a lot of food to be able to do this. Their body has to work so hard that they are exhausted all day long. Producing 8000 kilos of milk every year for a cow requires about as much energy as it would be for a human to run for 8 hours every single day. It should therefore not be surprising that this often leads to health problems for the poor animals.

These animals should have rights too, they have emotions too and they may not be able to show it but deep down we all know how hard it must be for a mother to get separated from her child to never see her again. But they\'re only animals, right?\nThe system is inhumane, cruel, and downright wrong, but are there any alternatives? Unfortunately, organic milk and milk with other certifications are also really bad for the environment and still cause a lot of animal suffering.

With these kinds of dairy, the calf is still taken away immediately after birth and cows are still forced to produce an unnatural amount of milk before being sent to the slaughterhouse at a young age. But there are alternatives to dairy products as a whole. Luckily it’s possible to live more environmentally and animal friendly without having to miss dairy products.

Nowadays there are many different types of plant-based kinds of milk (such as soy milk, oat milk, almond milk, spelt milk, rice milk, and coconut milk). In addition, there are also many different types of plant-based butter and plant-based cheese and the number of these products is only increasing. This way you can still eat a sandwich with butter and cheese or drink a glass of milk without animals needing to suffer for it.