Why are dairy products, honey, bad?

I have a question for vegans. It's a real question - I'm not being snotty.

Why don't you eat milk, cheese, honey, etc? Eating these foods aren't hurting the animal it came from, so I'm wondering what the big deal is? Eating cheese doesn't mean you killed the cow, right? The one I really don't understand is honey. The bees aren't mistreated, they roam free - we just take their leftover yummy stuff.

Can someone please explain? I'd really like to know.

I'm not vegetarian but am concerned about the ethics of food.  I avoid dairy and eggs from factory farms, and prefer foods where the animals have a decent life.  

Here is a site that rates dairies on how well they treat the cows.I buy from brands that are well-rated on this site.

http://cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/index.html& nbsp;

i asked the same thing about the honey actually, i gathered that the bees are "smoked" out to gather the honey and i would assume this is not natural/comfortable to them.... ?

 as for milk and dairy products though.... unfortunately, the milk your drinking is not coming from cows on a family farm with the kids going out and milking them every morning.  they are in the SAME conditions as cows being used for meat.  in fact the industries support each other as dairy cows eventually end up dead adn in some form of meat out there.  the cows are still suffering, still tortured, still raped to get the milk, still pumped full of antibiotics.  for *most* vegetarians/vegans out there it's not just that your eating a dead animal (although that does feel disgusting), but the torture and suffering that the animal had to endure just to get you that food item, which really is not necessary.  i feel selfish thinking that some animal that can feel pain the same way a human does suffered so i could have a burger from mcd's.  we don't need meat.  and we certainly don't need it in the overabundance that we have it available to us now.  and the same for dairy products and eggs.  the animals are in the same awful conditions, and the industries support each other. 

 

Original Post by nightc1:

Interesting thread.  I too avoid this forum as I'm never going to become a vegitarian let alone vegan... God created animals for us to consume.   I don't have a problem with that.   Expecially when Jesus himself fed people with Fish and bread.

Still I saw this thread at the bottom in the recent posts... so figured I'd check it out as one of my friends and his family have gone vegitarian... though they do drink milk.

did god create factory farms too?  did god want the animals he created (and apparently gave the same nervous systems he gave us) to suffer and be tortured so we could have an overabundance of meat?  did jesus raise his animals after pumping them full of antibiotics and having them suffer in all sorts of ways?

sorry, but your philosophy is a little outdated.  the meat most of us that eat meat are eating is not raised on a family farm.

 and i won't even get into how you can be sure that god created the animals for those purposed or what jesus ate.....

All of you guys are missing the point!  Forget about animal cruelty for a moment.  (I am neither neggie nor vegan.  I eat animals! They taste good and our species evolved on a diet of meat and fresh fruits and veggies!)  If mistreating bees bothers you then get locally porduced honey.  The mix of wildflower, buckwheat and other honeys will open your tastebuds to something other than the bland clover honey mass-produced for your local grocery.  Honey IS good for you!

Dairy, on the other hand, is extremely bad for you.  Even if you get hormone free, anti biotic free organic (if any such thing actually exists) dairy it is still very very bad for you.  True it has a lot of calcium.  But, there are several things that will make you think twice before drinking it.  1.  It has high levels of methionine.  This is an essential animo acid that contains sulfur.  True you need it, but soy and all meats and many many many other foods contain this as well.  The problem is when you get too much your body burns it off and creates sulfuric acid in your blood.  The only way your body can deal with this is leach calcium from your bones.  2.  If is extremely high in saturated fats.  3. There is a hormone, endemic to cows, called IGFI (insulin like growth factor I).  If is chemically identical to humans' IGF.  Since it is identical, your body does not break it down, but rather absorbs it.  This hormone makes you fat and has been linked to the rapid growth of ovarian, skin and colon cancers!  4.  Your body needs magnesium to absorb calcium.  Milk is low in calcium.  Cholorphyl is high in it.  Actually the list can go on and on.

Bottom line is that milk is naturally engineered to feed baby cows, not adult humans.  There are lots of foods, almonds, broccoli, etc, that have more calium ounce per ounce than milk.  Consider this.  Inuits consumed 3500 mg of calcium per day, and have some of the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world.  Bantu women consume 250-350 mg / day have six children and breast feed for extended periods and osteoporosis is almost unheard of.  The US, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark consume more dairy than anyone else on the planet, and also have some of the highest rates of osteoporosis on the planet.  The Japanese almost never got osteoporosis, that is until the USA got them eating cheese, etc and now they hav caught up to us.  How about this.  There has been a lot of talk about the obesity epidemic and various tries to link it to things like soda.  In the last 30 years, our average cheese intake has tripled, as has our rate of obesity in children.  Coincidence?

That does not even take into account mucus and sebum.  Do your own google searches!

so, dairy products can actually cause obesity?!

eewww

Consider this.  60 Minutes ran a story a couple years ago blaming the childhood obesity epidemic on soda.  In the last 30 years, childhood obesity has tripled.  They wanted to blame it on soda.  In the last 30 years, our consumption of cheese has also tripled.

Now look at the commercials that are run during 60 minutes.  Mostly they are Domino's and Pizza Hut.  Do you think they would bite the hand that feeds them?

 

I just read Skinny Bitch, and they also touch on the evils of the dairy industry: Remember what milk is for.  It is designed to fatten up a baby cow. 

I am not familiar with Skinny Bitch.  Unfortunately, I get a lot of my info from NotMilk.com.  They are an adamantly Vegan website and as such are very biased.  But since the Am Dairy Council is also very biased, I figure I am counter balancing the misinformation.  I will look up Skinny Bitch.

Skinny Bitch is bias too... but it MAKES SENSE! We aren't meant to drink cow's milk...

Sorry, had to go out of town.  Just checking back.  You got a website for Skinny Bitch?

One thing that I would like to point out to all the Vegans (especially) out there:  If you get everything you want, there are no animal products sold anywhere in the world, no meat, or anything of that kind, what will happen to the farm animals?  I am especially asking about the domesticated cattle.  Its wild ancestor, the auroch, is extinct.  wouldn't your agenda actually cause an extinction event?

This is part of the reason that I said you were all missing the point, since the original question was why is dairy bad for you (the human) not why is it bad for the cow.

Honesty, having not animal products sold is not "everything I want" !!!!! Cannot stress that enough! It would be nice for more foods to be vegan friendly though, but oh well. 

Not that I don't care about the animals! But I think people should eat what they want. I have no desire to control the actions of others!

Original Post by wavygravy69:

One thing that I would like to point out to all the Vegans (especially) out there:  If you get everything you want, there are no animal products sold anywhere in the world, no meat, or anything of that kind, what will happen to the farm animals?  I am especially asking about the domesticated cattle.  Its wild ancestor, the auroch, is extinct.  wouldn't your agenda actually cause an extinction event?

This is part of the reason that I said you were all missing the point, since the original question was why is dairy bad for you (the human) not why is it bad for the cow.

Why would the extinction of domesticated animals be a problem?  The auroch was not native to North America anyway.

I think you are missing the point, since you apparently do not recognize that many vegans, usually the ethical ones, believe that your quality as a moral being is a factor of how you treat other living things.  The fact that dairy is so bad for the cow is precisely what makes it bad for the human soul.

No you are missing the point.  Yes it is true that the Auroch is not native to North America.  I understand that, but what you are advodacting will cause its extinction worldwide!  Second, and I cannot stress this enough, forget about your superstitious nonsense about mistreating this being bad for your soul.  That is a load of crap and anyone with any brains at all knows it! There is no soul.  That is a load of mythical crap that has been sold to you.  It you check above, I gave several reasons why dairy is bad for your body, based on scientific reasoning and knowledge.  Do me a favor, make your arguments based on facts, not based on pseudo-science with a flair for Christian based pseudo ethics.  BTW, I am a die hard, ardent, evangelical atheist, so your arguements about this being bad for your soul do absolutely nothing for me.  While I am at it, the concept of the soul is the most depressing idea that any religion has ever developed.  The sould is your permament unchanging self, so therefore, no matter what, you will never be anything more than what you are.  What a load of manure.  Do the world a favor and compost that idea.

Wasn't really addressed at you.  Was addressed to the others that tried to answer the original question above.  If you took that as a shot at you I apologize.  That was not my intention.

Original Post by wavygravy69:

No you are missing the point.  Yes it is true that the Auroch is not native to North America.  I understand that, but what you are advodacting will cause its extinction worldwide!  Second, and I cannot stress this enough, forget about your superstitious nonsense about mistreating this being bad for your soul.  That is a load of crap and anyone with any brains at all knows it! There is no soul.  That is a load of mythical crap that has been sold to you.  It you check above, I gave several reasons why dairy is bad for your body, based on scientific reasoning and knowledge.  Do me a favor, make your arguments based on facts, not based on pseudo-science with a flair for Christian based pseudo ethics.  BTW, I am a die hard, ardent, evangelical atheist, so your arguements about this being bad for your soul do absolutely nothing for me.  While I am at it, the concept of the soul is the most depressing idea that any religion has ever developed.  The sould is your permament unchanging self, so therefore, no matter what, you will never be anything more than what you are.  What a load of manure.  Do the world a favor and compost that idea.

I see.

Domestic animals will become extinct.  I don't care.  Do you get it now?

This thread isn't about whether you believe in the soul.  It's about the fact that lots of vegans do, either literally or metaphorically.  And they make dietary choices consistent with their moral beliefs. 

I'm not sure where you get the idea that vegans are out there to change everybody else's eating habits.  You are being far more pushy with your worldview than any of the posters on this thread.

 

So I just want to make a few things clear, lysistrata.  1, you really don't care about animals as evidenced by your statement that you don't care if something goes extinct.  2. You are the one that brought up all of your jargon about the soul and such.  3. You ignored the original question, which I feel that I have answered to the best of my knowledge. 4. I get the idea that you are out to change everyone else's eating habits, precisely because you are the one making the veiled threats that eating certain things are bad for your soul/karma/whatever.

This may not be a thread about whether you believe in a soul/karma/whatever, but remember that you were the one that brought it up.  All I did was point out that it is not a spiritual thread, this is a dietary thread.  I want you to understand that you were the one that was off point.  You can make all the choices you want to.  Personally, I don't care what you want to do.  I got started on this because I was trying to get information on the evils of dairy consumption, because I was tried of the constant barrage of ads from the American Dairy Council (ADC).  I was tried of getting only one side of the argument and have been spending the last few months gathering the opposite side's facts.  For instance, it is ironic that the ADC selling milk to us as the CURE for osteoporosis, but the countries that have the highest rates of dairy consumption also have the highest rates of osteo.  I feel that above I answered the question of why dairy is bad for you based upon actual evidence of what it actually does to your body.  Since I spent a couple months gathering this information, when I saw this thread I figured I would share what I learned and let everyone reading make up their own minds.  I did this without resorting to any pseudo science, without appealing to any spiritual sensibilities.  Just the facts, as far as I understand them.

I only brought up the extinction point because I see that as a logical inconsistency with the Vegan prespective.  If your decisions are based on moral beliefs, that knowledge should also enter the equation.

Bottom line is that I can tell you and I do not agree on a lot of things, but I think that we can at least agree that milk does a body bad.  FYI, the best sight for anti dairy knowledge is www.notmilk.com.  I encourage everyone to check it out.

Alan Aragon has some good points about the osteoperosis and 'milk is made for baby cows' arguments here.

First off honey production might be commercial but it aids out commercial production of fruits and veggies. THIS FEEDS US. Bees do not compete with other pollinators for example humming birds (I luv em) pollinate only tube flowers this does not help with food production only our onramentals. Bees are not abused like other factory farmed animals or starved due to the taking of the honey. Spring honey is not good for us to eat it is the product of the first weeds to bloom there for is saved for the bees. When you hear the specificity of the bees diet for that honey it is because it was used in the pollination of that crop during that honey production. Next off as far as pesticides used to kill mites in bee colinies  bees are insects so you cant use pesticides but menthol is commonly used; furthermore the honey lobby is responsible for many pesticide restrictions.

All good points.  The only thing is that most commercially produced honey is from clover.  This is not the fruits and veggies.  That is why I previously advocated locally produced honeys from farmers markets and orchards!