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.

Okay, so I'm vegan, and...

I am good friends with a bee-keeping family and they give us honey all the time. I've seen the way they treat their bees - they LOVE those bees. They're so wonderful with them. 

We also have our own chickens who lay eggs for us. We give them everything they need, lots of love and attention too.

That said. I will not eat that honey or those eggs. For me, being vegan is definitely about the treatment of animals on factory farms... and health too. But it is also about this: that honey, those eggs, don't belong to me. The bees make honey because bees need it for food, it's not mine and I don't need it so I will not take it from them. My chickens lay eggs because that is their natural cycle... we don't have a rooster so they won't get fertilised, but still it is the same principle - the eggs aren't mine, never were, and I have no right to take them.

I suppose you could argue that, in the wild, animals take things from one another all the time. The beauty of being human is we have developed enough that we can make the choice not to rely on our fellow animals for food. I make that choice because I think it's right.

Original Post by wavygravy69: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. "

That was not the original question. The original question was aimed at ascertaining the moral and ethical reasons behind vegans' descision to exclude all animal-based products from their diet. Note the language: "Eating these foods aren't hurting the animal it came from, so I'm wondering what the big deal is?

The measure of percieved harm to the animal is the focus of the question, not the relative de/merits of a vegan lifestyle insofar as human health is concerned.

 

Original Post by wavygravy69:

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?

You haven't provided any sources for the stats you quote. Taking them on face value, however, consider that the Inuits live in the Arctic where they are exposed to insufficient sunlight for much of the year. The weakness in their bones may therefore be due to insufficient Vitamin D as opposed to calcium. As one who lives among the "Bantu" I can tell you that they are traditionally a pastoral society where Amasi (soured milk) is drunk in vast quantities. The increase in osteoporosis in the industrialised nations you mention may be attributed to other factors, such as the effect of other chemicals, such as caffeine, and pollutants on calcium absorption, and the adoption of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle (lack of loadbearing exercise is a strong indicator in the occurence of osteoporosis http://www.nof.org/prevention/exercise.htm).

So yes, I agree calcium is readily available in other food sources and dairy products are not essential to one's diet. But if you are not lactose intolerant, I do not agree that they pose the dire health risk that you propose. If you are fat "because of dairy", its because you are consuming high-fat dairy, and it is the fat, not the innate molecular structure of the food, that is packing on the pounds. Therefore, if you can digest dairy, the reason you would choose to avoid it is that you either dislike the taste, or you have ethical concerns of how animals are treated during the production thereof. You seem to suggest that your atheism precludes or excuses you from considering animal sentience and wellbeing as factors in your lifestyle choices, or did I misread your response to Lysistrata?

As an aside: if we are naturally meant to eat meat, why are we cooking it instead of eating it raw? The raw state is the natural state, but you would need the intestine of a lion to digest it.

I am totaly against factory farming and crulty to animals! I also know chickens were MADE yes I said made to produce eggs for our consumption. No other bird lays eggs every day! Still they must be treated ethicaly and not pumped with hormones because it is bad for us and them. As far as honey goes there should be no ethical problem with eating honey especialy with how it is collected these days. In the days of the egyptians ok it want an ethical thing but the way it is collected these days there is no harm to the animal. I understand being a vegitarian I am half vegitarian myself but I think vegans are NUTZ!  In countries like India where the Hindus are vegitarian for the sake of respecting the soul of the animals they still drink milk and eat cheese!

Actually people who practice Hinduism don't eat beef for the reason that they do drink milk and eat cheese.  They find it immoral to kill and eat a animal that is unselfishly giving you that dairy.  That is why cows have the status of mothers (which I took literally for the longest time thinking they thought that dead human mothers are reincarnated into cows).

Beyond that which animals have souls honorary enough to respect is really up to each Hindu denomination, some eat no meat some eat goat and others. However I think the mother cow is pretty clear throughout all denominations.  That is my understanding of it anyway.

And regarding the topic i guess the reasoning goes from most to Factory Farming > Personal Health > Slavery for the vegan stuff.  I personally don't believe in the slavery bit because in a family farm environment animals are more likely better off in captivity then they ever would be in the wild.  I don't worry about personal health as long as I moderate it. It feels no less natural then most of the other crap we eat and I accept there is a chance that a small amount of a disgusting "whoops"  in any factory produced food.  I guess I haven't gotten sick from it yet so it must not be that bad and in this case what you don't see cant hurt you.

But when it comes to industrial farming as far as animal rights go I've got nothing.  I guess I figured to focus on the killing problem before the standard of living problem.  I just didn't expect that the standard of living would get more and quicker support then the killing things.  Maybe I think having a major cut back in those types of items is enough to spark a small change while still having cheese and eggs as an ingredient in baking.  I guess I'm still thinking about it.

Original Post by hybrids05:

Milk has all sorts of crap in it... Blood, Pus, Bacteria, 58 Hormones

 I cant believe people can be that stupid lol ...

To the potatoman Hindus eat milk and cheese but not beef. All people consume honey except for the american vegan please get your facts straight!

Original Post by citikid78:

To the potatoman Hindus eat milk and cheese but not beef. All people consume honey except for the american vegan please get your facts straight!

Are American vegans special in some way?

Original Post by citikid78:

To the potatoman Hindus eat milk and cheese but not beef.

...And isn't that exactly what potatoman just said?