The hope of this site is to raise awareness of one of the kindest things you can do for
yourself and
the planet,
which is to switch to plant-based milk.
No other animal on Earth normally drinks breast-milk after infancy,
and it's time to
understand why you do(1)— and probably shouldn't(2).
IMPORTANT:
Any of these four videos will help you understand what we pay for whenever we consume milk, cheese, ice cream, or any dairy product.
Seeing can help you make informed choices, but just click "blur" under the video if you prefer to listen only.
Why are humans the only species drinking breast milk after infancy,
and why do we drink it from the breast of another species? Some of our ancestors had to do so for
survival
reasons, but none of those reasons apply today. The main reasons today are
misinformation and lies:
"Individuals can be very healthy with no dairy consumption at all.
Milk was really a survival technology for living in cold places [where] long winters made it difficult to grow fruits and vegetables."
– Dr. Walter Willett(source)
Physician and Nutrition Researcher
Harvard University
For a relatively
short period
of human history, milk played a survival role in the lives of a
minority of people.
These were primarily people who had no choice but to drink another animal's baby's milk in order to survive cold winters.
However, the "survival" reasons for doing that apply to virtually nobody in the United States today.
The rare exceptions might be a tiny few who find themselves in extreme survival situations.
In extreme survival situations, bizarre things can happen. For example, to survive
a winter stranded in heavy snow, the Donner Party had to resort to eating other humans – their friends.
However, once the Donner Party got out of that extreme survival situation, they didn't keep consuming their friends.
Likewise, now that we have year-round access to an abundance of delicious plant-milks, we don't have to continue
doing something as bizarre as
killing the newborn babies
of
friendly animals
just to be able to drink their mother's breast milk.
Such cruelty is 100% unnecessary
under normal circumstances today.
No other
animal on Earth normally does anything like that.
As more consumers learned that cow's milk
does not build strong bones,
the dairy industry backed away from emphasizing
calcium in its "got milk"
marketing campaign, and began focusing more on protein in its "milk life" campaign.
However, this
WashingtonPost article
explains why they made that decision to focus on milk's protein content
(which is about the same as soy milk's).
Key point: it wasn't because Americans need more protein, but because they think they do. Market research
showed that "protein" is what Americans buy –
despite the fact that virtually none of us need more of it, and
despite the fact that protein we don't need gets stored as fat.
Cow's milk is nature's perfect food if you're a baby cow. It's perfectly designed to help turn
a 50 pound calf into a 1000+ pound cow.
But cow's milk is
not the perfect food
if you're a human, especially in a country where 2/3 of adults are now medically obese or
overweight,
where obesity among children has quadrupled in the last 50 years, and where
heart disease and
cancer are now our
nation's
top two killers.
Human breast-milk is perfect for baby humans, and cow's milk is perfect for baby cows.
But if you can read this, you no longer need your mom's breast-milk, and you
never needed
a dog's, cat's, rat's, or cow's milk.
Despite false advertising
about "happy cows", dairy products like milk and cheese
are among the cruelest products on the planet today. And our ignorance is anything but bliss for the animals
being harmed by the dairy industry. Please help change that:
2. Now, imagine being
kidnapped
from your mother at birth, and then
forcibly impregnated by your abductors every year of your life.
And every year, your baby is kidnapped from you, your
sons are murdered,
and your daughters are forced into the same life of perpetual misery as you. And every year, while you're still crying for
your newborn's return, your breasts are attached to machines that steal the milk that your body is making for your stolen baby,
so that it can instead be consumed by those who stole him/her from you – even though they don't need it.
That's the essence of how dairy works.
Just try to imagine that
feeling of losing a child
every year of your life.
The mother and calf bond is one of the strongest in nature, and the description above is the
nonstop hell
that is a milk cow's entire life —
until she's murdered at
1/3 her normal lifespan
and sold as hamburger (actually it's more
poo than
ham, but that's
not funny).
To be clear, there is no such thing as humane milk.
Rape, kidnapping, infanticide,
lifelong enslavement, and premature murder are simply
inherent in modern dairy.
Whenever we consume milk,
cheese, ice cream, or any dairy product today,
we're paying someone somewhere to do these things to animals.
Plus, we're often paying for
non-routine abuse as well.
As part of it's "got milk" marketing campaign,
the dairy industry ran several ads implying that people can lose weight by drinking milk.
Here are just a few examples:
Jared Fogle lost 245 pounds by eating 6" lowfat subs, 12" veggie subs, and Diet Coke (not milk). This
"got milk"
ad has him holding a 12" NOT-veggie sub, a bottle of milk, and saying,
"Losing the fat pants 10 years ago meant learning to eat fresh – and drink fresh."
Misleading?
Here's Taylor swift in 2008 (about age 19) telling kids, "Some studies suggest that teens who choose milk
instead of sugary drinks tend to be leaner... Music to my ears" along with the text "body by milk".
An interview
at the time makes it pretty clear that she was just parroting what she'd been told. Too bad that wasn't to simply cut
down on sugary drinks.
Here's psychologist Dr. Phil in 2004 telling people to
"Get real. About losing weight. Can you believe that drinking milk can help you lose weight? ...
studies suggest 24 ounces every 24 hours." Given his PhD credibility, a lot of people probably listened to this advice.
Note that his ad didn't say "body by milk".
Some "got milk" ads, like this one with Beyoncé, have even included the
slogan "milk your diet. Lose weight!"
"studies
consistently show that dairy products offer zero benefits for weight control. One major
study
even found that dairy products might lead to weight gain. In 2005, the Physicians Committee petitioned the FTC to
put an immediate end to the dairy industry's misleading campaigns about milk and weight control."
In response to pressure from the Federal Trade Commission, the dairy industry then agreed to change
their ads "until further research provides stronger, more conclusive evidence of an association
between dairy consumption and weight loss."
However, following that agreement, the dairy industry appears to have simply transitioned to using the
word "leaner", despite the likely possibility that some people might interpret "leaner" to
imply weight loss.
We don't doubt that
"some studies"
suggest that teens who drink milk instead of sugary sodas
are leaner. But we highly doubt that telling teens to drink more cow's milk to slim down would be as honest or helpful as
simply telling them to cut down on sugary drinks.
The same agency that created the popular
got milk ad campaign also created the campaign
below. This one included a website with tips to help men with "PMS management" ↓
Although a
study
published in 2017 did find that
calcium could help with reducing
"mood disorders" during PMS, it makes more sense to get that
calcium from foods that don't also
increase estrogen (like dairy can).
Furthermore, several studies have shown saturated fats to play a role in increasing PMS symptoms,
which the above ads didn't mention.
Most importantly, do you find it odd that an industry that does what it does
to females would try to promote itself as alleviating female pains?
Though they didn't have the same advertising budget,
Mercy for Animals
helped clarify the dairy industry's relationship with the female reproductive system by running the ad below.
It also included a website: MilkIsCruel.com(Now: GotMisery.com)
When misleading ads get
repeated
in mass media, many people eventually get misled.
So even though we all know that Beckham's abs were not actually made by milk, ads
like the ones below still eventually make an impression – especially on young minds. At a minimum, they
imply that drinking milk = leaner body. That's misleading.
Even back when "body by milk" launched, the
NY Times
reported that it was "generating criticism among doctors and nutrition experts, who question its conclusions."
Nevertheless, the campaign debuted in "magazines read by teenagers... [and posters distributed] in more than 100,000
schools."
"[my body is] a temple, and milk is the drink of
the gods"
Tyra Banks: "Go drink some milk."
Elizabeth Hurley: "Shocked I'm a mom?"
Kate Moss: "I'm... drinking lots of milk"
Gisele Bundchen: "Want strong bones?"
Gisele Bundchen 2: "help prevent [osteoporosis]"
Kristi Yamaguchi: "vitamins and minerals"
Superman: "You can have bones of steel."
Milk Marketing 101 | How to get away with "stretching the truth"
Through aggressive
lobbying
efforts and other tactics to influence government agencies,
the dairy industry has gained access to a sort of loophole whereby they're able lie to American consumers with a fair amount of impunity.
For example, dairy producers in California and Vermont have been sued multiple times over claims that dairy cows are
"happy"
constitute false advertising. But these lawsuits have all failed for one reason or another, including
government defendants (remember: gov't now advertises dairy) being
exempt from false advertisement laws
that apply to private individuals! And this has in turn helped perpetuate unwitting consumer complicity
in extensive animal cruelty in the dairy industry (as well as in completely needless environmental harm).
Sadly, it seems that dairy cows (and Earth) will never get a fair day in court, while the government is on the side of big dairy.
The only real hope for our planet and these animals, who are
no different
on the inside than the pets we love, is that we humans might eventually
see for ourselves what's happening,
and stop paying for it to happen.
The lying-loophole described above also raises the question: Can we ever trust anything the dairy industry says about its products?
Even when they point to "scientific" health findings, it's
likely the information is coming from their own
paid researchers(more).
Understanding the clearly awful truth behind their
"happy cow" claims,
it goes without saying that we should be very wary of the dairy industry's claims about human health,
the environment, and everything else.
Update for 2024/25
If you're in your teens or 20's, you may not remember some of the misleading dairy ads shown on this website, and might therefore
assume such efforts to be a thing of the past. But make no mistake about it — the dairy industry is still churning out
campaigns of deception,
and they've only gotten better at entertaining young people into passivity. Here's a
recent example.
However, the more you understand the truth about dairy's impacts on your
health and only
home, as well as its
complete needlessness,
the more you can see these increasingly desperate attempts to keep you deceived as completely ridiculous. And increasingly despicable.
"If you don't know [real] history, it's as if you were born yesterday...
and anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything."
– Howard Zinn
In 2023, MilkPEP (Milk Processors "Education Program") hired Queen Latifah to act in a "Milk Shaming PSA" that AdWeek called
"a direct hit to the funny bone" that "picks up where Wood Milk left off."
However, anyone familiar with the truth about dairy immediately knew that the PSA itself was shameful. And interestingly,
as of October 2024, it seems to have been removed from its original YouTube channel.
You can still see what the dairy industry did here.
But we highly recommend this intelligent (AI) Queen Latifah's
revised solution to milk shaming.
Starting in the 1990's, the dairy industry paid
200+ celebrities
$25k each to pose with white mustaches and a
very creative slogan
as a way to boost milk sales.
One example was Whoopi Goldberg, who's actually
lactose intolerant:
Of course, we now know that the strong bones message was complete nonsense.
And plant-milks go equally well with cookies, without funding the needless evils of
animal violence and
environmental harm.
In other words, we definitely
don't need what
milk's got.
Sadly, the "got milk"
campaign was one of the most successful of all time.
Millions of people got milked.
Milk (v) definition
1. To suck milk from breasts.
2. To trick, swindle, defraud, deceive.
They're Trying to Kill Us
Should be called "They Are Killing Us - Slowly - Cuz That Maximizes Profits". This film can help you live.
Watch 1:03 to 1:12 for dairy info.
The Invisible Vegan
Slave owners cared more about profits than people, so slaves were fed low quality food. See how that has impacted the Modern American Diet.
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian, including vegan [no dairy/meat/eggs],
diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.
These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence,
older adulthood, and for athletes."
Many of us heard "milk does a body good" so many times growing up that we just assumed it must be true.
However, it turns out that was just a misleading marketing slogan, not science:
1. Cow's milk is specifically designed to nourish baby cows.
If you're not a cow and/or not a baby, be aware of:
2. You'll never see an adult cow drinking another cows' milk. Adult cows get all their nutrients from plants and supplements. And if you're over 3 years old,
that's better for your body too. You don't need dairy for:
Parkinson's Disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's.
Studies show that consuming dairy products can increase our risk of developing the disease, with
one study showing that those who consumed the most dairy milk had a 70 percent greater risk(1).
On the bright side, another study showed that
a plant-based diet was able to lower the risk of developing Parkinson's Disease by 31 percent(2).
An explanation of the relationship between dairy and PD is beyond the scope of this website, but
you can find more information at the links below:
Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. is an American physician who worked on mad cow issues
while attending Cornell University School of Agriculture, and later appeared as an expert witness when cattle producers unsuccessfully
sued
Oprah Winfrey for libel over statements she had made about the safety of meat. In 1999 he graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine with a
specialty in clinical nutrition, and he's now President and Research Director of
NutritionFacts.org. The following is a selection of dairy
related videos that he has produced:
John Robbins is the son of Baskin-Robbins founder Irv Robbins, and nephew of co-founder Burt Baskin.
As a child, John was groomed to one day take over the billion dollar ice-cream empire. However, after seeing his uncle Burt die from
a heart attack at 54, as well as other family members (and his own body) suffering from ill health, he began to question
the links to what they were often eating. Learning that the product they were selling was making people sick, John rejected both
his father's business and money, and instead lived a very simple life in a one-room log cabin with his wife for many years.
In 1987, John published the international bestseller "Diet For A New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness,
and the Future of Life on Earth." The book, which was very favorably reviewed by the American Journal of Cardiology,
would later help his father reverse severe diabetes, avoid amputation, discontinue insulin, and get off high blood pressure medication.
In other words, John's knowledge saved his father's life – which was arguably more important than all his money.
In 1991, a PBS affiliate produced a documentary based on John's work called "Diet for a New America: Your Health, Your Planet".
You can watch that video below for free. The film itself is a bit dated, but the message is timeless. Alternatively, John has done a
more recent Google Talk that you can also watch for free.
Menkay is a former dairy business owner turned vegan. He's made numerous short videos to explain why:
Casomorphin is a
morphine-like compound
produced from the digestion of milk protein. Essentially, dairy contains something similar to opiate molecules. They attach to the same brain receptors
that heroin does.(1)
Researchers believe the evolutionary reason for this is to keep baby cows emotionally attached to their mothers during infancy
(to increase their chances of survival).
But instead, dairy companies
kidnap
and kill
those babies so they can profit by selling us the "emotional comfort"
of nursing on a baby's milk. And casomorphin is especially high in
cheese –
which helps explain why food companies love adding cheese to everything. And to think that the dairy
industry
spends at least
$50 million advertising
their products to children in public schools – hooking us while we're young.
Would you be okay with companies adding microdoses of opioids to cholesterol-laden foods to keep your kids coming back for more?
That may have survival value for newborn animals in nature, but not for humans in a country where 2/3 of adults are now
medically obese or overweight, where obesity among children has quadrupled in the last 50 years, and where
heart disease is now our nation's #1 killer.
It's time we humans grow up, stop consuming dairy
like babies, and stop subjecting
other animals to lives of misery just so we can feel comforted by their murdered babies' milk.
If you experience withdrawal cravings while quitting dairy, try to remember the
enormous suffering and death you're sparing other beings by going through that relatively brief discomfort.
Of course, some people with self-interest may
dispute dairy addiction.
But here's an expert to explain why dairy is so hard for humans to quit.
Even our government
is in on pushing casomorphin, in the form of government programs like
"checkoffs"
authorized by Congress to increase spending on dairy marketing.
This government involvement has, in turn, empowered dairy to
stretch the truth
about dairy's production conditions and purported health benefits in their promotional efforts.
As of 2023, they're even using our tax dollars to
criticize
alternative products that would be better for the planet.
Please, next time you're offered anything with dairy, Just Say No.
1. Actually, humans only started drinking the milk of other animals about 10k years ago. And even then,
only a minority of humans did so. Given that humans have been walking the Earth for at least 200-300k years, consuming animal-milk is an extremely
new phenomenon.
That minority of humans that started drinking milk 10k year ago only did so for survival reasons –
reasons that are no longer relevant today. Even now, only about 30% of humans have mutated to be able
to digest milk. The normal human digestive system stops being able to digest milk after infancy.
So in fact, nearly 70% of the world's population is still lactose intolerant.
2. Humans have always done a lot of
things we no longer find acceptable. Why should we model our behaviors on those of ancient and ignorant ancestors?
Some cultures have practiced human sacrifice, cannibalism, and female genital mutilation, and they considered those things normal.
The fact that some of our ancestors did bizarre things doesn't mean we need to keep doing those things forever.
3. Along the same lines, some of our recent ancestors chose to do some things differently than those before them.
Should we now assume that the older ways were more correct, and revert to those?
For example, our very recent ancestors struggled to put an end to slavery.
Should we assume that slavery was actually right because it's what those before them did?
Likewise, should we revert to not allowing women to vote because that what our older ancestors did?
4. Is it really safe to assume that we're the first generation that's doing everything right?
On the contrary, more and more people are beginning to recognize that the way we're mass producing, exploiting, and consuming animals today is the most
backwards, barbaric, and destructive practice the world has ever seen. It's actually unlike anything our prehistoric ancestors did.
It's our generation's slavery — on an exponentially larger scale than slavery.
"The thinking person must oppose all cruel customs,
no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo."
– Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Laureate
5. Even if our ancient ancestors did
sometimes
drink milk and eat meat, the GMO-fed,
antibiotic/pesticide/dioxin and
misery-laden stuff that we're being
sold today is hardly what they consumed. So it's definitely time we evolve. Fortunately, we now have easy, year-round access to more plant-based
milks and other foods than ancient humans ever had.
6. If you're interested in drinking more of what our ancestors have been drinking since
the beginning of humanity's time on Earth, that would be: water. Water is almost exclusively what every adult mammal drinks.
BUT: Soy is bad for the environment. Therefore, eating or drinking soy is bad for the environment.
1. The first statement above is correct. Soy is currently being cultivated on such enormous
levels that it's destroying habitats, such as rainforests. That deforestation is in turn releasing massive amounts carbon into the
atmosphere, and pesticides/fertilizers used in cultivation are then degrading water sources, etc.
2. However, 75-80% of the world's soybean crops are being fed to farm animals. Vegan and vegetarian
consumption only account for about 5%. And with rapidly increasing familiarity with other vegan protein
sources, direct human consumption of soybeans is unlikely to grow significantly in the future. HOWEVER, even if the entire human population were
to eat soy for protein rather than meat/dairy, the destruction of natural vegetation required to supply us with the same amount
of protein would decline by over 90%! That's because converting plant-protein/calories into animal-protein/calories is extremely inefficient.
(MORE EXPLANATION)
In other words, direct human consumption of soy is not bad for the environment.
• TIP: If you consume soy, you may want to opt for
non-GMO.
• FYI: All organic soy is non-GMO.
No animal regularly drinks breast milk after infancy, certainly not from the nipple of another species,
and barring starvation
circumstances, there's no good reason why we should do such a bizarre thing either.
"The human body has no more need for cow's milk than it does for dog's milk, horse's milk, or giraffe's milk." — Dr. Michael Klaper
"Nature (instinct) dictates that we should be weaned (taken off breast milk) at a young age." — NationEarth.com/unity
This first video provides a very quick overview of what we pay for whenever we consume milk, cheese, ice cream, or any other dairy-based product.
And if you have time, please explore any other links below that interest you:
A study by the University of Oxford
found that plant-based diet may be the
"single biggest way" to reduce your environmental impact —
far bigger even than buying an electric car or reducing air travel.
And with an abundance of delicious plant-based milks already available, finding one you like is an easy (but giant) step in that direction:
• Animal agriculture creates more global warming than
all cars+trucks+planes in the world combined, with dairy alone being about equal to all aviation.
Source: UN Report
and
The Guardian
• Dairy milk production emits 3× times more greenhouse gas than any plant-milk.
Source: Univ of Oxford via
The Guardian
"A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe,
a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest,
a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening
our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the
whole of nature in its beauty."
– Albert Einstein
Without seeing a problem, we won't do anything to fix it.
But if we let what we see overwhelm us, we may then avoid it.
So please take breaks from the heaviness by watching some happiness:
Dairy producers receive huge
government subsidies (funded by our state and federal taxes) that plant-milk producers don't receive. This insulates dairy-milk
from free-market competition, exposes plant-milk to
unfair competition,
and means the government is basically providing
built-in foodstamps that specifically encourage cow-milk consumption over plant-milk consumption.
The reason our taxes are subsidizing dairy has a
long history
that involves dairy's heavy influence in government through, among other things, aggressive lobbying and
well-funded campaign donations.
But at this point, if our money is going to be subsidizing any particular food,
it certainly shouldn't be one that's riskier for our
health and
planet than another.
Given what's now known, the only financial assistance dairy producers should be receiving should for assistance with
transitioning away from nutritionally
unnecessary and environmentally
destructive products.
But as things stand today, our taxes are even being used to help dairy producers pay for their advertising. In other words, our taxes
are being used to convince us to buy more of a product that we don't even need, that's harming our health, and that's terrible for our planet.
Even worse, in 2023 they started using our taxes to
discourage
consumption of products that would be better for the planet. Criticism is usually okay, but there's something very wrong when it's our government using
our taxes to help an outdated industry criticize new, more planet-friendly products.
A full discussion of the hidden costs inflicted on our country by the dairy industry is beyond the scope of this website,
but here's a short
Vox video,
a similar overview by Business Insider,
a very in-depth video about the government+dairy relationship,
as well as numerous articles.
The video below was created by
an Emmy-winning independent journalist and contributor to the New York Times.
He's not vegan, and even says he
loves milk. He never mentions the
environmental issues
associated with dairy, nor does he seem concerned about the
animal welfare issues or
human health issues.
However, he does a great job of explaining how the dairy industry has influenced U.S. government policy and convinced
Americans to consume enormous quantities of a nutritionally
unnecessary substance that's
full of saturated fat and cholesterol. If you have limited time, just watch the first and last.
A study by Emory University(1) found
that 60% of conventionally produced milk contains antibiotic residue, and 60% contains at least one pesticide.
This actually isn't surprising – because
what some cows eat is scary.
But even "clean" feed can have pesticide residue,
PCB's, and
dioxins.
Yes, you can limit your exposure to questionable contaminants by buying
organic dairy milk. Or you can simply get organic
plant milk and also avoid the pus, cholesterol, complicity in
animal cruelty, and so on.
"Dioxins are of concern because of their highly toxic potential. Experiments have shown they affect a number of organs and systems.
Once dioxins enter the body, they last a long time because of their chemical stability and their ability to be absorbed by
fat tissue, where they are then stored in the body...
More than 90% of human exposure to dioxins is through the food supply, mainly meat and dairy products, fish and shellfish."
From the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine(3):
"... dioxins are other examples of contaminants found in milk. Dairy products
contribute to one-fourth to one-half of the dietary intake of total dioxins. All these toxins tend to build up in the body over time.
Eventually, this can harm the immune, reproductive, and nervous systems. Moreover, PCBs and dioxins have been linked to cancer."
Just one example of dairy's inefficiency can be seen in water usage. Dairy milk requires more water than any plant-milk.
Yes, even more than almond milk.
Just one gallon of cow's milk requires 600-1000 gallons of water to produce.
"I know of nothing else in medicine that can come close to what a plant-based diet can do. In theory, if everyone where to adopt this,
I really believe we could cut healthcare costs by 70 to 80 percent."
– Prof. Dr. T. Colin Campbell
Nutritional Biochemist and co-author of The China Study
"When we're young and growing up, everybody wants to try to feed people dairy products, and make sure you have milk everyday,
but the science really is now at a point where that cannot be sustained... Dairy really should be out."
– Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn via
Hope
"People that drink milk have higher rates of hip fractures, have
more cancer, and live shorter lives."
– Dr. Michael Greger, M.D. via What the Health
"Drinking milk for the nutrients is like inhaling cigarette smoke for the oxygen."
– Dr. Milton Mills, M.D. via PlantBasedNews
According to the FDA, more than 95% of animals used for meat and dairy in the United States are now eating
genetically modified (GMO) crops.
Sadly, a major motivation for genetic modification has been to make feed crops resistant to increased application of a chemical herbicide known as glyphosate (aka. Roundup).
As a result, glyphosate use in the U.S. has risen over 3000%,
and Americans' exposure to glyphosate has grown by
about 500%, since 1996 when glyphosate-tolerant
(aka. Roundup Ready) GMO seeds started being planted.
As one small example of how such chemicals make their way into our bodies,
a 2017 NYTimes article
reported that glyphosate was found in 10 of 11 samples of
Ben & Jerry's
ice cream.
ANTIBIOTICS: A 2019 study by Emory University
found that 60% of conventionally produced milk contains
antibiotic residue. Factory farms
in the U.S. actually administer
more antibiotics to animals now than doctors do to humans. In the United States,
80% of antibiotics are now used in livestock production.
SOIL HEALTH: Understandably, many scientists are concerned about the unknown long-term effects
that the heavy use of antibiotics
on factory farmed animals,
and increased application of chemical hermicides like glyphosate
to the crops they're now eating, will have on soil health.
Every dairy cow consumes about 50-100 pounds of feed per day, drinks about 30-50 gallons of water per day,
and produces about 100-150 pounds of manure (feces plus urine) every single day. And with about 9 million dairy cows in the United States,
that's approximately the same amount of feces and urine
as is produced by the entire U.S. human population – just from dairy cows.
But unlike humans, dairy cows don't use toilets. So their untreated
waste often runs into waterways, pollutes water resources, and contributes to reducing the oxygen needed by
aquatic plants and animals (e.g. fish) to survive.
This is obviously much less of a problem with plant-based milks.
Imagine if rather than taxing cigarettes, the government gave your tax dollars to tobacco companies so they could
lower cigarette prices as a strategy to encourage your family to smoke more. Well, given what we now know about dairy's impacts on our
health and
planet,
that's essentially what's happening
with dairy today. Dairy producers receive huge government
subsidies (including your tax dollars) that plant-milk producers don't receive.
Dairy also has more
externalized costs
than plant-milk, which we all eventually pay the price for as well.
Sadly, these artificial subsidies that are decreasing the price of dairy below its real price are
in turn increasing environmental harms, as well as
human disease.
The most logical solution to this problem would be to simply end the dairy subsidies.
Another strategy might be a tax
to discourage dairy use, just as has proven effective for discouraging
tobacco use.
But unfortunately, the truth is that the dairy industry's
powerful influence on our government today makes a logical solution
difficult to implement.
However, we as individual consumers still have the power to urge the companies we support to do their part in not supporting harmful policies
by simply changing what we buy.
It's our Constitutional right to not buy from companies that don't act in our best interests, and to instead buy from companies that do.
So regardless of what our government does or doesn't do about dairy subsidies, simply switching from cow-milk to
plant-milk (or no milk at all, since we really
don't need it) will still help
motivate food producers to start doing what's right for us and the planet.
"For most of human history, milk was a very small part of the lives of a very small number of people.
Around World War I, the U.S. government sent huge amounts of canned and powdered milk overseas — and farmers
made huge changes in response. Many [farmers] got rid of their other crops and animals to focus exclusively on dairy.
But when the war ended, demand dried up, and the country was left with a whole bunch of milk it didn't need.
[But] at this point, farmers and milk processors had invested way too much time and energy to shift away from
large scale, year-round milk production. So instead of making less milk, they convinced people to drink more."
[Since that time, Americans have been subjected to milk "education" campaigns in public schools,
schools have even been legally required to serve cow's milk to children at lunchtime, and our government has even agreed to purchase
unwanted surpluses from dairy producers — which in turn encouraged dairy overproduction. And when Reagan tried to make cuts to
that buying program so that they'd produce less milk, the dairy industry then
lassoed Congress into using government agencies to
persuade US to consume even more
milk and cheese –
even though we definitely don't need either.]
All of these efforts to keep an outdated, unnecessary industry alive for the last 100+ years have created bigger problems. But most problematic is that they've all
delayed fixing the major problem that was created with dairy in the first place. By continuing to give financial favoritism
to one food product, our government has been encouraging farmers to continue focusing on that one food product.
And doing this has undermined the food security that comes with food diversity.
That food diversity has been further reduced by the
introduction of GMO (genetically identical) monocrops into livestock
feed supplies.
We must diversify
away from dairy.
Fortunately, that will happen naturally in a free market without subsidies, price supports, and government-protected
false advertising campaigns.
Dairy Discouraging to Innovation
Imagine you're a new business trying to create a new product that's better for the environment and/or healthier for people than an existing
product. However:
Your government gives taxpayer dollars
to the producer of the existing product, which helps them to keep their prices
lower than yours, and makes your product appear "expensive"
to consumers.
Your government gives your competitor assistance with marketing their old product, and even enables them to make
false claims about it.
When some people start switching to your product, your government uses taxpayer dollars to help your competitor
ridicule, disparage
and discourage the use of your new product.
Even as people stop buying your competitor's inferior product, your government
buys their unsold inventory
using taxpayer dollars (including your customers' taxes), which keeps them in business doing all of the above to your neverending disadvantage.
Do you think this type of government favoritism and assistance to old products might discourage innovation of new, improved products?
Might it encourage some businesses to instead remain producers of old, inferior products?
Many people have been told that dairy products are a good source of B12.
But the truth is that B12 comes from bacteria in the soil. Our ancient ancestors could get B12 simply by eating unwashed plants or drinking river water.
And until recently, it's true that we could still get B12 by consuming the meat or milk of animals who ate unwashed plants.
However, with soils today increasingly exposed to antibiotics and herbicides that kill bacteria, factory farmed animals are now often
supplemented with B12. And being told that you should consume the flesh or fluids of a supplemented
middlecow
to get a nutrient that you could have gotten directly is misleading.
There are much better ways to get B12 today, without the animal fat,
cholesterol,
and who knows what
in dairy.
Easy sources:
B12 can now be found in many plant-based milks, such as Oatly oat milk and
Silk soy milk. Note that all plant-milks are cholesterol-free. Alternatively, B12 is also in many multivitamins.
Do you cook?
Just one tablespoon of Bragg's Nutritional Yeast (available at grocery stores) has 315% DV of B12, and is very easy to incorporate
into pasta dishes, pizzas, dips, and
much more.
Copy Our Petition
Every signature on this petition is helping to raise awareness of a very serious problem in America, and we'll get as many signatures as we possibly can.
However, we're a very small nonprofit, and
it's probably unlikely that our limited budget will be enough to reverse Big Dairy's infiltration into U.S. Government.
But regardless of what might come (or not) of our efforts, we welcome anyone with similar concerns to copy our petition and launch it as your own. Feel free to use/change anything you want.
Likewise, if our petition is ever paused, and if you'd like to re-launch it in any form in the future, please do.
UPDATE:
As of 10/30/2024, our Starbucks campaign has ended.
Starbucks is great at projecting an ethical image
to help sell their seemingly sophisticated beverages — they say and do a lot of
little things(irony)
that serve to distract customers from the enormous white elephant in their cafes. But the unfortunate fact is that every dairy drink they offer contains needless
animal and
environmental harm.
Sadly, Starbucks actually discourages the
#1 most important
form of conscientious consumption by adding a surcharge to plant-milk.
UPDATE: On October 30, 2024, following multi-year campaigns by
PETA
and Switch4Good,
and only also following a significant decline in sales,
Starbucks decided to stop charging extra for plant-milks. As a result, our call to avoid all Starbucks cafes and products is no longer active.
Rather, if you frequent another cafe that still upcharges for plant-milk, we suggest switching to Starbucks until that changes.
HOWEVER, we're keeping this page online to explain why:
Starbucks should also make a plant-milk their default drink base.
You should only consume Starbucks beverages with plant-milk.
Any other cafes that still upcharge for plant-milk should be avoided.
Eventually, cow-milk options should be surcharged or eliminated.
Dairy milk producers in the United States
externalize the majority of their costs:
GREENWASHING
Starbucks is great at projecting an ethical image
to help sell their seemingly sophisticated beverages — they say and do a lot of little things
that serve to distract customers from the enormous problems hidden in those beverages. Pertaining to the environment,
what Starbucks is doing to hide those problems is what's known as
greenwashing.
But underneath that greenwashing is the unfortunate fact that every dairy drink Starbucks offers contains
needless environmental harm.
And with Starbucks selling over 100 million gallons of dairy milk every year, that needless harm is a very serious problem for the planet.
Our planet needs real change, not deceptive marketing. It's time for
Starbucks leadership
to wake up if they wanna sell their coffee.
Make better drinks at home, with your
favorite plant-milk,
without the casomorphin,
without the cholesterol,
without the estrogen,
without the wait,
at just the right temperature and sweetness you like,
and for a fraction of the price!
The
SBSucks
and
BuckSB
stickers are the best choices for promoting the campaign to help Starbucks change its ways.
But if you prefer, any of these
other stickers will
indirectly help promote that campaign as well.
Ordering business cards is probably the cheapest option for bulk printing if you want to hand out a lot of cards.
But if you just want a couple dozen cards to give to friends, you can print the PDF below on thick paper,
then cut the cards out yourself. This design uses a lot of ink, so you might want to print at a
copy shop. Somewhere like FedEx Office will also have DIY cutters that you can use.
Imagine if rather than taxing cigarettes, the government gave your tax dollars to tobacco companies so they could
lower cigarette prices as a strategy to encourage your family to smoke more. Well, given what we now know about dairy's impacts on our
health and
planet,
that's essentially what's happening
with dairy today. Dairy producers receive huge government
subsidies (including your tax dollars) that plant-milk producers don't receive.
Dairy also has more
externalized costs
than plant-milk, which we all eventually pay the price for as well.
Sadly, these artificial subsidies that decrease the price of dairy below its real price
then increase animal and environmental harm, as well as
human disease.
A logical first step to offsetting this problem would be a tax
to discourage dairy use, just as has proven effective for discouraging
tobacco use.
Another logical solution would be to end the dairy subsidies.
But unfortunately, the dairy industry's
powerful influence on our government today makes any logical solution very unlikely.
However, we as consumers have the power to demand that the companies we support do their part in not supporting unjust and harmful policies.
It's our Constitutional right to not buy from (i.e. boycott) companies that don't act in our best interests.
By placing a surcharge on dairy milk, Starbucks will be doing their part in shifting consumption of cow-milk to plant-milk,
rather than profiting from unjust subsidies and environmentally-externalized costs.
By boycotting Starbucks until they do their part, we're all doing our part in motivating
that corporation
to do what's right for us and the planet.
A sin tax (also known as vice tax) is a tax specifically levied on certain goods deemed harmful to society and individuals,
such as tobacco, alcohol, drugs, soft drinks, fast foods, and sugar. In contrast to taxes that are used to
pay for the damage to society caused by such goods, sin taxes increase the price in an effort to decrease the use of those goods in the first place.
Increasing sin taxes is often more popular than increasing other taxes.
– Definition based on: Wikipedia
When someone says that plant-milk is more expensive than dairy-milk,
they're overlooking the fact that dairy producers receive huge government
subsidies that plant-milk producers don't receive.
They're also ignoring the fact that animal-derived products have more
externalized costs
than plant-foods do. We all pay those costs eventually. In fact, consuming animal-products like dairy
is basically costing us the planet that we call home. That's very expensive.
Vegan Caramel Frappé:
"A barista at [a Starbucks] listed the caramel frappé as the number one most popular order.
To make this frappé vegan, all you need is Nature's Charm coconut caramel sauce, sugar, almond milk or caramel almond milk creamer,
coconut whipped cream, ice and chilled coffee. Combine one cup of cold coffee, three tablespoons of sugar, one cup of almond milk,
four tablespoons of caramel sauce or ½ cup of caramel almond milk creamer and three handfuls of ice into a blender.
Blend the ingredients until smooth, pour into a cup of your choice,
put a swirl of coconut whipped cream and finish by drizzling coconut caramel sauce on top."
Source: The Daily Aztec
(Where you'll also find recipes for vegan Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew and Iced Matcha Green Tea Latte)
Find your favorite drink:
1) Use the site CopyMeThat.com to search "vegan [your favorite drink]".
2) Alternatively, do a search for "DIY [your favorite drink] recipe", then simply replace cow's milk with your
favorite plant milk.
American inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller said:
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
Here's the good news:Something better than dairy is already available!
Oatly is our top choice for oatmilk,
and oatmilk is a top choice for the environment.
Oatly's taste and consistency is a very easy transition from animal milk, and since it has about the same
calcium,
vitamin D and
B12 as cow's milk, you don't need to worry about missing those nutrients that cows got fed
or injected with. Moreover, one cup of Oatly has just 7 grams of sugar, versus dairy milk's 12 grams. If you haven't tried Oatly before,
the most popular is the medium-thick version in the light blue container. If you usually drink nonfat milk, try the white container.
Or if you've been drinking whole milk, try the dark blue container.
While not organic, Oatly is
non-GMO
verified and glyphosate-free. UPDATE 2024: Oatly now offers minimal-ingredient and unsweetened (0g sugar) versions.
Silk is our top choice for soy milk, and soy milk is another top choice
for the environment. Silk is an excellent source of calcium (20-35% DV per cup),
vitamin D,
and provides 100-120% DV of B12!
The Unsweetened Organic has 0 grams of sugar, Original has 6 grams, and Vanilla has 8 grams of sugar, all lower than dairy milk's 12 grams.
Also includes 6-8 grams of protein,
if that's something you're looking for.
Note that even if you don't opt for their organic option, all Silk's soy milks are
non-GMO.
Nutritional information for each flavor is at Silk.com.
*Silk is a Certified B Corp.
Califia makes oat, almond, and coconut milks, and has variations within each flavor.
Above is a sample of their oatmilk variations.
Their Extra Creamy, Zero Sugar, and Vanilla oatmilks have about the same amount of calcium and vitamin D as cow's milk,
while the Protein Oat has twice the calcium. However, Califia does not include B12, so you'll want to get that elsewhere –
and if you're doing that, you might consider Califia's organic oatmilk, which has just 3 ingredients.
While Califia does offer a Zero Sugar flavor, even their sweetened oatmilks here have just 4 grams of sugar per cup versus dairy
milk's 12 grams. Full nutritional info for the above flavors and several more at
Califia.com.
Elmhurst walnut milk is shelf-stable (doesn't require refrigeration, so it can be
shipped from Amazon/etc), it has only 2 ingredients (no gums/emulsifiers), and it's non-GMO.
We wouldn't usually recommend shelf-stable or minimal-ingredient (reasons below), but walnuts are such an excellent source
of plant-based omega-3's (good for heart health) that this walnut milk is an exception
you might consider rotating in. Hopefully more walnut milks will be coming to the fridge soon.
BTW, this image was edited for space – the actual cartons is taller.
More recommendations coming soon!
In the meantime, some tips:
1. Brands may vary by region, so don't limit yourself to our recommendations!
2. Choose refrigerated: Supporting plant-based products
in the refrigerator section will help push milk-made-for-cow-babies out of human stores faster. And other things being equal,
"shelf-stable" options are not likely to be healthier than refrigerated.
3. Vitamin-fortified vs minimal ingredients: Choosing a plant-milk fortified with
the vitamins you may have been getting through a
middlecow
will ease any concerns about lacking anything good you got from baby cow's milk. On the other hand, some people are attracted to the idea of
minimal ingredients, in which case you'll just want to be sure you're getting
vitamin D and
B12 from other sources.
4. Be aware of "gum" thickeners: Gums aren't necessarily unhealthy, but they have no nutritional value, are highly processed, and
some people may not digest them well. A little gum may improve texture without adding fat, but companies cutting costs by adding more than one gum to their
products aren't going to help the plant-based movement in the long run. Therefore, we don't support them. Same goes for
"carrageenan" – it thickens foods cheaply, but is of
questionable nutritional value.
5. Be aware of sweeteners: It takes a fair amount of sugar to mimic the taste of cow's milk (because
cow's milk has a lot of sugar), and that sweetness may help with the initial transition to plant-milk. But over time you may want to
transition to an unsweetened or less-sweetened plant milk.
6. It's okay to mix and alternate. Do you like oatmilk, but want a bit more protein? Try mixing oatmilk and soymilk.
Want something between sweetened and unsweetened? Mix those two together. Want the widest variety of nutrients? Alternate
between plant milks.
Miyoko's cheese wheels are expensive (~$10)
because they're made with nuts, but they're amazing for special occasions.
Miyoko's liquid mozzarella is a game changer for pizza. While any pre-shredded vegan cheese works,
this one melts and stretches just like cow's cheese.
There's no shortage of vegan cheeses available now – these are just a few of the more popular.
None are exactly healthy (lots of coconut oil), but hopefully you haven't been eating cheese for your health.
At least these are made from plants, not pus.
Kite-Hill has mastered yogurts, cream cheeses, sour creams, and other spreads. See all their offerings at
Kite-Hill.com.
Another good brand for yogurt is Forager.
Also called "nooch", this is super useful for making
cheesy sauces, thickening pasta sauces,
sprinkling on popcorn, and much more.
Just 1 tablespoon of Bragg's has 315% DV of B12, plus a surprising amount of protein.
If you're a coffee drinker, you'll have no trouble finding soy/almond/coconut/oat and other vegan creamers.
Here's one we like.
Egg from plants (rather than the backside of a chicken) with zero cholesterol. Great for scrambles, omelettes, pancakes, etc.
Do you ever think about what's in mayonnaise while you're eating it? You'll enjoy this more. Also available with avocado oil,
and FYH makes vegan dressings as well.
Violife gets our vote for best plant-based parmesan cheese.
But note that it requires a grater.
Follow Your Heart
has a good pre-grated alternative.
Ugh, I can't believe I ever ate the solidified secretion from a cow's nipple. Gross. Try these.
Oatly,
Ben & Jerry's,
Cosmic Bliss, and many others are making amazing plant-based ice creams now. Gone are the
days of having to steal candy from babies.
Green text = highly recommended. All videos below are recommended,
but those in green text are some of our very top picks.
ANIMAL WELFARE
Paul McCartney once said that if factory farms had glass walls, we'd all be vegan.
Some brave filmmakers have given us windows. Please look.
Dairy is Scary:Watch here The truth about milk & cheese in 5 minutes.
MLK Jr. said that "to save man from the morass of propaganda
is one of the chief aims of education." But given the modern reach of dairy propaganda into education,
we must now educate ourselves.
Cowspiracy:TrailerNetflixAmazonMore Exposes possibly the most destructive force facing our planet.
Mad Cowboy:TrailerWatch on Youtube Along with Oprah, this man got sued for speaking his truth.
Punk Rock Vegan Movie:Watch free Clips from this film by Moby are included in the got evil video.
They're Trying To Kill Us:TrailerTubi (free)VimeoMore Killing you slowly is where the $ is. Watch 1:03 to 1:12 for dairy.
Why We Use Certain Animals:Watch freePart 2 What we consider truth is often passively accepted belief.
HISTORY
"If you don't know [real] history, it's as if you were born yesterday...
and anybody up there in a position of power can tell you anything" – Howard Zinn
American Milk in 4 minutes:Watch free
For years, we've been told milk is essential. It's not. Also see: 8 minutes.
The White Lies We've Been Sold:Watch free By an Emmy-winning contributor to the New York Times.
Due to ag-gag laws outlawing filming on factory farms, it's becoming
increasingly difficult to expose crimes against animals. Please raise your awareness of their suffering while you still can.
Largest U.S. Dairy:Watch hereThanks to: ARM Supplier to Fairlife, which is part of the Coca-Cola Company.
When an ever-expanding economic system considers the health of the planet and its inhabitants to be irrelevant costs,
at some point that system begins to guarantee an uglier future for every future generation.
We've passed that point, and something needs to change... US.
New Roots Institute is a branch of
Factory Farming Awareness Coalition that
sends skilled educators into high school and college classrooms to inspire critical thinking about the connections between
factory farming and important issues affecting us all – animal welfare, worker welfare, the environment, and human health.
These are suggested videos from their site:
Adult cows get their calcium from plants and/or supplements, and so should you.
You don't have to drink a
middlecow's
secretions to get the nutrients she got from plants and/or supplements.
Many plant-milks already include calcium. For example,
Oatly has about the same amount of calcium as cow's milk, and Ripple has 50% more calcium than cow's milk.
Vegetables that have more calcium than grass include broccoli, many green leafy vegetables,
almonds, lentils, chickpeas (hummus), chia seeds, and many more.
And calcium is very easy to find in tablets or capsules if you prefer.
P.S. If you were told that cow's milk helps build strong bones,
that wasn't true.
With cow's milk proven to NOT build strong bones, the milk industry has started
emphasizing protein more in its advertising. ↓
However, protein deficiency is virtually nonexistent in the U.S.
In fact, most Americans already get
twice as much protein as they need.
Even the average vegan gets
70% more than they need!
And it's important to understand that protein that's not needed gets stored as fat.
Very few people are looking for more of that.
↓
As for the protein that we do need, getting it from plant foods is no problem.
In fact, all protein
starts with plants
– and that's the best place to get it. By getting your protein from plants, you can get it without the artery-clogging cholesterol
present in cow's milk.
↓
Easy example: soy milk is an excellent complete protein source.
↓
However, ALL plant foods can combine
to form complete protein.
For example, beans and rice form a complete protein. So does peanut butter on whole wheat bread.
And you don't have to eat the two plant foods in the same meal,
because our body can store amino acids.
↓
Since all plant foods
contain all the essential amino acids (just in varying amounts), simply eating a variety of plant proteins should
provide all the aminos you ever need to make all the protein you ever need.
↓
P.S. While virtually no Americans suffer from protein deficiency (exceptions likely being those with eating disorders or on extreme diets),
virtually all Americans suffer from
fiber deficiency.
However, dairy contains zero fiber. Neither do meat, eggs, or sugar.
The best source of fiber is whole plant foods.
↓
P.S. #2: Human breast milk, which is in fact nature's perfect food for growing baby humans, is just 1% protein.
Some other high protein plant-foods include almonds, walnuts, broccoli, lentils, black beans, brown rice, soy/tofu/tempeh,
and much, much more.
If eating soy or tofu as a protein source, you may want to opt for organic,
as there are concerns about genetically modified soy (aka. GMO soy) and super-processed soy (e.g. soy protein isolate).
Many of us have family or friends who've died of diet-related diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes.
But do you know any American who's died of protein deficiency? Probably not
Just look around.
Even many poor people today are morbidly obese due to the high-animal-protein, low-nutrient-density of our
Modern American Diet
also known as the Standard American Diet.
Protein is made of amino acids, and there are 22 amino acids required to make it. Our body produces 13 of those amino acids on its own.
The other 9 are called "essential amino acids" because they're obtained through food.
A food is referred to as "complete" protein if it has all 9 essential amino acids in amounts the body needs.
Examples of plant-foods that provide "complete" protein include
quinoa,
chia,
hemp, and
shakes.
However, two or more so-called "incomplete" proteins can combine to form complete protein.
And they don't even have to be eaten in the same meal – because our body can store amino acids.
In other words, we don't have to eat animals who made complete proteins from plants. And we don't have to steal
their baby's milk to get our protein either. Our bodies are equipped to make complete protein directly from plants, without the
unnecessary cholesterol, animal cruelty, etc.
Your body is equipped to create complete proteins from plant proteins. And you don't need to know how to do this — your body knows.
You just have to provide your body with a variety of plant foods.
Quinoa has been eaten by humans for over 5,000 years. The Inca called it the "Mother of all Grains"
(though it's technically a seed).
And we now know it to be a near nutritionally perfect complete protein –
and it's low in fat, and high in fiber. Quinoa is an excellent replacement for rice (or mix into rice) in any dish.
Chia seeds have been eaten for thousands of years, and were a staple of the Aztecs and Mayans
("chia" means "strength" in Mayan).
Chia seeds include high quality complete protein, lots of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, and various essential minerals and antioxidants.
Many animals today are supplemented with vitamin B12, but we can supplement ourselves –
we don't have to consume a
middlecow's
fluids to get the nutrients she was supplemented with.
Easy sources:
B12 can now be found in many plant-based milks, such as Oatly oat milk and
Silk soy milk. B12 is important, so choosing a plant-milk that includes it is a good idea.
Alternatively, B12 is also in many multivitamins.
Do you cook?
Just one tablespoon of Bragg's Nutritional Yeast (available at grocery stores) has 315% DV of B12, and is very easy to incorporate
into pasta dishes, pizzas, dips, and
much more.
The truth about B12:
Vitamin B12 comes from bacteria in soil.
Our prehistoric ancestors would get B12 simply by eating unwashed plants or drinking river water.
More recently, humans could get B12 by eating animals who ate unwashed plants.
However, with soils today increasingly exposed to antibiotics and pesticides that kill bacteria, factory farmed animals are
now often supplemented with B12. So at this point, it makes more sense to just supplement ourselves, bypassing the saturated
fat, cholesterol, etc found in milk and meat.
BUT: What about vitamin D?
Adult cows get their vitamin D from plants, sun exposure, and/or supplements, and so should you.
There's no need to consume a
middlecow's
cholesterol-laden secretion to get a nutrient that she got from plants, supplements, sun exposure, or that was merely added to her milk.
a) Like cows, the human body can make Vitamin D naturally from sun exposure. If you live in a sunny climate,
just
5-30 minutes
of mid-day sun exposure per day is enough for most people.
b) Alternatively, vitamin D is already
in many plant-milks, such as Silk's Oat and Soy milks. That way you don't have to worry about getting too much sun exposure.
c) And vitamin D is also in many multivitamins.
While virtually no Americans suffer from
protein deficiency (exceptions likely being those with eating disorders or on extreme diets),
virtually all Americans (97%) suffer from
fiber deficiency.
↓
However, dairy contains zero fiber. Neither do meat, eggs, or sugar.
↓
The best source of fiber is whole plant foods.
When flowing into a river, there's a big difference between water that's passed through a plant, and water that's passed through a cow.
However, even if we overlook that fact, here are the other facts:
Yes, almond milk requires a lot of water – but not as much as cow's milk. So in terms of water waste, even the worst
plant-based milk is better than cow's milk.
However, if you care about limiting your environmental impact, then the optimal choices are soy and oat milk.
BUT: Doesn't soy cause men to grow breasts?
1. The rumor that soy milk causes "man-breasts" arose because soy contains phytoestrogen,
and when some people hear "estrogen" they think "woman." But phytoestrogen is plant estrogen, not actual estrogen.
And this phytoestrogen actually
blocks real estrogen!
3. We know that some cultures have been consuming soy for thousands of years without men growing breasts, and medical
research
completely contradicts the rumor as well.
4. To avoid man-breasts, choose a diet associated with
lower obesity,
as excess body fat on men is what often looks like breasts.
5. If someone tells you that drinking soy-milk is unmanly, remind them that drinking dairy milk is literally
drinking breast milk made for a baby.
P.S. If consuming soy, many people opt for non-GMO.
BUT: Don't plants have feelings? If so, isn't murdering oats the same as murdering animals?
1. Plants may have a form of "consciousness" but they don't have a central nervous system or pain receptors,
so they don't experience physical pain like we (animals) do.
2. If your house were burning down, who would you save first:
your pets or your plants? Would you ask a firefighter to run through the flames to rescue your plants?
3. If a plant suddenly appeared in the road,
would you swerve your car into a dog to avoid running over the plant? We've all boiled vegetables before –
would you ever boil a screaming calf alive with the same indifference?
4. Even if you are the very rare person who thinks that harming plants is the same as harming
animals, the fact is that significantly more plants have to be consumed by a farm animal for conversion into meat calories than
a person would have to consume directly from plants to get the same amount of calories.
Or put another way: Eating plants saves plants.
When tractors till farmland, animals underground get crushed.
If insecticides are used on crops, bugs die.
So adopting a plant-based diet doesn't completely eliminate one's harmful impact
on animals.
However, when a person gets their calories from plants, that person's sustenance
requires only a small fraction of the amount of plants that would have to be fed
to farm animals for conversion into an equivalent amount of meat calories.
In other words, by eating plant-based, we actually reduce crop
cultivation, which in turn reduces harmful impacts on wild animals and insects.
So for those concerned about the animals harmed during crop production, adopting a plant-based diet
is still the best way to reduce the number of those animals harmed.
A reminder from Mahatma Gandhi (who was a strict vegan):
"[A person] cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously
committing [violence]. The very fact of living – eating, drinking and moving about – necessarily involves some
destruction of life, be it ever so minute. An adherent of [nonviolence] therefore remains true if the source of all his actions is compassion,
if he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature...
but he can never become entirely free from outward [violence]."
BUT: Plants don't have udders / You can't milk an almond / It's not real milk / It should be called plant-juice.
1. Check Dictionary.com and you'll find that definitions of milk include "any liquid resembling the milk of animals"
and "a whitish, potable liquid made of ground nuts, legumes, seeds, or grain blended with water". Language evolves, and anyone who
still thinks that "milk" only refers to mammary gland secretion is simply outdated.
2. Despite attempts by the dairy industry to block plant-milk producers from using the word "milk", the
FDA has rightly decided
that it's fair to call oat/soy/etc beverages types of "milk" because plant-milks
"do not pretend to be from dairy animals — and US consumers aren’t confused".
3. If labeling requirements were entirely fair, dairy milk would not be allowed to market itself simply as
"milk", but would instead have to be labeled as something like:
• "Cow's milk"
• "Milk made for baby cows"
• "Cow nipple juice"
• "Baby cow juice"
• "Milk made by cows for calves, not intended for human consumption"
1. Don't be duped — most factory farms today bare little resemblance to the idyllic
family farm images you see on milk cartons. Most animal products like cow's milk are now produced in large corporate arrangements,
and it's rarely
Old MacDonald doing the work.
In many cases, the
workers
aren't treated
much better than the animals.
2. Even many
farmers and
workers have concerns about the violence inherent in
animal agriculture. By transitioning to a plant-based diet, you help create demand for new products they can produce.
The plant-based revolution is actually a huge
opportunity
for companies that care about the future of this planet.
Now is the time
for those companies to be the change our world needs – that's where the money will soon be.
Sure, there will be some businesses that resist and ridicule that change.
But the fact is that without change, humanity's chances of survival on this planet are being undermined.
3. Drinking plant-milk creates revenue for plant-food farmers. Why should
animal-food farmers be considered more important than plant-food farmers? Especially if plant-foods are better for our health,
and the planet's health.
4. Did you ever avoid watching Netflix/Youtube/etc because of what those new products would mean
for video stores like Blockbuster? No, because there were clear advantages. It's the same here.
Plant-based diet is an idea whose time has come.
Inflicting unnecessary disease on customers and destroying the only planet we have is not a sustainable business model.
5. Did you ever tell people to keep smoking cigarettes because not smoking creates hardship
for tobacco farmers? Note that animal agriculture is now responsible for more human disease and environmental destruction
than cigarettes ever were.
6. "What about the slave owners, what will they do?" was a popular
sentiment for protecting slavery at one time. But while it may have been a popular sentiment, it was not a strong argument.
And there are very strong similarities between that historic situation and modern animal agriculture.
7. If human welfare is your priority, remember that factory farm
workers
have some of the highest rates of stress, depression, PTSD, alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide in the world.
As we transition to plant-based diets, we stop paying workers to commit and experience needless violence for us.
8. Continuing to consume dairy isn't going to help small farmers.
As explained in MILKED, innovative
companies are already beginning to produce
milk protein identical to dairy for 10% of the cost, using 5% of the resources, 1% of the waste, and 0% of the cows. So even without any shift
in consumer behavior, conventional dairy's days are very numbered. You can learn more about this
at RethinkX:
one /
two.
But the point is that dairy is not the game to be in today, and forwarding-thinking farmers should be taking action now.
9. The inconveniences that some farmers may experience in the near future is unfortunate, but
should be viewed relative to 1) the excruciating suffering experienced by millions of factory farmed animals every day, 2) the diet-related
diseases arising because of animal foods, and 3) the environmental impacts being inflicted on unborn generations by animal agriculture.
10. Given that dairy farmers have received government assistance with promoting a harmful product for decades,
it seems likely that they'll be able to arrange for assistance with transitioning to something better for humanity and the planet.
"Realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do…
I feel very deeply about [veganism]...
It was my dog Boycott who led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings."
— Cesar Chavez,
co-founder National Farm Workers Association
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." — Arthur Schopenhauer
Fifty years ago, vegans were ridiculed as fruit and nut
eating hippies. More recently, they've been
threatened,
attacked,
litigated,
and even imprisoned.
But now, with growing awareness of animal agriculture's impact on the planet, it's becoming evident that either truth will prevail on this issue,
or the planet will be moving on without us.
While still in stage 2, it's important to never be intimidated by threats in any form. If we
let fear stop us from changing, suffering is guaranteed to continue. It's similar to dealing with bullies
on a playground. If we reward their threats with our milk money, we reinforce their bully behavior, and nothing changes.
"Never be afraid of deceitful, dishonest, brutal power.
That is true freedom." — Vandana Shiva,
Indian Physicist
"Armies cannot stop an idea whose time has come." — Victor Hugo
Hugo was referring to universal Truths being remembered in the 1700's, such as liberty and equality.
Despite powerful opposition from a self-interested Establishment at the time, such values are now universal.
And we're now remembering that they don't apply only to us.
"The Truth is a stubborn thing. It doesn't go away." — PlantPure Nation
BUT: You've never even been on a factory farm.
1. If you know what happens in a place, you don't necessarily need to go there in
order to know whether what happens there is wrong. Most of us have never been to a concentration camp or slave plantation,
but knowing essentially what happens in those places is enough to be against them.
2. There's abundant video footage that shows us exactly what happens on
factory farms, as well as numerous
farmers and
investigators
exposing the truth.
3. If the average person were to visit a factory farm, they'd likely just be
turned away, arrested, or given the
amusement park tour.
BUT: If we don't commercialize cows, won't they go extinct?
1. At this point, 60% of all mammal biomass on Earth is farm animals.
There's nearly twice as much farm animal mass on the planet now as there is human. Meanwhile, only 4% of Earth's animals are now wild.
2. If extinction of species is a concern for you, keep in mind that our planet
is currently in the midst of its largest mass extinction in 65 million years – comparable to the extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.
In the last 50 years alone, over 50% of all wildlife on Earth has disappeared, with about 1000 species
still going extinct every year, and with that rate of extinction continuing to accelerate.
This mass extinction is largely due to our diet. Livestock production now takes up nearly
80% of global agricultural land, and is one of the largest causes of deforestation, habitat loss, water pollution, and ocean dead zones.
At this point, we human animals are actually risking our own extinction for the sake of
eating other animals and their fluids.
3. If cows ever need to be protected in zoos, it's unlikely that eating them will be the solution.
We'll update this page if cow extinction ever needs a conversation. But don't hold your breath — rather, please help with the other 1000 species per year.
BUT: If we don't keep killing cows, won't they overpopulate?
Most dairy cows today are bred through artificial insemination (forced impregnation).
And because there's a cost associated with raising any animal on a farm, insemination rates are determined by demand.
Therefore, if dairy consumption slows, cow insemination by the dairy industry will also slow.
Moreover, since the world isn't likely to go plant-based overnight (it will be a slow transition),
and since the average life of a dairy cow is only 4-5 years, there's zero chance that we have to worry about cow herds
crowding our roadways or overwhelming nature.
BUT: Aren't cows stupid? If so, why not exploit them?
1. Cows actually have excellent problem-solving abilities, as well as extremely high
emotional intelligence.
The ironic problem with the above statement is that we humans
simply don't understand their intelligence.
2. Nevertheless, if we use intelligence level to determine whether or not a sentient being
should be used for food, then dogs and cats are both proven to be less intelligent than pigs. Are you okay with eating them?
Also, the average pig is just as intelligent as a 3 year old child, so would you say it's okay to breed,
butcher, and eat small children?
3. Would you be okay with a new law saying it's okay for smart people to harm
dumb people?
Hopefully not. But if we don't use low intelligence as reason to exploit, experiment on,
or kill humans, then why do so with animals that may be smarter than those humans?
4. Rather than being a reason to exploit nature, is it possible that our intellectual
superiority might be a reason to become kind stewards of nature? Given that we are nature, is it possible
that using our intelligence to do good for nature might be our actual place in nature?
5. If you're going to use low intelligence as justification for exploiting/killing/consuming other beings,
then the lowest intelligence beings are plants. They literally don't have a single brain cell.
BUT: Is forcibly impregnating a cow the same as rape?
Due to
dehorning
and separation from (infanticide of)
bulls, cows are essentially defenseless animals. But just because a cow is
incapable of defending herself from a worker inserting his arm deep into her
anus, and a steel rod deep into her vagina, doesn't mean she's indifferent to it.
On the contrary, there are plenty of visual indications that cows don't like this.
And research into cows' cortisol levels proves that it causes them stress.
If a defenseless woman were unable to fight off a rapist, we wouldn't cease to call her rape a rape.
Likewise, the dairy industry is only raping cows because they've been rendered
easy to rape. If cows were able to
respond to an arm in their anus like a lion, tiger, or bear would, we wouldn't be drinking cow's milk
(and certainly not kidnapping their babies).
We also wouldn't cease to call the rape of a
less intelligent female rape just because of her low intelligence.
Otherwise, raping women with intellectual disabilities (or young children with still low IQ's) wouldn't be considered rape.
Note that the dairy industry itself coined the term
"rape rack"
to describe a device used to restrain cows during forced semen insertion. So clearly, even the dairy industry
understands the essence of what's taking place.
Most people would find the thought of forcibly
impregnating a young girl
on a "rape rack" and then killing her newborn baby just to be able to drink the young girl's breast milk to be unthinkable.
But that's what we pay the dairy industry to do whenever we consume dairy products. It's time to question the assumptions we
passively accepted about
milk while growing up – it is NOT a wholesome, harmless or victimless product by any stretch of the imagination.
BUT: What about organic milk?
1) Organic certainly does not mean humane.
Please watch this video
that was recorded at the largest organic dairy in the United States, and check out this recent
Atlantic articleSOURCE,
which is based on this investigative report.
2) Yes, you can limit your exposure to
questionable contaminants
by getting organic dairy milk. But you can simply get organic
plant milk, and also avoid the pus, cholesterol, complicity in
animal cruelty, etc.
BUT: Doesn't the world have bigger problems than factory farming?
With what we now know about animal agriculture's impact on the
environment and
our health, it's clear that the solution to many
of our planet's biggest problems hinges on solving this one.
"Nothing will benefit health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth
as the evolution to a [vegan] diet."
― Albert Einstein
But even if there were a bigger problem, that
doesn't mean
we can't solve this one too. This one has a simple solution that anyone can contribute to.
P.S. If your dog or cat was mistakenly sent to a slaughterhouse, would stopping the slaughter line be more important to you?
Do unto others.
BUT: Aren't human rights are more important than animal rights? Let's fix those problems first.
1. You're allowed to care
about more than one issue in this world. You can care about human rights and animal rights simultaneously.
2. However, you can't really care about human rights without caring about animal rights:
As St. Francis of Assisi said,
"Those who exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion will
deal likewise with their fellow man."
Which is why Leo Tolstoy (author of War and Peace) said, "As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."
And that's why Abraham Lincoln, the President who abolished slavery, said, "I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights.
That is the way of a whole human being."
3. If you care about human rights, keep in mind that factory farm
workers have some of the
highest rates of anxiety, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide in the world. Just imagine what we pay them
to do and see. Should we assume that industries that murder millions of docile animals daily are going to care deeply about
human wellbeing?
4.
While working to resolve important human rights issues like human trafficking, mass shootings, and child abuse, does it make sense
to financially support an industry based on rape, kidnapping, exploitation, and premature murder at genocide-levels?
5. But again, it's not necessary to argue about which is more important — human rights
or animal rights — we can support both.
BUT: I love animals, and choose to help them in other ways.
1. If we love someone, do we willfully pay for them to experience
lifelong suffering, multiple kidnapped offspring, and brutal deaths? And if we do that, can we really say we love them?
At the very least, being a lover of someone means not intentionally harming and killing them.
2. If you've ever had a dog or cat you loved, imagine for a moment that
s/he had instead been born into a dog/cat farm in Korea, or into the body of a pig/cow in
our culture.
Would the knowledge that every meat/dairy product you ever consumed had the potential of coming from the animal you
love make you think differently about what you're consuming? Note: every animal product you ever consume does have that potential.
We must question the assumptions we were born into. It's very unlikely that we're the first generation doing everything right.
"People who say they love animals sit down once or twice a day and enjoy the flesh of creatures
who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living, and who
endured the awful suffering and terror of slaughterhouses – and the journey to get there."
– Jane Goodall
"Whatever overgrown error you behold, is there only by your passivity."
"However scrupulously the factory farm is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
BUT: The real problem is human overpopulation.
As of 2024, about 60% of all mammal biomass on Earth is now farm animals, while humans are now about 35% and wild
mammals are down to about 5%.
So there's nearly twice as much farm animal mass on the planet today as there is human animal mass.
And farm animal waste mostly goes untreated into the
atmosphere,
rivers and oceans.
So while having 8 billion humans (and still increasing fast) on this planet is very likely an overpopulation problem,
it's not actually the
#1 overpopulation problem.
P.S. You're not limited to caring about one issue in this world.
You're allowed to care
about both population problems.
1. Choosing to be vegetarian usually reflects love for animals and not wanting to
harm them for the mere sake of our taste buds. That's an awesome choice!
But as awful as the meat industry is to animals, what happens to cows in the
dairy industry
is in many ways even worse. So while it's best to avoid both industries' products, if starting your vegan journey
by cutting out the most horrific products first, that would be dairy.
2. Cows only produce milk for their babies.
In the dairy industry, females are forcibly impregnated every year to induce their body to make milk. And every year their
baby is
taken
so that we can drink their milk instead. Keeping in mind that the bond
between mother cow and calf is one of the strongest in nature, can you imagine having your baby kidnapped from you
every year of your life? And when mother cows eventually dry up and can't produce anymore milk, they're
often turned into hamburger. That's right, supporting the dairy industry is supporting the meat industry as well.
3. Since male calves won't be able produce milk for the dairy industry, they're
often immediately slaughtered for meat. Again, the dairy industry is the meat industry. And in the case of dairy,
the meat most often involves
infanticide.
4. Do you ever think it's strange that we humans drink the milk of another species?
If not, think about it now. Would you ever drink dog milk, cat milk, or rat milk?
Industries have chosen to exploit cows because they're easy to exploit. But you could equally get your dog pregnant,
kill her pups, and drink her milk. But would you do that? Or would you first consider trying oat milk? If you wouldn't kill a baby
in order to wrap your lips around his mother's breast for milk, then it's time to look at what a lifetime of exposure
to dairy industry marketing has you doing. It's sick.
"The human body has no more need for cows' milk than
it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk."
– Dr. Michael Klaper
BUT: Don't Buddhists drink milk?
As with all religions, many people call themselves Buddhists, but don't actually follow that religion's teachings.
In fact, consuming modern dairy violates all
all five precepts of Buddhism.
The core teachings of Buddhism are about reducing suffering, not inflicting it.
Reducing suffering involves considering the consequences of all one's actions.
As Thich Nhat Hanh (a Buddhist monk and vegan) said,
"We must look deeply. When we buy something or consume something, we may be participating in an act of killing."
Harming and killing are
inherent in modern dairy,
so if we consume dairy, we are harming/killing. And since dairy is clearly
not needed
for human health, consuming dairy involves needless harming/killing.
It's uncertain where the "harming is okay if you pay someone else to do it" idea came from,
but it certainly wasn't from any genuine Buddhist text. And while some so-called "Buddhists"
have tried to justify harming other sentient beings if someone else does it for them, the Buddha
himself clearly said, "One should not kill a living being, nor cause it to be killed,
nor should one incite another to kill." Consumption of dairy products today causes
needless killing and extreme suffering.
Buddha means "awakened one", and no awakened or
awakening
one would choose to put fellow sentient beings through the absolute hell of a modern factory farm/dairy.
BUT: You shouldn't try to force your beliefs on me.
1. If you saw a dog being abused for no good reason,
would you say something to try to stop the abuser? Or would you walk away because
you don't believe in imposing your beliefs?
Veganism is not just a belief. It's more akin to being against child abuse, slavery, murder, and environmental violence, all in one.
It's taking action to end a culturally-induced passivity to 100% needless violence against animals and the environment.
Consuming animal-foods, on the other hand, is like giving an abuser money and saying "do that again for me."
Nobody likes a proselytizer, including us. But there are times when speaking up against the status quo becomes necessary –
e.g. to oppose slavery, genocide, rape, bullying, or any form of needless violence. Whenever there's needless abuse taking place for
which we would speak up if it were happening to our own family/friend/pet or self, it becomes appropriate to speak up,
regardless of who the victim is. Silence is complicity.
"However scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
2. How many times have you gotten angry at the meat and dairy industries for actually
inflicting false beliefs
on you? As children we see an average of
three to five
fast food ads every day — ads that are often promoting the needless consumption of animal flesh and fluids.
These ads get us seeing such foods as something other than what they are.
And the only reason you might still not see the actual pain on your plate or in your glass is simply
because industries have been constantly forcing their views on you since birth.
They've literally spent billions of dollars to keep you (and everyone) convinced that using animals for food is healthy and fun.
They have children seeing happy cows and dancing pigs who can't wait to be killed and consumed.
These animal-exploitation industries have become experts at entertaining us into complicity in their crimes.
And the only reason you've never gotten angry about what they're doing – never even questioned it – is because you were
born into it.
3. Much of what's right about our world today is owed to those before us who questioned the once passively accepted beliefs they were born into,
who instead listened to what that greater part of them knew, and who chose to do things differently than those before them. Imagine if none
had ever questioned once mainstream beliefs about slavery, or arranged marriage, or human sacrifice, or women's right to vote.
Lucky for us, some did question, and they encouraged others to question, and that's how some very harmful wrongs were eventually made right for us today.
Doing the same is our obligation to future generations now.
4. Once you find your way back to seeing things as they really are, you'll likely want to
help raise awareness of the injustices of modern factory farming as well. The challenge is that we don't have multi-million dollar budgets to pay for manipulative marketing campaigns.
However, we do have something that's even more powerful in the long run – the truth. And although we may ruffle
some of our friends' feathers with that truth at times, in this case that's what friends do.
1. We all know from our own journeys that criticism is often counterproductive.
Most dairy drinkers today still "know not what they do", so accusations typically just
create defensiveness/reactivity and aversion to discussion. Therefore, when speaking on this issue, try to remember
that you once held the exact same perspective as the person you're speaking to, and at that time you
assumed it completely normal as well.
2. Also try to remember that it was never a single conversation
that righted your perspective. So rather than frustrate yourself by expecting instant agreement from everyone you speak to,
see yourself as simply planting seeds of
awareness. Those seeds can't be forced to grow, but subsequent conversations and
experiences will cultivate them. Simply trust that whatever you're able to communicate calmly and
respectfully today will one day play a part in freeing your friends' minds.
3. Ultimately there's a balance between speaking up (planting seeds) and backing off (allowing them to grow)
that's most effective. But don't confuse the "backing off" with being accepting of needless violence. Acceptance of
others is usually a good thing (aka. "live and let live"), but that's not the case when others' behaviors have needless
victims.
So while periods of not speaking up for those victims may feel "comfortable"
(when we're not rocking the boat), remember that staying in that apparent comfort when it's time for changing course will only
lead to more needless suffering.
While there are some flaws in
this vegan's criticism
of other vegans, it may be helpful to watch if you notice any "I'm better than non-vegans" feelings arising.
Those feelings can be counterproductive when trying to motivate others to eat kindly. Don't let veganism become
another source of the me vs you "othering" from which most our world's problems, including animal agriculture,
have arisen in the first place.
Yes, choosing vegan is
clearly the moral choice. But ultimately, we're all in an
evolution together here, and
occasionally remembering our real shared identity
(e.g.
NATURE, or perhaps
Earthlings on a
single family tree)
can help manage polarizing attitudes that
only interfere with motivating "others" to not needlessly
harm fellow Earthlings.
Remember, the goal is not to "be vegan" or identify as vegan.
The goal is to end the needless
suffering being caused by modern factory farming. You'll likely be more effective in that effort
long-term
by seeing yourself as much more than just "vegan", AND by seeing others as much more than just "non-vegans".
Try seeing yourself and everyone you're dealing with (farm animals and human animals) as
one in some way (e.g. on a single family tree of life).
Yes, choosing vegan does put you on the right side of history.
But because most non-vegans still truly know not what they do; and because patronizing attitudes will turn them off and frustrate you; and because animals
need you to not burn out, a patronizing attitude isn't going to do much in the long-term for anyone.
"When I'm right, I'm angry."
-Unknown
Finding a mental state that will allow you to persevere in
educating your fellow humans is what will make the most sense for most people. And for animals.
"Our challenge really is against stupidity."
— Vandana Shiva,
Indian Physicist
"Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist...
They don't use the knowledge the spirit has put into every one of them; they are not even aware of this,
and so they stumble along blindly on the road to nowhere – a paved highway which they themselves bulldoze and make
smooth so that they can get faster to the big, empty hole which they'll find at the end, waiting to swallow them up.
It's a quick, comfortable super highway, but I know where it leads to.
I have seen it. I've been there in my vision and it makes me shudder to think about it."
John Fire Lame Deer,
Lakota Holy Man
BUT: Morality is subjective, so isn't it just an opinion that animal violence is wrong?
1. Subjective means "based on or influenced by personal opinions."
And legality is often subjective. For example, in the 1920's, enough people felt that drinking alcohol was immoral that it
was made illegal. But later, that consensus changed, and alcohol was made legal again. That was a
law based on subjective morality.
2. But while legality may be subjective, and while the line between moral and immoral
may shift a bit, there are certain behaviors that are always clearly immoral. This is always the case when there's
a direct victim of needless violence. For example, if someone you don't even know intentionally murders you for
no legitimate reason, would you say they're guilty of a wrong? Of course.
And it's exactly the same situation with animal violence today.
Given that we know understand animal-product consumption to be completely
unnecessary,
animals on factory farms are being exploited and/or killed for absolutely no legitimate reason. These animals are direct, unnecessary, unwilling
victims of intentional violence. And when there's a direct, unnecessary, unwilling victim of
violence, that violence is immoral. This is not a gray area.
3. Determining whether your food choices are moral is as simple as watching
any of the factory farm footage on this website, and then asking yourself:
"Would I want that done to me for no reason?"
This is applying the Golden Rule – the principle of treating others as you would want to be treated.
"You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right."
– Abraham Lincoln
"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
– Abraham Lincoln
BUT: It's my personal choice to consume animal-products, and you should respect my personal choice.
1. If you find a dog and brutally abuse it, is that a personal choice?
What if you beat a person to death, would you call that a personal choice?
2. The "it's my personal choice" reasoning is overlooking the fact that there's another
being –
a victim – involved in any choice to consume animal products. It may seem to be our personal
choice when we're eating a murdered being's flesh or drinking their kidnapped baby's milk, but it certainly wasn't the
choice of that being to be bred into a life of captivity and exploitation, nor to be slaughtered prior to
being sold to us.
3. It would be rational to say "I respect your personal choice to like rock music, and you should respect
my personal choice to like country music." There's no direct victim there. But to say "I respect your choice to not abuse children,
so you should respect my choice to abuse them" is a flawed justification for abusing children. There's a victim.
4. General rule: If there's a direct victim involved in anyone's choice of behavior, then
the "it's my personal choice" justification for the behavior doesn't apply.
BUT: It's a free country, so I can eat whoever and drink whatever I want.
1. Every country on Earth has the "freedom" to drink stolen baby cow's milk and to eat their
murdered mothers (aka. hamburger). But the only reason anyone thinks that's "freedom" is because we've been
programmed
to think that way.
• But is that programming really true? Would you ever say, "It's a free country, so I'll kidnap who I want,
rape who I want, and murder who I want"? No, that's not real freedom. Even if an industry or government passes
laws
allowing us to commit such violence with impunity, legality doesn't always equal morality.
• Throughout history there have been times when certain groups were considered
(by belief, culture, or law) inferior, and their suffering was therefore considered
less relevant
by those making the laws. But such attitudes have always had disastrous effects, and have always eventually been proven untrue.
• We now know that the animals we've been conditioned to see as mere "products" are in fact
sentient beings
who feel pain and suffering just like us. They may not look like us or speak our language,
but what they're saying is
very clear.
And we now know that the longer we ignore their screams, the more disastrous the impacts on our
health and
planet will be.
2. The most significant fights for freedom in our nation's history include
the Revolutionary War (gaining freedom from England) and the Civil War (gaining freedom from Slavery for Black Americans).
And at this point in our history, the majority (not all, but the majority) of Americans would be more proud to learn that their
grandparents had fought for those freedoms than not.
• We're now confronted with a very similar situation ourselves.
Fellow sentient beings are being exploited on a scale never before seen on Earth, and the environment of future
generations is being destroyed at a rate also never before seen. Our choices and actions today are likely to be the most important
in our planet's history. So it's time to decide: How do you want to see yourself,
and how to you want your grandchildren to see you –
as a person who was passive to needless violence and environmental destruction,
or as someone who helped stop those injustices?
3. It's unlikely that anyone is going to lose their "freedom" to drink cow's milk and eat hamburgers
any time soon. Again, there's no country on the planet that doesn't have those false freedoms.
The goal of this website is simply to remind you that there are better options available that you've been made blind to and/or averse to.
Industries have spent billions of dollars shaping you into a consumer who thinks that eating animal products is necessary.
But that's pure nonsense – there's no longer any major health authority saying people need to consume animal flesh or fluids to be healthy.
And we're pretty sure that if free-minded people had a choice between eating healthy and delicious plant-based
foods, or eating animals just like their own pets whose flesh/fluids were more likely to cause them disease and destroy their children's planet,
people who are really free would choose plant-based.
• Real freedom involves taking back your freedom to think for yourself, and to act in
alignment with who you really are — rather than in passivity to the profit-driven programming
that's been telling us since birth that we must harm our fellow
Earthlings
in order to be healthy and happy.
"These are not God's laws we're dealing with. These are laws written by people with very special self-interests."
↓
"You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right."
– Abraham Lincoln ↓
"Obedience is doing what you're
told
regardless of what's right.
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told."
BUT: Milk is part of my culture and family heritage.
Possibly the worst reason for continuing any cruel custom is "because those before us did it."
Other behaviors that have been part of human culture include child sacrifice, cannibalism,
female genital mutilation, stoning, slavery, segregation, on and on.
Yes, there's a part of each of us that desires the comfort of conformity,
social acceptance, and maintaining the status quo. But there's also a greater part of you – a part that desires to
shed comfort's constraints and act in congruence with who you really are.
Much of what's right about our world today is owed to those ancestors who questioned assumptions,
who listened to what that greater part of them knew, and who did things differently than those before them. Imagine if none
had ever questioned cultural assumptions about slavery, or arranged marriage, or human sacrifice. If nobody had ever re-defined culture
before us, imagine the burdens we'd be facing today. But lucky for us, they did question,
and they did change. And paying it forward is our obligation to future generations now.
You define your culture.
"The thinking person must oppose all cruel customs,
no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo."
– Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
BUT: The law says it's okay to consume animal products.
Legal does not necessarily mean moral.
Please spend some time watching the factory farm
footage on this website.
As you watch, you'll start to sense
a law beyond written law – one that's inscribed within us:
"Thou shalt not kill" does not only apply to murder of one's own kind, but to all living beings.
And this Commandment was inscribed in the human heart long before it was proclaimed from [the Holy Land]."
– Leo Tolstoy, (Author of "War and Peace" and
"Death of Ivan Ilych")
"You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right."
– Abraham Lincoln
"Obedience is doing what you're
told
regardless of what's right.
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told."
[On his death bed] the question suddenly occurred to him:
"What if my whole life has been wrong?"
– From "Death of Ivan Ilych" by Leo Tolstoy (vegan)
BUT: My friends won't like me if I stop eating animal products with them.
1. If going plant-based is something you've determined to be the correct
decision for you (for animals, health, environment, etc), then aren't you doing your friends a favor by setting a good example?
Yes, being the first-mover is less comfortable than being a follower. But if you've found a better path,
then being a true friend means taking that path anyway.
2. Yes, many social activities are centered around food —
we all encounter challenges there. But with veganism becoming more mainstream all the time, and with more
plant-based options appearing on restaurant menus all the time, it's becoming much less of an issue very
quickly. And by becoming another early adopter yourself, you'll be helping to normalize plant-based
eating even faster.
3. If your friends criticize/reject you for doing what you know in your
heart to be right, does that feel right? If this continues to be a problem,
know that the problem isn't yours. Make things easier on yourself by finding a couple friends that share or support
your kind values. And perhaps steer your time with non-vegan friends toward activities that don't involve
meals. Whoever you go through it with, this life is too short to not follow your heart's path. And
you're more likely to find the friends who are really right for you on that path.
BUT: I'm too old to change now.
It's never too late to stop harming animals and nature, and to start eating kindly.
This is especially true if you believe there might be more to this life than meets your eyes,
ears, nose, and taste buds.
Leo Tolstoy (the author of War and Peace) wrote another book called "Death of Ivan Ilyich".
Toward the end of the book, after Ivan had lived an unquestioned life and is lying on his death bed,
the question suddenly occurres to him,
"What if my whole life has been wrong?"
If you have even one day left in this world, and if you sense that how you live here might matter at all, then this matters.
Every living being on this planet is on a
single family tree of life with you, and it's
never too late to start acting accordingly.
BUT: I won't make a difference / One person won't make a difference.
1. If that were true, no social justice movement would have ever started.
MLK Jr wouldn't have fought for civil rights. Rosa Parks would never have sat at the front of a bus.
We would've never heard the name Mahatma Gandhi.
One person can definitely make a difference, and they often do.
Large movements are always made up of individuals, and it's ultimately individuals that bring paradigm shifts.
A few might stand out as leaders, but change wouldn't happen without many standing with them.
So the only question is whether you want your life to stand for what you care about.
2. Would you ever say "our vote doesn't matter, so let's stop voting"?
Actually, in our current economy, how we spend money is the most powerful vote.
Every dollar you spend at the grocery store today is a vote for or against how you want to treat the planet, your fellow
Earthlings,
and your own health.
Every dollar is direct action for the kind of world you want to live in.
3. Our limited perspectives may not be able to see how our individual actions will fit into changing the
world, but as MLK Jr said, "You don't need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
Even if we can't see it, each step that you take in the right direction helps us all move in the right direction.
"My life is my message."
–Mahatma Gandhi
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
–Margaret Mead
You don't have to like animals in order to not want to hurt them.
BUT: I don't care about animal welfare.
1. Do you not care, or have you been
programmed
to not care?
Our entire lives we're shown advertisements telling us that drinking milk is healthy
and that dairy cows are happy. Industries have spent billions of dollars to keep us
convinced
that we should ignore our hearts, and harm our own health, planet, and
friends.
But suppose it was your own dog being exploited or slaughtered – would you care then? Even if you knew that just one of
every hundred animals you ate the flesh or fluids of might have had the same potential for being your friend as your own pet, would you care in that case?
2. We've been trained to see pigs and cows as exploitable/edible, but it's a completely arbitrary
distinction from cats/dogs/etc. In other cultures, cats and dogs are considered food, because that's what their culture
arbitrarily trains them to see.
3. Unless you enjoy harming all animals, you do not "not care" about harming
the animals you're eating. You've simply been trained to not care. But you can always return to who you ARE before that
programming. Now that you're conscious of how you've been misled, returning to who you ARE underneath (who you really are)
is just a choice.
It can be uncomfortable to see what we've been paying industries to do to animals.
But try to think of this discomfort as the discomfort a caterpillar feels
when shedding its cocoon — discomfort is good if it helps us become something we'd rather be.
Also, when speaking for voiceless animals, we may encounter reactive
criticism from
people who want to defend their self-interests, their childhood conditioning, and/or their old thoughtless behaviors.
And such criticism can take a toll on us. But look at it this way: The same has been experienced
by people throughout history who've stood for transformative ideas, progress, and making the world a
better place. That's now you.
Learning what animal "agriculture" has had us doing to animals, our own health, and our planet may
make you mad. And that's okay – emotional energy can help fuel change. Unfortunately, most companies
don't care
that you're mad. They only care what you're paying for. And they'll keep doing what we're paying them to do.
The good news is that every time we choose plant-based foods, we help make outdated industries
obsolete
faster, and plant-based industries our world's reality sooner.
It may appear that a plant-based food system is a distant reality for humanity, but remember
that the benefits to you for choosing plant-based are immediate.
Thank you for looking.
P.S. RethinkX is an independent think tank with a track record of making predictions that actually come true.
They're now predicting that cow products will soon be obsolete, and that the change will happen quickly:
Paul McCartney once said that
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, we'd all be [vegan]."
Films such as Dominion have given us windows.
Please look.
Vystopia, as defined by psychologist
Clare Mann, is the existential crisis experienced by some people when they become aware of their
trance-like collusion with a world where needless violence against animals goes unquestioned.
Carnism, as defined by
Dr. Melanie Joy,
is the invisible belief system that conditions us to exploit/kill/eat certain animals, and to never question
why we do so to those animals while loving other animals. Fully waking up to the absurdity of the
needless violence we've been participating in can be very disturbing.
One visitor put it this way: "Imagine you suddenly wake up in Nazi Germany, and find that many of
your friends are in concentration camps for no reason, while your family are all Nazis working
the gas chambers. And you suddenly realize that you've been goose-stepping your way through life without ever
thinking about this. That's how I feel."
Another visitor described her feelings as similar to the feelings that anti-slavery Whites
must have felt in the 1850's South when all their friends and family still assumed Slavery to be completely normal.
You may or may not experience such intense feelings. But if you do, know that what you're experiencing
is a completely normal reaction to the truth of what's happening today.
Of course we wish such things weren't happening, so we wouldn't have to feel such feelings.
But when atrocities do come to light, it's important to remember that throughout history, similar feelings have been
encountered by all who've chosen to stand for transformation, progress, and making the world a better place.
So please don't suppress those feelings. Instead, please be the change that those feelings are calling you to be.
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf,
"and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
This site's design and all original text are licensed under
Creative Commons(2,3),
which means you can copy it in whole or in part. If you have an idea for a more effective website,
please use any parts you like. If you'd prefer to have a website that you can promote
as your own,
please copy the whole thing. If this website ever goes offline and you'd like to re-launch it, please do.
1. If you don't want your own website, but prefer to promote another domain (e.g. you want to put a custom
URL/message on a sign, sticker, t-shirt, etc), you can simply point your own domain to (or frame) this site.
See sample landing pages.
2. While this site's design and text are licensed under Creative Commons, the film clips included in video compilations
are not – they're used under Fair Use principles. Therefore, you should only use those video compilations if your website is 100% non-commercial
in nature, and your only motivation is to help animals, the planet, and/or human health by PROMOTING the included films. All clips must be kept fully
credited and retain links to the full versions and/or creators' websites.
4. If you're viewing this on an archiving website,
click here.
This website was designed to:
Provide you with an all-in-one information resource to direct people to when doing
outreach/advocacy.
If launching your own site, you can add/change any of the content.
Make it easy for you to promote the documentary films that are really helping people
understand the
problems with eating animal products. If launching your own site, you can add more films.
Allow you to simultaneously support vegan-friendly restaurants. The HappyCow link will automatically
direct your visitors to restaurants in their location. Or if launching a local site, you can also
create a popup with personal suggestions.
Of course, you're more than welcome to direct people to this website. But if there's anything you don't like about this site,
know that you also have the option of launching your own. Doing so gives you full control over the content you're directing people to.
If there's anything you want to add/change/improve, that's no problem on your own website.
The Creative Commons license requires providing attribution (giving credit) to the websites on
which your design is based. You can do that here. Providing a list of alternative designs is also
a great resource for anyone launching a new outreach site. The more we help each other with ideas,
the more we help animals, human health, the environment, and hope for all
Earthlings.
When viewing this website on an archiving service, many images and videos will
not display correctly. You can instead download a fully functional version of this site from:
https://archive.org/details/boycott-milk-dot-org
Copying this site?
Change above link to a reliable backup of your site.
NOTE: The domain you linked here from is going to be retired soon.
Please don't use that URL for signs/t-shirts/etc.
Please consider supporting these awesome organizations:
DirectActionEverywhere.com
Fighting for the
Right to Rescue
sick and injured animals. Many of their volunteers have been arrested, but they keep taking
compassionate action.
PETA
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Check out their 2024 Superbowl commercial.
Switch4Good
World-class athletes speaking up against the dairy industry.
We Animals Media
Bringing visibility to animals through photojournalism.
Others:
Plant Based News and Sentient Media
are helping to raise awareness of important issues that mainstream media often doesn't cover.
Some awesome animal advocacy groups:
Animal Save Movement Attend a vigil outside a slaughterhouse. Simply bearing witness is a powerful way to raise awareness
of what's happening inside.
Find a chapter
Anonymous for the Voiceless Show factory farm footage during street outreach to raise public awareness of where our "food" comes from.
Find a cube
Direct Action Everywhere Work to achieve social and political change for animals through nonviolent direct action.
Take action
Mercy for Animals Help this international nonprofit replace our cruel food system with one that's kind to animals and the planet.
Help offline
or online
PETA You know them: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Become one |
Students
Vegan Hacktivists Got web design or coding skills? Help with the online aspect of a plethora of animal-rights causes.
Code kindly
Vegan Outreach Empower people in your community with the facts about veganism, encourage restaurants to offer vegan, etc.
Spread the truth |
At colleges
While the dairy industry spends millions on deceptive advertising,
those it harms have no voice to defend themselves.
This site was created to help you to help you
to help
animals,
the planet, as well as
anyone who doesn't yet understand how we've all been
duped
by dairy. And if you have an idea for how this site might better help, please
tell us or
copy us.
Some ways to help spread this site's
(or your site's) message:
Many people assume that the decision to distribute cow's milk in public schools was made by a medical authority.
But that's not the case. It all began as a marketing scheme
over a century ago:
The truth is that children
don't need breast milk after infancy,
and they never need dog's, cat's, rat's, or
cow's milk. Moreover, it's now known that cow's milk makes many
children sick (now and
later),
and it's making their only planet sick.
If kids knew the truth about cow's milk, they wouldn't be choosing it.
However, kids rely on adults to know the truth and choose what's best for them. So it's time we stop subjecting them to dairy's harmful
marketing schemes.
It's been over 100 years, and it's been well established that:
Unfortunately, getting Big Dairy to stop pushing their nutritionally
unnecessary products on children
would be difficult at this point.
But sharing the truth about the industry's harmful impacts on our health and planet, and telling kids to
just say no to milk at school,
is our constitutional right.
Please
share this page with teachers,
administrators, students, and anyone you know who has kids in public school. You can find contact info for teachers and administrators
on your school district's website.
Write to Your Elected Officials
While switching to plant-milk should be everyone's first step to helping end our country's dairy industry nightmare, really stopping this monster
will require that our government stop using our tax dollars to keep the monster alive. Please personalize and send the short email
below to your elected officials in Congress (where Federal laws are made) and State Legislature (where State policy is made).
Remember that any elected official's job is to represent you — and to do their job right, you must tell them what's important to you.
Dear [Senator / Representative] [Insert Last Name]:
My name is [Insert Your Name]
and I reside at [Insert your address to identify yourself as their constituent]
in [Your City, State].
I am writing to ask that you please take action to end government subsidies to the dairy industry for the following reasons:
• Dairy subsidies stifle farm innovation and crop diversity by locking farmers into a handful of subsidized crops.
• Dairy subsidies stifle food product innovation by putting plant-food producers at an unfair disadvantage.
• Dairy production causes more environmental harm than production of plant-based alternatives.
• There's solid evidence that dairy products have significant harmful impacts on human health.
• Dairy subsidies are doing a disservice to the health and planet of future generations.
• Dairy subsidies encourage unwitting consumer complicity in extensive and unnecessary animal cruelty.
Given what's now known, the dairy industry should actually be taxed like the tobacco industry, not subsidized. But as a first step, the subsidies must stop.
I appreciate your help and ask that you please send me a response letting me know if you are able to help end subsidies to the dairy industry.
Thank you for your time and considering my request.
Sincerely,
[Insert Your Name]
↓
Write to your local newspaper
While the dairy industry can pay millions for their deceptive ads, you don't need a penny
to get the truth published in your local newspaper. Newspapers are always looking for content, and animal agriculture is
currently a hot topic for "letters to the editor" and "opinion pieces".
Some topics you might write about:
An overview of reasons you switched to plant-milk
Why taxpayer dollars shouldn't be subsidizing dairy
Environmental impact of cow's milk vs plant-milk
Show more
The truth about strong bones and other dairy ads
Why kids shouldn't have milk pushed on them at school
An overview of how dairy treats cows and calves
A comparison/overview of different plant-milks
Note that newspapers won't publish a letter that's already been published elsewhere, so
we're not providing a template here. But you can use anything you've learned on this website, or see the examples below for inspiration.
Just be sure to put anything you submit to a newspaper into your words.
Show examples
While civil disobedience has played a
vital role(modern version)
in U.S. history, and while
some advocates intentionally break
unjust laws in order to get
important issues challenged in court, the goal of this website is to provide a legally safe way
for anyone to help change unjust cultural patterns using the power of constitutionally-protected Free Speech.
However, since Free Speech limits vary among states, counties, and cities, nothing on this
website should be considered legal advice for your location. Nevertheless, here are some general guidelines:
In general, it's legal everywhere in the United States to hand out leaflets or hold signs on public sidewalks,
as long as doing so doesn't endanger public safety. However, it's always illegal to block sidewalks or business entrances.
Therefore, never stand directly in front of entrances, and always let people pass on sidewalks.
Free speech activities are typically not allowed on private property without permission. However, some states may provide
exceptions for multi-tenant shopping areas, which are often the modern equivalent of public gathering areas.
For example, in California, free speech activities are protected in the common gathering areas of malls and strip malls
when those areas contain features designed for entertainment or relaxation, such as benches,
as long as those free speech activities do not interfere with normal business operations (e.g. no blocking business entrances).
Free speech is also protected in the outdoor plazas of public colleges and universities, subject to reasonable time/place/manner restrictions.
If you've observed free speech activities regularly taking place in any particular public area, that pattern
likely means you cannot be denied the right to engage in your free speech activities in that area.
Permits are typically required for large protests and marches, where managing traffic, safety, and competing-uses
of an area would be a concern. However, a permit generally cannot be denied based on the content of your speech. That would be what is called viewpoint
discrimination, which is unconstitutional.
Rules regarding door-to-door advocacy (e.g. leaving doorhangers or leaflets at homes),
leaving business cards on car windows, and posting flyers on poles, will vary by location – so be sure to check your local ordinances.
Libel, slander, obscenity,
threats of harm, and speech that incites imminent violence (including fighting words) or law-breaking are NOT protected free speech.
But general criticism is. So "f*ck Starbucks" is protected free speech, but "f*ck you" might not be.
The #1 thing we can always do to help animals is to not use them for food.
The #2 thing we can do is to share our reasons for not harming them with other people in a motivating way.
But don't frustrate yourself by expecting everyone's instant agreement. Rather, see yourself
as planting seeds of awareness, and just trust that some of those seeds will eventually grow – because they will.
When doing
advocacy
with the public (e.g. speaking up for animals by handing out leaflets, posting flyers, holding signs, etc),
you'll likely find doing so regularly to be easier when you team up with a friend or two.
Even a tiny group can help ease the "am I crazy" self-doubts that arise when speaking up against
the mainstream on your own.
If you don't yet have any friends who love animals
enough to speak up for them,
check meetup.com for
vegan groups in your area. You can then either post an outreach event, or direct-message
people who've attended similar events in the past.
If no such groups exist in your area, you might consider starting one –
even if for just long enough to make a few like-minded connections.
You're also likely to encounter kind minds at events hosted by
these groups.
"The thinking person must oppose all cruel customs,
no matter how deeply rooted in tradition and surrounded by a halo."
– Albert Schweitzer, Nobel Laureate
Determining whether animal-product consumption is moral today is as simple as
watching
what that consumption now pays for,
determining whether doing that is
still something that's
necessary for survival today,
and then asking yourself: Would I want that done to me if it wasn't necessary?
This is applying the Golden Rule – the principle of treating others as you would want to be treated
– regardless of whether a law or corporation tells us that mistreating others is okay.
The meat, dairy, and egg industries have lobbied for a variety of unjust laws to protect their financial interests,
at the expense of voiceless animals, human health, and the environment. But once
questioned,
it's obvious why such laws must be challenged.
While not the subject of this website, organizations such as
DirectActionEverywhere.com
are risking
prison time to help make that happen.
"One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
– Martin Luther King Jr. ↓
"These are not God's laws we're dealing with. These are laws written by people with very special self-interests."
↓
"You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right."
– Abraham Lincoln (U.S. President who abolished slavery) ↓
"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
– Abraham Lincoln ↓
"Obedience is doing what you're
told
regardless of what's right.
Morality is doing what's right regardless of what you're told."
↓
"Thou shalt not kill" does not only apply to murder of one's own kind, but to all living beings.
And this Commandment was inscribed in the human heart long before it was proclaimed from [the Holy Land]."
– Leo Tolstoy ↓
"A person can [be] healthy without killing animals for food. Therefore, if one [uses animals for food],
s/he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite... to act so is immoral."
– Leo Tolstoy ↓
"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men."
– Leonardo da Vinci ↓
"However scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance... there is complicity."
– Ralph Waldo Emerson ↓
"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice.
According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering, [raping or enslaving] other people,
since this has also been done since the earliest of times."
– Isaac Bashevis Singer ↓
"Man's supremacy over lower animals means not that the former should prey upon the latter,
but that the higher should protect the lower."
– Mahatma Gandhi ↓
"It is a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done."
– Harriet Beecher Stowe, author "Uncle Tom's Cabin" ↓
"People must have renounced... all natural intelligence to dare to
advance that animals are but animated machines...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."
– Voltaire ↓
"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis."
– Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Laureate ↓
"I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement,
to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other."
– Henry David Thoreau ↓
"Love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man."
– Charles Darwin ↓
"The animals of the world... were not made for humans any more than blacks were made for whites or women for men."
– Alice Walker, author "The Color Purple" ↓
"Nothing will benefit health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as the evolution to a [vegan] diet."
– Albert Einstein ↓
"The truth is a [powerful] thing. It doesn't go away."
– PlantPure Nation
Animal Advocate Training
Dr. Melanie Joy is the author of "Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows", and founder of
Beyond Carnism.
She has more recently helped establish the Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy,
which provides research-based guidance to anyone wishing to become a better animal advocate.
Also check out their helpful vegan communication hacks.
And when you're ready to dive deeper, their online training courses are excellent. Although they're a great organization to support,
don't let price deter you:
You can link to any video on this site by clicking the '🔗' under it. Here are some popular videos to share:
Collections:
Main short videos:
Insights of ice cream empire heir:
Stories of Hope:
Menkay:
All movies:
Link to any text on this site by clicking the '🔗' to the right of its back button. Here are some popular pages to share:
You're welcome to copy/paste any text from this website, or to simply link to text boxes on this website by clicking the '🔗'
to the right of their back button.
Doing this can make online outreach (e.g. replying to questions and misinformation on social media)
much more efficient, and less frustrating.
You'll likely find our list of "BUT's" (aka. FAQ's) quite useful for such efforts.
And if you come across any faq/but that needs revision, or if you think any additional faq's/but's should be added, please let us know!
Kindness cards (aka. business cards)
can be printed in bulk quite cheaply, and then 1) handed out in public places, 2) left in door jambs, 3)
slid between car windows and weather stripping or windshield wipers, or 4) posted anywhere you'd post a flyer.
Be sure to check your local ordinances.
Choose one or two sides:
PlaceholderToReplace
Printing services will usually want you to add "bleed" (a margin of the same color as the card)
to allow for cutting variances, and the size of that bleed/margin will vary from printer to printer.
Once you choose a printing service, you can either 1) use a software like
GIMP to add their required bleed, 2) or just
email us
and we'll add it for you, or 3) don't bother adding it if you don't care about your cards having a white border on one or two sides.
*Have other image ideas for kindness cards? Please share!
Flyers are quick+easy to print, and can be
posted on bulletin boards or anywhere that's allowed (check local ordinances before
posting on utility/light poles). Use the ready-to-print flyers below, or feel free to make simple text flyers using
any of these URL's.
Handouts can be distributed in pretty much any public place where free speech is allowed.
Check local ordinances before putting in mail slots or distributing door to door.
We've included some ready-to-print ideas below, or check out VeganOutreach.org
for cheap, full-color booklets.
Handout #1 (Print 2-sided, then cut in half) | Get PDF
Handout #2 (Print 2-sided, then cut in half) | Get PDF
Putting a sticker on your car is a great way to speak up for animals and Earth every day with minimal effort.
We'd be happy to mail you one of the stickers below
for free.
Pick one you think will look good on your car, with a message you'll be comfortable keeping on your car:
We're happy to mail you one sticker for FREE! We really appreciate you speaking up for animals 😊
Want more than one sticker?
In that case, please make a small donation ($2 per sticker)
to help cover the cost. Anything you donate over our cost will be used to make more free stickers available (to help more animals). Thank moo!
Already requested a second sticker but prefer not to donate?
No problem at all, just email
to let us know which sticker to send. Otherwise we'll select one for you.
Animal Protection & Rescue League
is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose mission is to protect the rights and habitats of all animals. You can donate to our free sticker
program via BuyMeACoffee.com.
Remember that the first sticker is on us (no donation required).
If you want more than one sticker, please purchase one "coffee" ($2) per additional sticker (which is roughly our cost).
Anything you donate over our cost will be used to support our free sticker program —
i.e. to make more free stickers available to help more animals.
In a high foot traffic area, chalktivism can be an very effective means of raising awareness.
However, be sure to check for any laws in your area that might prohibit it (see note at the bottom of this page), and
be wise about placement (e.g. avoid private property where free speech is not protected and/or owner will immediately spray it off).
Here are
more slogan ideas.
Alternatively, use one of
our URL's or
your URL, or WatchDominion.org / a hashtag /
any other attention-grabbing way for people to learn more.
You can find additional inspiration on
Pinterest
and
Reddit, but
don't let lack of artistic ability stop you from speaking up for animals — the right words in messy text
multiple places may be more effective than one beautiful but time-consuming drawing. Much of what you'll see
on Pinterest/Reddit/etc was done with the intention of instead getting shared on social media.
*LEGAL NOTE: While we've all seen children chalking on sidewalks with impunity, and while selective enforcement (viewpoint discrimination)
is likely unconstitutional, some jurisdictions may have laws that prohibit all forms of sidewalk chalking (e.g. as forms of vandalism, etc).
But since the chalk is on the sidewalk/ground (not defacing a building, etc), and since chalk easily washes away (no permanent damage),
laws can vary from absence, to tolerance, to prohibition. So be sure to familiarize yourself with how it's been handled in your area.
Also see these articles from
WashingtonPost.com
and Bloomberg.com.
1) Door hangers are cheaper than mailing postcards, and much more likely to get noticed.
Many printing services offer pre-cut door hangers like the ones below, or you can DIY with flyers/postcards
plus a hole punch and rubber bands. Feel free to use any of
our URL's(or yours) and/or
images.
Check your local ordinances before distributing door-to-door,
but keep in mind that political material may be exempt from rules regarding commercial material.
2) Signs can make huge impressions on a lot of people
when held or placed in a strategic location. Check your state and local laws
to determine what's possible. Feel free to use any of
our URL's(or yours)
on your signs.
3) Clothing is easy to get imprinted, which makes it possible
to wear your message (ie. help animals and Earth) wherever you go. Do a search for "custom clothing printing" or similar.
Simply adding one of our URL's(or yours)
doesn't require any artistic skills whatsoever.
4) Please use your imagination to help animals and Earth – there are certainly many possibilities that
we haven't thought of. This last one is a bit out of our budget, but we all need to dream big on this issue!
Have other promotional ideas or artwork? Please share!
When emailing us, please include "WhyPlantMilk"
in your subject line to help prevent your message from going to spam.
TERMS OF USE
By using this website, you agree to the following terms:
Age Requirement:
The minimum age to use this website is 13.
Medical Disclaimer:
This website was created to raise awareness of new possibilities for kind and healthy eating.
However, you should not rely on any information here as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Consult a
knowledgeable
medical professional before changing your diet or medications to confirm that the change is appropriate for
you. Your use of any information on this website is solely at your own discretion and risk.
Copyright and Publisher Responsibility:
If you republish/redistribute any of the material from this website, you assume full publisher responsibility
for the material you choose to republish/redistribute.
This website's text (original text) and design (HTML, JavaScript, CSS) are licensed under
Creative Commons, so you may
freely copy, modify, and republish/redistribute those materials.
Third party video/audio clips on this website are copyrighted, but are used on this website under Fair Use principles.
If you republish/redistribute any of those materials, it's your responsibility to confirm that
your use also complies with Fair Use principles.
Limitation of Liability:
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless any owner, operator or user of this website, and any of their officers,
employees, agents and/or volunteers, from and against any and all claims, liability, loss, damage or expense, including attorney's fees,
arising from, or in any way related to, your use of this website or any material from this website.
Jurisdiction and Venue:
This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, as such laws apply to agreements between California residents,
regardless of your location.
Any dispute related to this agreement shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state or federal courts
in San Diego County, California, and you agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
Your Privacy:
By using this website, you also agree to our Privacy Policy.
Updates:
If you continue using this website, you agree to be bound by and subject to any updates to these Terms of Use.
Accordingly, you should check these Terms of Use for updates regularly.
3rd Party References:
The American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is the world's largest organization of nutrition and dietetics practitioners.
They state:
"It is the position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that appropriately planned vegetarian,
including vegan, diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits for the prevention
and treatment of certain diseases. These diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy,
lactation, infancy, childhood, adolescence, older adulthood, and for athletes."
"Despite the appearance in our media of confusion, there is massive global consensus about the fundamentals of a health-promoting diet,
and it's a diet that, every time — no matter whether it's high in fat or low in fat, higher in carbs or lower in carbs —
in every population and every kind of research — it's a plant-food predominant diet... every time."
Dr. David Katz Yale University Prevention Research Center
"I know of nothing else in medicine that can come close to what a plant-based diet can do."
Prof. Dr. T. Colin Campbell
Nutritional Biochemist and co-author of The China Study
PRIVACY POLICY
We consider your personal data a liability, and strive to collect the bare minimum necessary
to operate this website safely and efficiently. This page describes what information we collect,
and how that information might be used.
We do NOT use cookies to track you.
We do NOT sell your data to anyone.
We do NOT send spam.
Email data we collect:
If you send an email to us, any personal information you choose to include in your message is up to you.
Please include as little as possible.
System information we collect:
Your IP address, website access time,
referrer (URL of link you clicked to reach any page on website),
useragent (web browser identifier), device type (e.g. Desktop), operating system,
and ISP (company that assigned your IP address to you) may be logged at any point
while visiting this website.
Other information we may collect:
If you request a free sticker, we'll need your name and mailing address, and may ask for social media info to confirm the request.
What we might use the above information for:
To communicate with you.
To mail you a sticker (if requested).
To help confirm validity of any sticker request.
To improve website design/efficiency.
To analyze general web traffic patterns.
To prevent fraud/abuse/crime.
To assist law enforcement in the event of a crime/threat.
To determine your general geographic location and ISP.
To comply with the law.
3rd party disclosures and tracking:
Aside from the exceptions below, we will only share your personal information with 3rd parties when necessary
to comply with the law, assist law enforcement, enforce our Terms of Use, or protect our or others rights, property, or safety.
Embedded video exceptions:
This website embeds content from Youtube.com,
Vimeo.com, and Instagram.
Such content is governed by the privacy policies of those sites,
which can be found on the preceding links.
We use Plausible.io for web analytics. Plausible.io is a privacy-focused web analytics service that is
fully compliant with GDPR, CCPA and PECR. You can view their data policy here.
Paid advertising exceptions:
We may sometimes run paid advertising on Google,
Facebook, and/or
Reddit, and may include tracking code from those companies on this website.
Their privacy policies and data options can be found at the preceding links.
Change.org Exception:
For any petition on Change.org, their privacy policy can be found here.
Unintentional disclosure exception:
While we strive to store data securely, we cannot be responsible for unintentional disclosure, theft,
or hacking of your email or other personal information.
COPPA compliance:
We do not knowingly collect any information from any person under 13 years of age.
The minimum allowable age to use this website is 13.
CCPA compliance:
We are not a for-profit business, nor do we sell your personal information,
so there is no need to opt out of the sale of your personal information. To review or request correction or deletion of your
personal information, see "Data requests" section below.
DNT policy:
We do not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals because the limited tracking that we perform
is necessary for safety/operating/monitoring purposes.
Data retention policy:
We generally retain email correspondence and web traffic data for a period of one year. After one year, that data is either anonymized or permanently deleted.
Names and mailing addresses for sticker requests are generally deleted within 30 days of the request. The only exceptions to this
would be in cases of suspected fraud, abuse, or crime.
If you include a Reddit username with a sticker request, that will be deleted within 14 days, without exception.
Data requests:
If you'd like to know what personal information about you is in our system,
the sources of that information or to whom is has been disclosed,
or if you'd like to request correction or deletion of your personal information,
please use the "contact" link at the bottom of this website's homepage.
Your consent:
By using this website, you consent to the above Privacy Policy.
Updates:
If you continue using this website, you agree to be bound by and subject to any updates to this Privacy Policy.
Accordingly, you should check this Privacy Policy for updates regularly.
STICKER PRIVACY:
Mailing address:
Names and mailing addresses for sticker requests are generally deleted within 30 days of the request.
The only exception would be in cases of suspected fraud or abuse (rare). In any case, your info will
never be shared with marketers, and we won't send you anything other than your sticker.
Email address:
Including an email address with your sticker request is optional, but allows us to send you occasional updates
on our campaigns, sticker offerings, etc. Your email will not be shared, and every email we send will include an unsubscribe link.
Animal Protection and Rescue League is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect the rights and habitats of all animals.
Since forming in 2003, APRL has influenced animal protection legislation, conducted numerous animal rescues, and educated hundreds of thousands of people about humane eating.
We run a lean operation without salaries or staff. Even this website was built by volunteers using
free software.
You can view our financials on GuideStar, where we've earned the platinum seal of transparency.
To help us help animals, the best things you can do are:
You arrived here via LetDairyDie.org. If you're looking for the DirectActionEverywhere.com petition to
tell the USDA to stop
subsidizing dairy,
click here.
You arrived here via CruelFoods.org. Although Whole Foods should be leading the plant-based movement, they're actually
impeding it through
"humane washing".
Humane washing is a form of deceptive marketing that's harming both animals and people, and Whole Foods uses it extensively. Please remember that
1) there is no humane way to kill a healthy animal, 2)
"organic"
does not mean humane, 3) animal products are products of
sexual abuse,
kidnapping and
murder, as well as causes of completely needless
human and
environmental harm.
None of these should be encouraged through humane washing. Please take a look at the reality inside these Whole Foods
humane chicken
and pig suppliers,
and don't ever buy into Whole Foods' harmful deceptions again.
You arrived here via CocaColaKills.org. Did you know that Coca-Cola is in the business of killing baby boy cows and
selling their mothers' milk? They call it "FairLife" milk. Sadly,
this investigation
of a FairLife supplier shows that the boys are actually the lucky ones – girls can have it even worse. Until Coca-Cola
gets out of this violent business, please think of these abuses before buying any Coca-Cola product
(Dasani, Minute Maid, Peace Tea, Schweppes, Simply, SmartWater, Sprite, Vitamin Water, etc).
You arrived here via DairyKillsBabies.org. These short videos will explain:
And as for human babies,
that's concerning as well.
Please
remember that cow's breast milk is designed only for baby cows,
just as human breast milk is designed only for baby humans. If you're old enough to read this,
it's time to quit drinking all breast milk.
You arrived here via GotAcne.org. For a short video about dairy's connection to acne,
click here.
For more in-depth information, check out Dr. Greger.
You arrived here via GotPus.org. For a short video about dairy's pus content,
click here.
You arrived here via MilkIsMurder.org. These short videos will explain:
Please
remember that cow's breast milk is designed only for baby cows,
human breast milk is designed only for baby humans, and if you're old enough to read these words, then
it's time to quit drinking all breast milk.
You arrived here via PooBurger.org. At about 1/3 of their
natural lifespan,
most dairy cows are killed and sold as hamburger.
But FYI, it's
more poo
than ham. If you want more ham than poo, that would be
pigburger.