To be mad at FIL for feeding my daughter meat?

[Fruitypebbles]

Hi, just joined the site to ask this.

We're vegans, and my daughter has been raised and weaned vegan. She's 5 and happily eats anything put in front of her. She's very healthy, not lacking in any vitamins or nutrients at all and is beautiful, happy and refuses to eat meat usually because she knows in child friendly terms why we are vegans.

Despite her health being perfectly fine (she rarely ever gets ill, let alone any deficiencies in iron and protein - there's plenty of protein in plants!) my FIL thinks we're evil. We've given him all the information, shown him exactly how much she gets in a normal day and he can see how healthy she is. He fed her a meat casserole, she obviously couldn't recognise the meat in the stew because we use meat subs occasionally. She was very, very sick after this as her body can't digest meat after never eating it. Why can't he just respect our choices to not eat animal products? AIBU?

It's is perfectly possible to get all the calcium we need from plants, no clay or dirt necessary. Cooking the food is what helps, breaking down leafy greens to make them easier to digest quicker, no need to chew all day. We also have access to grain which most other mammals don't.

Dizzy I vaguely remembered something about people eating red clay for iron. Google then took me on a magical mystery tour.

My horse just licks mud. He has a scientifically balanced diet but he still likes mud.

You can consume human milk....it freezes well and you can make stuff with it.... It tastes a bit more salty than cows. Is human milk acceptable to vegans?

You have to know how much of the calcium is absorbed from the leafy greens. Many plants contain toxins which bind to the calcium so it reduces the amount that can be absorbed., You can't remove these toxins by boiling. It might reduce them, but only slightly.
So for example spinach and broccoli doesn't provide a lot of absorbable calcium. You need to eat more than is commonly recommended. You also need to factor in your vitamin D intake. Your body needs vitamin D to absorb the calcium.

It is also best not to rely on one source, so people who eat nuts, dairy and green veg are increasing their chances of getting the rda.

I remember that breastmilk icecream that caused controversy in London a few years ago. Interesting point, would vegans eat breastmilk icecream?

Galiban my horse licks odd stuff too. Most recently it was one of the cats who was sunbathing with her back to the horse, he poked his head through the fence and licked her, the cat shot up in the air like a firework, leaving behind one amused horse. He hasn't tried mud yet!

I think vegans might eat breastmilk ice cream. For me, the problems arise when you think about what you'd have to do to produce it on a commercial scale.

Pp is correct that there is a need for vitamin D to absorb calcium. And magnesium deficiency causes calcium deficiency so supplementing with magnesium will increase calcium in the body. And there is a misconception that calcium supplements increase the amount of calcium in the body when in fact they leach it out of the system. Magnesium supplements will offset this. We do not need dairy to optimise calcium levels.

Yes human milk given by a willing participant is fine. Dairy cows are forcibly inseminated, have their babies taken from them within a couple of days and the milk meant for their babies then stolen. Male babies are either raised for veal or shot at birth depending on where you are in the world, females are raised on milk replacer until old enough to be impreganted themselves. This happens repeatedly until the cows stop producing enough milk (after about 4-7 years, cows gestate for 9 months like us) then they're killed for cheap meat and pet food. A cow living a natural life will live to 20-25. The dairy industry is probably the cruelest out there. They don't choose to give us the milk meant for their baby only.

Plus the highest milk consuming countries also have the highest levels of osteoporosis. If milk is so good for us, work that out.

My decision not to consume dairy was not about calcium, it was about not wanting to participate in horrendous animal cruelty towards millions of kind, calm and sentient beings. Imagine having your baby taken and then your milk taken for someone else? The cows cry for days for their babies until they can't make sound anymore. And that's before we get onto the constant mastitis they suffer from repeated milking. They're on antibiotics all the time which ends up in the milk and is contributing to antibiotic resistance in humans. The milk is also full of the pus from those infections, the industry refers to the pus as the 'somatic cell count'. Pasteurisation neutralises the pus but doesn't remove it. I'd rather work a bit harder to get my calcium than participate in that.

Cooking the food is what helps, breaking down leafy greens to make them easier to digest quicker, no need to chew all day.

PaperdollCartoon - I am struggling to see the logic between your statements.

So, no other animal drinks milk after they are weaned off in nature except for humans. And that's bad.

However, no other animal cooks or bakes their food either. But you have no problem because that's good.

This is extremely inconsistent and illogical.

Btw., calcium is only one of the factors of prevention of osteoporosis. There are other dietary factors which influence it. Btw, China ranks very high on the osteoporosis scale and it's not even in the top 100 countries with the highest milk consumption.

have their babies taken from them within a couple of days

I don't know any dairy farmer who does that. Our cows have their calves with them it makes strong and healthy calves. Intensive dairy farming may be different. So source your milk properly and those practices will need to be revised.

Male babies are either raised for veal or shot at birth

Veal is illegal in the UK, so that's unlikely. Cows cost thousands. That doesn't even make sense! Most farmers cannot afford to just shoot them. Sick animals are shot

The countries with the highest levels of osteoporosis are also coincidentally the richest countries in the world. People in the richest countries eat too much, too much of everything. Two high risk factors are body mass in infancy and the use of heartburn/stomach calming medication that prevents the absorption of calcium.

Greece and Lithuania are high dairy consumers. Brazil and China consume much less yet have high levels of osteoporosis. Figure that out.

I thought that "rose" veal was legal in the uk? And that male calves that weren't used for veal were killed soon after birth?

http://gu.com/p/37q2f?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

This article says that around 100,000 to 150,000 calves per year are killed soon after birth for the dairy industry.

And even if the male calves are kept, as you say yours are, then at some point they will be slaughtered for beef or leather, presumably? They don't live out a happy life on the farm and die a natural death.

I said depends where they are, as veal and transporting calves under 2 weeks is illegal hear they are shot. In America they are usually raised for veal.

Of course there are always a few exceptions, everyone can wheel out a kind dairy farmer who doesn't do this, but anecdotes aren't research or indicative of the whole industry. On the cost of calves, male calves aren't worth feeding because they'll never produce milk, they're also usually the wrong breed for meat. Waitrose (who've won awards for high animal welfare) only recently stated they would try to stop the shooting of male calves. Don't believe me, do your own research

Illegal here*

Leather is also an entirely separate industry, cows raised for meat and leather are quite different, leather is not a byproduct of meat

Am I missing something with the mention of China's osteoporosis rate? The diagnosis of this condition varies, with some diagnosing easier than others, but when looking at the rate of hip fractures in women 97 out of 100,000 Chinese women will suffer one, compared to 709 in Sweden, 511 in North America and 418 in the UK.

Tofu, Chinese cabbage and other dark greens are high in calcium, which is common part of Chinese diet. They get a sufficient amount but not excessive, as you may with high levels of dairy consumption. Their low rate of hip fractures is probably more to do with this. We know vitamin D effects oesteporsis rate with it being more common in Northern European countries than Southern.

PaperdollCartoon yes at some point they are killed. Are you under the impression that leaving cows to die naturally would not be cruel? Natural deaths do not always, in fact, they rarely equal nice deaths. I have had to have cows put to sleep from injury caused by nature and their suffering was heart breaking. Everything must die, it is the only certain part of life. We have a duty to care for them and give them the best we can within the framework we are in. Is it right to raise cows for meat and dairy? Probably not but it is done and as such unfortunatly they need to die.

They don't live out a happy life on the farm our beef cattle live a very happy life in acres of pasture until the day they are slaughtered. They are transported less than a mile and are not fattened in feed lots like the cows in America, Australia and Europe. Our beef and dairy cows are both gir/cebu not seperate breeds.

Leather was done to death on another thread. Yes there are sources of leather from India etc that are exceptionally bad, but where I live it is a by product.

everyone can wheel out a kind dairy farmer who doesn't do this yes hopefully they can, which means people can chose to eat ethically and make these farmers the norm and outprice the alternatives. This would be the best way to put an end to the cruelty.

It is up to the consumer to educate themselves about where their food comes from.

I personally know that the milk we consume is far more ethical than soya, cashew and almond milks. I would not participate in any of those industries. I also source my milk carefully and don't eat meat when I travel outside the area I live in, as I cannot be sure of the source.

On another thread, someone suggested that my vegan friend came to stay with "a load of cashews" to make milk. This was shocking for me because we grow cashews. We have 5 trees which fruit for two months of the year. So we could have milk for that time if we wanted, but it takes 3 days to make the nuts edible and is very dangerous so we rarely bother. People are happy to walk into the supermarket and pick up a bag of cheap cashews. Just thinking about what it would take to make them so readily available and so cheap is worrying. But out of sight, out of mind, right? Almonds and soya are no better. Intensive almond production is causing massive draught and suffering to wild animals and soya is grown on cleared rainforest! Not to mention the potentially harmful levels of toxins that such large scale consumption can cause. But hey, at least no cows are crying!

Which brings me to that; cows do not cry, they have tears and their eyes water. That type of anthromorphism annoys me. Cows are intelligent, they have emotions, they have personalities but they are cow personalities not human ones. I know the cows. I look after them and I eat them. I have no problem with this but my 6 year old will not eat meat because he spends his days with the animals and he doesn't like the idea of eating them. Everyone is different. It is up to the individual. But people who think they can understand a cow by projecting their own emotions onto the animal knows nothing about cows.

So you vegans don;t use carrier bags, or bicycle tyres or biofuels or watch fireworks or use rubber or condoms or kids crayons or PCs, or any of the huge number of things that contain bits of dead animal?

roogirl.com/20-everyday-items-that-contain-animal-ingredients/

If two people lived exactly the same way, but one cut out meat, eggs and dairy, and the other didn't, who is causing the most harm?

Does it have to be all or nothing, or is it not important that people do what they can to limit global warming, animal abuse, deforestation, world hunger, ocean dead zones? Should we do nothing, because we can't do everything?

Bit of a crap comment, really. I might as well keep my garden hose running 24/7 because I turn the tap on to brush my teeth, right?

Yep, I would think that a lot of vegetarians and vegans would try as much as possible to avoid those types of products.

Isn't chalk the product of animals...in which case you need to avoid flour and bread. It's fortified.

Hmm, I'm not sure it's reasonable to hold vegans/vegetarians responsible for the natural deaths of millions-of-years old sea creatures. But I think you know that.

I think you're getting ahead of yourself hive55. Not all flour is fortified in the UK (I think it's routinely added to white flour, rather than wholemeal) and there are vegan sources of calcium, as previously discussed.

As for that roogirl list, off the top of my head, most of those items have a vegan alternative. If not, then it's avoid as far as it's possible to do so.

Pearlylum yes that's right we source vegan alternatives to products that contain animal products, plenty of companies produce vegan friendly alternatives

Non-dairy milks also have a smaller impact on the environment, to clear that up. Last time I checked plants didn't fart, nor take up as much space, nor use as much water.

As wonderful as your farm sounds dizzy, that's not industry standard, and this type of farming can not provide for everyone who uses dairy. And if it could, it's inefficiency actually has a larger effect on the environment than typical dairy farming today, and conditions would have to get worse to meet demand (more animals/less space, more frequent milkings, more frequent pregnancy, more killings), woops, looks like we're back at the start. It only works as a niche for a few. Or you could cut it out all together.