Pet stores (and indeed, all forms of buying and selling animals) should be illegal imo. I can see the case for rehoming shelter animals and abandoned pets as a best-case scenario in our current world, but even that perversely depends on enough people buying into this notion of animals as objects to be used and discarded.
Even if you're not vegan, I think it's safe to say that we can all agree that the conditions around factory farming are abhorrent: livestock living in their own feces, pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones, and fundamentally only as useful as their product (meat, dairy, or eggs). But these horrific practices stem from an attitude towards animals: they are factories to produce what we want and which we can "optimize" however we see fit.
Even free-range chickens and grass-fed cows are only as useful as their products, right? Though it may technically be more humane than the baseline, the fundamental attitude hasn't shifted. They're still viewed as factories, albeit ones we should take better care of.
Tackling that attitude is uncomfortable, I'm not going to lie. I grew up vegetarian and was told the lie that the dairy industry doesn't hurt the cow. No matter the fact that male calves are culled immediately because they're "useless" (there's that attitude again!) or that the cows are living in squalid conditions. Let's ignore the fact that sometimes the milking machines malfunction and the udders start bleeding. No, we're not harming any cows!
The fact of the matter is that as soon as cow's milk became a commodity, cows became factories. Need more milk? Let's forcibly impregnate our cows. Male calf? Useless. Female calf? Let it have the minimum amount of milk (every drop it drinks is a drop we can't sell) and impregnate it as soon as we can (needs to start generating revenue). The egg industry isn't much better.
If this is uncomfortable for you, good! It's okay to be uncomfortable.
It is okay to be uncomfortable with the attitudes and choices that go into that glass of milk. It means you actually care about animals. So act on it.
Don't look away just because it's uncomfortable. Don't willingly blind yourself to the suffering that goes into that milk, yogurt, cheese, eggs, and meat.
We willingly exploit mothers of others species because the product "tastes good".
This mother's day, make a choice to stop exploiting animal mothers. Their suffering isn't worth all the delicious food in the world.
I want to end this by saying that I know the transition is tough. Once I decided I would go vegan, it took me almost 5-6 years to actually do it. I made sure I wasn't losing anything nutritionally (main concern).
I could no longer eat my favorite dessert (gulab jamun), at least not in restaurants. I could no longer eat naan (they add milk to it), at least not in restaurants. Most desserts are off-limits for me (I gave up egg almost immediately, so that one has been true for a long time for me), even at other people's houses (and I don't feel good mentioning it unless it's just us coming over).
But it's worth it. The fact that I'm not exploiting other animals feels good, and realizing how many products have animal exploitation built in (and how embedded it is in so many cultures) has been eye-opening.
It can definitely feel very hard, but keeping the reasons in mind can make it easier. Finding a community (IRL or online) can make it easier.
Add comment