The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

110 / the world peace diet
some ways more toxic and cruel than those dealing only with the flesh of
animals, because the cows and chickens are severely abused for longer
periods and inevitably slaughtered when their productivity declines.
Dairy products, to begin with, constitute an exceedingly large and
complex topic. The enslavement of the female dairy cow has contributed
to the enslavement of humans in a range of ways, so the damage
caused by this practice extends far beyond the negative physical
effects of consuming milk. Though many of us stop eating dairy products
just for health reasons, it’s important to see the larger context of the
ongoing tragedy, for this truth is as old as time: we cannot sow seeds of
slavery and cruelty and reap the fruit of freedom and health.
Fundamentally, cow’s milk is a substance designed by nature for
baby cows, not for humans. We are the only species that drinks the milk
intended for the young of other species, and we are the only species that
insists on drinking milk beyond the time of weaning. It seems we cannot
bear the thought of growing up and leaving home. Perhaps we long
for infancy and the peaceful oblivion of our mother’s breast, and if hers
isn’t available, then we’ll use the breast of any lactating mother, even if
she’s a cow and we have to kill her babies to get to it. Just as the complete
unnaturalness of humans killing and eating animals is obvious if we
contemplate trying to do it without implements, so is the drinking of milk.
The easy availability of veal cutlets and cheap hamburger masks their true
cost and the cruelty of their dairy-farm origin, as do the tidy packages of
cheese, milk, cream, and butter in the refrigerated dairy sections.
In the wild, it is doubtful we’d ever be able to get close enough to a
lactating cow, in a forest or grassland somewhere in Asia where cows
naturally live, to obtain any milk. Wild bulls are ferociously protective
and would gore us or chase us off first. If we managed to get by the
bulls, it is unlikely any cow would allow us to get under her and suck
on her teats. We would have to compete with the cow’s own baby, the
rightful recipient of her milk, and push or kick the calf away, and somehow
get the mother to hold still for us while we sucked or squeezed on
her teats. The whole image is so absurd that not even the most committed
milk-bibber would ever contemplate attempting it.
It is only through an ongoing tradition of vicious domination that