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<p>Not a vegan, but my D1 was for several years, which made our lives interesting, to say the least. Her rationale went entirely to animal cruelty. For dairy, it’s pretty straightforward: the only way you get a cow or sheep or goat to give milk (the foundation for all dairy products, including cheese, yogurt, butter, etc), is to get it pregnant, have it give birth which starts the lactation process, then separate it from its offspring and continue to milk it. It’s an ancient technology, but we really haven’t improved on it in probably several thousand years. From there, two problems, as D1 saw it. First, just the act of separating the mother from its infant involves some level of cruelty to both mother and infant. Cows will bellow, calves will whine; it’s “unnatural” and clearly causes distress to the animals (which we can acknowledge without anthropomorphizing them). More importantly, about half the offspring are males, most of which are surplus as far as the dairy farmer is concerned (because one healthy adult male can impregnate almost unlimited numbers of females), and most of the male offspring will be slaughtered for meat. A large fraction of the females will be kept around as the next generation of milk-producers, but depending on economic factors, even some of the females may be slaughtered. Females are also slaughtered when they’re no longer of reproductive age. Bottom line, production of milk and derivative dairy products requires the systematic slaughter of animals, especially young males and older females, so (D1 reasoned) if you consume dairy, you’ve got blood on your hands no less than if you actually eat the meat of the slaughtered animals. Good argument, actually, if you accept the premise that it’s wrong to slaughter animals.</p>
<p>The economy of chickens is different and perhaps slightly more complicated, but it comes down to much the same thing: if you raise chickens to produce eggs, you end up with a surplus of young males and old females who need to be slaughtered to make the economics work, so if you eat eggs you’re buying into the systematic slaughter of chickens. OK, I follow the argument, though again it depends on the crucial premise that slaughtering animals is morally wrong.</p>
<p>Honey I never understood, That just seemed like a hard-line, dogmatic position: “I won’t eat animal products and honey is an animal product, therefore I won’t eat honey.” The animal cruelty rationale was never explained to me.</p>
<p>Fortunately, D1 decided to go lacto-ovo when she went to college, which vastly simplified her life. She finds ample protein sources in milk, cheese, yogurt, eggs, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, etc., which she supplements with fresh fruit, cruciferous vegetables, and copious amounts of high-fiber vegetable products like lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and on and on. Her diet is high in protein, high in fiber, high in iron and other vital minerals and nutrients, but low in carbs and low in saturated fats. She is, in fact, about the most intentional and disciplined health-conscious eater I know.</p>
<p>Could I join her on that path? Well, maybe, but I’m not sure I share her self-discipline; I easily give in to the occasional craving for a good burger or a nice steak, and I just love the taste of chicken and fish which I have a hard time relegating to the “unhealthy” category, because I think in fact they can be easily incorporated into a healthy, balanced, nutritionally ample diet.</p>