How Many Vegans Does it Take to Change a Dairy Industry? It Depends How We Look at the Numbers

Posted on July 26, 2017 by bovidiva

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK have just ruled that it’s permissible for vegan campaigners to use emotive terminology to describe dairy production, on the grounds that the claims made do represent dairy farming methods. Thus, phrases such as “mothers, still bloody from birth, searched and called frantically for their babies” are sanctioned as legitimate, despite the anthropomorphic language and lack of sound scientific evidence for loss- or grief-type emotions in dairy cows.

Excellent animal welfare should be the cornerstone of every livestock production system, including the non-tangible and therefore difficult to measure emotional side of animal welfare, yet using these types of emotive phrases does not really appear to be advancing the vegan cause. As quoted in the Times article, 540,000 people in Britain enjoy a vegan diet at present, up from 150,000 in 2006.

That’s a considerable number, approximately equal to the population of Manchester (City, not Greater Manchester) or the number of people in the UK who are aged 90+, yet as a percentage of the total British population, less than one percent (0.82% to be exact) choose a vegan diet. Is the proportion increasing? Yes. The equivalent percentage in 2006 was 0.25%, yet even at today’s figures, 99.18% of the British population are non-vegans. Are there any other situations where we would consider than less than 1% of the population to have a significant influence? Possibly not.

Given that it takes five pieces of positive information to negate the impact of one piece of negative information, it’s more crucial than ever to get simple, factual, attractive messages out to the general public about dairy farming. Rather than campaigning against emotive activist claims, we need to reach out to the 99.18% of people who have not removed animal products from their diet and reassure them that they’re making appropriate food choices for themselves and their children.

Having Your Beef and Spending It? Don’t Let Moral Indignation Overcome Common Sense.

Posted on December 5, 2016 by bovidiva

My Twitter feed has lit up like a firework this week with the news that cows are being murdered to produce the new plastic British £5 notes. Or, to correct the sensationalism with science, the notes contain a trace of tallow in the polymer that’s used to make them. Tallow is a by-product of beef production – it’s effectively the fat on the animal that we don’t want to eat, and has been used for centuries in a myriad of products.

Let’s be very clear here. No cows are being slaughtered (murdered!) to make £5 notes. Cattle are either slaughtered for meat or euthanised due to illness – there are no Bank of England-sanctioned posses stringing up helpless cattle as a license to print money (literally). Fortunately, we are able to use the portion of the animal’s carcass that we can’t (or won’t) eat to manufacture products that would otherwise rely on synthetic chemicals.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the outcry has come from vegetarians and vegans. While I will defend the right of anybody to choose what they eat or wear (note that I am not criticising or denouncing anybody’s religious beliefs here), the current protests seem to be slanted towards choosing to be offended by a minor point, rather than any semblance of logic.

According to a rather nifty (yet accurate) calculation by the guys at Vice, it would take 23 kg of tallow to make all the new £5 notes that will be in circulation by the time the old ones are phased out. The total tallow yield per animal is ~40 kg, so it would take just over half of one animal (23/40 = 0.58) to produce all the tallow for the UK’s total £5 note requirements.

Many of those who are protesting are vegetarian (as opposed to vegan), thus still consume milk, eggs, honey and other non-meat animal products. Given that 20% or more of the cattle slaughtered in the UK are adult cows and bulls (i.e. they have reached the end of their productive life in the dairy or beef herd rather than being specifically reared for meat), it makes sense to utilise whatever components of their carcasses are suitable for industrial purposes rather than diverting them into landfill or incinerators. If dairy consumption is acceptable to vegetarians, can it really be claimed that bank notes containing a fraction of the spent dairy cow’s carcass as tallow are not?

As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, myriad everyday products contain by-products from cattle. Given the current outcry, once can only assume that those who shun the new £5 notes also refuse to travel in cars, buses or on bicycles (as (t(as tyres contain stearic acid, again from tallow); do not drink from bone china mugs; or disavow beer filtered through isinglass. Or, as with so many other issues, is it an opportunity for a small minority to protest and promote their personal dietary choices behind the guise of population-wide offence?

The online petition against the new £5 notes currently has >129,000 signatures. Obviously we all have the right to protest against issues that alarm, anger or offend us, and social media gives those opinions far greater weight than we had in the past. Yet is this really an issue that is more important (as judged by media coverage) than 11-year-old girls being forced into marriage? Or livestock being slaughtered without first being stunned? Or asylum seekers being refused entry? Perhaps in this case, the moral minority need to examine the bigger picture, and consider the issues that really matter.

Cows, Cows, Everywhere, and Not a Steak to Eat. What Happens if We All Become Vegan?

Posted on June 8, 2016 by bovidiva

Hereford calf – innocent victim of our murderous lust for meat?

I have previously blogged about the potential impact of us all becoming vegan with reference to the U.S. beef and dairy industries, but given the recent haranguing of several Twitter friends (and myself) by some very passionate vegans, I thought it was worth updating the post for the UK livestock industry.

Let me make it very clear – I am totally happy for anybody to choose whichever diet they prefer: omnivore, vegetarian, vegan, flexitarian etc. No problem. I have to admit I find it interesting when people claim that they are vegetarian but that they occasionally eat meat (5% of Australians consider themselves as vegetarian but only 2% eat a meat-free diet!), but it’s great that we are able to choose from a wide variety of diets and foods. However, I get really irritated when people suggest (or insist) that I shouldn’t eat meat or fish because they believe that it’s morally wrong. Food has almost become a modern faith issue – the same intensity and fervour of 19th century missionaries trying to convert “heathens” is applied by the more activist vegetarians and vegans.

Interestingly, every single vegan I have conversed with on Twitter appears to believe that cattle only reproduce because they are forced to by the farmer. Accusations such as the one in the tweet below are common – because artificial insemination is regularly used within the dairy industry (although a significant proportion of dairy farmers also use bulls for natural service), cows are seen to be “forced” to breed, or even “raped”.

So, if we as a vegan population did not eat milk, meat or eggs and did not “enslave” or control cattle, but instead turned them out to live a natural life, would they cease to breed? It’s a nice idea, but, it’s false. If a bull has access to cows in heat, he’s going to pursue that cow, even if it means breaking into the next field. Cattle don’t breed like rabbits, but bulls are rather akin to hormonal teenagers when responsive cows are in close proximity.

Anti-animal agriculture activists often purport that a cow can live for 20+ years in her “natural” state compared to a farmed animal – so being a data nerd, I did the maths. Let’s assume that we turn all the dairy cows out tomorrow, and the following assumptions hold true: 1) cows first calve at two years of age and that 75% of cows have a calf every year*; 2) 85% of those calves survive (calf mortality would increase because we would not care for (exploit?) new-born calves); and 3) each cow or bull lives for 20 years. Admittedly that doesn’t account for the cattle that would be hit by cars, or die from starvation through lack of available grazing in 5, 10 or 20 years time, but being good vegans, we’d feed them, right?

We currently have ~4.2 million dairy cattle (1.9 million dairy cows, plus calves, heifers and bulls) in the UK. Within five years we’d have 19.2 million cattle in the UK, within 20 years we’d have 285 million – a 68.6-fold increase on our current national herd. That’s 68.6x more cattle belching methane, drinking water and producing waste, every single day, all as a result of our changing our diet in a misguided attempt to reduce environmental impact.

It’s a nice, simplistic, oft-suggested argument that we shouldn’t eat meat or dairy products in order to save the planet, yet the conflict between veganism, animal welfare, and environmental impact is clear. Climate change will be solved by us turning vegan? Not unless we reconcile ourselves to killing animals without eating them.

*75% would be a low calving % on a beef or dairy farm, but let’s assume that natural service in the wild is less efficient

If We Can Replace Antibiotics with Homeopathy, then Cheese is the New Miracle Cure!

Posted on May 16, 2016 by bovidiva

In the Guardian this week, HRH Prince Charles proposed homeopathy as a solution to antibiotic resistance, citing his “agro-ecological” farm as an example of one that has cut antibiotic use by using homeopathic treatments.

Given the concern over bacterial resistance to medically-important antibiotics, it is vital that we find alternatives. Yet they also must have a biologically sound mode of action and be proven to be effective. It is difficult to conceive how a solution so dilute that not one molecule of active ingredient remains, where the premise of the mode of action depends on water having a “memory” of the ingredient (as opposed to all the other contaminants within that water), can possibly have any verifiable impact on disease. Indeed, there are no studies to date that show positive, replicable effects of homeopathy compared to conventional treatment.

Personally, I have no issue with any alternative therapy has been shown to be an effective alternative to conventional drugs (note that homeopathy does not fall into this category). When I underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer, I had some reiki sessions. Did I believe that energy was being channeled by the reiki healer and making me better? Honestly, no. Would I have ever considered giving up the chemotherapy? Absolutely not. But the focused breathing and relaxation certainly helped with pre-chemo anxiety. Would taking Rescue Remedy or a similar homeopathic preparation have helped? If I’d believed that it would – yes, probably. But that is biased by the placebo effect – it’s not the same as the treatment being independently effective. One of the claims made for using homeopathic treatments in animals is that they are independent of the placebo effect – they don’t have the expectation that the tincture administered is going to cure their lameness or mastitis. Yet when we assess the results, it’s not the animal who’s reporting the success or failure of the homeopathic treatment, it’s the farmer.

So let’s examine a scenario. A farmer has two mildly sick cows (e.g. slightly lame, or unwilling to eat with a raised temperature) within the herd. Both are moved to the hospital pen, given fresh bedding, water and feed plus a homeopathic remedy. Cow A gets better – hoorah for homeopathy! Cow B doesn’t and has to be treated with antibiotics – boo! Does this mean homeopathy works in 50% of cases? No. There’s no control treatment here, no evidence that Cow A wouldn’t have got better without homeopathy – some diseases just need time, TLC and the cow’s own immune system for recovery. Did the farmer cut antibiotic use? Yes – Cow A didn’t receive it. Yet again there is no evidence that this is due to the homeopathic treatment. How many times have we as humans debated whether to go to the doctor because of a minor ailment, then have found that it’s cleared up without medical treatment? It’s not miraculous, it’s simply our immune systems functioning as they are intended to.

In the absence of controlled experiments that compare homeopathic treatments to both conventional antibiotics and no veterinary treatment (save for good animal husbandry), it is disingenuous to claim that homeopathy is successful in treating bacterial disease or can effectively be used to replace antibiotics. We need to look to veterinarians and scientists when making decisions about animal care and treatment rather than relying on anecdotal data from those with royal connections. After all, HRH Prince Charles may have reduced antibiotic use on his farm, but I can also claim to have reduced antibiotic use in my household through dairy consumption – my toddler has a serious cheese addiction and has never had to take antibiotics. Hoorah – cheese is the new homeopathy!!*

(*obviously I am being sarcastic here for those who missed it, though the extent of cheese consumption and fact that she’s never had antibiotics are both entirely true)