Sunday, April 6, 2008

We got no beef with milkshakes

We were out of coffee beans, so I had to go out into the wilderness of a local shopping center at the wee hour of 8:30 this morning. I found myself having to drive through a Chick-Fil-A parking lot, and I saw an advertisement for "hand-spun" milkshakes. It featured one of Chick-Fil-A's iconic gramatically impaired cows with a sign that read, "We got no beef with milkshakes." The implication, of course, is that milk isn't fatal to cows and therefore they don't object.

Were a cow to actually be capable of such a statement, the sign would more likely read, "Stop raping us, kidnapping and murdering our boys, enslaving us to steal our milk, and selling us to murderers when we're no longer useful as slaves. Thanks."

One of the many parts of the "vegetarian" paradox is that the dairy cows that vegetarians accept being used for milk and cheese suffer as much or more than the beef cattle that the same vegetarian will vociferously protest. This is not a matter of factory farming, it is inherent in the production of milk, even on the most hippie-friendly, free-range, organic, grass-fed dairy farm in the world.

First, cows don't just magically produce milk on command. They produce milk for a very specific purpose: to feed baby cows. Before the milk production process can even begin, they have to get pregnant immediately, so farmers must artificially inseminate the cows rather than let nature take its course. That's something that, were it to happen to a human, we'd call "sexual assault" at best.

Once the cow gives birth to a calf, in the natural world the calf would then drink the milk the cow is producing. But if we're going to steal the milk from the cow, we can't have some calf drinking it all. So farmers have to get rid of the calves. Where do you suppose they end up?

Veal or beef.

Yes, the dairy industry is also the veal industry. Every time the animal-loving vegetarian eats a cheese pizza, she is supporting a practice that is notoriously barbaric and certainly not consistent with love of animals. And once the cow is incapable of producing more milk, well, she gets slaughtered, too.

I think it's fair to say that cows do indeed "got beef" with Chick-Fil-A's milkshakes.

No comments:

Post a Comment