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Cattle ranchers are making less money in the US despite beef prices at an all-time high. In the meantime, Trump started importing beef from Argentina to lower beef prices, but only achieved to lower cattle prices.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Leopards Ate My Face
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I gave up red meat, it's not that hard. Honestly, I'm hoping the market will take this opportunity to come up with more decent vegan alternatives. I'd like to give meat up altogether but the products that are out there currently are pricier than red meat, ffs.
This is one reason why I stepped back from veganism after like 6 years and into ovo-lacto.
The cheese alternatives, especially. You're paying top-dollar for a sub-par product made by the same Big Food conglomerates. Why give them more money for a worse product. The money still ends up in the same dirty hands, and IMO cheese is way harder to give up than meat or "other dairy". Other dairy products have come a very, very long way.
Also fate wound me up with 9 hens and I can't pass up them eggs.
Dairy, by nature of stress-spoiling, is relatively cruelty-free. That is to say, the profit motive is harmed unless you make the cow feel stress-free. So I've never seen how milk, butter, and cheese are not vegan. We make cows happy and get good milk in return, in excess of what the calf needs. Seems like a good trade for an animal that cannot survive without humans.
Well, to have milk, the cows have to get pregnanat regularly. The calves are taken away, which is kind of traumatizing. They are often not treated well. The male calves are killed for meat. Also, despite the fact it is possible to use transgenic bacteria, cheese is still produced in many cases by adding calf stomachs as a rennet, so cheese is often not even vegetarian. The real well being of milk cows is also often not as nice as one would expect, despite the fact that stress spoiling is a thing. Turns out some stress level doesn't matter and some workers don't mind the risk and enjoy the cruelty. There have recently been some cases made public in my country, so I'm more informed then I'd like to be.
the vast majority of them are brought to full weight before slaughter
There are pockets of feral cattle in the world, including on Swona in Scotland, Australia, etc. So cows dont necessarily need us to survive, but we have bred things like dairy cows to such extremes that I doubt they would fare well. I do think it's debatable that dairy cows are treated well, I think it unfortunately depends a lot on which farmer they end up with and how they view livestock livelihood.
oh, can you tell where I can find more information about feral cattle?
There are multiple reasons for being vegan. Animal cruelty is an important one, but there are also significant medical benefits associated with eliminating animal proteins. Milk, butter, and cheese are still based on animal proteins. Look up "Whole Food Plant Based" if you're curious.
I've been trying to eat vegan for several years now, after being mostly vegetarian for decades. Cheese is the one thing I just haven't been able to give up entirely. It's my single favorite food and the substitutes so far all fall under "better than nothing".
The cow doesn't consent.
As dumb as that sounds, you have to realize that to produce milk you must first be a mother. And to keep milk coming, you gotta continue being a mother.
Only one way to turn a heifer into a cow...
Also gotta realize that modern livestock breeds (not just bovine but poultry, pork, etc) are quite removed from their wild ancestors. They are only here because we keep them here. We didn't extend the same courtesy to most of their wild ancestors.
When a cheetah hunts a gazelle, the gazelle doesn't consent to death. When parasites infest you, you don't consent. When cows eat grass, the grass doesn't consent.
There is nearly no form of food consumption that doesn't extinguish a life or subjugate another lifeform. Until we can grow food in tubes to feed the human race, that will stay a fact of life for humans. Wild animals will continue though and that isn't something we can nor should intervene in.
Sure.
My main reason for doing the vegan thing for so long wasn't animal ethics...it was environmentalism and efficiency. Animal ethics came secondary, but I did come to understand the perspective.
Humanity is now able to make fully sustainable diets from non-animal sources. Some micronutrients (namely B12, D, Iron, Zinc, and Omega-3s) are difficult but not impossible to vegan-source.
I do not see a sustainable way to feed humanity going forward on an omnivorous diet. Especially not one that involves the volume of red meat that is found in a typical American diet.
However...your appeal to nature fallacy is flawed when you realize that there is nothing natural about modern agricultural livestock. You could say that an (American) slave had a better life than a person in the wilds of Africa. That obviously wouldn't be accurate...but you could say it.
It's not so much a matter of eat-or-be-eaten but one of freedom. And bovines especially...highly social creatures and incredible emotional intelligence. More than we give them credit for.
But even my hens exhibit unique "personalities" (chickenalities?), social hierarchy, even daily routines. I got one girl who, every day, I let them out, she follows me to the nesting box, checks out the situation, pecks my leg twice, then goes to her favorite dust-bath spot so the others don't get there first.
it's absurd to discuss consent from anything nonhuman.
Found the bestiality enthusiast
this isn't a schoolyard.
Follow Your Heart, which is one of the biggest (and best IMO) for vegan cheese, isn't owned by another company. Violife is owned by Unilever, but Miyokos was only just bought by Melt Organics. And the only other brands I have seen are all very small brands that are local. So I am not sure why you claim they are owned by "the same Big Food Conglomerates" when Violife is the only one that is true for.