[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”413″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Arvind Kannan is a vegan animal rights activist based in Tamil Nadu. He gives talks and creates videos on animal cruelty and vegan lifestyle in Tamil and English. He also runs the Facebook page ‘Arvind Animal Activist’.
You should all know that most human beings are lactose intolerant. Do you know why you are lactose intolerant? Because you’re not a baby cow, that’s why. What is milk? Who is supposed to drink milk?
A cow’s milk is for a baby cow–not for a baby human or an adolescent human, adult human or even a pregnant human. Milk is NOT made for humans–it’s made for a calf. Milk is the most unnatural absurd thing that a human being can consume. It is tailor made by nature through millions and years of evolution to turn a small baby calf until it has grown teeth into a big cow. But understand that even a calf, after growing up stops drinking milk. Humans, after growing big, having grown teeth, still drinks milk and that too of another animal. Now, if this does not sound crazy to you, you have to start asking why, in our society, are we doing this? It’s our culture.
Let’s observe the adjoining picture–there is a woman feeding her child milk, a cow feeding her child milk, a bonobo feeding her child milk–the bonobos are the closest relatives of humans with respect to our DNAs, more than even the chimpanzees. Across for other species as well, a mother giraffe makes milk for her baby giraffe; my mother made milk for me and the cow makes milk for her child and not for me, or my neighbors or for anyone else.
But, this is what we’re doing–We’re actually thinking that the mammary secretions of another being exist for our consumption. I want to compare with this picture shown (on this page). How absurd is this? Imagine right now that I had a newborn baby and I had a bottle of cow’s milk and I was feeding it to my baby, will any of you have an issue with it? Obviously no. But suppose I had a bottle of bonobo milk and I was feeding that milk to my child–Now, will you have a problem?
Most probably, people will object–So here is where we have to do some serious thinking. The bonobo monkey carries literally more than 98% of our DNA. So why do you have a problem when I give milk from another species who is carrying 98% of our DNA? But, you have no problem, when I’m giving the child milk from a cow? The bonobo milk is probably more safe for my baby than cow’s milk can ever be, because we share the same DNA. I mean, scientifically it should make sense to you, but no. Even that is like “Why would you feed the human child the monkey’s milk? Give him your own milk, or if you cannot, then give him something else to eat.” Why do you want to feed that poor child monkey milk? Good question. Why do you want to feed that poor child cow or buffalo or goat milk?
Few people may bring up the excuse for consuming milk as “Gau Mata”, but this is religion, it’s not science. I have nothing against any culture and I’m not against any religion. Just question yourself–Do you agree that it is unscientific to say that “Gau Mata” and then taking milk of that cow and giving it to a child? What sense does this make on a nutritional or scientific level is something I want you all to think about–it doesn’t make sense.
Arvind became a vegan in 2014 after watching a video titled ‘Best Speech You Will Ever Hear’ by Gary Yourofsky. You can follow him on Insta: @arvindanimalactivist and subscribe to his YouTube channel: Arvind Animal Activist’[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
