My Experience as a Farmer and Why I’ve Decided to Go Vegan
This is by Adamahnick Jackie Topol, x-posted from Heeb’N'Vegan.
Before I began my fellowship here at Adamah, I was beginning to make the transition to veganism. I have been a vegetarian for almost 7 years and decided that if I truly was against animal cruelty then I needed to not consume dairy and eggs anymore. When I was awarded the fellowship at Adamah, I knew that animal husbandry would be a part of the program but I didn’t really know what that meant until I came here. Moreover, I did not expect it to have such an impact on my final decision to go vegan.
Part of my job here is to take care of the animals on our pasture, which requires me to milk the goats and collect the eggs from the hens. I knew that I would be doing such chores before I signed up for the program and figured that the only way to see my true reaction to participating in such acts would be to try it out. Though our animals are very well cared for, in the sense that they have plenty of good organic food and lots of space to graze, I have been troubled by several things.
For one, I find it very odd that we drink another animal’s milk. Though I have been consuming dairy for almost my entire life, it seems completely unnatural to drink another animal’s milk. This really hit home when I had my hand on the teat of a goat named Angie and squeezed out milk, which went into the jar that I then brought back to the house for my fellows to drink. How would we feel if another species latched onto our breasts to take milk? I don’t think nature intended us to do this; in fact, no other species does this except for humans. After going through the whole milking process once, I have not been able to consume any of the goat’s milk.
Secondly, I have witnessed the weaning of several of the kids from their mothers. There is a tradition here that we, as a group, walk the kids up to a separate pasture the day that they are weaned. It’s some sort of “rite of passage” that I decided not to be a part of as soon as I heard of it. I felt that it was morally wrong to inflict such emotional pain on these animals that I care for so deeply. The after-effects of the weaning were obvious to me: when I visited Una, one of the kids that I had formed a strong bond with, she seemed unlike herself; very distant and not nearly as affectionate. Another kid, Dina, was reunited with her mother as a means to cheer her up since she had fallen ill. Mother and child had been separated for almost a month, and I witnessed Dina diving for her mother’s teat several times, which was proof to me that she had been taken away from her mother at too young of an age, and all for the benefit of those consuming it. As I have learned, when you wean a kid away from his/her mother, the milk production sky-rockets as there is no baby “stealing” some of “our” milk. Another important observation that I must mention is that by the time we come to milk the goats (once in the AM and once in the PM), the mother’s teats are so full because they do not have their kid to relieve them. Their udders seem like they are about to burst, and I cannot imagine the pain they must be in.
Thirdly, I have participated in the collection of eggs from our hens, which from day one has also felt very strange to me. I come into the chicken coop, feed the hens, and take their eggs as they are eating. I feel like I am stealing their unborn babies. As you can imagine, I feel incredibly guilty doing this. My good friend Jeanette, who is vegan, has decided to abstain from participating in this as well as the milking, but I have not because I feel like I may be the only one here who treats them as animals worthy of attention and love. Though I hate taking their eggs, I feel good greeting them in the morning and talking to them as I fill their buckets with food and water.
When I think about how the animals on my pasture live, I can only imagine how much worse the living conditions on factory farms are. We may not be killing these animals (though in some ways we do indirectly—male kids on dairy farms are often sold to slaughterhouses because they are deemed “useless”), but there is absolutely no justifiable reason why we should be exploiting them. During these past two months, I have thought a great deal about the concept of tsa’ar ba’alei chayim (suffering to animals) and the countless times that the importance of having compassion for God’s creatures is mentioned in the Torah. Between that and my interaction with the animals here, I cannot think of a better reason to become vegan.
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6 Responses to “My Experience as a Farmer and Why I’ve Decided to Go Vegan”
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Michael Croland Says:
July 31st, 2007 at 6:55 pmI’m glad someone else agrees this guest post was great. :-)
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Leah Koenig Says:
August 1st, 2007 at 12:13 pmJackie - thanks for your post. Many people decide to go vegan (myself included for a couple years, though I now eat eggs and dairy again) because they dislike the factory farm process and feel it is cruel to animals. Many of these vegans say if they could ensure that their eggs and milk were coming from responsible, humane sources - like Adamah - that they’d eat dairy again. So it’s fascinating to me that your experience/reaction was just the opposite.
As a former vegan who realized that I was personally unable to maintain a healthy diet for myself without any animal products, my only advice/blessing for you is that you treat your own body with the same respect that you do the animals by making sure you get enough calcium and protein and other nutrients. I think it’s possible for some people to be healthy on a vegan diet, but many vegans I know have to take supplements to get enough nutrients, makes it seem like perhaps the diet isn’t the best one for their body afterall.
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Michael Croland Says:
August 1st, 2007 at 10:43 pmI think that no matter what diet someone adheres to — vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, or whatever — it’s important to be on top of nutritional info. By all means, get a good feel for your protein and calcium intake and which foods are good sources of various nutrients. I recommend that vegans take a multivitamin containing B12, and that never seemed like an abundance of supplements or any great hassle to me. :-)
Anyone considering a vegetarian or vegan diet is encouraged to check out http://www.veganhealth.org.
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Jeff Says:
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:20 pmI appreciate your perspective, Jackie, as well as your insights into why you have become a vegan while being a participant of Adamah. Thank you for sharing.
Personally, however, I have taken away a vastly difference experience from my time here. I came to Adamah as an anti-dairy advocate who stopped eating dairy for health reasons and because I too thought the practice of eating an animal’s milk was strange and wrong. However, as I came to Adamah and developed an intimate connection with the goats here who I treat with the utmost compassion, respect and love–as does everyone I know here based on my experience. Such is the case with the chickens here as well.
I decided to reevaluate my stance on dairy. Just last week I sat with Aitan, the goat herder here, and I ate a homemade feta that he made from the goats at his own pasture. I became lactose intolerant as a result of my anti-dairy stance but as an advocate of sustainability I found it hard to resist eating dairy made in my backyard as I was eating my processed soy and rice products from all over the world.
I also believe the process of weaning to be complex, but not morally wrong in the least. In fact, weaning is a natural occurrence in the wild. Usually a mother pushes away her child, resulting in trauma for the kid. In dairy farms weaning takes place because otherwise a kid will never mature properly and begin eating regular food. Never have I heard of a situation where a group of farmers hugged and caressed the mother and the kid during the process as happened here. It was a sincerely beautiful moment.
I offer these words mainly to share another perspective from Adamah. I have become very much the opposite of a vegan here, but instead I have given up processed soy products while I’ve been here because I see them as contrary to a healthy and sustainable agricultural existence. That’s a decision I came to while being here and appreciating the love that is put into the food I grow, harvest and cook.
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Jackie Topol Says:
August 6th, 2007 at 12:58 pmThank you for sharing your perspective Jeff. I understand that most people will not see eye to eye on this. I think the most important conclusion that I have come to this summer, is that if there are practices here that I have somewhat of an issue with, I can only imagine how uncomfortable I would be partaking in animal agriculture on factory farms.
I would also like to respond to your comment on the process of weaning. It is true that a mother pushes her kid away at some point, but that is the mothers choice. It is completely natural. What I find troubling is that we disturb this natural process for our benefit. How would you feel if someone other than your mother decided when she would stop breast feeding? The bottom line is that I do not believe it is right to exploit animals, no matter how well they are treated. -
Rivka K Says:
August 6th, 2007 at 11:35 pmI stopped eating meat at 15. I am now 45. I am a cheese and ice cream addict. So I have to stay away from it!Funny people are grossed out at seeing a bottle of breast milk ( whoops they might use it instead of half and half in their coffee…seriously this happened to me when I stored a bottle in my work fridge!) but not grossed out from drinking cows milk….
I stopped eating meat cause it just grossed me out. I was telling my husband the other day about the article I read that he could be considered a Vegasexual. There was an article about people who will only sleep with people that don’t eat meat. Ever since we dated I would never go near him if he ate meat! gag!
Well we have been married almost a Chai and he has to get meat elsewhere as I just can’t cook it.
But here is what I have learned….I don’t eat meat. I don’t make a political statement about it. I probably make more of a statement about keeping kosher.But whatever you choose, and if you change your mind in 3 days, so be it…just be happy!
