As Joaquin Phoenix said in his Oscar acceptance speech, we’ve become very disconnected from the natural world and it's not just about cows he was talking about, somehow we managed to find a way how to exploit every animal on this planet for our profit and greed, we shred bugs to make our food red, we artificially inseminating cows, goats, sheep, camels, donkeys and buffalos to take their milk intended for their offsprings, we are locking bobby male calves into small boxes where they can't move to prevent muscle development because people like veal tender, we castrate young bulls because people don't like the taste of meat if animals are not castrated, we are killing millions of animals as waste products simply because they are male and wouldn't be profitable enough for the meat industry while millions of people starving.
We like to believe in a very simplified version of our world, we are systematically raised to see some animals as pets, while others as food, but they are all animals, they all have very similar desires like people and if dog or cat can be happy, there is no reason why cow couldn't be happy, sad or depressed. The dairy and meat industry taught us not to see livestock animals in that way, simply because we were manipulated to believe there is no other way to feed the overpopulated planet and animals are full of healthy nutrition and calories we can't get enough from any other sources while the meat and industry is making billions of dollars on killing 150 billions of farm animals and another 2.8 trillion fish every year.
What the dairy and meat industry won't tell you is the fact that they are also responsible for massive rainforest destruction, CO2 and CH4 pollution, took over 77% of farmland and provide only 18% of global calorie supply, including trillions of killed fish and even with basic mathematics and economic skills, you can figure it out that this system can't be very effective, that's why the spent many years to convince people like you to believe dairy products are good for you and you need to eat them to have healthy bones, but there is no single study that would confirm this claim.
You were also raised to believe that you can't get enough protein or B12 vitamin, which is vital for your survival from any other source than animal products, but there is no single animal on this planet that would produce anything extra for people, animals simply don't care about people, they just want to live and let live, so why would they produce something for people nobody else can?
The truth is that B12 is not produced by animals, but by bacteria that live in soil and end up in the gut of animals who eat from the ground and keep producing B12 there, but the problem is that over 99% of animals people consume are factory farmed, which means animals have no access to pastures and can't get the bacteria they need to produce B12 vitamin and becoming B12 deficient, that's why 90% of B12 supplements produced in the world are given to farm animals, plus another 80% of antibiotics that are medically important for humans - not because they are sick in general, just to make them survive until the slaughter age.
The good news - people are slowly waking up from this nightmare for animals and becoming more aware of exploiting animals for no reason other than making money and controlling food supplies, dairy farms closing down and more people are interested in dairy-free milk alternatives experiencing a massive economic boom and this year more than 400.000 people were interested to try a vegan diet during the Veganuary event, which inspired lots of animal farmers to end animal suffering and transform to plant-based farms or animal sanctuaries.
The bad news - the war is not over, not even close and the next 10-25 years will be very difficult, simply because the dairy and meat industry won't give up trillions of dollars without the fight and while some smaller and more stubborn farmers will close down eventually, the demand for the dairy and meat products will be taken over by big agro corporations and for corporations people and animals are just easily replaceable resources if they are not effective or profitable enough, which means animals will be in absolutely terrible conditions to make the most money out of them.
The meat and dairy industry already counting with this option and they are getting ready for this by trying to pass different ag-gag laws around the world to silence animal activist and keep consumers blind and naive. but the truth cannot be hidden forever and one day this barbaric system will end.
