How many times has your grocery list looked something like this:
milk, eggs, cheese, bread, chicken, jello, bacon, donuts?
Billions of people use animal products as part of their daily subsistence. We use milk for cereal, eggs for baking cakes, cheese for sandwiches, butter on bread, yogurt for snacks, sour cream on nachos, whipped cream on pies, and cream cheese on bagels. We make burgers for lunch, marinate chicken for dinner, fry bacon for breakfast, eat turkey at Thanksgiving, ham on Easter, and more turkey on Christmas. We use cats to releive stress and dogs for loyalty, while wild cats and monkeys are usually peered at through bars at the zoo (something I do not support, btw). Some use cow dung for fuel, and insulation for homes, while others use goats as celestial sacrifices to their creator before blessing and consuming the flesh at festivals, family functions and rights of passages. We wear leather jackets made by big names like Louis Vutton and Coco Chanel -- brag about our new shoes, designer handbags and wallets to match, and of course, for furniture. And this is just the beginning. So the question is, would you breastfeed an animal?
For those who do not consume or wear animal products, perhaps the indirect link comes from an animal as a companion to the worker whose production is used to make man-made materials. The question is: would you feed one of these animals? Not just feed, would you lift your shirt and give it milk from your body, allowing it to suck on your breasts just the same as a human baby to show your thankfulness and respect for non-human animals?
I don't know how nourishing it would be for a goat, calf, puppy, or cat to drink human milk. But I do know that we take so much from our animal kingdom, that while watching these videos they made me wonder if we could, would we would return the favor should we ever have the chance and the situation call for it?
People making comments on these had some very interesting things to say, and of course there were those with blatant disregard for others and their living patterns, especially from the "Indian woman breastfeeding a calf" video. Read them for yourself. But this one stood out to me, not just because I have come to gain a more thorough understanding of the relationship between Hindus and the Sacred Cow tradition, but because ironically one of its comments is one that also made the most sense; "Do humans not drink cow's milk ALL the time?"
