Vegan Vinnie, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Milk

My stint teaching English in Korea introduced me to a lot of interesting people, in particular an intriguing fellow at the next desk in the teachers’ room. Let’s call him Vegan Vinnie.

Pictured: The Face of Wisdom

Vinnie was infamous for his tales of the woes of the animals that give us our food. Chickens, he told us, had their beaks cut off so they wouldn’t peck each other to death. Pigs were kept in pens so tiny that they couldn’t move and their legs atrophied and they just lay on the ground. And dairy cows were crammed together and tormented day and night to force them to produce more milk.

There he had made his fatal mistake. I had grown up in the heart of Pennsylvania dairy country. In fact, the rental property I’d vacated to move to Korea had been smack-dab in the middle of a dairy farm.

Pictured: Cow Hell

Alas for Vinnie. He had shot his ill-informed mouth off at somebody who knew – not from books or web sites but from real life – that at least the cow part of his story was loaded with fertilizer.

Pictured: Vinnie’s knowledge of dairy farming

I told Vinnie of my childhood experiences with dairy farms. How Farmer Cal would turn the cows out into the pastures every day, not only to allow the cows to roam and eat, but also to vacate their stalls so that those stalls could be kept clean and fresh. Yes, while the cows were out meandering in the meadow, Farmer Cal was mucking out manure. The cows got the better end of that deal.

I conceded Farmer Cal’s possible nefarious motive for cleaning those stalls – the manure was valuable fertilizer. But that put poor Vinnie into a moral dilemma: Should he hate Farmer Cal for his exploitation of the cows, or should he admire him for recycling?

But then, Farmer Cal had another selfish motive for turning those cows out into the bright, bucolic world. Fresh air, sunshine, plenty of fresh greens, and a modicum of pleasant exercise does for cows what it does for humans: It promotes health. Healthy cows mean lower vet bills and more milk.

All of this shocking information was frying Vinnie’s brain circuits.

Pictured: Vinnie’s brains after meeting somebody who had lived on a dairy farm

Vinnie then claimed the milking itself hurt the cows.

So I told Vinnie about how I often longed for my little house on the farm. As I lay on my bed I could watch the cows trot merrily by on the hillside from their favorite hang-out spot (the bit of field to one side of my house) along the hill behind my house, to the barn for milking time. They’d hardly do that willingly, I pointed out, if they were going to the barn to meet Torquemada.

But what about those horrible metal things they stick the cows’ head through?

I explained to Vinnie that the cows stuck their own heads through, since the water and feed were on the other side. The cows were stepping up to the bovine buffet. The purpose of the bars wasn’t to torment or trap the cows, but to provide each cow with her personal space – and to make sure she could reach the cow water fountain that each pair of cows shared. Yes, every cow had access to fresh, cool water at the touch of a snout.

Pictured: Cow dining at its finest

But what about those horrible mutant-octopus-from-Hell mechanical milking machines?

Well, first each cow would get an udder scrub-down with warm soapy water, and a rinse with warm, clear water. This not only cleaned the teats to keep the milk from being contaminated, but it was a massage to help the milk let down. The cow, if she was distracted from her dining enough to notice it at all, seemed to enjoy it. After the scrub-down, the milker was attached. The cow never seemed to respond to that one way or another. She just kept eating and drinking and pooping, as cows are wont to do.

Pictured: The Cow Torture & Child Terror Road Show

Vinnie, of course, refused to drop his old ideas of cow torment. He decided that my experience, from every dairy farm I’d ever been to in 45 years of life, consisted entirely of flukes. My experiences, he decided, were not at all representative of cow life overall. He remained a staunch vegan, devoted to relating his tales of animal horror.

But I became a skeptic of any claims by vegans about farm life – as did everybody who listened to the conversations. Vinnie’s scheme had backfired. Reality trumped hyperbole. And we could drink our milk guilt-free.