On International Women’s Day the Vegan Society of Aotearoa has challenged Nicola Griggs, the Minister for Women to choose a dairy free diet for a week.

“On this International Women's Day, we are encouraging women everywhere to consider the role of female animals in farming. We're asking Nicola Griggs to go dairy free for 7 days to show solidarity with female beings. As the Minister for Women, she is here to ensure women get a fair deal in society, so we're asking her to think about other females in this country, particularly the dairy cow, who gets a very raw deal in life.” media spokesperson Claire Insley explained.

Griggs was invited to empathise with the life of a dairy cow, given that very soon after giving birth calves are taken from those mothers, and humans drink the milk instead. Newborn calves are either killed if male, or many will join the herd if female and are fed instead on powdered milk.

Cows and chickens have been bred over the years to over produce for the benefit and profit of humans. Cows are given hormones (recombinant bovine growth hormone) to keep them lactating beyond their normal lactation period and are often regularly given antibiotics to mitigate problems due to overcrowding and the disease and stress which that brings. These hormones and antibiotics end up in the milk they produce, which humans then consume.

It has been shown that women who drink large amounts of milk are more prone to breast cancer than those who drink less. The same was not shown for soy milk. It is also worth noting that countries which consume high amounts of dairy, also have high incidents of osteoporosis, one of the diseases that milk is claimed to be good for!

All nutrition comes from plants, the animals humans eat, eat plants and therefore get all their requirements from those plants, veganism is simply cutting out the middle cow. There are many plant forms of calcium, including green leafy veg, such as spinach, broccoli, kale etc, sesame seeds, soy foods, especially fermented soy, other legumes, nuts, especially almonds and even some grains, such as amaranth contain good amounts of calcium. People certainly do not need to rely on dairy products for calcium. The only thing to miss out on is saturated fat.

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