The Vegan View

Taking Carrots from Bunnies

If everyone is so concerned about taking milk from cows and eating meat then why aren't they concerned about eating carrots and taking them from the bunnies?! It's just plan ignorance. We have so many more problems in this world for people to be caring about what they are eating when they have plenty of food and there are starving people in 3rd world countries!!!

VegFamily readers reply:

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Deborah:
The difference between the issues regarding cow's milk and carrots are huge. Cow's milk is made by the mother cow for her baby. It is essential for the health of the baby and it causes many health problems in humans. Therefore it makes far more sense for the calf to get the milk rather than humans. The nice thing about bunnies and carrots is that they actually prefer the green tops (which humans tend to reject) where as humans prefer the orange root... so that works out well, plenty to share! There would also be more to share around the world if food producers grew more plant foods and less animal products. The bottom line is that a vegan diet is a healthier and more efficient way to feed the world's population. Sorry to be the bearer of bad new since it sounds like you'd prefer to avoid thinking about the global impact of choosing to eat meat and dairy products.

Becky:
Because bunnies can eat a lot more than just carrots and be just as healthy and happy, but taking meat away from animals KILLS them. Duh!

Jessica:
The idea is to do what's best, or more realistically speaking, to cause the least amount of harm in this world. When we eat animals and animals products, it does harm to our body. When we support the eating of cows and their milk, we also support the leading cause of global warming. The issues you find important are also important to vegans. We also care about people going hungry...and that's another reason why we're vegan. Did you know that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef? Those who are aware of world hunger know that those 16 pounds of grain could feed many more people than just the one pound of beef. The fact that we care about our health, the planet and the animals, does not mean that we don't have room in our hearts for people and the rest of the world's problems too. On the contrary, we want what's best for everyone!

Chris:
The author of this question apparently has a lot of misconceptions about the reasoning behind veganism. The decision not to drink milk is based on a number of factors, the most important being the inhumane treatment of dairy cattle, and the fact that in order to produce milk, they must keep having calves. Any calf which cannot be used as a dairy producer is raised for veal, and the methods used to do this are often brutally cruel. I don't have the space here to outline the cruelty and inhumanity present in the dairy and veal industry, but it can easily be found with a little Googling. Drinking milk is funding/continuing the veal industry. We have a saying that there is basically a slice of veal in every cup of milk.

As for meat - some vegans abstain for health reasons, some for religious reasons, and many for ethical ones. The conditions that industrially farmed animals are raised in, and the methods with which they are slaughtered, are barbaric. I personally will not fund an industry which causes such immense and inexcusable suffering to other living beings. So I choose not to buy their products - meat, milk, eggs, etc.

Eating carrots is not 'taking food from rabbits'. The carrots you eat are industrially farmed or locally grown in gardens. They are not taken from the wild, and further, although wild rabbits do enjoy carrot tops and may forage from gardens, carrots are not a staple of their diet. 90% of a wild rabbits diet is grass. During the winter they eat a lot of sapling bark.

As for the question of there being more important concerns in the world, such as starving people in 3rd world countries... the fact is that the meat and dairy industry actually contributes to loss of land and resources which could be used to feed the world more efficiently. It takes more water, fossil fuels, money, and land to grow meat than to grow plants. The meat industries contribute to disease, pollution, land destruction, and a myriad of other environmental and economic concerns.

Maybe the question should be, why are we taking the plants from the starving people of the world to feed to cattle so we can have burgers in fast food restaurants?

Carissa:
Being vegan is about compassion to ALL living beings- man and animals. We should be concerned about both situations. Also after much research in this field, I have read over & over again that if everyone became vegan there would be enough food to feed all of those people in the world that are hungry. Land used for livestock production is a complete waste of food calories that could be used most efficiently to grow food for humans, not animals for humans to eat (see Frances Moore Lappe's books). Thus veganism would solve the problem of the world hunger (at the very least reduce it with every person reduces their meat/dairy consumption). Just my two cents.

Rachele: Adapting a raw vegan diet is healthier for your mind, body, soul and our world. The government is subsidizing meat for a reason, to create more jobs in the health care industry. When you do your research about veganism, you will find out about the never ending list of diseases that come along with eating animal products. By going vegan, you'll help reduce famine going on in third world countries. It takes fifteen pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. There's not enough time to explain all of the benefits that come along with adapting a raw vegan diet. I'm seventeen who was raised with a family of meat eaters. I've been vegan for three years, raw vegan for one year now. It's up to you to educate yourself and ignore all the lies that everyone tries to brainwash you into believing.

Alicia:
What a ridiculous question! There is a HUGE difference between eating bovine excretions & flesh and eating carrots. Cows go through years of torture while humans steal their milk, before we finally murder them for their flesh. Bunnies don't go through any torture for us to eat carrots, since carrots are neither a rabbit excretion, nor were they ever part of the rabbit's body. The other part of the question - taking carrots "out of the bunnies' mouths", so to speak, is easily rectified by GROWING MORE CARROTS. Not to mention, carrots aren't the only things that rabbits eat. You're quite right that there are people starving in 3rd world countries; if developed countries weren't so selfish & dependent on animal products for "food", there would be enough food (read, vegetables & grain) for the ENTIRE world to eat. I don't have numbers handy, but look it up - you can feed SO MANY more people on the amount of grain you can grow in the same amount of land that it takes to produce one pound of beef. One last thing - I'm quite capable of worrying about - and doing something about - more than one thing at a time. So I can worry about, say, starving children in China at the same time I can worry about people murdering animals. (As it happens, the solution is the same for both problems.) I'm guessing from the tone of your question that you're only capable of worrying about one thing at a time...?

Donna:
Not sure if this is a real question as it seems a bit preposterous, but here goes...The vegan movement is not simply about dairy products. It is a lifestyle that concerns itself with environmental, nutritional, as well as ethical issues. We are not only concerned about a cow's babies, torn from a mother at just days old, but with the hormones and antibiotics fed to the cows, which ultimately end up in the milk consumer's body. We not only hate the idea of animals being skinned alive for their skins to make those fashionable leather boots, but the environmental devastation the tanning process has on our planet. True, we don't want to see pigs, cattle, and chickens slaughtered by the millions on a daily basis, but we also loathe the labor practices that allow factory farms to treat its workers unfairly, subjecting them to low wages and unsafe working conditions. And while we recognize that these meat sources feed many thousands of people in our country, we also know from our research that our meat habits are not sustainable and are in large part responsible for the poverty and hunger you have mentioned in developing countries. Three to four times the number of measurable resources like water and land are used to raise meat than would be used for vegetables. Large tracts of rainforest land are slashed and burned to make room for graze land. The largest percentage of soy and corn go not to feed people, but to feed the animals that will be eaten by those in the affluent countries of the world. Finally, we are truly concerned about the health of our families and friends. Obesity levels in this country have skyrocketed in the last 20 years, now up to 65% of the population. Our children are obese, distracted and distractable, lethargic, diabetic, allergic, and stressed, and we want to know why. The vegan movement is about far more than carrots.

Ang:
I hope that was sarcasm about the ignorance. If not, then I'd have to disagree with whoever asked this question. It seems that the submitter does not realize that there are vegans out there who have environmental and worldly reasons for choosing this lifestyle. By becoming vegan, the world could use the feed given to animals (which include corn and grains) to feed third world countries. Did you know how inefficient a meat-eating diet is in this respects? It's said that 16 lbs of vegetables and grains are consumed by livestock in order to yield 1 lb of meat. Not only is potential food saved, land is as well as CO2 emissions.

The main reason I have chosen the vegan lifestyle is for the environment and the world. Not the animals. And not my health. Though, the latter reasons are just as justifiable.

Those bunnies aren't being hurt because we can easily and more efficiently grow a 5X5 square foot patch of carrots for several bunnies (which live and are happy) instead of growing a 5X5 patch of carrots/corn/grains that will be used to feed several cows. Not to mention these cows will need several years to mature (so they will consume more than that 5X5 patch a year), be treated brutally - farm animals in the US are the only ones not protected by the Animal Cruelty Prevention Act - and then killed.

Now is it worse for 16 lbs of vegetables to be wasted for 1 lb of meat? Believe me, the world is much better with vegans.

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