Cow’s ‘Dump Dairy’ Plea: ‘Do I Look Like Your Mother?’

PETA Ads Encourage Dairy Days Festivalgoers to Leave Cow’s Milk for the Calves

For Immediate Release:
June 11, 2018

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

Just in time for National Dairy Month and the Meridian Dairy Days expo, PETA has placed ads on buses that run between Boise and Meridian. The ads show a cow alongside the words “Do I Look Like Your Mother? Cow’s Milk Is for Calves. Dump Dairy. Go Vegan.“

“Cow’s milk represents a mother’s pain when her calf is torn away from her soon after birth on cruel dairy farms,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA’s ads encourage everyone to dump dairy ‘products’ in favor of healthier, cruelty-free nondairy milks made from soy, almonds, coconut, and more.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—notes that humans are the only species to drink milk beyond infancy and consume the milk of another species. In today’s dairy industry, calves are taken away from their mothers within hours or days of birth so that their mothers’ milk can be consumed by humans instead. Male calves are often shipped off to be caged and slaughtered for the veal industry, while female calves endure the same fate as their mothers: repeated artificial insemination in order to produce a steady supply of milk until their bodies give out and they’re sent to the slaughterhouse.

The consumption of cow’s milk has also been linked to an increased risk for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes and strokes. Fortified soy milk, however, contains high levels of essential nutrients like calcium, vitamin D, protein, and vitamin B₁₂, with none of the cholesterol, hormones, or cruelty of dairy “products.”

For more information, please visit PETA.org.