Philosophical Vegan Forum

Hello, I'm new here, and I'm a lifelong vegetarian, and an atheist.
My topic is : Consuming dairy products moderately

Is it o.k. to milk your goat?
This may be a valid question, but not the one I was planning to ask.
First of all, having been brought up in Albania in a time of scarcity, I do believe in living with animals.
There usually is some extra milk/wool/eggs to spare.
And after all, they are part of our family, and we do shave/milk family.
Every now and then you get to consume animal products, and of course put the bigger animals to work.

So my question is: Can this just be that? An extra to our lives? Is this a naive idea?

Some people in this forum tend to make a very quick jump in judgement
Someone writes "i also like dairy products" and it often translates to "I eat dairy products 3 times a day".
Consequently, vegetarianism gets bombarded with "high cholesterol" and "intestinal cancer".

Again, my question: Do you have any arguments against eggs once a week, from your own chicken, or your neighbor's , or the local egg farmer?
I did read other topics of this forum, I understand the price argument. It would go up.
Let's assume it would. And maybe it should. Let eating chicken's eggs be luxury.
Can there be enough for everybody? Yes, there can. There was. In a time of complete isolation from other
countries in Europe. My generation consists of practical vegetarians.
Meat is one thing we practically didn't/couldn't have. The other thing is technology/science/education.

So, moderate vegetarianism?

And to the people who say "you don't need it", one answer that comes to mind is:
What about taste? If it's moral, it tastes fine and isn't unhealthy at all in small amounts.
In my simple opinion, it seems like the difference between someone smoking a cigarette once a month, and being a chain smoker.

Thank you for the attention.

First of all, welcome to the forum! I'm glad you found us! I'd be happy to answer your questions.

Is it o.k. to milk your goat?

Yes and no. If you milk your goat with care and it doesn't mind, I see no problem with this. This is just an example of symbiosis. However, when you begin to exploit the goat and abuse it, it becomes parasitism, which is not an acceptable practice.

Can this just be that? An extra to our lives? Is this a naive idea?

Assuming your family treats these animals like they would their children and the animals don't mind, you are doing nothing wrong. As stated previously, this is just an example of symbiosis. It may not be great for your health, but I doubt it will be detrimental.

So, moderate vegetarianism?

Assuming you don't purchase thugs like leather or fur, but still eat dairy produced without harm, abuse, or exploitation, you would be a vegan in my eyes. Veganism is not a diet, it is a lifestyle.

I think eggs or milk from you or your neighbor's pets that are loved and cared for is perfectly ethical if they would go to waste otherwise. Maybe it's less healthy, but that's more a personal cost benefit matter than an ethical one. I think egg farmer is going too far though. At that point they are becoming a unit of production.

Generally it takes more resource use and pollution to be on a vegetarian diet than a vegan diet; put another way with the same resources more people could be vegan than vegetarian. Animal farming in whatever capacity generally always uses more resources and causes more pollution than a solely plant based one. You can check it out in the documentary cowspiracy as well, here's one clip:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWJa--XL274

There's also one clip of duck use which i cant find that is a similar case to what you're talking about.

One solution if you have animals as pets like egg producing chickens, is to cook the eggs and feed it to the chickens, its a good nutrient source and so will help cut costs on chicken feed and you can also have a plant based diet. This avoids any profit related complications that might arise if you consume or sell the eggs.