http://www.noveal.org/forgetaboutit/index.htm
I'm by no means an animals rights activist. I'm not a vegetarian or a vegan. I enjoy meat, but this just grosses me out. I've had veal in the past - in the breaded cutlet form. I thought it was pretty good, pretty much like chicken, however I wasn't aware of how veal is raised for a good while. I haven't consumed it more than 2 or 3 times in my life, but I definitely plan on consciously avoiding it now that I've learned more.
There are a few reasons to not eat veal:
1. You think the way veal is raised is cruel.
2. It's unhealthy.
I'll start with the first point. Veal is baby cow. Female calves are raised to be milk cows so all veal is male. Male calves are taken from their mothers shortly after they are born and confined, most commonly in a veal crate. The crate is a small wooden enclosure which prevents the veal from moving or even lying down comfortably. The goal is to atrophy the veal's muscles so it remains tender. The veal is fed a high fat, low iron milk substitute so it becomes anemic - resulting in a pale flesh color.
Now let's think about it. You're taking a very young animal away from its mother, cooping it up so it can't move and then depriving it of its needed nutrients. So it's no surprise the veal develops a lot of health problems such as pneumonia or chronic diarrhea. To keep the veal from dying, it is injected with a lot of antibiotics.
Now the health part. As I just mentioned, veal is sickly by nature so the meat you consume is more likely to contain diseases than that of a healthy, traditionally raised beef cow. Secondly, veal is more likely to contain antibiotics and other drugs used to keep the veal alive. You definitely don't want to be consuming drugs in your meat.
So there you have it. Maybe you don't care if the veal is raised cruelly, but you should worry about eating potentially diseased meat laced with antibiotics.
Source: http://www.britishmeat.com/veal.html
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Genesis 1
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Hi! i accidentally stumbeled over your post and it made me want to ask: why stop with veal? do you think it is less cruel for the other animals that are "produced" just because we like the taste of them?
I do not in any way condemn your ideas here, on the contrary I think it's great to get informed on the subject. But I do see it as the first step among many more to be taken. Because there is death and cruelty and antibiotics and growth hormones in every single bite of meat...
Just to add a little extra to previous comments:
1. In dairy operations, it is actually both male and female calves removed from the mother within a day or so. Time is given so that the calf drinks colostrum, but then the mother is returned to the milking line.
2. If you think about it, the other species we eat (pigs, lambs, chickens) are all about the same age, if not younger, than veal calves. Calves are slaughtered at about 6 months of age, pigs 6-7 months, lambs 3-5 months, and chickens 6-7 weeks old. So I can understand if you are going to appeal to people's emotions and stress that it is a baby calf, but even beef is slaughtered as early as 9 months of age. However, I will agree with the previous commenter that animal welfare of food animals needs to be suitably enhanced.
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