By-products that are used for food

1680: 

Where is your cut-off point? Unless you feel a strong enough empathic connection with the dairy cow or the egg-laying hen, it’s likely you’ll make a decision to keep using animal by-products. If you feel strongly about liberating animals in general, all forms of animal abuse must be tackled.

Because people have most difficulty in giving up dairy products, they don’t look at the ethics of milk production. It’s because of that reluctance that Animal Rights can’t get a foothold. Unless a by-product boycott is established, no amount 'no-meat-eating' will free farm animals.

In the end it all comes down to denouncing all animal use, not just some of it.

Milk and eggs are a big part of daily life, along with cheese, butter, cream, yoghurt, cake, and a vast array of confectionary. Animal by-products are regarded as benign, as if anything so useful or so delicious could ever be tainted, and yet ethically, and also nutritionally, these products are dangerous. The animals who produce them suffer as do the humans who ingest them. Certainly, behind the production of both milk and eggs is an ugly system of animal abuse.

Dairy products particularly are hard to ignore because they’ve insinuated themselves into so many foods and confections. For example, if you read the ingredients label on almost any commercial cake or biscuit, you’ll find that ‘milk products’ (and/or ‘egg products’) have been used. I once counted over two hundred supermarket food items which contained milk or egg. I suspect that most people would not be prepared to deny themselves that many food items for ethical reasons.

Today we may be well informed, but temptation is great. "A silent battle rages for self-control in a world of endless temptation" (Jessica Irvine). Few people boycott dairy products or egg ingredients because of the way cows and hens are treated. Most times we purposely remain uninformed; we choose to remain ignorant to avoid the inconvenience of ruling out certain favourite food items.