vegan cheese: The yummy world of dairy::Pizzaaaaa,icecream,cheese,mashed potatoes,dip to the chips,ranch dressing to the salad,--all tasty foods I cant break away from so easily! Okay well Im going to soon make a vegan pizza and see how it tastes;;I have yet to find a vegan cheese that tastes just as good as cheddar,Im going to look for vegan ranch dressing,Havent found a vegan dip unless I can find a vegan sour cream..its just that its hard to go vegan when constantly surrounded by dairy or unable to drive to the store..its expensive too! If you can really convince me to go vegan I will try even harder to say no to certain foods! Please give me all the facts and everything you can to get me to go vegan. Im trying as it is but I will try harder. Ive done some research and agree with the fact that milk is meant for the baby cow not us. But with the negative:Going vegan isnt stopping the world from hurting these poor animals.Itll make me feel better but yeah. Please help!?|||In our minds, we often think of dairy cows like this.....http://www.magnafat.com/Two%20cows.jpg But the sad reality is more like this... http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl… Dairy cows are treat like milk machines. There's a lot of suffering involved. Cows are very intelligent animals and they don't deserve this cruelty. No animal deserves this. By going vegan, you can use dairy alternatives that are cruelty free. ^_^|||Health! My sister went hippy...sorry vegan about 8 years or so ago. She has hade no health problems since she hasent been to the doctor in several years. This dosent count the doctors that helped her through her pregnancy last year. So if you want to avoid the doctor go hippy. If you want a wide varity of food stay the meaty course.|||These sites have delicious foods. They have mostly vegan foods too. Much better than meat! http://silksoymilk.com -chocolate and chai flavors are good http://amys.com http://gardenburger.com http://yvesveggie.com http://sunshineburger.com http://rightfoods.com http://veganstore.com -they have chocolate! If you have a dog here is a site to get vegan dog food: http://www.v-dogfood.com/ Here are some good recipes: Stir fry- You need cut up tofu, soy sauce, olive oil, steamed veggies, and cooked rice Get a frying pan and coat it with olive oil. The put the tofu in the pan and brown each side of it. Next, add the veggies. Add a little soy sauce and put in the rice. Mix everything up and then let it sit on the stove, occasionally stirring it to make sure it doesn't burn. After about a minute and a half of that put it in a bowl and enjoy! Hummus- chick peas, lemon juice, paprika, black pepper, and any other spices/seasonings you like Puree the chick peas. Then add a little lemon juice, paprika, pepper, and other spices. Then stir. Serve with a pita, with cucumbers, or on a veggie wrap. Here are some snack and dinner suggestions: Snacks: Celery with peanut butter Apples with peanut butter Pita with hummus Raisins Amy's Apple Toaster Pops All natural popsicles Natural Valley bars Fruit Leather Silk Chocolate Soy Milk Naked Juice Apple chips Dinners: Tofu Stir Fry Amy's Pizzas Amy's entrees Sandwiches made with Yves meatless deli slices Tofu Scramble Gardenburgers Natural Oven's bagels Dr. McDougall's Soups and Noodle Soups Soy Cheese Quesedillas Veggie Wraps Whole foods is a great store for vegetarians/vegans, so I recommend grocery shopping there. You also can get a lot of the things I listed above there.|||I understand! i'm also trying to go vegan but i really like cheese... it's hard to. My advice to you (for what it's worth) is to get your parents ( i assume you live with them cuz you said you were unable to drive to the store) support. If you eat a lot of dairy now, make sure you get enough protein and calcium without it. you should probably see a dietician for tips.|||The Real Life of Dairy Cows The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the United States will spend most of their lives either in a large shed or on a feces-caked mud lot where disease is rampant. A dairy cow will be repeatedly impregnated, her babies will be taken from her, and humans will drink the milk intended for her babies. When her exhausted body can no longer give milk, she will be sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers. Stolen Babies, Stolen Milk Cows produce milk for the same reason that humans do—to feed their babies. To keep giving milk, cows must be forcibly impregnated through artificial insemination every year. The cows’ babies are generally taken away within a day of being born—male calves are destined for veal crates, while females are sentenced to the same fate as their mothers. Mother cows on dairy farms can often be seen searching and calling for their babies after they have been taken away. Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ Temple said, and, indeed, this was what had happened. We saw one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing. ‘That’s not a happy cow,’ Temple said. ‘That’s one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She’ll forget for a while, then start again. It’s like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don’t like to allow them thoughts or feelings.’” Read more about cow intelligence and emotion. The mother cow will be hooked up several times a day to machines that take the milk intended for her calf. Through genetic manipulation, powerful hormones, and intensive milking, she will produce about three times as much milk as she would naturally. She may be pumped full of bovine growth hormone (BGH), which contributes to painful inflammation of the udder, known as “mastitis.” (BGH is used throughout the U.S. but has been banned in Europe and Canada because of concerns for human health and animal welfare.) According to the industry’s own figures, between 30 and 50 percent of dairy cows suffer from mastitis, which is an extremely painful condition. A cow’s natural lifespan is 25 years, but a cow used by the dairy industry is killed after only four or five years. By the time they are killed, an industry study reports that nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the filth, intensive confinement, and the strain of constantly being pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat, their bodies too “spent” to be used for anything else. Veal Calves Male calves—“byproducts” of the dairy industry—are generally taken away from their mothers when they are less than 1 day old. The calves are then placed in dark, tiny crates, where they are kept almost completely immobilized so that their flesh stays tender. The calves are fed a liquid diet that is low in iron and has little nutritive value in order to make their flesh white. This heinous treatment makes the calves ill, and they frequently suffer from anemia, diarrhea and pneumonia. Frightened, sick, and alone, these calves are killed after only a few months of life. “Veal” is the flesh of a tortured, sick baby cow and a byproduct of the milk industry. All adult and baby cows, whether raised for their flesh or their milk, are eventually shipped to a slaughterhouse and killed. Also have a look at this website http://www.milksucks.co.uk The above information helped my decision to go vegan and never go back!|||Drinking milk does contribute to unnecessary death and suffering. Just like humans cows only lactate a few months after birth. For cows to produce a constant supply of milk they must be continually artificially inseminated and give birth. Their babies are taken away from them soon after they are born. If they are male they will be trapped in veal crates, fed an anemic diet and confined in darkness and eventually killed. If they are female they will go on to also be dairy cows (or more correctly milk machines). This separation causes distress to both mother and calf. Drinking milk supports the veal industry. Cows are also pumped with hormones and antibiotics to increase milk production. This often leads to mastitis, a painful infection of the udders. Constant milk production leaches calcium from cow's bones leaving them eventually lame or crippled. Dairy is for baby cows not for human consumption. Humans are the only animals that consume dairy after infancy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-EyIaXA… http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=rel… These are the horrible conditions battery hens live in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_R5sGHI… Even as free range hens I garantee you most chickens do not live out their live and die of old age. They generally end up on some ones dinner plate or in dog food. No one can *make* you become vegan. It has to be your choice and you must have it within you to do it. Good luck =)