….meat and milk. Lucy and Beattie are running in the paddock with access to a field shelter, fresh hay, clean stray and a plentiful supply of water.  The calves are able to suckle from their mothers on demand.  It is a beautiful sight and the calves even have each other to play with when their mothers want to sit quietly.  Perfect.  Now think about a typical dairy herd that produces milk for the dairy industry.  Calves are taken from their mothers within hours of birth and fed with bottles so that the cows lactate and produce milk for us, humans.  The male calves are often raised for veal as they are not needed for the herd and the conditions of their existence are cruel with restricted movement to keep the flesh (the muscles) soft and as pale as possible.  This produces a juicy steak for those of you who still eat meat at the cost of any freedom for the animal until it walks, finally, from the pen to the slaughterhouse.  Their short life is spent away from their mothers, unable to run in a field and indoors.  These thoughts were prompted by the best selling book  by Uval Noah Harari “Sapiens – a Brief History of Humankind” that I was reading before falling asleep last night.  As you may know, Jeremy and I have been vegetarians for over 40 years, brought up a son and daughter without meat or fish (they remain vegetarian and we call them vfb -vegetarian from birth) and have one fully vegetarian grandchild (with the hope that the other will become so when she has been fully indoctrinated!). Sadly we still eat cheese and butter but this may have to change.