News Blog Beyond Veganuary: reasons to consider going veggie to vegan 14-01-25 The first month of each year brings a global movement rooted in inspiring people to make changes for animals, their health and the planet – Veganuary! When you take a trip to the supermarket in January, you’ll see shelves brimming with more plant-based options and dedicated aisles to vegan foods. Since 2014, UK-based organisation Veganuary aims to encourage people to try a plant-based diet. Last year, Plant Based News shared that Veganuary reported an “estimated 25 million people adopt a plant-based diet for the month of January”. Veganism in the UK Beyond Veganuary, the number of people going vegan as a lifestyle is growing – by 1.1 million from 2023-24! Currently, the website Finder estimated that there were 2.5 million vegans in the UK in 2024 and that 6.4% of UK adults are intending to opt for a vegan diet in 2025. According to Cowspiracy, a vegan saves approximately 1 animal per day. Whilst each person’s journey will look different, with some people going vegan from the starting point eating meat or from vegetarian or pescatarian – it’s important to remember there is no ‘right’ way and there’s a lot of helpful support available to guide you. Today, we’ll be talking about considering making the cross-over from vegetarian to vegan with the move away from dairy or eggs, as someone who has done exactly that – and is glad I did! You can ditch dairy for the cow, and her calves Did you know that we are the only species of mammal (out of an estimated 5,000!) that drink the milk of other mammals? Anyway, factoid aside, as someone who was vegetarian for most of my life, for many years I never considered how, of course, like a human, a dairy cow must have been pregnant to produce milk. This led me to the question; ‘but what happens to the calf her milk is intended for?’ Unfortunately, I learned the answer is a not pleasant one. Again, similar to a human pregnancy, the female cow will be pregnant for nine months but upon giving birth, her calf will be taken away. Dairy cows are known to grieve their removed babies with loud, guttural bellows. The fate of her calves The sex of the calf will decide their fate; a female calf will be destined to the same life as her mother, while a male calf may be sold for veal, to a beef farm or even killed. Although the industry is reportedly trying to move away from the practice of shooting a day-old calf, with the UK’s Red Tractor scheme implementing a standard in 2022 which prohibits so-called “routine euthanasia”, it is not law. Sadly, it was reported by The Guardian in 2020 that roughly 60,000 male calves are shot at birth on farms each year in the UK. And, accordingly to Surge Activism in 2023, “Rural Payments Agency figures show that a staggering 65,000 calves under a month old were killed in UK slaughterhouses last year”. The shortened life of a dairy cow For the female cow herself, despite having a natural lifespan of around 20 years, after being impregnated through the process of artificial insemination once annually or between 2 and 6 pregnancies, a dairy cow rarely experiences life past 6 years of age. This is just one of the welfare issues associated with the dairy industry and why many people, like myself, have taken the step from vegetarian to vegan. The dairy digest I’ll conclude this section with another fact; cows are naturally caring, protective mothers with strong maternal behaviours, who form strong familial bonds. And the calves themselves would naturally make friends for life! Fortunately, with so many plant-based, non-dairy milk options readily available now, we can leave cows and their calves be. Consume calcium to cut cancer risk, without the cruelty You may have seen the headlines over the recent week regarding a study on bowel cancer, heralding a daily glass of dairy milk as being beneficial to our health in the style of ‘an apple a day’. Many major media outlets opted for headlines which put the spotlight on consuming dairy milk to help reduce the risk of the stomach cancer. A deeper dive into the study However, the large-scale UK study actually suggests it’s calcium that lowers your risk of bowel cancer. The study notes that dairy and non-dairy milk have the same effect in doing so, and that other foods such as leafy greens, fruit, pulses, nuts, wholegrains and bread (all staples in a vegan’s kitchen!) also played a role in lowering ones’ risk of bowel cancer. Further, the study, which looked at 17 dietary factors in over half a million older women over a 16-year period, also listed other animal products - red and processed meat such as ham - as among the foods that are linked to an increased risk of bowel cancer. Additionally, dairy can be difficult for many people’s stomachs to digest as over 70 per cent of the world’s population are lactose intolerant, which can cause multiple trips to the bathroom and painful stomach cramps. So, the articles could have highlighted how you can enjoy a variety of plant-based foods and non-dairy milk to increase your calcium intake and reduce the risk of bowel cancer. There are eggs-ellent alternatives to eggs Unfortunately, whether it’s a free-range or caged egg farming system, egg-laying hens can endure welfare problems. According to our friends Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), in modern-day farming, hens are now selectively bred to lay an astronomical 300 eggs in a year, whereas they would naturally produce just a dozen. As you can imagine this takes a toll on their bodies, and when they are no longer able to produce eggs, they will be slaughtered. Thankfully, with more egg alternatives or replacers available – with popular supermarket Aldi launching their vegan ‘liquid egg’ in 2025, it’s easier than before to eggs-clude eggs when considering the welfare of hens. Confined to a space of an A4 piece of paper While the conventional battery cage system was banned in the UK in 2012, around 2 million hens in Scotland are kept in enriched cages for their entire lives. These cages confine each hen to an area little more than the size of an A4 piece of paper. Hens kept in these cages cannot run, fly or even experience fresh air and sunlight. Further, hens naturally wish to exhibit comfort behaviours such as flapping their wings, and they are strongly motivated to explore, forage and peck. Sadly, within the confines of these cages, such actions are either not possible, or severely restricted. A few problems with free-range In free-range systems, hens are kept in barns or aviaries and the regulations for their conditions may vary. As noted by the Vegan Society, EU Legislation states that as many nine birds can occupy one square metre of floor space. Regardless of free range or factory farmed, male chicks are not of any use to the production of eggs or meat, they are destined to be killed shortly after hatching. The preferred method of this in the UK is to be gassed to death. Read more on our campaign for egg-laying hens It’s not a short-term diet, it’s a lifestyle! Whilst food is a hugely important and enjoyable part of life, veganism is not merely a diet, but rather a way of being which encroaches many elements of life. Whether it’s food, fashion, household products, cosmetics – choosing to buy products which are not sourced from an animals’ body or tested on animals, can be part of a vegan lifestyle. Compassionate Living Here at OneKind, we have compiled a plethora of resources, recipes and blogs on our Compassionate Living section of our website. If you have considered going vegan this Veganuary or beyond, please let us know what has helped you and why you decided to do so. For me, it was for animals, and I’ve never looked back! Let us know what helped you go vegan and why you decided to do so Manage Cookie Preferences