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As a cheese-eating vegetarian, this is something I definitely think about. My real issue with cheese, though, is the treatment of dairy cows throughout their lives. I have a bigger problem with industrial dairy operations than with small farmers who leave their cows on pasture and slaughter bull calves/adult steer to sell as beef and veal after they've led happy, healthy lives outdoors.

Cows are intelligent, complicated animals, and at most dairies they are kept chained by the neck in a barn 365 days a year, miserable and covered in manure. If you are a vegetarian because of animal rights/ethical issues, you should be eating as much pastured, (100%) grass-fed cheese as possible, in my opinion.

I suppose I've somewhat dodged your question here, but I strongly agree that, unless you are vegetarian simply for health reasons or something, people who are trying to eat ethically need to consider all the implications of their food choices.

Of course, there is already a name for vegetarians who have decided not to eat cheese, milk, or eggs: they are called vegans.

At almost any point, however, there are ethical concerns regarding food choices. For example, should a vegan who is concerned about the environment eat factory-farmed vegetables? What about vegetables that use any fertilizer? Should a vegan eat food from an organic farm that also raises animals for eggs, milk, or slaughter?

I agree with a couple of the previous posters in that, it really depends on why the person decided to stop eating meat in the first place.

I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for almost 14 years. My decision was due to the fact that I didn't like most meats, coupled with all of the "it's healthier" messages I was reading in magazines. Obviously I would rather eat a cheese without animal rennet but I'm not going to be crazy about it. I just don't like eating the meat.

Formerly alive or not, if it tastes good I'll eat it.

Let's say I amputated a cow's tail and didn't kill it. I then make a beautiful braised oxtail stew from it. Is it vegetarian?

I'm sorry, but anyone who has spent a decent amount of time around cows will tell you that they aren't the smartest animals on the planet by far, nor are they particularly complicated.

mh330, no, most dairy animals need to give birth every year to continue to produce milk. They need that hormone kick, or they'll stop. Other mammals don't nurse their young as long as humans, so their bodies aren't set up to just keep lactating.

Chickens pose a similar dilemma. Cockerels (young male chickens) that are egg-laying breeds are a by-product of the egg industry.

That 'in a sense', Jamie, is the kind of sense that would also stop people from eating ethically, because at a sufficiently wide angle, nothing is unconnected to slaughter. All distinctions collapse. Vegetarians can't escape the cycle of slaughter. Vegans can't easily escape the massacres wreaked by farm equipment upon small creatures in fields. If you quibble about whether vegetarianism should extend to not eating things in a production model that allows other people to eat meat, then you might as well just order up the grain-fed, cow-crate steaks and be done with it.

(I'm reminded of the Jain monks whose vow not to take life leads to them starving themselves.)

I haven't consciously, deliberately eaten meat in a decade. I've no doubt unconsciously consumed animal products, especially in recent years, since the US is far behind Europe in taking animal fat and other stuff out of products you'd otherwise expect to be fine. And purity is a lofty goal: should I refuse the slice of birthday cake at my young relatives' parties because the eggs used to make it are from battery hens?

You just do the best you can in your own choices, and you trust that small-scale farmers handle the meat side of their agriculture with the conscientiousness of their other work. Because livestock farming is the exploitation (in a neutral sense) of animals' life and death, and that's just how it has been since the ancient hunter-gatherers had a few ideas to make their lives easier.

Karen emailed me a response to this, which she would've posted herself if she weren't so busy packing for tomorrow's farmers market! From Karen:

You brought up the issue of the economic need to use all the animals (and their by-products) produced on a sustainable farm. The issue is also moral: how can a dairy producer ensure that the animals are treated well after they leave their operation (assuming they are treated well when there) if they are sent to auction or anywhere else? That was our issue when selling off young lambs. We felt that the last three days of their lives (on a trailer, no food or water, handled heaven knows how) was inhumane after being raised with care and respect for 4 months. That's how we started raising ALL of our lambs on pasture ourselves. Yes they go to slaughter, but we bring them there, and can ensure that up to the very last minutes of their lives they see a familiar face and are not mishandled or abused. Same thing goes for our culled milking ewes.

What bothers me the most is that somehow rennet from the stomachs of ALREADY SLAUGHTERED calves is considered the engine that drives the train for many so-called vegetarian cheese eaters. It is such a small issue! What about how the animals were treated when alive (e.g., I know some of the producers for Cabot -- vegetarian rennet not withstanding -- and they are confining their cows and running factory-like farms) should be the key issue. ALL of those animals will eventually be used for meat (as long as healthy), so THAT they are slaughtered is a non-issue. And, that slaughtered animals' stomachs get used for making rennet to me is a non-issue.

As a person who spends her life with livestock, cares for them 24/7, relies on them to keep our farm viable, and loves them for how they enrich my life and community, the "wide angle" is the ONLY one that I look through. That people less familiar with farming have a narrower lens is not an excuse for bad decision-making -- so I feel my responsibility is to the sustainable farming model to which I adhere, and that includes educating (and sometimes scaring away) customers whose narrower lens allows them to feel comfortable eating Cabot cheddar -- with vegetarian rennet.

Warmest regards,
Karen