One of the hardest decisions for me about becoming vegetarian was whether or not to consume dairy products. While I never really liked drinking milk, on any given day I could eat my weight in cheese. My reasons for ultimately choosing to avoid milk products were not only based on health (mainly, the reduction of calories and sodium in my diet), but also revolved around the reported incidences of animal cruelty on some dairy farms.

Mercy for Animals, a non-profit group that publicizes cruel practices in the dairy, meat and egg industry has recently released a video recorded in an undercover investigation at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio. The graphic video shows workers beating, punching, and stabbing cows and calves. Earlier this year, the group found cruel treatment to animals at Willet Dairy Farms in New York.

Obviously, this horrible cruelty and mistreatment of animals does not occur at every dairy farm in America. However, some of the difficult "living" arrangements of factory farms are very stressful to cows and other animals, causing illness and deformity in some cases. Stress and illness not only affect the animals, but also the milk that they produce.

A study of Holstein cows in a 2001 issue of Applied Animal Behavioral Science found that cows milked under stressful conditions increased levels of hormones in the cows and ultimately affected the amount of milk that the cows produced. A variety of things can cause stress, including unfamiliar handlers, unfamiliar environment, heat or dehydration, environmental pollutants and pesticides, and nutritional stress.

Heat stress, for example, causes an acid-base change in the blood of the cows, changing the critical pH level. Increased temperature also causes reduced feed intake. Just as in humans, if cows do not get proper nutrition, their milk quality suffers.

Cows that are stressed are often immunosuppressed, which leads to another concern at dairy farms — infection, particularly from contagious bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus agalactiae that cause mastitis. Cows with mastitis are more likely to be treated with antibiotics which can lead to drug residues in the milk supply. Agencies such as the Food Safety Inspection Service inspect dairy businesses for adherence to standards, including the detection of antibiotic residues in milk. During the week of January 14, 2010, the FSIS listed almost 900 dairy businesses with infractions.

So, you might ask, why don't I switch to organic milk? Choosing organic milk doesn't guarantee the appropriate treatment of a dairy cow. Organic means that a cow did not receive an artificial growth hormone to prompt milk production, did not eat feed that was grown with pesticides, and had "access to pasture." The term organic cannot ensure that the cow did not live under stressful conditions or did not have an infection that required the use of an antibiotic.

Choosing whether or not to eat dairy foods is a personal, individual choice. My choice, until I get a big bold label that a cow was cared for and treated respectfully, is to choose alternatives such as soy, rice, or almond milk.

This is a part of my ongoing series, 10 Minute Vegetarian. I'm busy, you're busy. We want to be healthy, but we don't have a lot of time. In the 10 minutes it takes you to read this article, you can learn something about the health benefits of the vegetarian diet and how to implement it in your own hectic schedule.

This post was included in the All Things Eco Blog Carnival #103.