Michael Klaper, M.D.
American author (Pregnancy, Children and the Vegan Diet and Vegan
Nutrition: Pure and Simple), physician, international lecturer
"Every glass of milk has in it the blood of the mother and the tears of the calf."
“The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle’s dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf… On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn—only ten yards away, in plain view of his mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth—minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days—were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain.”
“I know a lot of people are on a continuum, evolving their diet from red meat to chicken, to fish, and to dairy products – finally evolving to a vegan diet, completely free of animal products. If you are on this continuum – if you are moving towards a pure vegetarian diet, I urge you not to linger in ‘chicken-and-fish land’ too long. Besides having large amounts of concentrated protein, which can leach calcium from the bones, today’s fish is by far the most polluted of all the flesh foods. Fish flesh regularly contains toxic chemical pollutants known to cause cancer, kidney failure, nerve damage and birth defects. For this reason, I really feel that fish does not offer much at all in the way of a health food, and if it’s the last vestige of animal products remaining in your diet, have no compunction about letting it swim off your plate altogether.”
“People are the only animals that drink the milk of the mother of another
species. All other animals stop drinking milk altogether after weaning. It
is unnatural for a dog to nurse from a giraffe; a child drinking the milk of
a mother cow is just as strange. It is not surprising that problems ensue
from this inherently unnatural act.”
(from: Pregnancy, Children, and the Vegan Diet)
“Every nutrient we require – proteins, vitamins, minerals and others –
can be obtained (or synthesized by the human body) from plant-based foods.”
(from: Incredibly Delicious, by Gentle World, page 14)
“The meat-laden, Western style diet, rather than leading us to an age of prosperity and health, has contributed to an epidemic of degenerative diseases. The nations who consume the most meats suffer the highest rates of death from heart attacks, strokes, cancer and diabetes.”
"All red meat contains saturated fat. There is no such thing as truly lean meat. Trimming away the edge ring of fat around a steak really does not lower the fat content significantly. People who have red meat (trimmed or untrimmed) as a regular feature of their diets suffer in far greater numbers from heart attacks and strokes."
"My single greatest challenge is to remain centered and loving in an overwhelmingly nonvegan world. In today's world, cruelty and exploitation of other beings - human and non-human alike - are accepted, practiced, and profited from by most every institution of society - from commerce and science to education and entertainment. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Homo sapiens are either unaware of the cruelty or accept it as unavoidable and even normal."