New threat to dairy farmers – ice cream with mother's milk
Animal rights group urges use of human breast milk
By Rachel Shields
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's is known for its eccentric flavours – phish food, cookie dough and cherry garcia – but its marketing department would be hard pushed to find any takers for a stomach-churning proposition to make ice cream with human breast milk.
The suggestion comes from an animal rights group which is urging the firm to use milk from nursing mothers instead of cows.
While the idea is enough to provoke shudders of revulsion from your average ice cream lover, dairy farmers reacted angrily to the stunt yesterday, claiming that the group is undermining the dairy industry.
But the animal rights group Peta claims that breast milk would be "better for both consumers and cows", pointing out the nutritional benefits of breast milk and highlighting the animal welfare concerns over dairy farming.
In a letter to Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, it cites the example of chef Hans Locher, who recently announced that he will be serving soups and sauces made from 75 per cent breast milk in his Swiss restaurant. Mr Locher posted adverts in local villages appealing for donors, offering a rate of £3 per 14 ounces (398ml) for their milk.
"Using cows' milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customers' health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer," wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of Peta.
"Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months," wrote Ms Reiman.
While co-founders Mr Cohen and Mr Greenfield are famously environmentally and ethically aware – they established a "Climate Change College" which encourages grass-roots action on climate change, and go by the slogan "Milking happy Cows, Not the Planet" – they baulked at the suggestion. "We applaud [the group's] novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child," said a Ben & Jerry's spokesperson.
And then there is, as Mr Locher found, the problem of supply. As 50 per cent of each 500ml tub of ice cream is made from milk and cream, finding enough human milk to sustain production of Ben & Jerry's would be a challenge.
The suggestion that cows' milk has a detrimental effect on health provoked anger this weekend among dairy farmers, who have been hit by falling prices and the increasing popularity of non-dairy alternatives such as soy milk.
"Dairy foods have been in the diet for thousands of years," said Dr Judith Bryans, director of the Dairy Council. "The reality of chronic diseases is that they are an interaction between genes, the environment and the diet, and these negative stories about dairy are a misrepresentation of science."
(credit: The Independent)
