Ben and Jerry’s Breast Milk Ice Cream?
Ice cream made from breast milk would benefit both cows and humans, according to a letter sent from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream:
If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.
Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America’s number one cause of death.
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Hans Locher, owner of Storchen restaurant in Switzerland, made a big stir after announcing that he will be including dishes containing at least 75% percent mother’s milk to his menu. This spurred PETA on with the controversial idea of breast milk ice cream. Update on the letter from PETA.
This intrigued me. As a vegan, I don’t use any cows milk or dairy products, but I wondered if there were some people out there that did use breast milk in recipes. Here’s what I found:
Breast Milk Recipes:
- Breast Milk Butter - Add several ounces of fresh breast milk to a clean jar with a lid and shake until you get butter.
- Boobsicles - Freeze the milk in popsicle molds.
- Mother’s Milk Smoothie - Add breast milk to fruit and blend.
- Breast Milk Soap
- Cheese - Follow your favorite cheese recipe, substituting breast milk for cow’s milk.
- Sweet Potato and Breast Milk - Bake a sweet potato and mash with milk.
- Sourdough Bread Starter - Use milk instead of water in your starter.
As a father of breastfed children, I believe that mother’s milk is best for kids, straight from the tap, as it were, and I’m not advocating for breast milk recipes.
By the way, Ben and Jerry’s answer was:
“We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child.”
So I guess we won’t be seeing the Mother’s Milk and Honey flavor after all…
Image: Ben and Jerry’s Flavor Generator
That’s hilarious. Great piece of stunt marketing I guess. I’m sure some smart-alec will come along and say that mother milks isn’t really vegan anyways as ‘human’s were used in the making of the product’! No?
I wonder what Ben and Jerry’s thinks about a cows milk.
They say that they “… believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child”
[“We applaud PETA’s novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother’s milk is best used for her child.”]
Isn’t it then the same they they should believe that… ‘a cow’s milk is best used for HER child’? (my emphasis)
Heck I breastfeed my son.
If B&G is looking for breast milk… I’m selling!
This idea is funny… but not so bad.
Under kosher rules, human breast milk has been categorized pareve, fyi.
So, I happened upon this while looking for things to do with my leftover frozen supply of breastmilk(for my 10 month old son who will no longer drink from a bottle and only from the “tap”). I think I will make him some ice cream! Maybe we can serve it with the cake at his 1st Birthday Party! j/k
I love ice cream, but have developed a systemic allergy to all products containing cow proteins.
If there were FDA approved (or known donor) ice cream made from human breast milk, I’d try it.
[...] cow milk but not human milk, when the latter is actually intended for us. As discussed on Eco Child’s Play, PETA wrote a letter to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream suggesting that they replace one with the [...]