PETA Asks Ben & Jerry's To Use Breast Milk

  • Thread starter Evo
  • Start date
In summary, PETA is asking Ben & Jerry's to use human breast milk in their ice cream instead of cow's milk. There is no way they could produce more than a pint per day, and breast pump and all would be required to make it. It would likely be expensive for Ben & Jerry's, and they should donate profits to breast cancer research. I doubt that women would volunteer for the job, and it would only be popular if it became something like exotic cheeses or wines.
  • #1
Evo
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Another fabulous idea from PETA.

PETA Asks Ben & Jerry's To Use Breast Milk

(AP) Ice cream made from breast milk? That's what the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to consider making.

The Virginia-based nonprofit group sent a letter to company co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on Tuesday asking them to use human breast milk instead of cow's milk in their products.

Continued...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/25/ap/strange/main4478506.shtml
 
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  • #2
Evo said:
Another fabulous idea from PETA.

Will Ben and Jerry be offering plant tours in that case?
 
  • #3
LowlyPion said:
Will Ben and Jerry be offering plant tours in that case?
You're bad.

I'm wondering who's going to come to the aid of all those poor women on those milking carousels.
 
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  • #4
Ah PETA making it in the news. From a business perspective it would be way to costly.
 
  • #5
Evo said:
Another fabulous idea from PETA.



Continued...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/25/ap/strange/main4478506.shtml

They already do use breastmilk... oh, human breastmilk. Well that is just nuts: Human breastmilk is too thin.
 
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  • #6
And the award for the most stupid people in the world goes tooooooooooooo
 
  • #7
I think Ben and Jerry's response was very diplomatic. Most folk would have just laughed in their face. (I'd be in the group of most folk)
 
  • #8
I'd like a pint of boobberry please and another of fudge nipple.
 
  • #9
vanilla heath bra crunch?
watermelons?
 
  • #10
Chocolate chest cookie dough?

hey, they can't all be gems.
 
  • #11
This reminds me of the part in Borat (I don't care what your beliefs are, you have to see this movie...) where Sacha Baron is sharing some cheese with a Congressman or Senator and then he casually mentions that its made from his sister's milk...Ha ha
 
  • #12
Evo said:
You're bad.

I'm wondering who's going to come to the aid of all those poor women on those milking carousels.

I'm not supporting this one way or the other; however, if they do go through with it, they'd better have some damn good health insurance for the facility staff.

The very least they could do is donate profit to breast cancer research.

But I'm not really surprised though that PETA approached Ben & Jerry's about this. GOD bless well-meaning hippie humanitarians and all, but this is still basically like one hippie talking to a different hippie (only one hippie prefers the taste of breast milk, and the other ice cream).

"Why not the best of both worlds then?!" Is pretty much how I envision the conversation must have gone.

It makes you wonder several things at once, of course; but one thing in particular: why is it taboo to drink the milk from another human; but still isn't to drink the milk from the mother of an animal of a different species?

As much as I like milk (I drink several glasses a day in fact, of the non-fat variety), it really is kind of weird either way. And, I suppose, it would be just as awkward an argument to say: "Well, she isn't my mother...I don't even know the women."

I don't know the cow either.
 
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  • #13
My ex is a fat cow. She could probably use the work.
 
  • #14
Evo said:
You're bad.

I'm wondering who's going to come to the aid of all those poor women on those milking carousels.

I suppose I could lend a hand.
 
  • #15
tribdog said:
My ex is a fat cow. She could probably use the work.

I doubt very much that ladies would ever volunteer for this job. Just based upon what they actually do to cows, it sounds pretty painful.
 
  • #16
Peta is being ironic here. No one there really expects any product to be produced with breast milk; they are trying to equate the exploitation of one animal as being akin to exploitation of any other animal (specifically humans).

There is no way anyone could possibly produce more than a pint or two per day. We just had three kids. Breast pump and all. Half an hour on the "machine," and you get a little baggie. Maybe a cup of the stuff. My wife made a comment on her blog a while back: never before had she been so aware of being a mammal.

Let's go back to ignoring Peta. Wacky people.
 
  • #17
Chi Meson said:
Peta is being ironic here. No one there really expects any product to be produced with breast milk; they are trying to equate the exploitation of one animal as being akin to exploitation of any other animal (specifically humans).

There is no way anyone could possibly produce more than a pint or two per day. We just had three kids. Breast pump and all. Half an hour on the "machine," and you get a little baggie. Maybe a cup of the stuff. My wife made a comment on her blog a while back: never before had she been so aware of being a mammal.

Let's go back to ignoring Peta. Wacky people.

You know what though? I'll bet if they actually did this, it would become something like exotic cheeses or wines that only 1% of the world population could afford.

"Gourmet, all-natural, ORGANIC, mother's milk ice cream," is what they'd call it. Mark my words.
 
  • #18
FrancisZ said:
"Gourmet, all-natural, ORGANIC, mother's milk ice cream," is what they'd call it. Mark my words.

wonder what flavors they'd have? ignore my posts will you grumble grumble
 
  • #19
FrancisZ said:
"Gourmet, all-natural, ORGANIC, mother's milk ice cream," is what they'd call it. Mark my words.

You mean that the Mothers would be organically raised?
 
  • #20
Ivan Seeking said:
They already do use breastmilk... oh, human breastmilk. Well that is just nuts: Human breastmilk is too thin.
Yep, the fat is distributed entirely differently in human milk than cow's milk, so it just wouldn't work for ice cream.

tribdog said:
I'd like a pint of boobberry please and another of fudge nipple.

:smile:

FrancisZ said:
I'm not supporting this one way or the other; however, if they do go through with it, they'd better have some damn good health insurance for the facility staff.
...
It makes you wonder several things at once, of course; but one thing in particular: why is it taboo to drink the milk from another human; but still isn't to drink the milk from the mother of an animal of a different species?
Two words: Disease transmission. It's much easier to pass a disease from one human to another than from a cow to a human.

Chi Meson said:
Peta is being ironic here. No one there really expects any product to be produced with breast milk; they are trying to equate the exploitation of one animal as being akin to exploitation of any other animal (specifically humans).

There is no way anyone could possibly produce more than a pint or two per day. We just had three kids. Breast pump and all. Half an hour on the "machine," and you get a little baggie. Maybe a cup of the stuff. My wife made a comment on her blog a while back: never before had she been so aware of being a mammal.

Let's go back to ignoring Peta. Wacky people.

Y'know, the exploitation angle never occurred to me. Cows don't seem very happy to me if they aren't milked on time. And I didn't really have pictures in my head of women being lined up for milking machines. Actually, about all that jumped to mind was, "PETA People are crazy as usual." I mean, Ben & Jerry's? If you're going to target a company, don't they just know it's going to backfire when you pick one of the most socially conscious, "eco-friendly" companies out there?

I think I'm going to start sending PETA information about how many grasshoppers and other insects are killed when soybeans and wheat are harvested. Can anyone else think of ways that animals are killed to produce vegetables? I'm just curious how many things we can make the PETA people stop eating before they either die of starvation or come to their senses.
 
  • #21
Moonbear said:
I think I'm going to start sending PETA information about how many grasshoppers and other insects are killed when soybeans and wheat are harvested. Can anyone else think of ways that animals are killed to produce vegetables? I'm just curious how many things we can make the PETA people stop eating before they either die of starvation or come to their senses.

Well if PETA wanted everyone in the world to suddenly become vegan, I would imagine the production of vegetables would have to increase drastically. To do this you need more farmland, to produce said farmland you will have to cut down more trees...ect and destroy the habitat of many animals. Just a thought. Either way farm animals have become so domesticated they would die if suddenly left to their own devices.
 
  • #22
How about peta send a letter to the, oh I don't know, dairy farms?
 
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  • #23
Moonbear said:
I think I'm going to start sending PETA information about how many grasshoppers and other insects are killed when soybeans and wheat are harvested. Can anyone else think of ways that animals are killed to produce vegetables? I'm just curious how many things we can make the PETA people stop eating before they either die of starvation or come to their senses.

Wheat field harvests are million mouse holocausts.
 
  • #24
Chi Meson said:
There is no way anyone could possibly produce more than a pint or two per day. We just had three kids. Breast pump and all. Half an hour on the "machine," and you get a little baggie. Maybe a cup of the stuff.

...milking farms populated by thousands of ice cream slaves. We could probably put a few in Idaho.
 
  • #25
Ivan have you ever been through those feedlots in ID? God that is the most disgusting smell ever...
 
  • #26
binzing said:
Ivan have you ever been through those feedlots in ID? God that is the most disgusting smell ever...

Are you saying just because the feed lots stink you think Ivan has been through them? I'm almost positive Ivan isn't quite that smelly, cows can smell pretty bad all by themselves.
 
  • #27
Here's the letter:

PETA Media Center said:
September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. 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.

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. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.

The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11993

Many people have missed the sarcasm, though. Their point is that cow's milk is for baby cows. Human milk is for baby humans.

PETA Admin said:
We agree that using human breast milk to make ice cream is absurd. What is more absurd, however, is using a different species' breast milk for nourishment.
http://www.peta.org/forums/topic.asp?whichpage=0.933333333333333&TOPIC_ID=8296&#66213
 
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  • #28
OAQfirst said:
Many people have missed the sarcasm, though. Their point is that cow's milk is for baby cows. Human milk is for baby humans.

Since I'm not planning to feed Ben & Jerry's ice cream to babies, that makes even less sense. They have a serious lack of understanding of cause and effect too. I suspect if you fed ice cream to your infant, regardless of whether you were whipping up a homemade breast-milk ice cream or picking up a pint of Ben & Jerry's, that baby might be at fairly high risk of childhood obesity and obesity-related problems. So, we're back to PETA people are nuts. :biggrin:
 
  • #29
binzing said:
God that is the most disgusting smell ever...
Cow poop smells life. It's a good smell. Animal corpse stinks so much worse.
 
  • #30
Moonbear said:
Since I'm not planning to feed Ben & Jerry's ice cream to babies, that makes even less sense. They have a serious lack of understanding of cause and effect too. I suspect if you fed ice cream to your infant, regardless of whether you were whipping up a homemade breast-milk ice cream or picking up a pint of Ben & Jerry's, that baby might be at fairly high risk of childhood obesity and obesity-related problems. So, we're back to PETA people are nuts. :biggrin:

They certainly exaggerate. But the feeding ice cream to babies was beside the point. They could have sent this letter to Oak Farms, suggesting they replace their cow's milk with human. I suspect it was the Ben & Jerry's label popularity that they wanted to focus on for publicity.

EDIT: Erm, I don't mean come off like I'm a PETA supporter. I eat meat like a starving lion.
 
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  • #31
OAQfirst said:
They certainly exaggerate. But the feeding ice cream to babies was beside the point. They could have sent this letter to Oak Farms, suggesting they replace their cow's milk with human. I suspect it was the Ben & Jerry's label popularity that they wanted to focus on for publicity.

but talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Ben and Jerry's has to be the most PETAlike company in the world.
 
  • #32
binzing said:
Ivan have you ever been through those feedlots in ID? God that is the most disgusting smell ever...
I dunno, I was a Boy Scout and Boy Scout camp outhouses were pretty nasty. But I kept using them.
 
  • #33
tribdog said:
but talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Ben and Jerry's has to be the most PETAlike company in the world.
That's surely the reason PETA chose them. Their odds with Ben and Jerry's are the best with anyone.

I think the saddest thing about being nuts is not knowing that you're nuts. Wouldn't you agree, tribdog...?
 
  • #34
OAQfirst said:
Many people have missed the sarcasm, though. Their point is that cow's milk is for baby cows.

Are they suggesting then that Ben & Jerry should donate some of their ice cream to calves?
 
  • #35
russ_watters said:
That's surely the reason PETA chose them. Their odds with Ben and Jerry's are the best with anyone.

I think the saddest thing about being nuts is not knowing that you're nuts. Wouldn't you agree, tribdog...?

HaHa. right again russ! as usual! ha ha. sigh. boy you mentors sure keep your eyes on the ball! How I envy you.
 

FAQ: PETA Asks Ben & Jerry's To Use Breast Milk

1. What is PETA's reasoning for asking Ben & Jerry's to use breast milk?

PETA believes that using breast milk in their ice cream would be a more ethical and sustainable alternative to using cow's milk, which they argue is obtained through cruel and inhumane practices in the dairy industry.

2. Is breast milk safe to consume in food products?

According to the FDA, breast milk is safe for consumption if it comes from a healthy donor and is properly screened and pasteurized. However, there are concerns about potential transmission of diseases through breast milk, so strict regulations and safety measures would need to be in place for its use in food products.

3. Has Ben & Jerry's responded to PETA's request?

As of now, Ben & Jerry's has not responded directly to PETA's request. However, they have stated that they are always open to new ideas and innovations, and are constantly exploring new ingredients and methods for their products.

4. How would using breast milk affect the taste and texture of Ben & Jerry's ice cream?

It is difficult to predict exactly how using breast milk would affect the taste and texture of ice cream, as it would depend on the specific recipe and processing methods used. However, breast milk is known to have a higher fat and sugar content than cow's milk, which could potentially result in a creamier and sweeter ice cream.

5. Are there any ethical concerns with using breast milk in food products?

There are certainly ethical considerations to take into account when using breast milk in food products. Some may argue that it is exploitative to use a bodily fluid that is typically reserved for infants for commercial purposes. Additionally, there are concerns about the potential for breast milk to be sourced from underpaid or vulnerable individuals, leading to further exploitation. These issues would need to be carefully addressed and regulated if breast milk were to be used in food products.

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