Taken from www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11993
PETA’s letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield follows.
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.
Sincerely,
Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
I found out about this from another mom blogger. I think this is wrong on so many levels. This is what I would picture. A big room painted with pastel baby like colors. Baby pictures all over the walls from precious moments to bloopers; rows of rockers with ottomans that have DVD players on the back, like on air planes playing slides of baby photos; surround sound speakers on the walls playing lullaby’s with the hidden subliminal babies crying; each chair with an attached hospital grade breast pump. Wow, it’s a dairy farm for women! Now, what happened to human rights? Did we just become animals?
Let’s start with the beginning and work our way down this letter.
First, the claim cow’s milk is bad for us. Well, maybe for my family who happens to be lactose intolerant or the other families that have allergies to it then, yes it is. But for all the other families out there I think its fine. I think the food pyramid does include milk and has for many years. I mean have you ever known it not too? If it’s so bad the program for Women Infants and Children (WIC) wouldn’t offer it, a program that’s all about nutrition and healthy eating. I believe milk also holds a big amount of calcium which our bodies need to promote healthy bones. PETA is being extreme in their facts that they are offering. Anything that you put in your body has the risk to be an attributing factor to any health problems. That’s where we go back to the food pyramid and remind people it’s all about taking things in moderation. Maybe they should write letters asking all the fat people in the world to stop downing gallons of ice cream thus lowering the amount stores need to sell and reducing the amount produced. I bet it could save a cow or two.
Second, they go on about how cows only produce milk when pregnant or nursing and are forced to be impregnated every nine months in filthy conditions. HELLO! I am pretty sure my breasts didn’t produce any milk the first 26 years of my life. It wasn’t until after I had my son that I had breast milk. Then, when I stopped nursing it went away and didn’t come back until I had my second son. And yes, I was pregnant for 9 months too, both times. Then, to make sure I have enough milk at times I even take the Fenugreek pills that help promote healthy lactation. I also avoid certain spices (that I love to cook with) because they help lower you lactation. So, what does that make me? Then as far as the conditions of their living, did they forget that they were talking about cows. I am sure there are places that could be cleaner. But come on people, they live outside and spend their days shitting on themselves, walking in fields of cow patties. Eating away at grass that some other cow peed on two hours ago. The only cows that I have ever seen look pretty are show cows that are at a show. I bet back on the farm they don’t look that clean.
Third, they talk about the veal industry. How bad they are treated until they are turned into food. Well, I am sorry but they are turned into food that yes, my family eats. Get over it! You should remember that we need to eat. There isn’t enough food for farmers to grow to help make electricity or fuel out of. So, if we stopped eating cows they would need more room to roam and grow and thus giving us less land to farm for food. It may suck, but people need to eat to survive. We can’t live off breast milk all our lives.
Fourth, they talk about how breast is best and that we need to give cows and their babies a break. What? I want to know if they were smoking pot when they came up with this idea. Give cows utters and their babies a break? Well, I have a 5 month old that only sleeps for 4 hours once a day and other than that he has a breast in his mouth every two hours. When do I get my break? I mean you want me to nurse him because after all breast is best. Should I just start upping my herbal remedies to promote more healthy lactation so that on my short breaks of not nursing I can pump? Is PETA going to buy me and other moms the new Medela Free Style (the only true hands free) breast pump? I mean because you want me to produce more milk so all the ice cream eating people out there can give the cows a break. I am not sitting down for 15-30 minutes during my 2 hour break to pump. I have another child to take care of, a house to keep up with and all the other chores that come with being a responsible mother/adult. If I had to do that then my family would have to live in unhealthy filthy conditions.
Last of all did they forget that it’s a bodily fluid? That everything I eat, drink and put in my mouth comes out in my milk? So, then you get a women who eats a ton of garlic and it’s now in the milk. Am I going to buy some Chunky Monkey ice cream that has a hint of garlic to it? Then you think about all the other things we put in our mouths. What if some woman just gave her husband a blow job until he came and then pumped? Do you really want to think that came out in the milk that they are using to make your Rocky Road? What about the whole AIDS/HIV and other diseases thing? Isn’t it possible to get that passed along? Cats and dogs can pass worms in their milk. What if the women had sore, cracked, and chapped nipples from all the pumping and then maybe some blood or infection oozed out in the milk? Do you really want to take that chance? Isn’t it possible to be exposed to HIV/AIDS and test negative for years before it shows up? Are you going to lock women away like Nuns and control what they do for years to insure that they don’t have anything that could be passed on? Then, pump them full of the herbal remedies and medications just to help them produce breast milk? Can you tell me what the difference would be to the cows? Who after all were put on this earth to help provide food for us? We have just traded places with them. I think PETA should give it up and put the energy and money that they are planning on for this into something they have a better chance with. I can think of a ton of things. Let’s see there is dog fighting, puppy mills, stray facility/animal shelters, the ASPCA, and so many other things they could do to be better the lives of animals in need, instead of making moms feel they need to be cows.
