PETA Urges Ben & Jerry's To Use Human Milk

POSTED: 2:21 pm EDT September 23, 2008
UPDATED: 10:28 pm EDT September 23, 2008


VERMONT -- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

"PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statement says.

PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.


"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

In a statement Ben and Jerry's said, "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."

Read PETA's letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

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 to 17 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


http://www.wnbc.com/news/17539627/detail.html

PETA is in trouble. Research has indicated that plants may feel pain.

What will they eat now?

That is just crazy!!

Sooooooo...are they gonna strap us all to those machines? Dang...who's gonna do the dishes....lol

That can't be real?!

can't you just see a bunch of women hooked up those to machines getting "milked" everyday so do we keep them in a barn too???

well, er, uh 2 scoops of "titiboobie" in a waffle cone, please

oh yeah, its real......

ill have some BOOBerry delite please


or or or....Thanks for the MAMories....

i gotta get back to work...u all have a great day!

Animals are not OURS to eat

Animals are not OURS to wear

Animals are not OURS to experiment on

Animals are not OURS to use for entertainment

Animals are not OURS to abuse in any way

..while at face value the letter may seem over the top and bordering on the rediculous..if one really believes the above mandates of PETA..then the letter makes sense, the dairy industry is a just that, cows..living, breathing creatures are a commodity treated no differently than just another piece of machinery...

Ben and Jerrys claim to be animal friendly amongst other things, if they are, really, then they will take the letter seriously...wonder how many will rush to buy MOMS VANILLA ICECREAM..??

Hey I want that job..the benefits are aboobsoluty the best offered in today's job market!!!!

guaranteed the women would be treated better than the cows...but not by much...

Actually we are here to eat animals, it is called the Food chain and we happen to be on Top of it. But Animals Do eat people on Occaision. But I agree with you on the Entertainment, Experiment and Abuse, they are not here for that.

Honestly, how many of you all have tasted breast milk? I don't mean as an infant. I mean when you were old enough to evaluate the taste?

If you haven't well, I can tell you that is does not taste like cows milk. So, from a taste point of view ice cream made from human milk would taste very different.

Sorry to say I disagree with you on animal experimentation. As someone whose life has been saved (and who has numerous friends whose lives have been saved) due to animal testing, I will be forever grateful to them.

It would taste nasty... No way I could ever drink that...

I agree, I can't imagine eating ice cream made out of that. And quite frankly, if there's so much excess breast milk in the world, let's send it to wherever infants are dying from starvation, I would think that's a much better use for it.