When Did This Site Turn into The Bizarre Food News Network?

From WNBC.com:

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."

Thanks for saying "no, thanks," Ben and Jerry. 

Tonight I'll raise a pint of ONE Cheesecake Brownie in your honor.

Comments

[Lis]

OMG! Disgusting!

[Antof9]

That is just all kinds of wrong.

Are you sure it wasn't published on April 1?

[cindy]

I really hope they were just being outrageous on purpose to get attention. Because otherwise...what the crap.

[ROBIN]

why can't i page back after commenting without leaving the SAME comment 3 times? sigh. sorry.

[ROBIN]

eeeeww.

for god's sake. just. eeeeuuwww.

some images don't belong in my head. this is one of them. thanks.

[ROBIN]

eeeeww.

for god's sake. just. eeeeuuwww.

some images don't belong in my head. this is one of them. thanks.

[ROBIN]

eeeeww.

for god's sake. just. eeeeuuwww.

some images don't belong in my head. this is one of them. thanks.

[Lisa Ann]

I just threw up a little in my mouth.
OMG!! The thought of eating ice cream with milk that could have come from my sister, or girl friends, or mother-in-law's boobs makes me never want to touch ice cream again. THANK YOU B&J for taking the high road and for keeping those cows in business.

[Sarbear063]

I have a friend who would actually agree with this. She comes from a family where she REMEMBERS being breast fed. Ok. So I know that it's great to breast feed your kids, but when I can remember fondling my mother's tit? NAH! Shivers just went up my spine with the grossness of it. On to the ice cream. Won't it mess with the flavor?? Have you ever smelled breast milk? ick. It does not smell yummy. And it stains (which is why I threw away most of the clothes I got from the above said mother..Did you not SEE the stains??). Don't mess with the flavor of my ice cream, or the smell. And I definitely could do without it staining my cashmere. Thanks, but no thanks.

[Valeri in Fort Worth]

Would you like some Triple DDD-lite??

[zendoggie]

Clearly PETA was simply making an extreme statement to open the eyes of the average consumer - the milk of cows and other animals is meant to nourish its babies. The milk of humans is meant to nourish human babies. To be an educated consumer is to stand in front of the neat and tidy meat counter at the local market - and not see shiny packages of future hamburgers and spaghetti sauce. But to see the reality... those shiny packages contain chunks of carcasses. Animals slaughtered at their moment of greatest fear, and you are eating that fear. I am not advocating a vegetarian society, only that we should all know where our dinner is truly coming from. Meet your meat.

[Jules]

Seriously?!

To my friends @ PETA I'm all for the ethical treament of animals but come on....
Fur = BAD I totally agree,
Not eating anything with a face = that's cool too...but using breast milk for ice cream?? Ummm NO!!!

Can you imagine a bunch of new mothers on an assembly line of breast pumps.....
**pause to giggle @ the mental picture**
Come on now....

I applaude you Ben and Jerry's!!!!!!! Chunky Monkey (made with good ol' cow's milk) here I come!!!!!!!

And you know that person who made that statement about mother's milk being best for the mother's child wanted to add a big YOU PSYCHOTIC HIPPIES to the end of that statement!!!!!!!!!!

(but if that did go through then couldn't NOW come out and say that's against women's rights??!?!?!?! OOOOOOOOOOOOO battle between NOW & PETA!!!!)

[Colleen]

I actually went to the site to protest this. Don't actually expect they will be surprised.
Seems to me that they do this kind of stuff for publicity. On their thread actual PETA members disagree and suggest soy.

I breastfed three children past the age of one. Breast mil is meant for babies and toddlers. Can you picture women selling their breast milk for drug money? I can, sounds yummy, huh? Not to mention their poor welfare babies starving at home!

PETA Is so militant on so many levels but this is just misogynistic (sp?). To suggest it is okay for women to endure endless pumping as opposed to cows is insane. ICK!

Colleen

[DJ]

This is a bold statement for me to say, but if any company does this I'M NEVER EATING ICE CREAM AGAIN.
I'll take Bessy the Bovine's Vanilla but never Claudia the Human's Chocolate, okay?

[Andrea]

Well if B&J switched to human breast milk I would wager that I would loose 10lbs by next month. HA! I'm not sure where ethical treatment of animals started coming before the ethical treatment of WOMEN. HELLO!

[Mirinda]

So wrong on so many levels. At least we know what's going into the cows...imagine having your Ben & Jerry's made from a crack-addict's breast milk! Yum.

[Lizzo]

PETA-Words almost escape me and they did until I picked my chin up off the floor. Here is what I am left with...

I didn't even breast feed my own kids so WHY would I want to eat ice cream made with someone else's breast milk. This is nasty and disgusting on so many levels.

Ok, I am done now...

[BitterAmanda]

I'm loving all the logical, practical comments going on. I wish I could contribute something meaningful like that.

But all I've got are the gagging noises that I haven't contained yet.

[Susan]

It's PETA. Enough said.

[rebecca]

So let me get this straight...It is unfair to the cows to use the milk they produced which is intended for baby cows for other purposes, but it is OK to use milk a woman produced, which is intended for her human baby for other purposes?

I mean really, NO ONE at PETA sees a flaw in that logic?

I am glad they continue to prove my theory that PETA people are stupid. And if they really cared about animals, they would just stop talking. Because frankly, the more I hear from them, the more I want to eat meat out of spite.

[tia]

dude. that is so many different kinds of wrong. seriously.

[Leslie]

Ewwww. Human milk...disgusting. Humans can't even produce that much milk, PETA people are showing their ignorance.

If we didn't milk cows, they'd end up with too much calcium and die, which happens a lot if the calf dies. Calves are treated very well, and unlike what PETA says, the calves MUST remain with their mothers for at least 24 hours. PETA is so blissfully ignorant, they will find any little "injustice" and exploit it, without doing any research to see what's actually going on.

Ranting...over.

[Courtney]

I'm sure many of you know that a woman's diet affects her breastmilk. On that note..could you imagine getting a pint of half baked made with a batch of breastmilk from a woman who really loved garlic? Gross.

Also, from their letter to Ben & Jerry,
"After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their [cows] exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup."

...I didn't realize the uses of beef were so limited.

[Smartass Milf]

I'm sorry but when I read that this morning I believe that I dry heaved. Why would I want some other womans breast milk in my Super Fudge Chunk? I understand that PETA is for animals, but how is milking hurting them? It's not!

[Lesli]

I am huge into animal rights and love my pets and am a vegetarian, but ewwww...breast milk ice cream is too disgusting for words.

[The Modern Gal]

Ummm, don't they know that a dairy cow NEEDS to be milked daily or else it will be in extreme pain?

[Jenn F]

Great, so we can start a new and horrible industry for third world mothers to sell their breast milk - that'll really make the world a better place.

I'm going to out to buy some J&G on principle.

[Muffy Willowbrook]

Is PETA high, for Chrissake?!

[Anna]

I think PETA needs to do more research about breast milk. 1) a mother's body creates breast milk specifically for the child you carried, so it has basically no benefit for anyone but that one child. 2) breast milk should be used at the time of day it is created, so if a baby drinks morning breast milk created in the morning, it contains stuff to help the baby wake up and stay awake and night time milk is thicker and is "designed" to help the baby sleep. I mean, HELLO! I have no desire to drink/eat someone else's hormones.

[SnarkyMommy]

As a nursing mom, even I find this gross.

[Kelly]

That is just wrong on so many levels.

[Lori]

Holy Crap Batman!!!

WTF and ewww gross!

I will gladly raise my pint of Chubby Hubby in honor of their good choices to stick with cow's milk!

[the governor of jennsylvania]

For all their talk about empathy, PETA still supports breed specific legislation in regard to banning pit bulls. (Yes, I've read their policy on bullies; no need for links.)

I will NEVER cut them a break.

[CowMilkRocks]

I work for the Dairy Council and a coworker sent this out early this morning. As my colleagues exchanged e-mails, someone spending more time than me pointed out that yes, cows only produce milk after they've given birth, but so do women. To sustain high milk production, humans would have to have babies as frequently as cows.

People complain about milk prices now... imagine what women would have to be paid to commercially produce milk.

[Lisa]

Ummmm - YUCK!

It surprises me that PETA would suggest human breast milk for all the reasons stated above. Don't they usually go for the soy option???

But above all - there are animals that are bred for the exclusive feeding of the human animal. We are omnivores. If some folks choose to become vegetarian or vegan - more power to you.

Just keep your hands off my Cherry Garcia!!!

[Sara]

Say what? There goes any tiny shred of credibility that PETA had left. Too bad Pamela Anderson keeps the cash flowing there, otherwise I'd say they are in trouble.

[Anne]

I don't have any problem with drinking cows' milk, but I think it's a little funny that so many people say "Eating another person's secretions? EWW!" - but then have no trouble drinking milk that came from the udders of cows standing in their own manure, or eating eggs that came out of a chicken's butt. Or, for that matter, performing oral sex on their partner! What is that but somebody else's secretions?

I imagine PETA was just making a joke with their suggestion to B&J - I doubt we're going to have to rely on the wives of members of Phish to make our Phish Food.

[Mrs.D]

HAHAAHAHAH! Ben & Jerry's Slippery Nipple.

Seriously, this is super gross.

[leecassie]

Hey Jen- sorry this comment will be completely random and have nothing to do with this particular post- Love your books- I'm on "Bright Lights, Big Ass" now (AMAZING!) I was just looking on Amazon for some good book buys and came across some Listmania lists ("Books that women want to read" and "Favorite ChickLit" both caught my eye). I was wondering if you have made a list of recommended books or if you could make one?
Thanks a ton!! Keep up the AMAZING work! (I have already ordered SAPF and its on its way!)

[Katie]

What will those asshats think of next? My God, how can people think up this shit! And I agree with Emily above, breastmilk separates within a few hours of being expressed, and shelf-life is very short, as I learned when I nursed my two boys. I think they will always stir up shit just to piss us normal people off!

I'll have a pint of Chunky Monkey for B&J blowing them off so nicely!

[Rachel]

Would it mean they start coming out with flavors like Dirty Pillows Tracks and hey they already have Bailey's Mudslide flavor...it would become butterscotch Bailey's Slippery Nipple?

Ack, I'm glad they vetoed that idea. Considering that human eating habits aren't regulated like that of cows, I highly doubt the FDA would approve that idea!

[Nancy P]

Oh my gosh. ick!

[kcbutsch]

OK, dairy farming is NOT cruel to the cows. I grew up on a diary farm. Trust me, cows are dumb delicious animals and they have it pretty darn good. They are fed regular meals every day, have a warm place to sleep at night and healthcare. What should we do PETA, release them into the wild and have them starve and die of disease? They make make my skin crawl.

[dawn]

um...aren't humans techincally animals? crazy, crazy people.

[Sils]

Okay, I don't eat meat but ice cream is my FAVORITE food. wtf?

ew.

The mind reels. I can't even speak to this in a coherent fashion.

[Joni Bonnell]

That is just plain WRONG!!! What will they come up with next?

[DawnMarie]

I propose we start PETH- People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans. Because that's just Nay-Stee! Way to go Ben & Jerry, you two fall into a very small catagory of smart thinking men!

[Cori from KC]

Yeah, and did you hear that the chef was forced to stop using breastmilk in his recipes as he was not testing these women for any diseases? HIV can be transmitted via breastmilk.

[Jill]

I know it's been said already . . .
EEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWW!

[Stephanie]

What's with the misplaced anger toward PETA? They're simply using humor to point out how ridiculous it is for adults to be consuming breast milk. B & J's response was precisely PETA's point: "[A] mother's milk is best used for her child." A mother cow's milk is best used for her calf. Unfortunately, her calf is in a veal crate. A calf is taken away from his Mama right after birth so that we can eat her breast milk.

I suspect you're only angry at PETA because you're afraid to learn about the cruel consequences of your dietary choices.
http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_cows.asp