Cooking With (Human) Breast Milk

[insomniac]

Which reminds me, who has volunteered to forage?

or be the FDA tester person...

[Magictofu]

Hi,

My Father, a surgeon, told my high school friends that the most important advantage of Mother's breast milk was the "cute containers".

Which reminds me, who has volunteered to forage?

Tim

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After I shared my puzzlement about the direction this thread was heading with my girlfriend, she insisted that I mentioned that my "volunteering" greatly helped alleviate the pain associated with the engorgement she had to deal with on a few occasions.

[Terrasanct]

This probably creeps a lot of people out because of the incest taboo. Drinking milk from breasts is okay when you're an infant, but it doesn't seem that okay when you think of it as an adult. Who wants to think of their own mother nursing them? Food and sex are already mixed up enough in our society. Yeah...a bit too strange for me, not to mention the logistical difficulties involved in "milking" that many women. Yikes.

[SuzySushi]

So.... PETA would rather exploit women than cows, and take milk away from nursing infants? (If women were paid enough for their breast milk, more than a few might sell their milk and feed their own babies formula.)

Besides which, women don't produce enough milk to make manufacturing ice cream feasible on a large-scale basis. It takes about 1-1/2 gallons of milk to make a gallon of ice cream. At $22/liter for breast milk, a gallon of ice cream would cost about $66 just for the milk component!

P.S. For Ben & Jerry's response, see this article.

[jackal10]

http://www.stargatelibraries.com/page.php?pgid=100befade1049

http://www.landmilkhoney.com/recipanr.htm

http://www.recipezaar.com/53903

http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids/r...lids-links.html

[jackal10]

CHeese including human milk

http://membres.lycos.fr/petitsingly/

[chefsteban]

I took this news to my fellow chefs in our kitchen to get their take on moms milk ice cream.....well we went thru the usual disgusting jokes on gather the product. Then we got to the part of what name Ben and Jerry would use to market this confection......again we went thru the male humor names, but we all decided that a cool name for Mothers milk ice cream would be

" Thanks For The MOO-maries."

Edited September 27, 2008 by chefsteban (log)

[Peter the eater]

. . . . we all decided that a cool name for Mothers milk ice cream would be " Thanks For The MOO-maries."

Whatever it's called it's headed straight to the famous Ben & Jerry's Flavor Graveyard in Waterbury, Vermont for burial alongside "Bovinity Divinity", "Miz Jelena's Sweet Potato Pie" and "Peanut Butter & Jelly".

[MomOfLittleFoodies]

Still waiting for some comments on how it tasted.

Between the baby breath and constant smell of damp breast milk (not to mention the, um, baby waste product from ingesting breast milk), I can say I had zero urge to get my share of the milk.

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It's been a couple of years since my youngest weaned, but even now, the smell of breast milk is associated with the byproducts of said breast milk.

That said, I did have to taste breastmilk a few times to make sure that breastmilk I has stored in the fridge or freezer hadn't turned.

Pumping breastmilk isn't easy... a company would need a whole city's worth of lactating mothers to produce enough milk for commercial purposes.

[Magictofu]

This article on this exact same topic was published today in the Guardian/Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wor....peta.ben.jerry

[Poffertjes]

Still waiting for some comments on how it tasted.

Between the baby breath and constant smell of damp breast milk (not to mention the, um, baby waste product from ingesting breast milk), I can say I had zero urge to get my share of the milk.

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My friend's husband said it was very very sweet. (And that was way too much information for me at the time.)

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This spring, after my son was born, I experienced the joy of Asparagus breast milk, going in, and coming out.

[freshherbs]

i think the analogy of human milk: cow milk is as revolting as human flesh: cow flesh. i would eat the milk or flesh of a cow because they are animals. i wouldn't eat the milk or flesh of a human because they are, well, humans. i know, i know...humans are animals too. but one of the animals i procreate with and the other i use as a foodsource. end of story for me!

edited to note that i am completely pro-breast feeding for age-appropriate humans (ie babies)

Edited September 30, 2008 by freshherbs (log)

[Magictofu]

Freshherbs, I think one has to draw a distinction between flesh and milk. Eating flesh involves killing or at least injuring an animal while drinking milk does not. There are ethical issues involved in exploiting animals for their milk but in my view they are of a different nature. If we were, as a society, to exploit women for their milk I would be the first to object to such practice but drinking breastmilk does not have to involve women exploitation.

If we were to push the ethical dilemma a bit further, one could even argue that wasting breastmilk is wrong considering its nutritional potential (many women produce much more milk than their baby can drink)... I am not the kind of person who would defend this argument however.

[finnfann]

This spring, after my son was born, I experienced the joy of Asparagus breast milk, going in, and coming out.

LOL! I had the same experience this spring!

I think I'll sign up to contribute my milk to this. I'm weaning my son right now. For the past many months, I've been living without dairy, because he's lactose intolerant, chocolate, because he's, well, clearly he's not really my son if he can't tolerate chocolate and sparkling beverages which upset his tummy too. I've also had to limit my caffeine intake. I can't stand the fact that once I can finally start enjoying these things again, I have to start watching what I'm eating because I'm no longer eating for two. Maybe this is the answer I've been looking for.

[Reignking]

i think the analogy of human milk: cow milk is as revolting as human flesh: cow flesh.  i would eat the milk or flesh of a cow because they are animals.  i wouldn't eat the milk or flesh of a human because they are, well, humans.  i know, i know...humans are animals too.  but one of the animals i procreate with and the other i use as a foodsource.  end of story for me!

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That was my thought, too -- this has a very cannibalistic feel to me.