Have you heard of breast milk cheese? I just stumbled across it in the news today.
This is my short version of the story: a New York chef created some beautiful gourmet cheeses using his wife’s milk, and blogged about it. Readers, other bloggers, and the press, noticed. And they reacted.
Many of the comments were enthusiastically positive. The cheeses look delicious, and many requested to sample it. They were served in his home, not in a restaurant.
But there were some very disgusted, even angry responses. Which makes me wonder, what’s the big deal? Readers compare eating cheese made from breast milk to eating blood and one comment describes the idea unknowingly consuming cheese made from breastmilk as “a part of another human being in my body, it would haunt me forever”.
Yikes. So why is human milk so revolting? Most of us drink and eat milk from cows without giving it a second thought. So let’s give it a second thought.
Cow milk comes from the udders of a hairy 4-legged animal. Most likely one that gets dirty, has been injected with hormones, and fed an unnatural diet of dirt-cheap grain and antibiotics. Cows make milk designed for a baby cow’s body. Human babies can’t drink cow-baby milk. No other animal, besides humans, drinks the milk of another species. (Side note- I have nothing against cows or consuming dairy products. My family drinks cows milk daily. Just stating some facts for comparison.)
Human milk comes from a human mother, who bathes and keeps her breasts covered when not feeding or expressing milk. Human milk is digested easily by humans. Human milk is the cleanest, safest food we can feed our babies- the most sensitive and vulnerable members of our species.
So which is grosser? Cow milk cheese, or human milk cheese? What if the human milk were pasteurized? Would you eat it?
Media links:
ABC News clip: Breast milk cheese banned from restaurant
Today Show clip: Staffer tricked into sampling of breast milk cheese
Related Post:
I agree breast milk is not gross. But, I would feel like I am competing with my grandson for a scarce resource!
When I first heard about this I initially thought it was gross. But really, it’s just unfamiliar and not gross at all. The thought of real cheese is gross but it is a familiar food so no one is squeamish about it. I’d try breast milk cheese. Yes, I would!
I find cheese made from any animal to be revolting. Breast milk in other parts of the world is given to the elderly. Breast milk isn’t just for babies.