Breast and Jerry's?

Hello everyone! This is the first blog post for Unwind! Magazine’s Health blog. I’m Sophie and I’m the Health section editor. I’m hoping that this blog will be entertaining and somewhat educational; I plan on writing about current health news, College Park health issues, or anything health-related I may happen upon that I find interesting.

One of these topics is the recent proposition Peta has made to Ben & Jerry’s to use human breast milk in place of cow’s milk in their ice cream. Peta’s reasoning, according to a recent article in the UK’s The Examiner is that cow’s milk has been linked to "juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer."

Really Peta? Doesn’t it seem like there might be a reason humans stop drinking their mother’s milk as toddlers? If adults consumed human breast milk on a regular basis they would get sick, because the nutrients in breast milk are meant for growing infants.

However, there are a few cancer patients in the U.S. who use breast milk as an immune-booster, according to BBC News. Cancer experts, of course, say that there is no evidence to say that breast milk helps fight off cancer, and that in fact drinking breast milk "might be risky for patients…because drugs and viruses can be transmitted through breast milk." Also, said patients do admit that breast milk has an unpleasant, "oily" after-taste.

In response to Peta, Dairy Council director said that "Dairy foods have been in the diet for thousands of years."

Clearly Peta’s warnings that cow’s milk puts our health in imminent danger should not be taken to heart. Besides, although we may feel comfortable eating weird Ben & Jerry’s flavors like Phish Food, I don’t know how comfortable we would be eating Rackberry or Coffee D-Cup Crunch. And on that note, good luck finding enough breast milk donations to keep the brothers in business.