Saturday, February 26, 2011

Would you say "yuck" to breast milk ice cream?

The BBC reports that a Covent Garden restaurant is going to be selling ice cream made from human milk, called - wait for it - Baby Gaga, at £14 a scoop. The milk, donated by London mother Victoria Hiley, for which she is paid £15 for every 10 ounces, is pasteurised before being mixed with Madagascar vanilla and lemon zest before churning and freezing.

The BBC's video shows people saying that the idea is "yucky" but who then like the taste. It all reminds me a bit of the episode of Friends where Ross gets himself all in a panic about tasting his ex-wife Carol's milk. Do people really think that the milk they buy in the shops is some sort of magic powder mixed with water and put in a plastic bottle? It was once in a cow's stomach, for goodness sake.

I have to say that any women who donate their milk to this project are in a much more privileged position than dairy cows whose welfare was called into question in a report a couple of years ago. I would have a much clearer conscience about consuming it than I do when I have cows' milk or other dairy products.

Mrs Hiley says she wants adults to realise how good breast milk tastes so that they might want to feed it to their own babies. An imaginative method of breastfeeding promotion, if ever there was one. I like the fact that later on she says that she gives breastfeeding support to mothers. That to me is the key to increasing breastfeeding rates - giving mothers the information and support they need to overcome any problems they encounter. 

2 comments:

Ros said...

I think we've become so detached with nature than everything natural seems "yucky". Hopefully it will make people think a bit differently about breasts and breastfeeding.

Richard Gadsden said...

It's also the only vegan ice cream in the world.

I suspect that might be a selling point...

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