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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Breast milk icecream?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

74 replies

MrsWembley · 24/02/2011 11:43

That Feltz woman has just announced a topic for her show this lunchtime - is she really correct when she mentioned Mumsnet and women contributing their breast milk to a company who then use it to make icecream???Shock IABU to think this is a bit Hmm? Really? Some people think this ok??

OP posts:
twilight3 · 24/02/2011 16:32

AFAIK you can only donate breastmilk for premmies if you've given birth less than 6 months ago. After that the milk chanes so no good for premmies

Snotgobbler · 24/02/2011 16:38

will it have little photos of the woman who produced it like our local milk?
I can't be bothered to read thread, is it pasturised and certified std/hep/hiv free etc?

stretch · 24/02/2011 23:00

AbiAbi Yep, that's all I did.

Did start out trying it with icecube tray, but they got messy really quickly and were difficult for them to hold. Just used the regular sized ones, but my friend had some mini milk style ones which worked better. Smile

GotArt · 24/02/2011 23:13

I can understand making your own at home for your LO's but for adults... not sure why that would even sell TBH.

Hmm... breast milk popsicles. Maybe DC2 will be able to enjoy them before the summer is over.

ARepleteHmmSkiNun · 24/02/2011 23:39

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

scottishmummy · 24/02/2011 23:41

what a ghastly thing to say

Ryoko · 24/02/2011 23:43

You know I bet Heston is kicking himself over this one.

All the people on the TV said it just tastes like ice cream so I think it's not 100%, it would taste very different to cow juice ice cream if it was.

scottishmummy · 24/02/2011 23:44

what lunchtime show does vanessa have?is she on tv

stretch · 24/02/2011 23:50

What did that deleted message say? pm if you like?

Ryoko · 24/02/2011 23:52

That woman is one of the many reasons why I will never buy a 3DTV.

scottishmummy · 24/02/2011 23:53

is she on tv?never see er im at work.is she on stv

Morloth · 25/02/2011 05:04

I wonder whether I can make it at home, do you think a normal ice cream recipe would work? i.e. eggs and vanilla, probably wouldn't need sugar? I would eat it. It is a PITA to express though so I probably won't bother.

I am with twilight, I don't get why people are grossed out by human milk but are OK with bovine breastmilk. It should be the other way around.

AbiAbi · 25/02/2011 05:08

Thanks stretch, I'll try that Smile

5DollarShake · 25/02/2011 05:56

What's human caviar got to do with anything?

We're mammals. We're designed to drink milk. From our own species!!

cloudydays · 25/02/2011 10:11

My point about human caviar was that for a lot of people, myself included, adult humans consuming the bodily products of other humans (as a treat, no less) would seem cannibalistic. I fully understand that from a vegan point of view it is equally disgusting to consume the bodily products of animals, but most of us do routinely eat the meat, milk, eggs, and sometimes blood of non-human animals. We do not eat one another's meat, eggs, or blood, and most would not, beyond infancy, consume each others' milk for what I imagine to be similar reasons.

Of course we're designed to drink human milk, when we're infants and babies. In the same way that we're nourished by our mothers' bodies before birth, we're nourished by our mothers' bodies for a period of time after birth. Then we grow up, and we no longer go around feeding off of each others' bodies.

Come to think of it, when we're very ill we sometimes benefit from each others' blood or organs through donation.

But for me, that is very different from the idea of consuming human bodily fluids as a treat, like ice cream. It would violate my sense of social boundaries and appropriateness in a big way.

Anyway, each to their own and all that, and if people want to make ice cream out of each others' breastmilk, I don't really care. I'm just trying to explain the reasons why some might feel repulsed by the idea. It's far too simplistic and unfair to assume that because someone gets queasy at the idea of commercially produced human breastmilk ice cream, s/he is "grossed out by human milk."

I am far from grossed out by babies and small children being breastfed. It's a beautiful, natural thing. Watching my baby consume my breastmilk (what little I could give her) was magical and I was only sorry that I couldn't produce more for her.

Watching an adult human tuck in to dessert made from another human's body, yes, that I would find hard to stomach.

twilight3 · 25/02/2011 14:50

cloudydays, I'm still going to argue that consuming animal (including humans) products is totally different to consuming them , i.e. their meat

The majority of people are grossed out by the idea of an adult consuming human milk only due to stereotypes and preconceptions about which animal's milk we should and shouldn't drink, which has nothing to do with reality.

Would you drink donkey's milk? Kangaroo's? Dog's or cat's? Why?
I was only pointing out that there's no real reason for us to find it gross other than that this is what this society teaches. If suddenly cats could produce the same amount of milk with cows and it was profitable to keep cats for that readon I'm sure the producers would be on the case instantly and merketing experts would have us convienced within a decade that it's very nourishing and healthy.

It's all just in our heads...

DerangedSibyl · 25/02/2011 14:53

I am socially conditioned into thinking donkeys milk and kangaroo milk would be fine (vegan animals) but not dogs or cats (carnivorous animals)

Do not ask me why. I don't know.

Susiewho · 25/02/2011 14:58

I'm with a few others here. At least breast milk is human and designed for us to consume.

No, I wouldn't eat breastmilk, but I CERTAINLY won't be consuming milk from another species. That really is sickening!

allsquareknickersnofurcoat · 25/02/2011 15:03

What about a vegan person then? Confused

How about fruit bat milk? :)

Chulita · 25/02/2011 15:09

I think bm tastes rank and can well understand why DD self-weaned at 11 months. The thought of making that into ice cream is just revolting. Odd, odd, odd. Fruit bat milk sounds delicious though, might be a little tricky to get any decent amount of though.

Topspin · 25/02/2011 15:15

I was chatting to my 16yo son about this and he was of the opinion that if people are happy to drink milk intended for calves, why not milk intended for baby humans. Didn't faze him at all... and I'm inclined to agree, although I'm not a big fan of dairy products from any species and certainly wouldn't pay those prices. But don't find it any more ewww than drinking milk from other animals.

Booandpops · 25/02/2011 15:53

Gross. Consuming bm out of childhood is just wrong. Ok if it's yr partner and your interesting in tasting for curiosity fine but to consume for the sake of it is more than gross. What's next placenta steaks?!

cloudydays · 25/02/2011 16:29

I get what you're saying, twilight , I really do. Yes, I would pause before drinking a cat's milk milkshake, for the very reasons you outline. Being confronted with cat's milk or kangaroo milk would force me to actually think about what I'm drinking, whereas drinking cow's milk is so normalised that I do it without thinking too much about it. That doesn't mean it's less 'ewww', just that I've been conditioned not to think of it in that way. I understand that fully.

That said, I still know that I would drink kangaroo(or whatever) milk long before I would ever contemplate drinking human breastmilk as a treat.

The reason has less to do with the substance of breast milk (on that point, I would have to concede that it must be more suitable for human consumption than the milk of another species), and more to do with my concept of personal boundaries and social appropriateness, as I said above.

Whether for biologically-, culturally-, or socially-driven reasons, and rightly or wrongly, when we consume the bodily products of animals, we are not in communion with them, we are using them as things for the production of meat/milk/eggs. That's why some people (understandably) have such ethical problems with eating meat and animal products.

But most humans relate to other humans in a much different way than we relate to cows or kangaroos. When we share something of our bodies with each other, it tends to be an intimate and emotionally loaded act.

A large part of what made breastfeeding so special for me (and a large part of my distress when I struggled with it) was the sense of intimacy it gave me with my daughter. my milk , from my body , nourishing my child. I felt a similar awe at the extent to which she and I were bound together when I felt her move inside me during pregnancy.

I do not think of having a glass of milk as an intimate act with the cow who produced it, because I am not a cow (am I walking into something here? Wink ). Eating ice cream made from the milk of another woman, though, would feel like far too intimate an act for me to be comfortable with it.

I accept that by the logic of my own argument, it would probably be a more ethical act to eat ice cream made from a woman who willingly shared her breatmilk, than it is to eat ice cream made from a cow who was used as a means to an end against her will. For that reason I envision myself giving up dairy, but it doesn't help with with the social boundaries problem.

cloudydays · 25/02/2011 16:32

can envision myself. I'm too fond of cheese to give it up just yet. Blush

strandedpolarbear · 25/02/2011 17:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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