Breast Milk Ice Cream

[Cadpat]

... anyone seen this? I wouldn't mind trying it but at £14, no bloody way :)

Yes I heard the man on Radio 2 yesterday. Which one of you twits volunteered for him then? Come on, fess up you loons.

* gags *

Doesn't breast milk contain DNA which can be transferred to someone who consumes it? This was certainly the case back during slavery when Black slaves were forced to wet-nurse their slave master's children. Years later, when some of them had their own children (with Caucasian partners obviously), the children had distinct Negroid features or in some cases looked mixed race.

Maybe you'd need to drink copious amounts for this to happen, but the thought of taking in someone's DNA in whatever amount is something I could never do .

Are you serious, LadyFanny?

If so, that is one of the most hilariously ignorant things I have ever read. No, breastmilk doesn't 'transfer' DNA. Where on earth did you hear that?

Wow.

If breastmilk could transfer DNA we'd have a cure for all genetic disease I'd imagine.

I rather suspect that mixed race features in slave owner children was down to white slave owners having sex with black slaves, possibly behind their partner's back, probably not always consensually, then trying to pass the resultant children off with claptrap about breastmilk.

My head tells me that eating icecream made with someone's breastmilk is no different to eating icecream made with cow's milk, but there is a large part of me (the part that is petrified of spiders even though I know they can't hurt me) that still thinks "ick".

Tortoiseonthehalfshell

What is breast milk composed of? please take this opportunity to edify me

Tigerfeet,

Thank you for taking time to point out the obvious re: slave owners raping their slaves. It was never consensual btw; this would have defeated the purpose of rape

Drinking cow milk is extremely unnatural but that's another topic for another day.

Still @ "If breastmilk could transfer DNA we'd have a cure for all genetic disease I'd imagine"

Sometimes (not often admittedly) it was consensual LF

Why the ? If negroid features can be transmitted then why not a fix for something like CF? They've been looking for a practical transmission vector for that for years.

FWIW I have studied the biochemistry of breastmilk. At no point was DNA mentioned.

Breast milk, which is 90% water, consists of: nutrient proteins, non-protein nitrogen compounds, lipids, oligosaccharides, vitamins, minerals, hormones, enzymes, growth factors and protective agents. It has 10% solids for energy and growth.

Deoxyribonucleic acid (/diˌɒksiˌraɪbɵ.njuːˌkleɪ.ɨk ˈæsɪd/ ( listen)), or DNA, is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms (with the exception of RNA viruses).

In molecular biology transformation is the genetic alteration of a cell resulting from the direct uptake, incorporation and expression of exogenous genetic material (exogenous DNA) from its surrounding and taken up through the cell membrane(s). Transformation occurs most commonly in bacteria.

Human papillomavirus-16 (HPV-16) DNA can be detected in human breast milk. That is, the bacteria's DNA can affect breastmilk.

Seriously, where on earth did you read that crap about slavery and DNA in breastmilk?

Thank you Tortoiseonthehalfshell. What are the building blocks of
Deoxyribonucleic acid?

Tigerfeet,

We will just have to agree to disagree but I maintain that it was never consensual.

I have studied the biochemistry of breastmilk as well, or else I couldn't possibly make such a (given the reactions, outlandish claim). Maybe this unknown fact is the reason why it has never been given due consideration for that purpose.

If it was a cause of rape then we would have to assume that the mixed race features were present in the babaies of black slave women. I thought LFoBS was talking about negroid features in apparently white babies born to white mothers?

Of course it is possible that white women had sex with their black male slaves or employees, but that throws a bit of a spanner in the works with the rape argument - unless we are saying that the slaves raped their female employers on a fairly regular basis (if it was a prevalent enough phenomenon) or that the white women were raping the black men.

I'm not saying there is truth or otherwise in LFoBS's statement - only that subsequent explanations of rape don't quite add up either.

I knew this would kick off, I just had no idea it would be in such a surreal way. I'm picking up some popcorn on the way back from the school run.

(fascinated to get to the bottom of it all now)

LadyFanny,

Does that mean most of us are cow-ish? or goat-ish? and them Mongolians are yak-ish?

Moooooo mooooo mooooooo!?!?!

Ok, back from school run, popcorn in hand, chair pulled up, lights dimmed.

I've been thinking about this in the car and have realised I wasn't thinking it through properly at 07.51am this morning. (what can you expect at that time?) I wasn't allowing for enough generations to pass for the 'rape' argument to make sense.

So: If a black woman slave or employee gave birth to a mixed race child (as a result of sex with her Master/employer, consensual or otherwise) and then that child (presuming it was a girl) did the same, and so on and so on, until eventually the black DNA was sufficiently dilute that the child could 'pass' as white and live and marry as a white person, then their children could be born looking mixed race, (out of the blue) or white but with black features. And the person who passed those genes on would probably have had no idea that they were partly (albeit a tiny amount) black.

And I suppose I can see that in certain societies, even up until relatively recently, a white person having a baby who appears to be partly black would rather be fobbed off with the wet-nurse argument
then admit that they are, in fact, a tiny bit black.

I'm still fascinated to know whether or not there is any truth in it though.

We have a couple in my extended family. White skinned, blue eyed mum, and quite dark mixed race dad (half Jamaican).
They have two children. One is as dark as the dad, the other is as fair and blue eyed as the mum.

So it doesn't even need to take many generations for this to happen.

than admit, not then.

Exactly Fellatio - traits can lie dormant for a couple of generations

I'd be very interested to read any papers on dna transmission in breastmilk, other than bacterial dna.

LadyFanny, rather than quizzing me, how about you present some (any!) evidence for your claim?

(Also, my husband wants to know how come none of us give birth to babies with bovine features?)

That's a good point!

(just hoping if I ate enough breast milk ice cream I might turn into Elle Mcpherson. )

Or it could be Bella Emberg so it's a high risk strategy.

Well i eat goat's cheese! What will my baby look like?!!

Horns? Might you call him Damien?

'This is for yooou damien...' Re: breast milk - i had formula instead! Maybe there's a formula company plot to rule humanity by tampering with our DNA?!! We need James Bond to save us...

No geneticists have come back with proof/evidence one way or tuther then? Disappointing.

Formula often contains fish oils

Lets hope this woman who donated her breast milk is not an asympotmatic carrier of the human form of mad cow disease (vCJD), it is a fact that vCJD can be trasmitted via breast milk.