Visit Daniel Slack's column >>

DANIEL SLACK

"And that is what I think about it."
Add To Watchlist
Articles Posted: 59; Links Seeded: 7
Member Since: 3/2008Last Seen: 2/09/2010

The Milk Of Human Kindness: Uses For Human Breast Milk

If a multinational company developed a product that was a nutritionally balanced and delicious food, a wonder drug that both prevented and treated disease, cost almost nothing to produce and could be delivered in quantities controlled by the consumers' needs, the very announcement of their find would send their shares rocketing to the top of the stock market. The scientists who developed the product would win prizes and the wealth and influence of everyone involved would increase dramatically. Women have been producing such a miraculous substance, breastmilk, since the beginning of human existence. ~Gabrielle Palmer

advertisement

Every year, the citizens of the United States drink on average 21 gallons of milk. Most of this milk is from cows. Ever since I heard that PETA wanted Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to use human milk, I have been researching about the advantages and uses of it. Here is what I have come up with.

8) Human Breast Milk has been used as a medication for thousands of years. In the ancient world, breast milk was sometimes consumed as Medicine, in Fertility Rituals, and in other religious ceremonies. The Ancient Egyptians used are honey and human breast milk as medicine. Not only did they have medicinal values, they also are believed to have been used to ward off evil spirits and demons. It is even theorized that our ancestors not only breast fed their children during long migrations, but also breast fed their men too!

7) It helps fight off long term health problems. Breast milk can help prevent ear infections. People who drink it are less likely to develop asthma, Multiple Sclerosis, and help prevent some food allergies. It is said that Breastfeeding protects against cancer, helps prevent heart disease and even relaxes tension caused by stress . People with GI disorders and organ donation recipients also benefit from the immunologic powers of human breast milk. Talk about a health drink!!

Antibodies (also called Immunoglobulins) are made by the body's immune system in an attempt to protect it from harmful substances such as bacteria, viruses, fungus, or animal dander. The antibodies work by attaching to these substances so that the immune system can destroy them.

There are five major types of antibodies: IgA, IgG, IgM, IgE, and IgD. All are found in breast milk. IgA antibodies protect body surfaces that are exposed to outside foreign substances. They are found primarily in the nose, breathing passages, digestive tract, ears, eyes, vagina, saliva and tears. This makes IgA particularly important for babies who are always putting things in their mouths.

In patients that are suffering from immunilogical diseases, such as AIDS, Leukemia, or Hepatitis, or patients recieving a therapy that deteriorates the immune system, such as chemo or radiation therapy, have shown the benefit when supplimenting their diets with human breast milk.

For more information:
http://www.breastfeeding.com/allabout.html

6) People are always complaining in the USA, about stupid people doing stupid things. People cutting us off, insulting us, and even lacking common sense. Well, turns out that Human Breast Milk may actually increase intelligence. Studies show breastfed infants have higher IQ s than bottle fed infants.

For more information:
http://www.breastfeeding.com/all_about/all_about_iq.html

5) Breastfed babies grow up to be leaner than bottle fed babies. Maybe it has to do with the fact that babies digestive systems are still in development. Then again, it maybe just that babies are trying to fill a psychological need with food. When a baby nurses with its mother, he is learning the basics of relationships. He is learning the recognize boundaries for good behavior, and what is not acceptable. The closeness that develops during breast feeding carries over to any relationships later in life. We, as Humans, learn by example.

Read more at:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/004125.html

There are more and more people considering the advantages of breast milk not just for the treatment of illness.

4) PETA wants Ben and Jerry's ice cream made from Human Milk. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co founders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow's milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.

more on this :
http://www.wptz.com/news/17539127/detail.html

3) Swiss restaurant to serve meals cooked with human breast milk . The owner of the Storchen restaurant in the exclusive Winterthur resort will improve his menu with local specialties such as meat stew and various soups and sauces containing at least 75 per cent of mother's milk.

more on this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2976181/Swiss-restaurant-to-serve-meals-cooked-with-human-breast-milk.html

2) In France, a "dairy" produces Human Milk Cheese. Founded in 1947, the cheese Cosma was able to recover the wealth of a farmer ancestral tradition Ardennaise forgotten until then. Indeed, the Petit Singly, the only cheese with woman's milk , has long remained in the shadow of specialty cheeses, ordinarily milk cow, goat or sheep.

In France, no other product of this quality is listed, the Petit Singly has managed over time refining its taste thanks to the expertise of the master cheese maker, Patrice Cosma. Tinged with a touch of hazelnut and a subtle caramel color, sweetness and its basis will only tempt you.

For more information on this:
http://membres.lycos.fr/petitsingly/

1) A Business in Miami, FL wants to promote the virtues of Human Breast Milk Ice cream. U.S. citizens consumed an average of 23 gallons of bovine milk in 2001. Quite an astonishing amount when you consider that Homosapiens are the only organisms known to consume milk beyond infancy. Even more extraordinary is the fact that humans are the only organisms that consume the milk of other animals!

Female mothers in the Class Mammalia produce nutrient-rich milk for consumption by their own newborn babies. Humans have attained the unique (and bizarre) position in the food web from which they exploit the reproductive cycle of other animals (particularly Bovidae) for food. Adding to the cultural mystique of milk consumption is the widely held taboo against consumption of human breast milk either by unrelated individuals or persons beyond some generally unspecified age.

It is the mission of MMICCo. to challenge the traditional paradigm that there is nothing abnormal about conversion of mammalian milk into luxury food items. Mother's milk is a natural creation that we should celebrate, but is the milk of other species truly fair game for human consumption? If so, why isn't human milk? Our hope is to provide a delicious frozen product while framing this conversation in a way that leads to fruitful progress in consideration of the ecological niche of Homosapiens.

For more information on this:
http://www.bio.miami.edu/muscarella/mothersmilkicecream.html

I do not understand why it would be OK to drink from a cow Teat, but not from a human Teat. I have found evidence to the detrimental effect of cow's milk with Bovine Growth Hormone. One study not only shows evidence that it leads to obesity and excessive male breast development, but suggests that drinking nonorganic milk will give women a 42% higher chance, and men a 20% higher chance of developing Breast cancer.

Mostly, I wrote the article so that people will start questioning why we believe what we believe is OK. Society says it is OK to drink cow milk. Society also says we should expect politicians to lie, judges to take bribes, and car dealers to try to rip us off. How far back are we personally willing to push the boundaries of what society says is acceptable? Is it worth it, to improve your health?

Here are some more informative sites for further information:

This one is the world famous La Leche League, promoting Worldwide Awareness to the benefits of Brestfeeding:

http://www.llli.org/

This article talks of Human breast milk for adults as an anti aging substance, What does human milk bring other than nutrition:

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=28490

A few more good sites:

http://www.freedompondmoonworks.com/pb/wp_2e517814.html

http://www.godanriver.com/gdr/news/opinion/community_voices/article/breastfeeding_is_both_normal_and_natural/7724/

  • 5 Votes
  • Enjoy this article? Help vote it up the 'Vine.

Back To Top

What's this?
Who's leading the conversation?
This visualization below allows you to see the impact that each user has on the current conversation. The top row contains the group of users who have had the most impact, the 2nd row the group of users who have had the 2nd most impact (et cetera). Users with similar impact are grouped together, and the average score of the group is shown to the left of the group. The author of the article is also shown on the left, in their corresponding group. Each user's score is based on the number of comments the user has made plus the number of votes their comments have received. The scores are calculated relative one another, so while their absolute value is not particularly important, their relative difference does indicate a larger difference in impact on the conversation.
1.3
{"commentId":6711273,"authorDomain":"RuthyJObservations"}

This is quite astonishing, yet sensible. Is our society ready to accept this new (old) idea?

{"commentId":6711273,"threadId":"563345","contentId":"2733785","authorDomain":"RuthyJObservations"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#1 - Sun Apr 26, 2009 5:55 AM EDT
{"commentId":6924504,"authorDomain":"NaturalNurture"}

Bravo Daniel...its about time we started to catch up to the rest of the world...

When we learn the truth, breast milk is an easy choice. Colostrum & the symbiosis of breast feeding, offers myriad significant; and subtle benefits to assure healthy physiological and psychological development. No one would ever question it, if they only knew what they are.

Without the stupor of drugs... humans, like every other mammal are capable of making their way in life...ON THEIR OWN... from the birth canal to the teat, with umilical cord attached before placental delivery. They latch perfectly normally, triggering infusion of oxytocin to safely eject the placenta. The milk of human kindness flows—delivering the elixir of life to sustain and assure survival. SIDs (cot death), sleep apnea, dental malformation/braces, gastral disease, colic, ear infection, allergies, hearing loss, eyeglasses, tutors, doctors visits, medicines, side effects etc. are avoided with continuing attendant costs.

The hallmarks of peaceful nations are natural non-drugged birth, breast feeding and physical closeness/carrying. But it puts a hole in the two profit centres of world: War Armaments and Patented Medical concoctions.

We owe it to our families & future to engage in learning how nature safeguards us from harm; especially iatrogenic. Profit or prudence, you decide?

{"commentId":6924504,"threadId":"563345","contentId":"2733785","authorDomain":"NaturalNurture"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#2 - Wed May 6, 2009 10:25 PM EDT
{"commentId":7724650,"authorDomain":"norgel33"}

What a nursing mother does with her breast milk in the privacy of her own home is her business; that is, between her and her family at home. If she wishes to use her milk alternatively for things in addition to feeding her newborn infant (such as medicinal uses, her own cooking recipes, erotic lactation fetish with her husband/boyfriend, being a "wet nurse" or donating her milk to a milk bank) she should be free to do so, but only if she keeps its within the bounds of her private family life. Since the dawn of civilization, there have been at least some mothers who experimented with their own milk and curiously tried things they thought were "new" or "inventive".

Using breast milk for public or commercial consumption (as PETA suggested) is going too far; it is as morally wrong as human cloning and it is unnecessary.

Lactation exerts a heavy toll on a nursing mother's body, making it extremely vital for her to eat the proper balanced diet and to carry on good hygiene habits. Most nursing mothers produce no more than 40 ounces of milk daily anyway, and to exceed this would result in severe dehydration, loss of bone density (due to calcium depletion), and severe malnutrition as the mammary glands extract vast amounts of water and nutrients from the bloodstream to make milk. In addition, the nursing mother has to deal with complications like engorged breasts, sore or bleeding nipples and dry skin, etc.

Have any of you ever visited a dairy farm (like those in Wisconsin)? Commercial dairy farms are just barely able to take care of cattle for milking purposes and they sometimes make serious errors. To replace milk cows with lactating women just to provide so called "healthier" milk to 6 billion people on our planet would be morally wrong and degrading to women. Misogyny is bad enough in our society as it is, as women have been dehumanized, objectified and owned as "property" for hundreds of generations. We should never stoop down to a low point of substituting animal milks with human breast milk just to provide ice cream and other dairy products on a public commercial scale to billions of people.

From my religious point-of-view, God said to Noah in Genesis 9:1-4 that he has given all PLANTS and ANIMALS to mankind for food and other purposes. He said absolutely nothing about eating human flesh or human body fluids. In addition, God demands that the human body and human body fluids be treated in a specially moral and ethical manner; they are not to be used or treated in just any kind of way. Most animal species any naturally cleaner than humans, thus everyone has to be concerned with the issue of communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS, as well as various drugs and other chemicals that women sometimes secrete into their breast milk.

In conclusion, I feel it is best for breast milk be kept only for infants (babies), but a nursing mother is also free to use her milk in the privacy of her own home for medicinal purposes, food cuisine purposes, or erotic lactation fetish with her husband/boyfriend. She is also free to be a "wet nurse" or donate her milk to a milk bank for helping mothers who cannot breastfeed.

I totally disagree with promoting human breast milk as a commercial food commodity for public consumption.

{"commentId":7724650,"threadId":"563345","contentId":"2733785","authorDomain":"norgel33"}
  • 1 vote
Reply#3 - Thu Jun 18, 2009 4:19 PM EDT
{"commentId":7772825,"authorDomain":"daniel-slack"}

It does make me think twice when I go to the Organic Barrista and she asks me if I fresh milk in my coffee

{"commentId":7772825,"threadId":"563345","contentId":"2733785","authorDomain":"daniel-slack"}
    #3.1 - Sun Jun 21, 2009 8:22 PM EDT
    Reply
    {"canLink":false,"threadId":"563345","isPrivate":false}
    Leave a Comment:
    You're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead.
    As a new user, you may notice a few temporary content restrictions. Click here for more info.
    {"threadId":"563345","contentId":"2733785"}
    Start TrackingStart Tracking
    Stop TrackingStop Tracking