There is an movement to ban labels on milk. Speaking from an individual consumerist position we have stopped buying milk that is not labeled rBST & rBGH free. This started when my wife and I were thinking about conceiving and has continued now that our daughter is breastfeeding. Why is it important for us to know where our food comes from? In the scientific sense of natural, I would rather drink a product that comes to me the way it has for hundreds of years. Even if, as Monsanto claims, there is no detectable difference between milk produced from rBST/BGH and non-rBST/BGH cows. More and more, I want to know how my food got to me, not just what is in it. I think this started when I read the book Fast Food Nation. It is wrong for our government to deny dairy farmers who use non-rBST/BGH cows the ability to differentiate from farmers who utilize the recombinant technology. After all, the labels are more than just marketing … they are providing insight into the process used to produce the product; much like how the ingredients list all the substances used to make up the product, it is information relevant to how customers will make their choices. I hope the FDA stays out of it and continues to allow non rBST/BGH milk labels so that it is easy for consumers who care about that where their milk came from and how it was produced can easily differentiate between the two. If they do remove the labels there is one sure way to make sure you know the milks history, you can find a local dairy that doesn’t use rBST or other artificial techniques to enhance the cows milk production. We use this dairy farm’s milk delivery service and have been very happy. I know its weird, but when I drink other milk now I can taste the difference. Plus, they make excellent chocolate milk. The article I was reading that make me think about why we switched to Longmont Dairy is located here.
3/6/2008 ~ 2 min read
