PETA to Ben & Jerry's: Replace milking cows with milking mothers

[teledyne]

Source: http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11993

@PETA

[CENTER]The Breast Is Best! PETA Asks Ben & Jerry’s to Dump Dairy and Go With Human Milk Instead[/CENTER]
[LEFT]

For Immediate Release:
September 23, 2008

Contact:
Ashley Byrne 757-622-7382

Burlington, Vt. - This morning, PETA dispatched a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of ice cream icon Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace the cow’s milk in their products with human breast milk. PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves. PETA points out to Cohen and Greenfield that such a move on their part would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health at the same time.

“The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn’t make sense,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “Everyone knows that ‘the breast is best,’ so Ben & Jerry’s could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk.”

For more information, please visit PETA’s Web site Blog.PETA.org or click here.

PETA’s letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield follows.

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, Cofounders
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I’d like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry’s. Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry’s replaced the cow’s milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers–and cows–would reap the benefits.

Using cow’s milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer’s health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America’s leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow’s milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease–America’s number one cause of death.

Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.

And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can’t produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can’t even turn around.

The breast is best! Won’t you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow’s milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry’s ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman
Executive Vice President
[/LEFT]

I for one support this, but only if they make a Special Sarah Palin Edition. No offense, Stephen Colbert.

[Omniscia]

What the hell do they think Ben and Jerry can do about it? They sold out to Unilever years ago.

[WhollySchmidt]

@Omniscia

What the hell do they think Ben and Jerry can do about it? They sold out to Unilever years ago.

Gosh, I guess they’ll have to settle for publicity. They really should’ve thought that one through!

[Staff_Sergeant]

I’m waiting for a prominent member of PETA to call a press conference and drink a glass of fresh human breast milk on TV. No fetishists either.

EDIT: And is there really enough extra breast milk in the world to make all the ice cream B&J produce? Or are we going to forcibly impregnate human females every 9 months and harvest their breast milk? Fuck I hate animal activists, I want to train some Dobermans to attack at the smell of pot and unwarranted self-satisfaction and just let them roam.

[Jason_McCullough]

EFG I find your proposals intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

[Staff_Sergeant]

I wouldn’t recommend that, it’s very pro-Communist and my last batch of subscribers were taken during the night.

[Aeon221]

@~EFG~

I’m waiting for a prominent member of PETA to call a press conference and drink a glass of fresh human breast milk on TV. No fetishists either.

EDIT: And is there really enough extra breast milk in the world to make all the ice cream B&J produce? Or are we going to forcibly impregnate human females every 9 months and harvest their breast milk? Fuck I hate animal activists, I want to train some Dobermans to attack at the smell of pot and unwarranted self-satisfaction and just let them roam.

I can’t decide how much is ignorance and how much is sarcasm. But hey, I feel generous!

Yes, the whole idea is to equate the cow condition with the human. If we wouldn’t submit a human to those conditions, why would we force a cow to suffer them?

Oh right, because they’re a lesser life form, got it. Those dirty…

Hey since I helped you, could you help me? I wanted to use a racially insensitive term, like nigger, but that referred to cows – you know, to indirectly reference how we treated black people as subhuman, and how ignorant and evil that was, and how poor of an idea it is to keep doing that same evil and ignorant stuff to animals because, hey, we’re all much more enlightened these days and we don’t support disgusting acts of cruelty. Unfortunately I just can’t seem to think of one. So, if you could just give me some ideas, that’d be great!

[Staff_Sergeant]

I’m probably going to take a lot of enraged hippy flak for this, but I don’t give a shit:

Humans are the dominating life form. We have the intelligence (and sentience, to boot!) to exploit the rest of the world to our own benefit, and as long as the exploitation isn’t senseless and without human benefit (ie, shooting cows in the knees and laughing maniacally), and isn’t going to bite us in the ass (will: fossil fuel consequences, won’t: cow uprising), then I am all for it.

You have a problem with that? Go cry yourself to sleep in your cock shaped pillow, because the human race is never going to stop exploiting animals.

[Aeon221]

@~EFG~

I’m probably going to take a lot of enraged hippy flak for this, but I don’t give a shit:

Humans are the dominating life form. We have the intelligence (and sentience, to boot!) to exploit the rest of the world to our own benefit, and as long as the exploitation isn’t senseless and without human benefit (ie, shooting cows in the knees and laughing maniacally), and isn’t going to bite us in the ass (will: fossil fuel consequences, won’t: cow uprising), then I am all for it.

You have a problem with that? Go cry yourself to sleep in your cock shaped pillow, because the human race is never going to stop exploiting animals.

I, on behalf of humanity, grant you full right to exploit animals. Do so, however, in a respectful and kind manner, with care to their treatment and a minimum of cruelty. Then nobody much will have beef with you.

[Staff_Sergeant]

I have done nothing to animals. I simply don’t care what others do to animals to get me my animal products. As I said, I don’t support harm to animals that is pointless, but I don’t give a shit what they do to animals as long as it’s necessary.

I can appreciate the point PETA is trying to make (assuming they aren’t just batshit insane), but I will never equate the rights of human females and animal females (or males, for that matter).

[WhollySchmidt]

What kind of sick freak doesn’t see the benefit in shooting things in the knees and laughing maniacally?

[Athryn]

Considering PETA’s own history of mistreatment of animals, I find little that they have to say to be worth much. All they care about is pulling political stunts and drawing attention to themselves.

[Staff_Sergeant]

@Athryn

Considering PETA’s own history of mistreatment of animals, I find little that they have to say to be worth much. All they care about is pulling political stunts and drawing attention to themselves.

And we’re back to my plan involving Dobermans.

[magnet]

@Aeon221

I wanted to use a racially insensitive term, like nigger, but that referred to cows – you know, to indirectly reference how we treated black people as subhuman, and how ignorant and evil that was, and how poor of an idea it is to keep doing that same evil and ignorant stuff to animals because, hey, we’re all much more enlightened these days and we don’t support disgusting acts of cruelty. Unfortunately I just can’t seem to think of one.

That is your brain’s way of telling you that your idea is stupid.

[Robert_Sharp]

Athryn, I don’t get why you are equating the humane putting down of animals with the type of exploitation that PETA complains about. I thought they were against raising animals to slaughter them, and especially doing so in inhumane ways (keeping them in cages full-time, etc.). I don’t really see the hypocrisy here. They are probably keeping the populations down, and at least attempting to do so humanely.

[Jason_McCullough]

“PETA Kills Animals” is a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the full range of choices that American consumers currently enjoy. In addition to malicious animal-rights activists, we stand up to the “food police,” environmental scaremongers, neo-prohibitionists, meddling bureaucrats, and other self-anointed saints who claim to “know what’s best” for you.

Definitely not an industry front group! I certainly believe them and I’m sending money right now.

[Staff_Sergeant]

@Jason McCullough

Definitely not an industry front group! I certainly believe them and I’m sending money right now.

Is that a joke? You don’t live in a fascist state and you shouldn’t need groups to protect your rights.

[Adree]

It tastes better when the cows suffer.

[Damien_Falgoust]

@~EFG~

cow uprising

Man, I miss The Far Side.

[Athryn]

@Robert Sharp

Athryn, I don’t get why you are equating the humane putting down of animals with the type of exploitation that PETA complains about. I thought they were against raising animals to slaughter them, and especially doing so in inhumane ways (keeping them in cages full-time, etc.). I don’t really see the hypocrisy here. They are probably keeping the populations down, and at least attempting to do so humanely.

Killing 97% of animals brought in is irresponsible shelter management. One would think that in this age of no-kill shelters, PETA would be one of those organizations that would manage a nokill shelter.

@Jason McCullough

Definitely not an industry front group! I certainly believe them and I’m sending money right now.

That was just the first link I ran upon when I was looking it up again, as the storyh was somewhat old. There are plenty of other news stories on the subject if you dig deeper.

I am a proponent of no-kill shelters, and I volunteered for the Animal Rescue Foundation for a number of years. PETA pissed me off when they started dumping euth’d pets in dumpsters, and I refuse to buy into their bullshit.