I hope all of this rambling makes some sense in my decision to support organic milk.
Ok, so to be completely honest, I'm not huge on most organic products. I'm just not. There, I said it. Most of the time, I just want to be cheap and save some money.
-Basically, it was a compromise to buying organic. Things that you take off the peel are ok to go non-organic: such as kiwi, oranges, mangoes, corn, onions and peas to name a few.
-If you're eating the skin, apples, cherries, strawberries, spinach, then you might want to think about organic. Reason being the the pesticides are right there on the skin, which means right into your body.
Well, if the FDA says it's ok, it can't be that bad, right. This is a pretty controversial issue. There are a lot of things that aren't illegal that aren't necessarily good for you. Fast food, junk food (I always think Twinkies which would last through a nuclear disaster), soda, alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, you get the idea.
You know how many organic fruits and vegetables I have in my fridge: zero. I wouldn't say I'm proud of that fact. For me, there's a higher priority that I find it is worth spending the extra on.
According the article, there's the foods worth considering: milk, beef, poultry. Now that is a little more important to me. While produce is treated with pesticides, the afore mentioned is often treated with hormones. Somehow, that seems a little more scary.
Let me introduce you to
Monsanto Company. They are an agricultural biotechnology corporation. Maybe you've heard of them, but maybe not.
More likely, you've heard of rBGH. It is a growth hormone that increases the milk production.
Claims of this hormone causing cancer have yet to be proven. Anytime you add something unnatural to food, which then passes into your body probably isn't necessarily good for you. It is known that rBGH
mimics effects of estrogen which can cause females to enter puberty earlier, and lower sperm count in males.
(Side note: you CAN purchase non-organic milk without rBGH, however it doesn't take into consideration treatment or use of pesticides.)
Depending on who you ask, who is sponsoring the survey, you'll get two opposite answers. The weird thing is, unless you are asking a large dairy company or Monsanto themselves, pretty much anyone else completely disagrees.
What I think rBGH boils down to is money. More milk = more money. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist. However, it's been shown time and time again that large corporations aren't doing anything that doesn't benefit themselves. These large dairy companies, not to mention Monsanto is making millions of dollars off of shortcuts that aren't healthy for the cows, or humans.
It gets better. Hormones can contribute to mastitis, which is an infection of the udder. In order to avoid losing milk (read: $$$), they just keep right on milking the infected cows. Nice. Plus, what comes with infection? PUS. Say it with me: EEEWWW!!!
If you think that's scary, now we're going to talk antibiotics.
Antibiotics? Good for making sick people (and animals) better. Bad when they are given to animals, which are then unnecessarily transferred into humans. An overload of unnecissary hormones can cause our bodies to be immune to them, which could mean trouble when we get sick.
So all these things about organic milk sound great! Where do I go buy some? Until you get to the grocery store and realize it is twice as much. Forget it! Right? Wait just a minute.
Here are some reasons why it costs more:
The more you produce, the less you have to charge right?
-Without growth hormones, the cows don't produce as much milk.
-All of the feed and grazing areas have to be organic, which means no pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
-Organic farms are often smaller, family owned establishments, instead of massive "factories".
I don't know about you, but I'm willing to support the family man versus a large corporation.
