"breast is best"

I was (still am???) a Rajya Puraskar scout. I was listed for President Scout but I couldn’t attend the camp. That’s got nothing to do with breasts. Patience. Now, to be an RP scout, you’ve got to collect various “merit” badges along the way, attend multiple training/scouting camps and clear your pratham, dwitiya and tritiya sopan testing camps to be eligible for the RP testing camp. That still doesn’t tell you why the breast is best. Behave.

One of the “merit” badges and my favorite one at that was the “Friend to Animals” badge which adorned the prize centre position of my shirt sleeve - patched with various other badges as well. I might also throw in for equal measure that I’m a big time dog lover. Yet, for all these years, I’ve failed to identify with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Or the Blue Cross for that matter but that’s another story. To me, PETA’s been the fringe group of people comparing commercial animal facilities to Auschwitz. Anyway, to unravel the "breast is best" mystery, one has to read the following letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry's Ice Creams.

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

Ben and Jerry’s response was classic:

“We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child.”

I’m certain PETA’s done some good work but how can one take PETA seriously when their very mention is a reminder of naked women photos on billboards, magazine covers, centre page spreads and articles like these? I’d have posted their campaign posters here if not for the moral police in me which rates this blog universally readable.

So long.