Comments on Boobies: Not Just for Gawking at Anymore

-- "squirting up some extra boobie juice" is a disgusting thought. i've been vegan for almost 15 years... "vegan" or not, gross is gross.

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Isn’t one reason people eschew dairy products because they’re meant for baby animals, not adults?

You tell us. They wrote that they were doing this as a result of having read "A.O. Wilson's study of the benefits of human breast milk to all human beings of any age."

If as a Vegan you believe cow's milk is for cows and goat's milk is for goats, then isn't human milk for humans?

But cows stop drinking their mothers' milk when they're weaned. So....?

Y'know, a vegan friend of mine was having a similar dilemma after giving birth: is her own breastmilk vegan? She was considering making some extra cash by being a wetnurse, but does that violate vegan ethics? She eventually decided that milk is only vegan-friendly if it is given willingly and without expectation of compensation, which meant she would've had to have been a volunteer wetnurse. I don't know if she ever went through with that.

As Mattymatt's comment implies, if one is a vegan on ethical grounds, it would seem that human breast milk would be in the unique position of being the only sort of milk that could be offered with consent, thus perhaps the only ethical exception to the no-animal-products rule.

But then again, I really don't fully understand the ethical underpinnings of veganism as it is generally practiced, so maybe I'm missing something.

@ 5 - This shows how people can overthink these things. As a onetime vegan I can say that my feeling is that it was an animal rights issue; there's nothing logical about extending the definition of vegan food to exclude human breast milk. In both your scenario and the one ECB blogged about everything would be consensual.

Now, if we want to trod down the path of overthinking, we can suppose that maybe adult consumption of human milk will catch on, become profitable, and lead to the exploitation of poor women roped into the breast milk production scheme (you know it won't be middle class women contributing to this). Then you have an issue. Best to nip this in the bud and wipe out those Berkeley hippies I think.

Isn't the vegan aspect a bit of a canard?

I mean, Steinbeck got into a heap of trouble for something like this, too.

#6 - By the token that a woman can consent to giving up her breast milk, couldn't any human give up anything, at least any of us reasonably sane and able to consent to anything.

I suspect someone may have a rule on this, but, while I've dated no vegans... I think that would drive me quite mad... but I don't understand there to be a rule against semen consumption, from those I've known... or else its a commonly broken one. And if that's ok, I can't see how breast milk differs substantively.

Of course, from there, I'm not sure where the line would be drawn between that and me volunteering my buttocks for a nice rump roast, but I assume it would have to be in there somewhere, huh>

Ever notice that most people who venture into being a Vegan never stay the course... As in, "as a onetime Vegan..."

It's something "cool" people experiment with in college - but really don't have enough conviction to keep it going once they leave all of their hippy friends and have to get real lives and real jobs.

one timer, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Neil, the semen comparison came to mind to me as well. I've never heard of a vegan eschewing semen as a vegan concern (I'm sure there are those who just think it's gross, but that's another thing altogether.

I'd think it'd be silly of me to be grossed out at the prospect of drinking human milk, because (1) I drink the boob juice of anonymous creatures of another SPECIES all the time - is that more normal? - and (2) umm ... let's just say I have had no problems whatsoever with women ingesting certain fluids that men produce.

ECB - Had there been the possibility to edit a comment after it was submitted, I would have added the fact that only infant animals nurse until their mommas kick them in the face enough times.

Now if you excuse me I'm on my way to the Sizzler for a steak and milkshake.

For 99 percent of human history, women breastfed kids until usually age 5. Some still do. Now, is it vegan - probably not. Especially if they bite.

But if the maker of the milk isn't eating vegan, can the milk BE vegan?

# 15 - HA! Someone should email the Berkeley hippies that question. It will undoubtedly mean that they'll pull their ad while they spend the next year pondering it (read: debating it to death).

#14 - for 99% of human history the water wasn't safe to drink. In of itself, it doesn't make for a compelling argument that breastfeeding til 5 is natural.

I wonder if they were going to pump it or planned to drink it straight out of the tap?

P.S. I know several people who have been vegan for almost 10 years...and have never had such a nutritional dilemma.

@16...not to derail the original subject train, but actually for the vast majority of human history the water was totally safe to drink...only after rise of urban areas and inadequate sanitation do we see rises in unsafe water.

and, yeah three to four years of tit sucking is perfectly natural, normal and in most ways preferable (it's a great birth control aid too in many settings).

matt from denver and elswiger: you are brilliant and hilarious. this is a great comment thread in general. god, i am addicted to the stranger! and i live in sf. and i grew up in berkeley. i can attest to the utter and complete earnestness of the hippies who placed the ad. it's 100% for real, i am certain.

@ 18, sorry, but that differs from what I've learned. There's a reason while medieval Europeans (including children) drank ale morning, noon and night and it wasn't just that medieval Europe sucked. It isn't just industry that makes water undrinkable.

Actually, it wasn't so much that water was unsafe - brewing it into any drink, including tea and coffee, takes care of that - but that in preindustrial society it was harder to keep up good nutritional intake. Plus, the immunity benefits that breastmilk gives young children can't be beat. That makes for a much better argument for prolonged breastfeeding than "it's always been this way" does, which was my point.

(My wife breastfed our daughter without any formula until she was a year and a half, so I'm definitely in the breastmilk GOOD camp. I'm just poking fun at all the hippies who seem to feel that we have to abandon everything industrialism has given us - you know, it isn't all bad.)

@ 19, thanks for the compliment but my posts are usually boring and don't inspire anyone to do anything more than scroll down to the next comment. I guess I'm more inspired today.

Matt @20...oh hey...I'm with you (and thought your original post was quite funny). I was just getting geekily anthropological on ya.

My point merely was that even if you define human history conservatively as the start of the genus Homo, for the vast majority of our existence clean water was the least of our worries.

@ 22 - gotcha.

boobies.

tee, hee.....

i was just thinking about breast-milk cheese today, and whether it'd be vegan legit (i'm a vegan). i decided that while it's ok, it's not something i would do. also, for ingesting human byproduct in general, as a gay vegan, i don't think there is anything wrong with it.

Breast milk cheese is an interesting idea, but impractical, cow milk/goat milk are actually fairly standard in terms of fat percentages (probably due to years of breeding) whereas human breast milk varies quite a bit, even from one mother (fat and protein content vary a good bit during the time a woman is breastfeeding).

Plus, breastmilk is pretty sweet, so it would end up as a desert cheese, varying from ricotta style to something a bit creamier. BTW, yes, I've tried breast milk, and I understand now where kids get the sweet tooth from.

If you're actually interested in donating breast milk, la leche league and other organizations can put you in touch with legit projects for little humans that actually need it.

-- this has been WAY entertaining! good post.

ellarosa #19 said "utter"