I’ll admit, it’s been a while since I’ve bothered to read a small carton of milk, but what in the name of O’Leary is this all about? Displayed prominently on the side of my Berkeley Farms milk carton is the exact sentence from the title of the OP.
Google searching seems to reveal that this hormone was created to generate more milk production from dairy cows, but the search results are muddled with positive articles proclaiming the greatness of this hormone, and negative ones denouncing it. (And Google helpfully suggesting that I meant to search for “breasts”).
Pardon my naivete, but wouldn’t better milk production result in fewer dairy cows needed to create milk, which would be a benefit for dairies? Obviously Berkeley Farms doesn’t think so. Is it that biotech in general is bad by default, so they want their consumers to know that the milk is all-natural? Or is this specific hormone bad for another more specific reason?
This is clearly a case for the SDMB - hopefully someone who knows all about this can enlighten me without me having to wade through all the charged opinions on the matter.
A brief biased-but-reasonable explanation of the argument against growth hormones, and the ongoing rows and bans between the US and the EU, can be seen here. It also provides a few extra links. Basically, the concerns are about what the possible effects of them are on humans consuming the end product, and the inconclusiviness of present scientific opinion (something which often gives rise to endless garbage on the internet, as you’ve discovered)
Well, I’ve heard that rGBH can have negative health effects on humans, but there is a lot of controversy over this.
It’s not good for the cows, though. Cows treated with the hormone have more udder infections, and some farmers have claimed that the cows have a shorter lifespan, which would negate the benefits of having a cow be more productive because more cows have to be bought or bred to replace the ones that die prematurely.
Personally, I’ve found that milk from non rGBH-treated cows just plain tastes better.
You might realize this, but a lot of people think that food that claims not to contain something claimed to be bad (a ‘chemical’ of some kind) tastes better. I’ve met people who claim to be able to taste the chemicals in non-organic food, and I think they really can, although I don’t think they’d be able to differentiate between identical samples of organic and non-organic produce without being told which is which. With milk from hormone-treated cows vs. untreated cows, I suppose that it’s possible that untreated cows could produce better-tasting milk because it has a higher protein or fat content, but it would not be the hormones themselves that make the difference.
As is the case with a lot of foods that brand themselves ‘premium’ (whether it’s pure marketing or to justify a higher price), I suspect that this milk has always been from untreated cows. Now that it’s become an issue to some, they’ve marked it as such to encourage sales to people who are concerned about hormones. It’s kind of like all the foods which now have ‘zero trans fat’ labels – they never did contain hydrogenated oils, and in some cases few or no similar foods do. (Some of them, like zero-trans-fat french fries, are high in saturated and other fats, but the marketing plays on people’s ignorance: saturated fats are just as bad as trans fats.)
Actually, on the whole, I think organic produce does, in fact taste better than non-organic, not because I can taste the chemicals, though. I think that organic produce, especially fruit, has more flavor than its non-organic counterparts. There are exceptions. Some brands, usually less-well-known brands of non-organic fruits, have a flavor that I would consider on a par with organically grown stuff.
The milk, same thing. I have found that your basic supermarket milk (which nearly always has at least a portion of the contents of the jug coming from rGBH treated cows) seems to be lacking in dairy goodness. Non-rGBH milk just has more depth of flavor, seems a bit sweeter, slightly funky (but not in a spoiled way).
I think that with the rGBH, the mammary glands are just making milk hellbent for leather, and some of the chemistry involved is perhaps a bit deficient.
The use of rBGH would most likely speed the demise of the small family farm. The hormones ARE expensive or at the very least, yet another expenditure in an already strained budget. (I’ve seen quotes of about $6/shot. Take that times 60 cows and then by 26 times a year, and you get about $9500. Who’s going to spend that when you have to take out loans to plant crops to feed your cattle, nevermind the tractor you’re still paying off?) Dairy farming is not a profitable business unless you’re milking 200+ cows, and even then it’s a tremendous gamble. Small farmers would not be able to keep up with the large producers if rBGH was suddenly seen in an overwhelmingly positive light.
The other articles have some pretty good info about health concerns for the treated cattle (increased amount of pus in the udder, increased mastitis, off-taste to the milk because of the pus, increased number of antibiotics to treat the infection). The use of rBGH would create a sort of medication circle-jerk – rBGH causes more infections, so you use antibiotics to treat the infections, so that you have to throw out the antibiotic laced milk, so you have to produce more milk to stay competitive, so you get more cattle to produce more milk, which you treat with rBGH . . . that is, if you hadn’t gone out of business at some point.
There’s also the fact that cows who produce the amount of milk that rBGH would cause them to, would be leeching a crapload of calcium out of their bones, which would contribute to the shorter life spans. There’s an anecdote on this page, that seems to imply that rBGH might increase the number of twins born to treated cows, also damaging to calcium stores.
rBGH is not a solution to any problem. Especially non-existing ones. The US already produces a surplus of milk – why more?
OK, so we’re getting off-topic, but there’s a vast difference between organic and regular milk. (Agreed that there’s other foodstuffs where there’s no difference in tast, but then again that’s not the only reason for choosing organic.)
Speaking from personal experience. Dairyman who has/is using BST(Posilac is Monsanto’s name for it and they ONLY refer to it as such). rBGH effects an increase in dry matter intake(DMI). The increase is what usually(not always because there are other factors involved) leads to an increase in milk production. BGH(no little r) is present in the younger animals in greater amounts than the older. It is a growth hormone. There will be an increase in mastitis(pus as some have called, infection that others called it) if you are poorly managing your farm. You will have mastitis with or without rBGH. It is one of the things we need to be aware of. I will tell you that even though we are milking about twice as many cows as we did when we started using rBGH we have less mastitis and therefore less antibiotic use now.
It is relativly expensive roughly $6.50 per dose. Given every 10-14 days depending on what you want to do. Add to that the increased DMI and we figure when it is all said and done we have between $9 and $10 invested in each treated animal. So if we get more than $10 worth of milk in the next 2 weeks we coming out ahead. Now since we(dairies who use rBGH) have been doing this for 10 years now the assumption should be made that we are. You need roughly 100 lbs of milk extra for it to pencil out black.
The plant that manufactures the shots for Monsanto is in Austria. They are currently experiencing some problems. Blah Blah Blah all the Monsanto people tell us. Monsanto is taking no new orders for Posilac. All their existing customers all being alotted roughly 40% of their previous(2003) orders. So there is a whole lot less cows being treated this year.
Some producer groups have made their members pledge to not use rBGH. The buyers at certain manufacturing plants will pay more for rBGH free milk. This is strictly an honor system thing as there is no way to test the milk in order to see if it comes from treated cows or not. That is very important. There is no way anyone can test the milk to be sure that it does not come from treated cows. I doubt any of you can taste the difference. The guys who do the day to day running of the co-op that we market our milk through are always telling us that it would be easier to marker our milk if we were to go no rBGH. When Posilac first became available we were strongly encouraged by our board(other dairy owner who ship to the same place) to not use it. Told to me with a straight face by two board members whom I had personally talked to about how well it(Posilac) was working out for them on their farms. So it will not be happeneing until the board memebers decide to stick to there own recomendations.
There should also be a sub-label to the no rBGH label that says something like “there is no difference in milk from treated and non-treated animals”
Surely you mean a label saying “no difference in taste”? Most of the concerns about rBGH have nothing to do with taste, and everything to do with the unknown aspects of longterm safety.
No I mean after the no rBST label there is a asterix * and somewhere on the container will be the disclaimer. with wording such as “federal tests prove that there is no difference between rBST milk and non rBST milk”.
Of course Berkekey Farms is really now just a name that Dean Foods uses to sell milk out here in California. Slimy soymilk selling Dean Foods that they are.
I was just reading what I had posted. Dry matter intake(DMI) is simply the fancy words we use for feed. It is what the cow eats, minus the liquid that is contained in the feed. DMI= amount of feed placed in the bunk(place where the feed is left for the cows to eat){F}-liquid in the feed{W}- feed that is left over at the end of the feeding period{L} or DMI=F-W-L Which is something I don’t do everday but at least 1-2 per week. Remove water by the crude yet effective way of cooking feed in a microwave oven which smells to high hell and never should see human food cooked in it. The liquid is moostly water but in the case of some of the fermented feeds it does contain a bit of alcohol some which evaporated in the bunk and some which is ingested. See “great cheese comes from happy cows, happy cows come from California”
deadeyesdad, how many cows do you milk? What type of dairy cattle do you milk? What’s your pasturage? What type of barn do you have? Parlor or traditional stanchion? How many times a day do you milk? What’s your milking routine (ie: how do you wash, what do you use to wash, what kind of dip do you use)? Do you own a bull or do you rent? Do you keep a bull in with the milking herd or only with the dry cows/unbred heifers? Have you noticed a shortened life expectancy for your cows? How about the increased number of twins? Do you pasture the cows you’re milking or only your dry cows? How do you dry off? Have you had to change the way you dry off since starting the rBGH?
When you say “100 lbs extra” do you mean per cow or for the herd total? Per cow, right? Because a hundredweight isn’t all that much.
And, do you really believe that the cows in CA are happier than the cows in Wisconsin, which is the state the ads are clearly pointing to?
(Yeah, I know some of those questions are pretty unrelated. I’m just curious about dairy farming in CA as opposed to WI. And, of course, please disregard this if you think it’ll highjack the thread overly.)
Thanks everyone for your responses so far, especially deadeyesdad.
I’ll be monitoring the continued discussion with great interest.
Miss Purl McKnittington - I recall reading that there were some local animal rights’ groups that were protesting those commercials b/c they (of course) don’t in any way depict the way normal dairy cows live in California. (Well, the Earthquakes part is probably true, but I doubt they consider it just a foot massage. ;))
I hadn’t heard that. The ad about dairy cattle being caught in the blizzard is the one that caught my attention, because cows in the Midwest definitely aren’t kept like that in winter. Of course, animal rights’ groups aren’t going to be clearing that up.
OK, 'Federal regulations identify no difference". Not “There is no difference”. Because, apart from anything, there is a difference - otherwise there’d be nothing for us to talk about. And the EU consider the difference in potential risks to health to be quite severe - should the labelling deliberatly conceal such facts?
No cite, just a vague memory…
I heard that a large part of the controversy over these statements (something along the lines of “the FDA has found non-rBGH milk to be chemically identical, etc”) is that when these studies were being conducted, the person in charge of appointing study directors for these studies had a personal interest in seeing this chemical pass the tests. When the results were not what was desired, the Study Director would get the boot and a new one appointed, until the desired “no difference” result was acheived. Apparently this took several “re-assignments” and the whole thing stank of bias.
I must admit I have no idea if this has any basis in reality. Just a rumor I heard. Anyone else heard this or have any cites?
Somatic cell count = pus, basically. The cite for their numbers was “Technical Manual for POSILAC bovine somatotropin. Revised May 1994. Monsanto Company. pp. 6.1-6.7”. So, the SCC counts are higher, but apparently not significantly so.
It is getting close to dinner time here and then there is homework(for the little ones). Tomorrow morning looks pretty full separating some new dry cows from the milking herd and then a business lunch. I hope to get anwers to your questions thought out and posted sometime tomorrow. The happy cows comment was a joke based on the fact I had just told everyone that our cows are consuming alcohol and therefore might be “happy” weak attempt at a joke on my part.
