Comments on: UK Shuts Down Breast-Milk Ice Cream, But Is It Safe to Eat?

By: mariner

mariner — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 23:57:15 +0000

Some people take the risk of raw oysters…To each their own..

By: Brian Too

Brian Too — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:57:34 +0000

Now that’s interesting. Why do I get an automatic Ick factor from the thought of breast milk ice cream?

I mean, as @1. Scott Belyea points out, you can build an argument that we ought to be repulsed by cows milk. And yet I don’t.

So is this just food familiarity? Some cultural bias? Or is is deeper and evolutionarily rooted?

As for Mullarky’s comment that cows milk ought to be safer, I’m not sure I completely buy it. Yes human milk (if it does contain contain bacteria/viruses) should in principle contain ones pre-selected to be compatible to humans.

However cows milk is an incredibly widespread human food source. Humans are exposed to whatever it contains all the time. And I’d say our food handling procedures are very well understood. Perhaps not always followed, but mostly so. Milk spoils so easily that you cannot get away with lax food handling procedures for long.

And now I’ve wandered slightly off topic. Sorry!

By: Alan Tait

Alan Tait — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:38:13 +0000

If viruses and bacteria in human food pose a risk, could we have evolved an anti-cannibalism instinct? I’ve read that we have an instinct against incest.

By: Archie

Archie — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:23:22 +0000

What, no video on the details of the milking process?

By: Scott Belyea

Scott Belyea — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:25:30 +0000

“…after they received two complaints from people who were squeamish at the thought of ingesting a stranger’s body fluids.”

An interesting objection. Presumably they’re OK with ingesting the body fluids of a big hairy smelly dung-encrusted cloven-hoofed cud-chewer.

Just no accounting for taste, I guess …