it became illegal to milk cows and goats and all dairy came from human milk that women sold to creameries?

I once offered a milk & cheese fanatic friend of mine a drink of my pumped breast milk and she totally grossed out, but she'll drink gallons of cows milk without batting an eye. Just wondered how other dairy lovers felt.

LOL, love this post (made me smile). I'd be down for human milk as long as it came from grass fed humans and was adequately pasteruized and organic. I've definitely eaten stranger things!

Okay, I don't know why but ewwwww!

I love cheese, I'm okay with milk, but human milk? I don't think so. I can't give you a real reason why but ick!

LOL! I love this!! I've recently come to the conclusion that cow's milk isn't for human consumption. It's made for baby cows!!

Would I drink human breast milk? I have tasted my own. Would I actually drink it? Probably not, but only because that's the culture I've been raised in. Knowing me, I'd probably first start cooking with it and work up to drinking it.

Thank goodness for soy!

I'm lactose intolerant, I hope that makes me exempt from this! But it depends if the humans were "farm raised" then at least I'd know where they've been. Society these days just don't care what we put into our bodies, and since I'm 32 weeks pregnant, I have just found out that breast milk is like the most magical potion around! I just don't know! That is a really hard question!

Like Eliana stated, I guess it's because of the culture I have been raised in....don't think I woud drink human milk. I am a huge advocate of breast-feeding and tasted my own when I was nursing (it is very sweet, btw), but in my opinion it is for our children to drink. God provided us with animals to meet our other nutritional needs.....sorry I know that sounded weird. Again, it must be the cultural influences talking.

I'm about as open-minded about food as a person in the midwest gets (at least I've met only one or two folks more adventurous than myself).

If people eat it anywhere on the planet (or used to) there's a 90% chance I'll try it - primates, endangered species, most insects, and extremely fermented food (because of the bacteria level. Some foods you have to grow up eating, to be safe) excepted.

However, human milk? Probably not, but perhaps surprisingly less for cultural reasons than medical (especially if we're talking about unpasteurized products).

I would be more willing to drink unpasteurized cow milk than unpasteurized human milk (unless in theory it were my own), because most diseases do no cross the species barrier. Thus it would be (in theory) safer to drink milk from another species than from our own or closely related ones (I wouldn't drink chimpanzee or other primate milk, either).

I wouldn't eat a human...like I would a cow....so I'm
not going to drink the milk either.

This.

First off, ew. That is a disgusting question.

Exactly. We are talking about two totally different things here. One is farm fed animal raised for that purpose. If it was just my own milk in food, maybe. However, I would not want to drink other people's milk. A baby may be breastfed, but it is often from their own mother. After they are own solid foods then that usually does not continue.

Plus, there might be some differences between human milk and cow milk maybe... like the enzymes and make up of the milk.

And, we would have issues with people who consume alcohol passing it on through their milk in foods. I don't think too many cows are getting tipsy from alcohol.

I'm not a baby ruminant so I don't drink cow/goat/sheep milk. And I'm not a baby human so I don't drink breast milk. As simple as it gets.

I've cooked with mine before. I think it's better for humans than cows' milk, but I don't like the taste of it straight up as much as I do cows' milk. I wish women could be paid to pump for baby humans who need the milk, though. However, I could just see the kind of abuses that would come from that - women pumping all day for pennies in third world countries while their own babies aren't getting enough. It's just the way our world works - if there's a way to exploit someone for money, someone ends up doing it .

There's also some promising cancer research with regard to adults with cancer drinking human milk - interesting stuff. I'm not sure pasteurized human milk would have as many health benefits as raw milk, though. Freshly expressed breast milk can cure pink eye

Breastmilk doesn't squick me out at all.

That being said, I would hope that all NICU babies, adopted babies, etc., who cannot have their own mothers' milk for whatever number of a million reasons would be first in line. Human breastmilk is a pretty precious resource. Donated breastmilk, once it's been pastuerized, processed, and shipped costs $2.50 an oz.

If breastmilk production was a for-profit industry, I would worry about women choosing to sell their milk for financial gain rather than giving it first to their own babies if finances were a serious concern.

So there would be many moral, financial, and justice issues far beyond the squick factor. If I think about cows' milk too much, there is a squick factor in there too.

*Makes note to buy almond milk later.

LOL...I know it is a weird question, but for some reason I started thinking about my friend today and remembered our conversation way back when and I found it funny. For the record, I think I would just totally go off dairy as well. Though, I don't have that much these days anyway.

Great responses. I never thought about poor women selling it for pennies. That would be a major concern for me, especially if they didn't feed it to their own babies.

I do find it interesting how squeamish people are about it considering I have visited a few dairy farms in my day, and know just how "clean" the bovine are. (NOT!!)

Gosh, if ice cream were made from human milk do you suppose they would change the name from Ben and Jerry's to Jean and Sherry's? LOL

LOL @ Jean and Sherry's!!

I definitely couldn't do it. I can't say for sure, but I'm 98% sure (right now at least) that I won't ever be able to wrap my head around it enough to even try my own breast milk. Gross, gross, gross. Reading this thread gave my gag reflex a work out for sure!

I also go through phases where I absolutely can't drink cow's milk, just from thinking a lot about it. I do love cheese, however, quite a lot. As well as cold breakfast cereal.