‘Baby Gaga’ breast milk ice cream gets shut down

February 28th, 2011 by Jessica King | Permalink

Photo by Photo by Carin Araujo

The UK government has put the kibosh on a London, England ice-cream shop that made headlines last week for it’s breastmilk ice-cream. Minor Topics covered the story and questioned the legality of it’s resale as well as the safeness of such a product. Several dangerous viruses, contaminants and diseases can be contracted through breastmilk and some drugs can also be passed through breastmilk. Most countries have established it unlawful to buy bodily fluids on the open market.

The ice-cream shop, Icecreamists, has shot back defending the safety of their product. They claim the donated milk has been pasteurized and put through the same screening process as blood donations. According to the Washington Post, the founder contends that he’s unaware of any law prohibiting the sale of breastmilk in retail foodstuffs. He also laments the potential loss of sales:

Baby Gaga ice cream sold out as soon as it launched on Friday.

The pasteurization process destroys some key nutrients, leaving doubts as to how much of this is simply a publicity stunt. The American FDA has released a statement saying that there is simply a lack of data for evidence-based determination regarding the most important criteria to assure recipient safety, even with the pasteurization process. Preliminary data would suggest that the risk is minimal however. In the U.S., the only legal way to obtain safe, donated breastmilk is through the Human Milk Banking Association of North America. They also take donations. Currently, it is illegal to sell breastmilk online, privately and through retail networks in the U.S..

Filed under: Safety
Tags: baby gaga, breast milk ice cream, breastmilk ice cream removed, buying breastmilk, donating breastmilk, icecreamerist

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http://google Millicent

eeew! I think she is disgusting, this victoria lady is mad also to let people or kids drink her milk or is it because of the money.
I pray to god to forgive them cause they don’t know what they are doing.
http://wacktrap.com d. edel

The ice cream store owner’s claims don’t add up. The shop received the breast milk from 15 different female “donors” who simply responded to an online ad via the European parenting website mumsnet. The shop had no in-depth health background for the individuals it used to make a food product. Icecreamists sales figures would be roughly $1,150 for 50 servings of the breast milk ice cream; for the amount of breast milk needed for those servings, the company paid each donor about seventy bucks or so. The public is supposed to believe that the ice cream store spent the money to perform some type of health testing over the weekend? C’mon. Read it at wacktrap.com (Comments by Icecreamists owner O’ Connor don’t add up. The owner says the ice cream sold out by lunch opening day, which would mean over 700 servings. After seizure of the ice cream Monday, the store owner claims women lined up over the weekend to donate breast milk; simultaneously,he claims some type of testing, to ensure against health hazards, was done. http://www.wacktrap.com/people/stupid-people/baby-gaga-breast-milk-ice-cream-seized-virus-hepatitis-health-concern).
kal

What a load of crud. Billions of babies drink human milk. I find it disturbing that people are happier to drink milk from a cows breast than another human beings. This makes me think of the saying “Silly man, boobs are for feedings”.
anya

what bothers me the most about it, is that there are babies who desperately need this breastmilk – I’d donate to a milk bank before I’d donate for ice cream!
http://sexeddaily.com Sex Ed Daily

I am not surprised that the product was taken off the market especially with the recently published reports of toxic levels of flame retardants in UK women’s breast milk, but I’m curious if there is another argument to be had on the potential benefits of breast milk for adults. I don’t think that people’s curiousity with breast milk is anything new but what I hope is that this media frenzy over Baby Gaga ice cream will spark serious research on breast milk’s potential benefits and risks if consumed by adults.
ozzie

Grow up, you stupid ignorant people who think selling breast milk is disgusting! Why is it more disgusting than milk form the breasts of cows, sheep and goats? What do you think you are talking about – what, it’s unfit for human consumption? But it’s OK to feed it to babies? So babies can have it but not adults?

(In this, I am discussing toxins, NOT the possibility of people contracting viruses etc from breast milk – that is a separate topic).

Of course, you’re caught in a trap here, aren’t you? Because we all know the time is fast ariving when our food safety laws will REQUIRE us to declare breast milk unsafe for human consumption (ESPECIALLY for tiny little babies, surely more vulnerable to toxins than adults, no? Isn’t that why helicopter parents freak out about every little thing that could possibly affect their baby?), because our position at the top of the food chain and our continual pollution of our environment, means that breast milk is becoming one of the most toxic foods known to man.

Perhaps this dilemma is why people have such difficulty in knowing how to respond to this breast milk icecream – they dont like it to be sold, because it puts into sharp relief the question of the way we pollute ourselves, but at the same time they hate having to say why it shouldn’t be sold because it opens up a whole can of worms about declaring breast milk unfit for babies and therefore admitting our pollution efforts have breached the last taboo.

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