Got Hormones?
by Bruce Schimmel
Published: November 20, 2007
Let's say you prefer your dairy undoctored. You don't want milk from cows that've been fed antibiotics; gotten shot up with hormones; or foraged in fields of weed-killer.
Today, it's simple to determine what did not play a part in your dish of Chunky Monkey. Just read the label and look for the words, "No antibiotics, hormones or pesticides."
But soon, those three little words, among others, will disappear. Come January, whether you shop in Wawa or Whole Foods, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture will make what's called "absence labeling" illegal. The ban will affect milk, cream, cheese and eggnog — every dairy product sold in Pennsylvania, regardless from whence it came.
Why? In a curious twist of logic, Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff says that in knowing less, consumers are protected more. The statement that milk is free of antibiotics, hormones or pesticides could be misleading, he says.
Wolff is protecting us from falsely concluding that milk from unadulterated animals might be healthier than stuff coming from juiced-up Jerseys.
By coincidence, such a foolish conclusion would also hurt the bulk of Pennsylvania's big dairy farmers. For despite growing consumer demand for reform, these factory farms still administer synthetic growth hormones to increase production, mix in low doses of antibiotics to tamp down disease, and spray pesticides to keep weeds at bay.
Now, to be sure, Wolff is concerned that at the moment, none of these substances can accurately be detected in milk. There are no tests for synthetic hormones. And all milk sold in Pennsylvania is already scanned for antibiotic residue.
There's some evidence, but nothing conclusive, that old-fashioned moo-cow milk is healthier than the hormonal stuff. Just as there's no definitive research that states unequivocally that organic food is better than genetically modified Frankenfood.
In the same spirit, I suppose, evolution is still a theory, and global warming isn't for sure.
Still, silly us, there are a few things that we do know: that cows "treated" with hormones — like hopped-up athletes — live shorter and more diseased lives. That the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed creates drug-resistant superbugs. That pesticides destroy the earth. That Canada, Australia, Japan and the European Union have all banned the use of the artificial bovine growth hormone (rBGH).
And, curiously, though our FDA allows the use of rBGH here, both they and the FTC recently gave milk producers across the nation specific permission to tell us that their milk does not contain hormones.
I guess we're just lucky to have Wolff providing Pennsylvania with such special protection. Which leads me to wonder what's next to be disappeared from labels.
On my yogurt container from Stonyfield Farms, I see a claim that 10 percent of its profits are given to reclaim the earth. Should that disappear, because Wolff can't prove it? How about that the yogurt is kosher? Should that go because there's no test for kosher? And heaven forefend someone should infer that kosher food is better. Just how ignorant must we be for our own good?
As awful as this censorship is, this isn't just about what's in our milk. At issue is our right to know what it took to produce our food: Was Elsie treated humanely? Will antibiotics still be effective? Did the food I consume come at the price of poisoning the planet? Likewise, as much as a food's calories, we should also be told its carbon units — vital information that will soon be available to consumers in Europe.
In a time when we need to know more, Harrisburg bureaucrats shouldn't be censoring its most enlightened dairies, just to make it easier for factory milk producers to feed us some bull.
(bruce@schimmel.com)
