Most every American has heard of the Pepsi Challenge but have you ever heard of the Conventional Milk Challenge? This is how it works. (Feel free to follow along at home.  It’ll be fun!)  Place conventionally produced milk, milk produced without artificial hormones and organic milk in unmarked cups side-by-side for you to sample. Can you taste which one was made with recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH)?  No? Don’t feel bad. I couldn’t either. 

Some pro-rBGH folks are taking the stance that consumers don’t need to know how the milk is produced if the end products do not differentiate compositionally (which is still up for debate.) Why bother the uneducated consumer with “extra-labeling?” It will drive “more children towards the soda aisle and away from nutritious products.”  (We all know how diligent children are about reading labels!) This is some of the reasoning as to why a campaign has been launched to stop the labeling of hormone-free milk.

I admit I failed the Conventional Milk Challenge miserably. I couldn’t taste the rBGH. I also couldn’t taste the udder infections developed by some of the cows that are administered artificial hormones. My taste buds did not detect the increased use of antibiotics in animals caused by rBGH that creates antibiotic resistant bacteria, a huge human health concern. I was even unable to taste the chance of increased rates of colon, prostrate and breast cancer in humans. The lesson learned? I guess you really can’t judge a book by its cover but you can certainly judge a gallon of milk by its label.

To find out more about what you can do to stop the use of rBGH, please visit www.holdthehormones.org.

(Please note that the Conventional Milk Challenge is a figment of this blogger’s imagination.)