Organic Milk

Mojisola

iamana1ias wrote: »

And from the Vegetarian Society:

"While the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permit the use of rBST, its use is associated with severe welfare problems, for example increasing the incidence of lameness and mastitis. For reasons of animal health and welfare, the use of rBST in the EU was prohibited in 2000. Indeed Canada, Japan and many other countries have banned the use of rBST because of its effects on animal health and welfare. However, there are no restrictions on the import of rBST dairy products, or any requirement to label them.
The Government’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate does not carry out any testing of imported milk (Defra, 2006). Furthermore, Defra confirmed in correspondence with the VVF, that since the EU is a single market once a product has entered, if it is transported on to another country within the EU, then the origin of the product will be the EU country rather than the originating country (Defra, 2006). In 2005, the UK imported over 1,000 tons of dairy products (mainly ice-cream) from the US (Defra, 2006a); these figures have declined from over 5,000 tons in both 2001 and 2002 but still remain a concern, especially as the consumer has a limited chance of discriminating against imports from the US. The sensible option is to avoid all dairy products."

http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/campaigns/whitelies/wlreport08.shtml

As I said, 1000 tons of product divided between 60+ million people - not really worth worrying about!

emiff6

I buy organic British milk to support our organic farmers and their care of their animals and the countryside, and because the cows are not routinely fed antibiotics or fed on pesticide sprayed food, which could be passed on into the milk, but most of all I buy organic for the TASTE! Same with eggs - once you've had free-range organic, you'll never go back to the awful taste of battery eggs.

mardatha

Odd sort of question but since org milk is def OS, I thought I'd ask it here
What is the difference exactly ? Does it come from cows that have no hormones, no additives, no anything but grass inside them?

pigpen

well they can't have grass as it leeches toxins from the ground.. but it possibly means they don't vaccinate or pump the cow full of hormones to increase milk supply or feed them offal cakes!.. rather than letting the calf suckle o stimulate supply.. but calfy will be sausages probably..

twinkle_star_2

I'm pretty sure they do have grass, but on fields that haven't had pesticides. And any feed they have to be certified organic too. So basically no pesticides.

mardatha

...what about hormones? Does anybody know? Or where I could find out?

imogen-p

There's a pretty good overview of what it means here http://www.organicmilk.co.uk/index.cfm/e/benefits.welfare

but basically it means the cows the eat an organic diet and don't routinely get pumped full of anti-biotics even when they aren't ill (which is generally what happens).
They also don't get given growth hormones, non-organic cows in the UK don't either, but they do else where in Europe.

natlie

http://www.soilassociation.org/Whyorganic/Whatisorganic/tabid/206/Default.aspx#

Hi
The Soil Association manages organic standards in the uk - the link above gives you a good idea of whats involved, its the GM free and environmental benefits that sold me and I buy yeo valley usually on 2 for £3 in asda.

The got pus website freaked me out years ago http://www.thedailysupplement.com/got-pus/ the US peta site said bovine growth hormone is banned in the uk I remember reading that they were allowed so many parts per million of pus in milk due to mastitis caused by growth hormones http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/dairy-industry.aspx

Nat
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zippychick

Maradatha we have an older thread which may help

Il merge this later

Zip

Rowan9

My DD buys only organic milk Mardatha - think it's the constant antibiotics and also the pus that put her off 'ordinary' milk!