Friday, September 04, 2009

Epicurion Queries

There’s been a minor rash of milk related food poisoning incidents in the Midwest lately. From drinking unpasteurized milk. And I just think, who drinks that? I mean, if you aren’t a dairy farmer, how would you even have access to it? Isn’t that illegal?

But of course Veronica drinks unpasteurized milk. It’s just mama milk, not cow milk. And it’s not homogenized so it separates as it sits in the fridge, waiting to be used. It’s easy enough to recombine the milk fats with the rest of the milk. Generally just the shaking and sloshing that gets done while heating the milk up under the faucet will do the trick. But it’s got me wondering: can you make cheese or butter from breast milk?

I’m not going to try. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. Mainly because I’m way too lazy for that kind of thing. But the scientist that lives in my head is definitely curious. I mean, it’s milk. You should be able to make milk products. But then who would use them? Ronnie’s not up to cottage cheese or even yogurt yet since she’s under a year. But would those things be OK for her to have since they wouldn’t be cow milk, which as I understand is the reason you need to wait a year before switching to whole milk from breast or formula? And if you have other kids, would they be fine eating breast milk ice cream? Or is the whole thing just too squicky and overly hippie dippie freaky to even consider?

People do some freaky-ass shit with their maternal by-products. Of course there’s the whole eating the placenta deal, which while fascinating is just far too gross to even consider. I don’t care if placenta pills ward off post-partum depression. I’m not living in the wild, nursing my litter of babies in a cave for weeks on end, needing the iron richness of my placenta to provide the only nourishment I’m going to get until they’re old enough for me to leave them and go hunting again. Therefore I’m not eating my placenta. End of story.

I did remember to ask to see it this time though. I can’t remember why I didn’t after I had Kirk. I know I was worried that birthing the afterbirth would somehow hurt which…yeah right. You can’t feel that after a whole damn baby just went through there! And I don’t remember watching while Mr. b cut the cord. I still didn’t see the cord be cut this time but I did ask to see the stuff before it got sent to disposal. It was all dark and weird and organy (duh) and there was a tiny little hole in the sack the nurse pointed out which would have accounted for the slow leak that was my water breaking. The umbilical cord is sort of whitish grey. Again, interesting from a scientific perspective, but I don’t need to save it for posterity.

Frankly I was far too jittery, literally, after having Ronnie to even consider anything more than satisfying intellectual curiosity. Apparently it was the pitocin. I had the shakes big time once she was out. They put her freshly born unwashed bundleness on my chest and I held her and loved her and tried not to vibrate her off of me I was shivering so hard. It took quite a while to get back to normal.

6 comments:

superbadfriend said...

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/features_julieshealthclub/2008/04/breast-milk-che.html

http://membres.lycos.fr/petitsingly/

I don't think it's freaky to make bi-products from breast milk. It would seem like a good way to transition a bundle to eating solids. I'm just sayin'.

I am curious to see how your readers respond. :P xx

belsum said...

Well that Petit Singly site is apparently a hoax. But there were definitely some interesting comments left after the article. And I just remembered that PETA recently asked Ben & Jerry's to stop using cow milk in their ice cream and switch to human milk.
http://www.peta.org/mc/NewsItem.asp?id=11993
Was there any at your ice cream fest? Heh.

FEZ BEAR said...

Eating placenta, tit butter, tit cheese -- yep, you covered all the bases.

belsum said...

Yeah, there really isn't anything left, is there? Heh.

Elen said...

Late to the game but I would give a cup of "other breast" milk to my toddler while feeding the baby. Actually I think yoghurt and cheese made from mamma's milk would probably be a great first food! I remember mixing both boys first cereals with breast milk and since i could feed a baby army I'd just pop out a boob and add milk. Easy as!
I refused to eat placenta though. Mine was really really small with my second one though (cos I am crap at growing babies inside me - my boobs make up for it though). So mine might only have been a snack. hehe.

belsum said...

Oh I mix her baby cereal with mama milk. But I think Kirk's probably too old to have some. Because he's assigned it as a baby food so he'd balk at it being given instead of Big Boy Milk. I mean, at his first daycare it was a rite of passage to switch from red milk (whole) to blue milk (2%) so he would definitely notice.