Whole Living Daily

Now I’m not sure where you stand on this whole food thing.   But if you’re anything like me, you probably don’t want someone telling you what to eat. So when friends first started trying to educate me about terms like organic, local, natural and grass fed, I have to admit, I tuned out (and probably rolled my eyes).  But now that these terms are becoming part of every visit to the grocery store, it’s hard to ignore them.  So whether you are standing on the sidelines of the food movement, gently dipping your toe in the water, trying to figure out how best to navigate this newfound stream of information, or you have jumped in with both feet and started swimming with all your might in this tidal wave of new information, the important thing is that either way, you are doing something.  And you deserve an award for that, because change is not always easy.

Now, I have to admit, as I began learning about the things polluting our food supply, there was a lot of information that just plain freaked me out (maybe that’s why I didn’t want to hear about it).  From pesticides, to antibiotics, to biotechnology, there were a lot of changes in our food that I simply hadn’t been aware of (and I didn’t like the way that ignorance made me feel).  But as I shot up the learning curve on the recent changes to our food, the thing that left me completely slack jawed was when I learned about an artificial growth hormone that the U.S. started adding to our milk supply in 1994.

What's Gotten Into Our Milk?
About 15 years ago, we started injecting growth hormones into our cows to help them make more milk.  It was a smart financial decision for milk makers, but it also caused all kinds of diseases and conditions in the animals including mastitis, ovarian cysts, gastrointestinal disorders, even lameness and pus in the milk (as disclosed on the packaging of the product). As a result, milk makers had to start administering more antibiotics to our dairy cows who were growing increasingly sick. What’s interesting is that most developed countries (like Canada, the UK, all of Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) thought this was a bad idea and decided not to allow this new growth hormone, called rbGH (for recombinant bovine growth hormone) into their milk, cheese and ice cream for fear of what it did to the animals.  But here in the U.S., we took a different approach and added this artificial growth hormone, known as “rbGH,” into our dairy.

When I learned this, I felt sick.  I mean, artificial growth hormones, antibiotics and pus in our milk?  How many sippy cups had I filled with this stuff?  And how many bowls of cereal had I poured this milk and yogurt into? And what about the ice cream?  (Wasn’t there enough guilt already?).  Did I really want to know this?

Making the Change
But I couldn’t unlearn it.  And I realized that I had to do something and fast (especially in the face of CNN reports about how U.S. girls, with accelerated growth hormones, are now hitting puberty at the age of eight).  And that “one thing” was to hit the eject button on this artificial growth hormone called “rbGH” and get it out of our kitchen.

Thankfully, it was easy to do (and affordable, too).  Wal-Mart, Safeway, Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, Whole Foods, Costco and Sam’s all offer the option of “rbGH-free” milk.  Wal-Mart is the largest distributor of rBGH-free milk in the world (apparently, I wasn’t the only one worried about added growth hormones in milk and ice cream!).  So not only could I find milk that was free of this artificial growth hormone in almost every grocery store in the country, it also meant that I probably wasn’t exposing my family to those extra doses of antibiotics (and pus!).

So while we can’t all do everything when it comes to “going organic” and cleaning up our food supply, we can all do one thing. And going “rbGH-free” is such an easy place to start.  Not to mention, that the next time you opt for some ice cream, it may just taste a little sweeter knowing that you’ve passed on the added growth hormones.  And that’s something that can make all of us feel better!

Robyn O'Brien has been called "food's Erin Brokovich" by the New York Times, an "Inspiring Woman to Follow on Twitter" by Forbes Magazine, and a visionary by Discovery Channel. She is married with four children, the founder of the AllergyKids Foundation, serves on the board of the Environmental Working Group, and is the author of The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.