We have a milkman!

We've been thinking about it for awhile...and Bonnie finally convinced me to sign up for milk delivery from Munroe Dairy!   As any family with little ones know, a lot of milk gets consumed in a week and now there will be no more emergency trips to the store and no more lugging heavy cartons in from the car! Woo-hoo!

And even better yet, we are supporting a local business and we know just where our milk is coming from.  The milk comes in really cute glass bottles which get reused over and over again and the milk is the freshest you can get (unless you have a cow, I guess).  The website says, "It only takes us 24 to 36 hours to get the milk from the moo to you!"

This makes me happy...We have been mindful when buying milk for our family for lots of reasons. Whenever we buy food, we really try to understand WHERE it's coming from and how it was produced.  Of course, it's important to us that milk is from cows not treated with antibiotics or the man-made hormone rBGH.  Here is a snippet of a good article that I found that does a great job of explaining why...

What’s not used in production of organic milk may be as, or more important than the nutrients found in the milk itself. For example, as early as 1992, the U.S. General Accounting Office – the “watchdog” arm of Congress -- investigated the safety of “rBGH,” or “recombinant bovine growth hormone.” This synthetic or “man-made” hormone may be injected into conventional dairy cows to increase their milk production. We might think increased production would be good from an economic or efficiency standpoint. But there are hidden costs we must take into account with regard to environmental, animal, and human health.   

For one, the GAO concluded that increased milk production resulting from rBGH treatment significantly increases the incidence of mastitis, a bacterial infection of the cow’s “teat.” The condition requires treatment with antibiotics, thus leading to higher levels of antibiotic residues in milk and beef. 

In addition, rBGH-linked cases of mastitis are more difficult to treat, so they require longer courses of antibiotic therapy, and treatment with various antibiotics. This contributes to the growth of antibiotic resistant bacteria, which is an increasingly serious public health threat. 

Some of the antibiotics given to animals get excreted into their urine and feces and end up in manure. If this manure is added to soil where vegetable crops are grown, those vegetable roots can take up the antibiotics present in the soil, further adding to the human health risk of antibiotic resistance. 

National professional health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Public Health Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, have all expressed concern about the use of medically important antibiotics in food animals. The Union of Concerned Scientists explains that routine use of these critical drugs results in the loss of their effectiveness in treating people who suffer from serious illnesses.  Authorities who study the threat of antibiotic resistance claim greater emphasis should be placed on keeping our milk supply antibiotic-residue free, not just within assumed “safe levels.” Only organic dairy cows are guaranteed not to receive antibiotics.

Second, treating dairy cows with synthetic growth hormone increases levels of “Insulin-like Growth Factor 1,” or “IGF-1” in milk, which may increase our risk for certain kinds of cancer.

Ok...so where was I going with all of this?  The only way to guarantee that the milk that you are drinking is not from cows treated with antibiotics or rBGH is to buy organic. Organic farming has additional benefits too like using far fewer chemicals and pesticides on the farm and it is more sustainable.  But, the downfall to organic milk, is that it can be hard to find from a local farmer.  Milk that has to be ultra-pasteurized to maintain freshness for months in order for it to survive the trip from a farm in California and to provide shelf life once it arrives at your store, is not ideal.  And while the milk from Munroe Dairy is NOT certified organic, it is from cows that are not given antibiotics or rBGH.  And most importantly, it's local and fresh.  And we are supporting a business that has been operating since 1881!  Oh yeah, and we have a milkman.  :)