Sunday, July 19, 2009

Milky Discharge

On Monday, the great state of Ohio, namely Governor Ted Strickland, issued that milk that was produced without the use of rBST a.k.a. rBGH cannot market itself as such without also carrying a label stating that "there is no difference between milk produced with rBST than milk produced without it". Ironically, this chemical that synthesizes a natural growth hormone in dairy cattle so they will produce more milk was developed by Monsanto, a company that REGULARLY markets GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) products as being superior in quality to their natural counterparts, although there has been plenty of cases where their product did not perform any better but did however cost considerably more (notably India's cotton farms).
I'd like to say that I'm surprised at the Governor's action but I'm not, Ohio is after all still a largely agricultural state which likely benefits largely from government subsidies and support from uber-corporations such as Monsanto and it's smaller business tentacles, especially since Ohio is also one of a number of states that have strongly welcomed the growing of Genetically Modified crops such as corn and soybeans while entire countries including the European Union have banned them.
As for the claim of Lewis Jones, Chief of the Ohio Dept. of agriculture's Dairy Division, that there is no difference in composition between the two types of milk, perhaps he's correct. I guess that you could likely say that there is no difference in composition between pasteurized milk than raw milk as well, well you know, except for the drastic drop in nutritive value and beneficial enzymes. I guess it that according to his statement, the introduction of hormone altering chemicals makes no significant differences or changes. So for all you ladies out there on birth control, all those "side effects" that you say you have are really just in your head.
Anyhow, I guess we'll just have to give it up to the big money once again telling us what we do and do not need to know about our food, after all, big brother knows best, right? Just remember to wash all that rBGH milk down with a good helping of GMO corn and all will be OK with the world.