Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009
Cookies 'n' (Breast) Milk
In September 2008, PETA sent a letter to Ben and Jerry's with a simple request: Start making ice cream with milk from humans instead of cows. "The breast is best!" it read. The gross-out scheme — intended, PETA said, to assuage cows' suffering and boost human health — was inspired by reports that a Swiss restaurateur planned to start making the same substitution in his food. Not surprisingly, it never caught on. PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk later admitted to TIME that it was a stunt designed to draw attention to the fate of cows forcibly impregnated so they will lactate and calves who face being shipped to inhumane veal farms. "It isn't very feasible at all," she said. "But it was great fun to suggest it."