Making the cow happy ...

When I was a little girl, my mom's mom (my Grandma Betty) always used to tell us that we had to "make the cow happy" and finish our glass of milk when we were at her house. That was never a problem for the Ryan children -- drinking milk purchased at the store was a treat for us and just tasted "different" from the nonpasturized, nonhomogenized whole milk we had at our house. One of the joys of being the children of dairy farmers!

Anyway, Sam and Ben have developed a real love of cheese -- must be hereditary from the Ryan side (my nephew Aidan's first word was "cheese"!). While my mom was here for 3 weeks after Sam and Ben came home from the hospital, she and I basically lived on grilled cheese sandwiches -- quick, easy, and highly-caloric for the lactating mother. Sam and Ben both love toast, so I decided to add a few slices of cheese for extra calories and protein -- and it was a huge hit! At first, they both seemed a bit skeptical about their sandwiches, especially because the cheese was melty and the pieces stuck to their hands -- but after a bite or two, they were both sold!

I need to start buying only organic cheese, which is made from milk produced by cows who are not given rbST (or other growth hormones or antibiotics, for that matter). This was a big issue for my parents when they were still farming, as my parents didn't think that using these hormones was the *right* thing for THEM to do, but made competiting with farms that were using the hormones more difficult. The growth hormones increase milk production in the treated cows by 10 to 15%, but also shorten the milk-producing years (and therefore, lives) of the cows (because their bodies are required to work so much harder), and although the FDA has declared BST-produced milk safe for human consumtion, the EU, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Canada all prohibit the use of BST. Just some "food for thought"!