Online Breast Milk May be More Harmful Than Good

In this groundbreaking shockumentary of a blog post we will discover that what seems to be a horrible idea, ACTUALLY IS a horrible idea. The idea you ask? Buying Craigslist milk.

It is widely known that the best food for an infant is mother’s milk. But what if the mother has had a mastectomy? What if the mother has a career that doesn’t allow her to use the breast pump or to feed as regularly as she wants to? Or what if simply the mother cannot produce enough milk to satisfy the needs of the infant?

The clear answer seems to be to go to craigslist and just get a random woman’s number, then meet her in the wal-mart parking lot, give her 5$ and get a Dasani bottle full of breast milk. Yet the problem with this seems pretty obvious and kind of creepy.

Several milk sharing websites were recently tested. In the test samples were taken and tested for bacteria. Nearly 74% came back with levels of contamination high enough to infect a human and cause illness. 64% were infected with staphylococcus. Some samples were even infected with human fecal matter.

The most likely cause of the infectious bacteria is poor hygiene practices, improper care of breast pumping devices, improper storage, and the use of a dirty container. Since selling human breast milk is not regulated, there is no way of knowing the condition in which the milk was harvested. There is no way of knowing if it was stored properly, and most importantly blood borne pathogens live in breast milk. This includes HIV.

There are better alternatives out there such a milk banks. These banks pasteurize the milk which kills the bacteria. Others argue it also kills many of the nutrients.

In some cases the breast milk was shipped in box with no dry ice, no ice, just in a cardboard box at room temperature. Guess what? That milk had a lot of bacteria in it.

Aside from that doesn’t buying online breast milk just give you the hebeejeebees?

FDA Eliminating Trans-Fat: What Will Change?

As of November 7, 2013, the United States Food and Drug Administration has announced a new law that will require companies to phase out trans-fat from all foods. This means that a variety of popular food items will have to reformulate their products to eliminate trans-fat in order to be compliant with the law.

In 2006, the FDA required that all foods be marked with the level of trans-fat that they contain. This influenced many food manufacturers to drop the levels of trans-fat in their food. However, companies were listing the fat as "partially hydrogenated oil" in order to make it less obvious on the nutrition label.

Here are some of the foods that will be required to change under the new legislation.

1. Microwave popcorn
2. Cookies and crackers
3. Refrigerated dough and pie crust
4. Margarines
5. Coffee creamers

These are products that are consumed by Americans almost every day. People who drink coffee with creamer, have crackers as a snack for lunch, and have a ready-made pie for dessert could often consume more trans-fat in a day than they realize. Thanks to this new legislation by the FDA, we can expect to see a drop in diabetes and other weight- and health-related issues due to diet.