PETA Outsillies Itself

Yesterday I posted on melamine tainted milk, about as serious a subject as can be imagined. Today I hit the other end of the spectrum, in which PETA creates publicity for itself for doing something so silly that the only good to come out of it is that PETA can further disgrace itself in the eyes of rational human beings.

PETA posted the following press release on its site today:

Burlington, Vt. - This morning, PETA dispatched a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of ice cream icon Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc., urging them to replace the cow's milk in their products with human breast milk. PETA's request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves. PETA points out to Cohen and Greenfield that such a move on their part would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health at the same time.

"The fact that human adults consume huge quantities of dairy products made from milk that was meant for a baby cow just doesn't make sense," says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. "Everyone knows that 'the breast is best,' so Ben & Jerry's could do consumers and cows a big favor by making the switch to breast milk."

This is so spectacularly dumb that the first instinct of most bloggers was to question whether it was real or a hoax. It's real. That's PETA's actual website.

Normal people with some understanding of nutrition might also notice that PETA's statements are at best misleading and are probably best described as idiotic. Human breast milk is not better designed for consumption by adult humans than cow's milk. Breast milk is designed to help babies grow by targeting their specific needs at a time when they are expected not to take in any other food. Humans could tolerate breast milk and digest it, but it is "best for baby" not best for adult humans generally. You won't learn this basic fact from PETA, but they have no purpose left if they stop lying to you.

This goes along with other nonsensical PETA promotions like PETA News That Sounds Like a Joke and its horrifying Got Beer? campaign.

Vegans are not responsible for PETA's action, but they too seldom rise up and denounce PETA. If vegans would take a proper stand, PETA could be wiped off the earth, like smallpox and other scourges of humanity. I'll be glad to help.