Think Beyond Organic to Ethical Milk

Wednesday I was reaching into the cooler at a local grocery loading up with three different cartons of organic milk. An older man asked me if I really thought that organic milk and 1/2&1/2 was better for me. I replied “yes I believe it is, but I know it is healthier for the cows that produced the milk”.  He looked at me kind of funny, with a look that said he expected further explanation so I complied.  In general organic foods are produced with less harm to the environment, and in the case of animal products, to the animals.  When you buy conventionally produced milk, you can not be sure that you are not getting hormones, antibiotics, or in some cases blood, in y0ur milk.  Of course the conventional milk you buy may usually be free of any of these contaminants, but if you buy organic, the supposed guarantee is that the milk is always without any of these by-products of conventionally mass produced dairy.  What is at least as important is that in general, organic dairy products come from healthier, happier cows.

Now this man then stated that the reason he was thinking about the milk’s relative worth was its price.  The organic milk was almost 3 times the price of the regular milk.  One of the reasons for this is that organically produced milk is not eligible for all of the food subsidies or the farm bill food subsidy system in the U.S. Organically produced milk is more expensive to produce, but a 3 times greater price tag is the result of not only an artificially low price for non-organic milk, but the mindset of the retailer. Many stores see organic products as “specialty” items and raise the price accordingly.  This practice needs to stop if organic products are to compete with conventional ones, but that is a topic for another post.

I encouraged him to consider buying organic as much as possible.  I also encouraged him to think beyond organic to ethically produced food.  Humane food production methods are in my mind as important as organic when I buy food.  He did put the organic milk in his cart, but I could not help but think about the majority of shoppers for whom price needs to be the biggest consideration.  Organic or not, ethical or not, most people simply can not afford to buy anything but the lowest priced food.

As I pulled away from the dairy case with my cart, a lady reached in to get a carton of soy milk.  That made me think of the many people who believe that cow’s milk has no place in the human diet regardless of production method or price.  But that is a diet choice separate and apart from the organic decision.  Her soy milk was organic, but even so the choice of soy over cow’s milk is not clear cut from a health standpoint.  To me the choice of organic for ethical reasons is clear, now just to figure out how to afford it!