Got Chemicals in Your Milk?

Milk doesn't always do the body -- or the grocery tab -- good.

This is because conventional milk products often come from cows that have been given synthetic hormones and a bevy of antibiotics. But opting for untainted organic products can mean paying a steep premium for your milk, yogurt or American-cheese singles.

Luckily things are starting to change.

Acknowledging consumer wariness, major food companies and grocery stores are steadily moving toward milk products that lack these troublesome chemicals.

The flap over hormones in milk began in the early 1990s, when MonsantoMON won FDA approval for rBGH, a synthetic growth hormone made via a process that involves gene splicing. You can read all about the controversy at sustainable table and the Organic Consumers Association.

The artificial hormone has been linked to cancer and to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria . But the FDA is so far standing firm behind its approval of it.

In a New York Times op-ed last June, FDA alumnus Henry I. Miller touted Monsanto's product as the answer to rising milk and corn prices and to farm-related environmental issues by pointing out that it allows cows to produce more milk while eating less and using less farmland.

Common sense suggests that such a phenomenon probably isn't good for the cows over the long term. And how healthy can milk be if it comes from overworked, stressed-out animals?

Miller goes to great lengths to hammer home his point that the hormone "poses no risk to human health."

But safe and free of side effects are two very different things -- a point Miller handily refuses to acknowledge. Any time we introduce man-made chemicals to our bodies, or the food chain, there are collateral effects. Consumers should be informed and able to weigh the risks and benefits before they opt to ingest (or even potentially ingest) such compounds.

I became wary of conventional dairy two years ago, after reading in the New York Times about a link between hormones in dairy foods and the rising rate of twins in the U.S. As an avid consumer of milk and cheese and a woman of child-bearing age, I was pretty sure I wanted to avoid this particular side effect.

I began to shop organic, but was aghast when I headed to the dairy aisle and discovered that organic milk cost at least double what the regular stuff does.

Luckily, I'm not alone in my discomfort over industrial dairy. Sales of organic milk have been rising in recent years, even as overall consumption of milk remains flat, according to a USDA report. The report notes that milk and yogurt are often the first organic foods that consumers try.

The food industry has caught on to this preference and is giving consumers more choices at varying price points.

In addition to being chemical-free, organic milk comes from cows that eat organic feed and spend time outside with access to grazing pasture. But as organic milk has become widely available -- Wal-Mart WMTnow sells it -- adherence to the spirit of these requirements apparently varies. The Cornucopia Institute did a survey of organic brands not long ago and rated them on a scale of one to five cows for how well their suppliers execute the USDA's organic standards.

A potential difference in quality is important because there is a wide price range within the high-end organic category. At a local supermarket in Brooklyn prices soared from $3.99 per half gallon for Organic Valley, which garners four cows from Cornucopia, to $5.29 for Dean Foods' Horizon label, which received only one cow. The store's one brand of conventional milk cost $1.89 for a half gallon. In another store, a brick of Organic Valley organic cheddar cheese cost double its counterpart from KraftKFT.