Hormone-free ice cream

Is that dairy dessert really “all natural”?

By Culinate staff

August 26, 2010

Writing on the Huffington Post recently, John Robbins called for a blanket ban on dairy products from cows given recombinant bovine growth hormone, better known as rBGH or rBST. More and more companies, Robbins noted, are going rBGH-free — but more should follow suit:

Starbucks now guarantees that all their milk, cream, and other dairy products are rBGH-free. So do Yoplait and Dannon yogurts, Tillamook cheese, Chipotle restaurants, and many others. But ice cream giants Häagen-Dazs, Breyers, and Baskin-Robbins continue to use milk from cows injected with rBGH, a hormone that’s been banned in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and all 27 nations of the European Union. As if to add insult to injury, Häagen-Dazs and Breyers have the audacity to tell us, right on the label, that their ice cream is " All Natural.”

Given that Robbins is the son of a co-founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire, that’s saying something.