Got hormones? Milk from Wawa doesn?t.
Wawa Inc. announced the company will only produce and sell milk free of artificial growth hormones at its 570 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
“An increasing number of customers through the years have been requesting dairy products free of artificial growth hormones,” Wawa spokeswoman Laurie Bruce said.
Wawa will only purchase raw milk from farmers who pledge, and sign legal affidavits, that they will not use such hormones in their cows. Customers will see this “Farmers Pledge” through a seal on the label of Wawa dairy products.
The artificial hormone rBST supplements a natural hormone cows use to direct the energy they gain from their feed, according to a Wawa news release. While the Food and Drug Administration has found no significant difference between milk derived from supplemented cows and non-treated cows, some consumer groups are requesting a change.
Regional milk producers are well-positioned to supply Wawa?s demands, said Amber DuMont, spokeswoman for the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative Association. “We produce 3 billion pounds of milk per year. A significant portion of our milk supply is rBST-free, and the producers market it that way.”
While the cooperative takes no stand on the hormone ? except that it is legal and FDA-approved ? it does accommodate both sides of the debate over its use.
Except for the side that says find another food.
“What we should be asking is how good a food is milk,” said Dr. Matthew Hebdon, endocrinologist with the University of Maryland Hospital for Children. “When you consider how much fat there is in milk and the growing obesity crisis, we?d probably do better if Wawa took all the fat out of their milk and sold nothing but skim milk.”
Hebdon said there is no scientific evidence that the trace amounts of hormones that make their way into the milk you drink could affect a child?s own delicate system of hormones.
