Last week Baby Gaga ice cream was launched in London. In a matter of days it was pulled from the market amid a storm of health concerns and public debate. “It is a global first and a good idea,” said creator Matt O’Connor of Icecreamists, but the public is still amid a firestorm surrounding the idea.
Despite Mr. O’Connor’s claims that this is a global first, breast milk ice cream is at least three years old, if not more. Local gelato artisan Gianluigi Dellaccio, chef and owner of Dolci Gelati made a breast milk gelato in 2008 for his baby daughter Valentina after her lengthy stay in the NICU, but unlike O’Connor did not consider commercially selling the ice cream. It remained a special treat made by a caring chef and father for his baby, and her parents tell me she loved it.
British health authorities have allowed breast milk ice cream to go back on the market this week. Even at $22.50 for the lemon zest or vanilla flavored dessert, the ice cream manages to sell out. If you think you’ll be seeing this concept spread to cities such as DC think again. The Baby Gaga ice cream was sourced from women, paid nearly $25 for one and a fourth cups of breast milk. Noah Dan, CEO of locally based Pitango Gelato commented “We do pay top dollar for grass-fed organic cow milk, but that pales in comparison to the equivalent cost of mother’s milk. At those rates, we’d have to sell a portion of our gelato for $350.” A price few would pay.
Aside from the costs of making such an ice cream, local ice cream makers are up in arms about the appropriateness of such an ice cream. Local ice cream legend Liz Davis of Alexandria’s own Dairy Godmother told this blogger “This is proof positive that for a food business to be considered a “player” they must do ANYTHING to shock and draw attention to themselves. It is a disturbing trajectory that I find disrespectful of diners. I hope our palates are really not so jaded that we no longer have any sense of what is appropriate. I don’t just hope that. I pray that.”
Matt O’Connor defends the Baby Gaga ice cream, and his intentions by saying he’s “passionate about the good that breast feeding does for babies.” It’s a hard sell to make that you are more passionate about health benefits than sensationalism when your ice cream is served by a Lady Gaga impersonator waitress. What he calls passionate, our Dairy Godmother calls exploitation, and she’s joined by Dolci Gelati’s Anastasia Dellaccio who reasserts that “Why anyone would want to give their breast milk away to an ice cream shop when there are so many suffering children in the world who could really use it is well beyond me.”
Milk banks collect and utilize breast milk for premature and critically-ill babies, similar to the ways the Red Cross collects blood donations for critically-ill adults. The idea behind taking a valuable life sustaining substance and turning it for commercial gain is certainly as sensational as its namesake. However, Lady Gaga, notorious singing sensation who has dawned raw meat as clothing, has filed a cease and desist order for connecting her name and likeness to the ice cream due to it demeaning her reputation.
After much consultation, it would appear that breast milk ice cream will not be hitting DC shelves. Our local artisans agree with Ms. Davis: “Food nourishes the body and spirit. It should not be exploited.”
Jana Erwin is the primary chef and writer of CherryTeaCakes.com, a non-profit venture combining the love of fine desserts and feeding the impoverished in Washington, DC. You can follow her posts on twitter: @cherryteacakes.
