Breastmilk icecream

[gosling.livejournal.com]

I am planning on making breast-milk icecream with rintrahroars, surrealestate and any other nursing moms who are interested in contributing. (Actually it will need to be more like gelato if we don't use any non-human milk I suspect, as separating out additional cream seems impractical.)


I'm asking for advice from folks who have done this in the past and also letting anyone who wants to contribute milk to know ahead of time so she can start stockpiling a bit to bring if she would like. (I plan on expressing as much as I can on site, but with a voracious nursing toddler I'm not sure how much that will be.) There seems to be a shortage of good recipes that I can find, but I suspect someone will have useful suggestions here. I'd prefer not to use any non-human milk, and ideally not add any sugar. (Human milk is quite sweet, far more so than goat or cow's milk is.) Also, I want to pasteurize it in is easy a method as possible, so suggestions for that are useful too. (All this may well have to be done with a squirming toddler on my back.)

Comments

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

If you express it and then put it in the fridge for <24 hours, the cream rises to the top quite quickly, so it might not actually be that hard to separate out cream. Kinda wasteful of the rest, but on the other hand so is making ice cream out of it in some sense...

[halleyscomet.livejournal.com]

Someone did this a few years ago when Baitcion was still at Mink Hollow. I think it was the same year as the Chocolate covered grasshopper and mint ice cream. If memory serves she used a vanilla recipe and added some cow's milk to make a small batch. She flash pasteurized it on the camp stove. A few people, myself among them, didn't taste it until we learned the human breast milk in it had been pasteurized. I think "Cooking for Geeks" has temperature ranges for pasteurization. I would go with the temp ranges meant for cow's milk or higher.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

It was called Tit Surprise. I believe the creator was hawkegirl

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I have a question that comes from my own place of lack of education: I have this sense that eating breast-milk ice-cream would constitute an act of fluid-bonding with the contributor(s). Is this correct? I believe from my brief reading on the topic, that HIV and HTLV-1 can be transmitted through breastmilk, and that breastfeeding is considered safe if the mother has Hep A, chicken-pox, lyme disease once the mother has received treatment, and Hep B once the mother and infant have received treatment. But I imagine anyone considering making or eating breast-milk ice-cream has done more research than I have on the topic. Is the pasteurization sufficient to change the picture? Or is this a non-sexual way to fluid-bond?

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Hence the intent to pasteurize...

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

And thus we return to my lack of education and the point of that question: does pasteurization take care of anything one might be concerned about?

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

hm. it does for cows milk.

OTOH, milk banks prescreen rather than pasteurize, but a)dunno how the logistics would work on volume if the reverse and b) raw cow's milk enthusiasts insist that the nutrient factors change with pasteurization. [edit: and on further thought, human milk banks are there for more than just nutrient value, but also immune factors etc...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization isn't getting me very far with what things current pasteurization usually handles. It became prevalent due to tuberculosis in cow's milk. Unfortunately my work life has turned to general insanity the last couple days so I really should wrest myself away from looking any further.

FWIW, regardless of what pasteurization does and doesn't handle, those participating would presumably not be planning to do so with knowledge of having those things you list, and one tends to be tested for just about anything imaginable while preparing to have a baby.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

They actually screen *and* pasteurize usually. It does change the nutrients somewhat and removes many of the immune factors, but since a lot of milk banks are primarily for premature babies and other infants in the NICU they
tend to be super cautious. It is still far, far easier for an infant to digest and obtain nutrition from than any other source, which is particularly a concern with extra-fragile infants.

Pasteurization will kill pretty much any microbes of concern if done properly, regardless of the mammal from which the milk originated. It will not, however, probably remove or neutralize any problematic medication that
transfers into the milk. (There aren't many that do in quantities sufficient to be an issue for most newborns, let alone anyone older, and I have the list generally used as a guideline by lactation related professionals. This
reminds me, however, that I need to tactfully screen for that.)

It will also make the milk spoil much more quickly than raw milk does (as it removes the factors that inhibit bacterial growth), hence ideally it would be pasteurized close to the point it was actually turned into ice-cream.

I personally wouldn't consider pasteurized milk from any mammal to be a form of fluid bonding, but folks might want to consider their own comfort levels and definitions.

[kimberlogic.livejournal.com]

We'll ask Dr. Jen when she arrives

[gosling.livejournal.com]

My wrists have failed too badly for it to be relevant anyway I suspect

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

wrists?

[rintrahroars.livejournal.com]

I'm still game to try to help make a batch. So if there are any other lactating mammals out there who would like to join me, great! We will pasteurize and label our ice cream appropriately.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

I have intermittent problems with my wrists and hands where they get somewhat numb and don't work very well. Last Baitcon I actually couldn't lift individual plates, which was all kinds of exciting with a baby in the woods. This year so far it isn't nearly that bad, but making icecream is right out.