Philoillogica: Vancover Sun to Nursing Women: Even your breast milk is fat

And in this week's "women are dreadfully inferior no matter what they do" news, researchers have revealed that Canadian women's breast milk is 7% poison.

Or trans-fats. The point is that women are BAD, and the baddest of all are those breedin' ones, who lactate chicken McNuggets whole from each nipple (emphasis mine):

Canadian breast milk, not just chicken nuggets and french fries, is one of the highest sources of trans fatty acids in Canada's food supply, a federal committee heard Wednesday. The average lactating woman in Canada consumes 10.6 grams of trans fatty acids per day, and the harmful fats account for seven per cent of total fat in her breast milk, University of Guelph Prof. Dr. Bruce Holub told a 23-member panel charged with finding ways to eliminate, or reduce to the lowest levels possible, trans fatty acids in foods sold in Canada.

Let's just clarify this, shall we? Dr. Holub of Guelph University, supposed to find ways to cut harmful trans-fatty acids from the processed foods that we Canadians stuff into our faces in vast, delicious quantities, has determined that the real problem is LACTATING WOMEN.

Now, I don't know what kind of milkshake's brought to the Holub dinner table, but I'll venture that most Canadians over the age of six months do not regularly partake IN BREASTMILK. Those of us who prefer our liquid calcium in udder rather than boob form have bigger concerns with the safety of Canada's food supply, and since we're the majority (and some of us are of the species that make said breast-milk anyway), we'd like to know about Dr. Holub's efforts with lightly-milled solids. Could you say something about chewable food, Dr. Holub?

Holub stressed in an interview that women should not stop breast-feeding. Rather, he said, "we can change and improve the quality of breast milk" by cutting industrialized trans fats "off at the source."

I'm sorry, Dr. Holub, but who's this "we"? And how fucking creepy is it anyway that anyone's talking about "the quality of breast milk", as if it's some sort of national industry in need of agricultural support?

If women reduce their intake of trans fat, within days their breast milk benefits.

Holub says there is no safe level of the fats and that food producers should "cease and desist the industrial production of trans fats in the country."

Riiiiiiiiiight. But what about the rest of us who eat the food, Dr. Holub? Are trans fats worth eradicating only because - gasp - they can get into breast-milk? The breast-milk that good, unselfish, saintly mothers use to feed their sweet little innocents with?

The joint Health Canada and Heart and Stroke Foundation panel expects to make its recommendations to the government by the end of this month on strategies to reduce trans fats to the lowest levels possible.

But the group still has not decided how low to go -- or how to get there, meaning whether through guidelines or regulations.

How does this press release come about, exactly? Can you imagine this conversation?

"Gee, Bruce, what are we gonna do? We've got to report back to the federal committee tomorrow, and we haven't done a damn thing! We don't have a single idea for how to improve the safety of Canada's food supply! The Heart and Stroke Foundation is going to kill us!"

"No worries, Steve," says Bruce, brushing invisible lint off his labcoat. "We'll just blame nursing mothers - everyone's a sucker for headline on breast-milk, and it's not like breast-feeders are in any position to complain we're dumping on them. Hell, with the amount of hormones pumping through their bodies, they'll probably just curl up in little balls on their sofas and weep."

"Brilliant!" says Steve. "I'll call the press."

Thoughtfully, The Vancouver Sun has graced us with a paradigm of Holy ~~Martyr~~Motherdom in the accompanying boxed text, "Mother of Two Taken Aback", so that inferior mothers may know the blackness of their shame:

Now that she's breast-feeding, Sara Abbasakoor is very conscious about what she eats.

"Like, before I knew the glory of womanhood that comes from spawning my DNA, I totally didn't care about what I ate. When my body was just for me, my inferior gender characteristics led me to believe that I was below contempt - and I was! Now that I'm a mother, I'm eating for two - and I have to shower all the love on my infant that my worthless self could never otherwise deserve."

The 33-year-old mother of two tries to buy only organic meats, is selective about the dairy products she'll consume and has a basket of organic produce dropped at her east Vancouver home every two weeks to limit the amount of pesticides she passes on to her two-month-old son.

Isn't Sara Abbasakoor GOOD? She only eats organic, pesticide-free food because she recognizes the pollution inherent in her body, and she refuses to pass any corrupted influence on to her offspring. Readers, are YOU doing that? ARE YOU? NO? It's what - expensive and privileged to have organic food delivered right to your door? Puh-leeze. We've all heard that excuse from selfish, bad mothers. We all know you could afford it if you were willing to make the sacrifices necessary for your sweet, innocent, pristine, saintly children.

Quick, somebody bring out the torches and peasants! We're gonna have a shunning! Let this be a lesson to the rest of you: if you want to assuage society's tremendous motherguilt, you'd better get a bimonthly organic vegetable home-delivery!

On Wednesday, however, Abbasakoor learned the volume of trans fatty acids she may be passing on in her breast milk and that she could be doing more to watch what she is feeding her baby.

Unless, of course, we come up with some other reason for mothers to feel guilty. (But did we fool you with the organic home delivery thing? did you really feel good about yourself for a second there? did you think you were actually a good mother? SUCKER.)

"I'm very conscious of some of the risks of things translating into breast milk and that you do have to be careful," she said, explaining her diet is already relatively low in trans fats, but that she will try to keep a closer eye on her intake of the harmful fats.

"The problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is you are hungry a lot and you have cravings," she said. "It's sometimes hard to fill up on all healthy stuff."

No, Sara, the problem with pregnancy and breast-feeding is that society keeps telling women that it's all they're good for, and the infinite ways that those who choose it keep doing it wrong.

Comments

OMG, you were reading my mind while I was reading that piece this morning.

This is what my research is about (media and women's health) and this is exactly the kind of crap that makes me scream.

Posted by: Steph | November 03, 2005 at 12:11

Holy crap ... That's terrible! I must be a horrible mother, because of what I ate while I was pregnant and nursing my kids. Quick call the authorities!!

Thanks for saying your piece ... Thanks for saying what I, and I'm sure others, feel about that 'research' as well.

Posted by: Samantha | November 04, 2005 at 10:04

I suppose the possibility that infants might actually need that level of transfats for growth and development is just crazy talk.

Posted by: Kathleen | November 04, 2005 at 11:15

Oh my lord, quick eliminate all mothers.... Seriously, once they're weaned and up and running they can eat what they darn well want so they can go for crayons, sand, play-doh you name it, who the hell is going to stop them - the government? My offspring have hit 12,11 and 10 despite me and sometimes I wish some of the glow-in-the-dark foodcolouring from kids parties etc had stayed in their little bodies a bit longer and saved me on buying fluorescent backpacks etc for coming home from school when its dark and rainy.

Posted by: juliet | November 05, 2005 at 18:20

I sure hope they introduce legislation to force mothers not to sit on any sofas cos of the PCBs. Or watch TV. Or use plastic. I didn't know breast milk was sold in canada. Can I import it? I was bottle fed.

Posted by: weeza | November 10, 2005 at 09:43