February 28th, 2008 · 1 Comment

By Colette Fox

Milk does a body good, according to the advertising slogan and nutritional guidelines. But which milk does our bodies the most good? In order to reduce fat, many of us long ago switched from whole milk to low fat or skim. And a growing number of us now buy organic milk, even though it can easily double the milk budget.

Photo: National Milk Producers Federation

Now there’s yet another choice to make when you face the dairy case – whether to buy milk from cows that haven’t been injected with artificial hormones.

More and more supermarkets are making that choice easy. As of this month, grocery stores across the country operated by The Kroger Company are only selling milk without rBST.

The acronym rBST stands for recombinant bovine somatotropin – a synthetic hormone given to cows to boost their milk supply. It is used interchangeably with rBGH, or recombinant bovine growth hormone.

By either name, the growth hormone has been implicated as possibly not doing human bodies “good” by raising the risk of certain human cancers and resistance to antibiotics, though the evidence is inconclusive.

Lately, consumers have indicated they don’t want to wait for the final proof on whether rBST is safe.

Both Kroger (with more than 2,500 stores across the nation) and the Safeway (with more than 1,700) report that they are responding to customer requests by providing hormone-free milk.

Safeway store-owned brands of milk — such as Lucerne — are rBGH-free, although Safeway stores may sell other brands that are not, according to spokeswoman Teena Massingill. “Our goal is to provide our customers with products they want,” she says.

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