Milk like Mom used to make

Not all milk is created equal. The label of “liquid gold” only goes to one, all natural variety: human breast milk.

Odds are you haven’t tasted this milk delicacy since infancy, but that’s okay — the “liquid gold” sticker isn’t backed by taste buds but rather by science.

See, our mothers’ breast milk is gilded with magical properties. It contains amino acids, vitamins, minerals, infection-fighting antibodies and ideal levels of cholesterol that help a baby’s digestion and development.

But what if the built-in benefits of human milk could be found in a cow?

Last week, the United Kingdom newspaper The Telegraph reported that scientists “have successfully introduced human genes into 300 dairy cows to produce milk with the same properties as human breast milk.”

Basically, scientists are working to invent something that already exists.

The American Academy of Pediatrics promotes breastfeeding for all infants because baby formula simply can’t compete with the composition of human milk, but designing GE cows for this “liquid gold” is completely unnecessary.

The researchers at the China Agricultural University used cloning technology to insert human genes into the DNA of Holstein dairy cows.

The genetically altered embryos were then transferred to surrogate cows.

In a scientific peer-reviewed journal, the researchers said they were able to manufacture cows that produced human milk proteins lactoferrin, alpha-lactalbumin and lysozyme, which help to protect infants from bacterial infection.

Despite these technological strides, the lead researcher professor Ning Li said it may take 10 years or more to get this GE bovine milk to the consumers.

But maybe the world’s babies don’t need special cows anyway. The chemistry of human milk is undeniably valuable, plus, it’s virtually free of cost.

Yet, at times, baby formula appears to be the only option since a mother’s diet, medications and physical condition are all factors when breastfeeding infants.

The research with humanoid cow milk may want to bridge this gap between processed formula and natural food for newborns, but the work seems entirely excessive.

Despite the researchers’ insistence that the milk would be safe to drink, opponents of GM foods “reacted angrily to the research” and questioned the “effect of the cattle’s health,” according to The Telegraph.

Since the “liquid gold” product already exists naturally in mothers, the efforts to create a store-bought version are odd.

Organizations like the International Breast Milk Project don’t turn to science for imitations of human milk, they use the real stuff.

IBMP provides nutritional milk to infants in immediate need, and they operate on donations from women in the United States.

When the original form of breast milk is already available, why should we settle for  anything less?

­— paihenry@indiana.edu