Dirty Dozen: Why to Always Buy Organic Milk
Friday, December 18, 2009 at 9:46AM 
Dirty Dozen is an ongoing Organic Nation series that seeks to explain the benefits of certain organic foods and products over their conventional counterparts. To see other recent posts in this series, click here.
There's been a backlash of press against organic milk recently, with a number of articles and columnists arguing that organic and conventional milk are virtually the same, and that only a fool would pay more for organic. It may all look the same, but there's a big difference between how a carton of organic and conventional milk are produced.
Numerous growth hormones, pesticides, dioxins, and antibiotics are used in the production of conventional milk, while none of them are permitted for certified-organic dairy farmers. And not only is organic milk cleaner, but it's healthier too. A recent study from Newcastle University in England found that organic milk contained 67 percent more vitamins, antioxidants, and Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids than conventional milk.
A key requirement of certified-organic dairy farmers is that they don't inject their cows with bovine growth hormone (known variously as BGH, rBGH, rBST, and POSILAC). Monsanto Corp introduced BGH in 1994, because it forces dairy cows to produce 15 to 25 percent more milk. Scientists have known from the outset that BGH contains higher levels of an insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which is linked to cancer, but many conventional farmers continue to use the stuff.