What is Monsanto milk? And is it at Starbucks?

Expert response from Aimee Hood

Regulatory Science Communications Lead, Bayer Crop Science

Tuesday, 25/11/2014 13:07

Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte is one of my favorite fall drinks. I can’t wait until about mid-August each year, when it shows up in their stores as a seasonal choice. This year, I knew it was in stores because I had read that Vani Hari (aka the Food Babe) was making claims that this coffee treat contains numerous toxins and that Starbucks was hiding the drink’s ingredient list.

One of those claims was that the latte was “made with Monsanto milk” — a term she created to describe milk from cows fed GM crops (corn, soy and cottonseed) or soy milk that contains carrageenan stabilizer. I’m happy to say that this claim doesn’t concern me in the least and I am still happily purchasing my lattes.

First of all, Ms. Hari tries to evoke emotion by implying that all GMO corn, soy and cottonseed products are from Monsanto seed, when the truth is that the majority of these products are derived from seed produced by other agricultural companies, versus only Monsanto seed. (Please review this response for more information on Monsanto’s market share in the seed market.)

Second, she implies that there is a difference between milk from cows that have been fed GM feed and cows fed non-GM feed, when, in actuality, there is no distinguishable difference in the milk. As for the soy milk that contains carrageenan stabilizer, I can’t speak to that; Monsanto has nothing to do with carrageenan.

By the way, Snopes.com did a nice job of detailing why Ms. Hari’s entire claim was false. You can find their write-up here, and you can find another nice blog post on the topic here.