Mother Whose Milk Was Made Into Cheese Insists She's Better Than a Cow

NY Post- No matter what the city says, Lori Mason insists the breast milk she supplied her cheese-making husband is more wholesome than anything on the shelves at Whole Foods.

Her milk is 100 percent organic, free range, and foie gras-fed, she told The Post.

"I eat healthier than your average cow and I'm not pumped full of steroids!" Mason said.

When Mason's husband, Daniel Angerer, blogged about making some of his wife's excess breast milk into cheese, customers at his restaurant, Klee Brasserie on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, began demanding to have a taste.

But as The Post reported yesterday, even though expressed mother's-milk cheese is not against health codes, city officials strongly advised Angerer to desist.

The cheese could pose a potential health hazard, the officials said.

That did not stop diners eager to sample the human dairy from showing up at the restaurant yesterday.

"We had some people who ordered the cheese plate and I had to tell them we don't serve the breast-milk cheese in the restaurant," maitre d' Bari Musacchio said. "I told them if they wanted to try it, there is a recipe on the [Klee Brasserie] Web site."

According to Liz Thorpe, a vice president of Murray's Cheese shops in Manhattan, who reviewed Angerer's cheese for The Post, they aren't missing much.

"It was slippery, slightly crunchy and tasted like pickles," she said. "I give it a thumbs down."

But breast-milk cheese isn't just a matter of bad taste, it's potentially unsafe, city officials said.

"It's not intended for adults, or for wide public consumption," a Health Department spokeswoman said.

Risks would "depend on the health of the lactating woman," she said. "If the restaurant was found distributing the cheese in the establishment for public consumption, the Health Department could issue a violation."

Angerer said he has no intention of selling his wife's cheese in the restaurant, but he insisted it's actually a healthy food.

"I tried it and I'm still alive. The baby eats it all day long and she's fine too," he said.

Even though they're barred from distributing it to customers, Mason said the couple may hold private tasting parties "at our apartment or in the park in the spring with wine."

Mason, who has been propositioned by several creepy customers eager to sample her breast milk, offered one caveat.

"We may need security to stop the weird fetish people from coming in."

The Health Department nixed the cheese-party idea, too.

"He can't do that either," the spokeswoman said.