Hormone-free Dairy Products

I love rich, creamy dairy products: butter, cheese, sour cream...yum! Lately, many of us cooks, foodies, and eaters of all sorts have had concerns about the levels of bovine growth hormone in our dairy products. The long and short of it is that some dairy farms have traditionally shot up their dairy cows with synthetic hormones to make the cows grow faster and produce more milk sooner. Well, guess what? Not that I ever thought of it until recently, but those hormones get into the dairy products and then get into our bodies and may affect our and our children's growth and development. But I just can't stop eating all of my favorites, so I wanted to tell you all about a few products that I'm aware of that claim to be hormone free. I'm not making any promises here, folks, but these products are self-reported hormone free and are in most major supermarkets:

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream (yay!)
Horizon Organic
Kraft 2 % cheese (who'd have thunk?)
Organic Valley
Stoneyfield Farms

For more hormone-free dairy products in your area, go to http://www.sustainabletable.org/shop/dairymap/ and click on your state! Happy eating!