You're Drinking Breast Milk

Whoa, mama.

"That's my milk in the fridge; I squeeze it out of my tits with a vice."

— Frankie Boyle, Mock the Week, Bad things to hear from your flatmate

A character — usually a man — is a guest in the home of a woman with small children. He gets thirsty, opens the fridge, finds a container of milk, and starts drinking. Then, the homeowner comes along and informs him, "You're drinking breast milk."

Invariably, the character doing the drinking will be squicked out, and disgustedly spit out the milk. The audience's reaction will vary quite a bit more, considering how funny such scenes can be if done well, and the fact that in Real Life there are many people who have a Fetish for lactation, breast milk or both; not to mention that there's nothing inherently bad in breast milk in itself and (virtually) everyone drank it at some point in their lives anyway.

In Real Life, human milk is much, much sweeter than bovine or goat milk, and not as thick; the guy who was drinking it should have realized it wasn't what he thought it was without someone else telling him. After all, it's meant to be used for human consumption, far more than any other type of milk. It makes more sense if the milk is being used to complement coffee or breakfast cereal.

Usually a Comedy Trope. For obvious reasons, you'll see less of it the more kid-friendly a work is... it tends to pop up more in PG-13 or R-rated films and comedy series that are geared more specifically toward adult audiences. (Which is kind of odd, given that breast milk is mainly for children.)

Subtrope of I Ate WHAT?!. Can coincide with Fetishes Are Weird if someone is purposely drinking breast milk.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• One strip of Seitokai Yakuindomo has Suzu's mom claim that this is the secret to her home cooking.

Comic Books

• Not explicitly stated to be breast milk, but in Creature Tech, Dr. Ong drinks from a cup at a group picnic before being told that family doesn't have a cow. Assuming he's being ostracized or mocked for being an atheist...
  Dr. Ong: So? I'm a country boy. I can drink goat's milk with the best of them.
  *panel shows a woman breastfeeding an infant while small children play nearby*
  *panel shows Dr. Ong spitting out his beverage*

Fan Works

• The punchline of this My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comic by MadMax involving Pinkie Pie mistakenly using Mrs. Cake's breast milk to make cupcakes and milkshakes.
• Early on in the Zootopia fanfic, Guardian Blue Season 1, a thirsty Nick is told by Stu to pick whatever he wants off the Hopps family's fridge. He ends up picking, and enjoying, the breast milk from Eli, one of Judy's sisters who has a very young kit. When he's finally told he drank bunny milk instead, Nick is suitably embarrassed and even feeling guilty, but then Eli excuses herself to the outside of the burrow and promptly bursts out laughing. Even then, Nick is the first to apologize when Eli turns in early, predicting that her baby will want a feeding in the middle of the night. It becomes a heartwarming brick joke later on, when Eli sends via the family a bottle to Nick as a humorous "get better soon" gift when he gets out of the hospital after Judy rescues him from Hell's Cauldron; when he finally gets to gulp it down, we have this scene:
  Judy: Nick, please say that was just regular milk.
  Nick: Nope. Sweet. Definitely grade-A bunneh!
  Judy: You know that’s not for foxes, right? Why would you drink that?
  Nick: Did you ever drink it?
  Judy: Yeah, of course. First couple years of my life, like most kits. But I’m a bunny. I’m supposed to.
  Nick: Yeah, well, you drank it for two years... and you carried a mammal twice your weight more’n a mile upward through the guts of the city with your shoulder out of joint and then kicked a freaking crater in the road in front of Palm Market just to drag me back into the light... so yeah - Imma drink the milk. I’ll suck down every drop of it that gets handed to me. I figure I’ll be able to fly if I drink enough.

Fairy Tales

• There is a Russian fairy tale where a woman gives birth to three sons, but her evil sister takes them away and gets her banished. After awhile, her stepson finds the house of the brothers, so to introduce himself, he asks mother to make some bread with her breast milk. Upon tasting it, his brothers recognize the taste and accept the two as their family.

Films — Live-Action

• In Borat, the title character from Kazakhstan nonchalantly informs the American senator he's speaking with that the cheese he's feeding the senator was made from his wife's own breast milk.
• Happens accidentally in Grown Ups, with Maria Bello as a mother who's not only still lactating but able to feed her four-year-old, and Maya Rudolph, who gets it all over her face. Her response? "It's actually not that bad."
  • Later in the same movie, the toddler is successfully weaned off of it, leaving the mother to ask "what am I supposed to do with it now?" Her husband says he has an idea in mind.
• In Little Man, Darryl and Calvin, played by Shawn and Marlon Wayans, respectively, were bonding by drinking what they thought was cow's milk until Darryl's wife, Vanessa, pointed out that they were drinking a neighbor's breast milk, causing them to do a spit take.
• In Look Who's Talking, James, played by John Travolta, borrows Mikey's milk bottle to put milk in his coffee. Mollie, played by Kirstie Alley, helpfully chimes in with the trope name.
  James: Ah, coffee regular.^note Coffee with two sugars and milk, as he put it earlier. [Drinks coffee]
  Mollie: You know that's breast milk.
  [James does a Spit Take]
  • The gag is actually played out again at the end of the same scene, when James announces he's leaving with his coffee and "his breast milk."
• Mad Max: Fury Road: Captive women are farmed for their breast milk, which is one of the Citadel's trade goods with the other warlords in Immortan Joe's alliance. At one point the title character starts washing the blood off his face in a bucket of the stuff. He's surprised when told what it is, but keeps going. Earlier Rictus is also shown drinking a bottle of breast milk which clearly meets his approval.
• In Meet the Fockers, Gaylord drinks a cup of his sister-in-law's breast milk on accident. He comments "ew" before putting it back down.
• In 1971's Sunday Bloody Sunday, Bob, babysitting a houseful of kids, with his girlfriend Alex, finds a small, odd looking container of milk in the refrigerator and asks the eldest daughter if it's all right for him to drink, and she respond that it's milk her mother had expressed for her infant brother, as "he isn't weaned yet".

Literature

• Averted in one of the Able Team novels. Carl Lyons has to ensure a baby doesn't cry as he's smuggled past a checkpoint, so he's mixing in a drug with the breast milk that the mother expresses on the spot for him. Her husband just laughs at his embarrassment, telling Lyons to try some himself as it tastes sweet.
• An early conversation between a frazzled first-time mother Lori and her new nanny Francesca in Aunt Dimity Digs In:
  Lori: Sorry I'm late.
  Francesca: No trouble. I spotted the bottles you'd left in the fridge—
  Lori: Did you use the right ones?
  Francesca: Would the ones labeled My Milk be the right ones?
  Lori: Yes, well...Bill sort of mixed them up a few weeks ago and—
• A variant of this occurs in the web erotica Lesbian Land 2250. The protagonist, who recently arrived in the setting, goes to get milk out of the fridge. As she's drinking it, she reads the label that says it's breast milk. Subverted when she doesn't seem to mind, and is in fact turned on by this. And then it's revealed that they regularly have women milked each day, with the milk being delivered all over the city like regular milk delivery.

Live-Action TV

• The Boys (2019). Averted with Homelander who has a fetish for the breast milk of his mother-figure Stillwell.
• Happened in the office on Close to Home (2005). Annabeth is expressing and storing her breast milk in the fridge. One of her male co-workers ends up putting her breast milk in his coffee.
• This came up once on Designing Women, when Suzanne almost used milk Charlene had expressed for her infant daughter in her coffee.
• On A Different World, Jalessa left breast milk in the fridge. Ron uses the milk to make pina coladas for a bachelor party. As they are drinking, the babysitter explains that was breast milk. Cue multiple spit takes.
• One episode of Friends features Ross being squicked out because Phoebe tastes some of Carol's expressed breast milk when heating it up for Ben. Joey then subsequently tastes it, to prove to Ross that it's not a big deal. Ross still refuses it, stating that it's gross, until Carol and Susan tell him that he's being silly and that they've both sampled it (Susan's tone being innuendo-filled doesn't help matters). Even then, it takes him a while to "build up" to sampling it and he has to stuff cookies in his mouth to distract himself from what he just did. Ross' reluctance to try it is contrasted with a scene earlier in the episode where he scolds Chandler and Joey for being awkward when Carol breastfeeds in front of them.
  Ross: Give me the milk. *puts a drop on his arm* Give me the towel. *wipes it and walks out*
  • A variation, Joey drinks formula, mistaking it for eggnog. Upon being informed it was formula, he didn't care, he just wanted more because it tasted good (though being Joey, it's possible he didn't know what "formula" was).
• On Impractical Jokers, one of Sal's punishments involves him drinking breast milk. Murr is tricked into drinking it as well even though it wasn't his punishment (the guys made him think it was a dual-punishment).
• Invoked in a sketch on The Kenny Everett Video Show when aging rocker Sid Snot orders a cup of tea from a roadside van. The woman serving asks if he wants sugar. He says yes and she reaches into her cleavage and pulls out a couple of sugar cubes which she drops in his tea. She then asks "Milk?" and he gives a knowing look to camera and says "You wouldn't dare."
• Little Britain had a recurring skit about a grown man who was still breast-fed by his mother ("Bitty?"). At one point when they're having tea the father asks if she can spare any milk, so she sprays a little into his cup. The fiancée is thoroughly Squicked, but still marries him for some reason.
• One of the Hopeless Auditionees on season four of MasterChef revealed that this was the secret ingredient of her macaroni and cheese, causing Gordon Ramsay to do a Spit Take.
• In Peep Show Jeremy deliberately uses Sophie's breast milk in coffee as he and Mark have run out of cow's milk. He enjoys his coffee but Mark is disgusted when he realise what it is he's drinking and refuses to drink any more saying its practically cannibalism.

• Served as a funny moment during the "Improbable Mission" sketch on Whose Line Is It Anyway? (US version). Ryan and Colin have to prepare breakfast for some foreign dignitary. Colin, a genetically modified agent, complains at one point that he lacks a "coffee gene", to which Ryan replies, "I'm not talking about coffee, Mr. Moo!" Cue uproarious laughter.

Video Games

• One of the many, many, many Parody Commercials in You Don't Know Jack is for "Mama's Pride Human Breast Milk".
  Spokesman: Baby yourself, with Mama's Pride.

Webcomics

• Justified in Blade of Toshubi. The character drinking it's insensate, and his hostess (an anthropomorphic cow), has to feed him somehow, so she breastfeeds him.
• An El Goonish Shive guest comic by the creators of The Wotch subverted this. The comic is set up to make the readers (and Elliot) think Tedd filled a carton with milk after transforming into a literal cow girl, causing Elliot to run off and vomit. However, this wasn't the case and the milk was simply expired.
• In an early Least I Could Do Rayne mistakenly drinks the breast milk from a girl's fridge. He takes it in stride:
  Rayne: Meh, it was either that or walk two blocks to the store. I stand by my choice.

• Hunter of Suicide for Hire would prefer this kind of milk. Just ignore the fact that they're anthros.
• Invoked in one Tawawa on Monday story. A farmhand gets her picture taken with one of the cows as part of the farm's "meet the people behind your favorite food" campaign. When it's displayed in a supermarket's dairy aisle, some customers were confused as to whose milk it was in the bottles.

Web Original

• In Chakona Space, Chakats normally drink each other's milk. But there's one story where a Chakat wet nurse's roommate plays this trope completely straight, for several months before shi tells hir where the stuff in hir coffee came from.
• Not exactly drinking, but in a guest-hosted episode of Good Mythical Morning, Rosanna Pansino and iJustine are given various lollipops while blindfolded and asked to guess their flavours. The last lollipop they try is - you guessed it - breast milk flavour (this is spoiled in the thumbnail for the video).
• During a Minecraft stream by hololive Virtual YouTuber Gura Gawr, Gura comes across a milk vending machine and happily takes a sip. However, she then notices a sign on the side of the machine that implies that the milk was extracted from her fellow VTuber Ina'nis Ninomae, causing her to use the adjacent vending machine to get some cookies as Brain Bleach.
  Gura: Now what do you do with it, is there a way to recycle it— (notices the sign on the side reading "INA'NIS MILK", and frowns in silence for several seconds) EEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHH!!
• On The Ricky Gervais Show, he complained that a neighbor once made him a dessert from breast milk.
• In Neurotically Yours, Germaine, after getting fired from her job at the coffee shop, revealed to the customers that the cream in their coffee was actually her breast milk.
• One of the notes on the "Passive-Aggressive Notes" blog was "Dear Milk-thief: That was breast milk." It was actually used for the cover when Passive-Aggressive Notes got a book deal.
• Volume 5 of "Steve, Don't Eat It!" had Steve drinking his wife's breast milk. He didn't find the taste bad at all, even though he was squicked by the concept of drinking human breast milk. He also tried it with chocolate syrup, getting something he felt tasted just like Yoo-Hoo.

Western Animation

• American Dad! did an episode all about this with Francine in extreme My Beloved Smother mode. She's revealed to have secretly fed Steve her breastmilk for years, and has it pumped out in a creepy basement bunker that's basically a shrine to Steve when he was a toddler. After Francine manipulates Steve into thinking he won't survive without her milk, the two are caught as Steve literally drinks from her breasts in front of the rest of the family and the entire town. The two are branded freaks and Stan forces them to stay in the basement. Roger initially offers to make a documentary to show the world how Steve and Francine are "perfectly normal," but he gave up as things got even creepier. That's right, Steve and Francine were turning into such freaks that it made Roger uncomfortable. His reaction was almost identical to the one he had when he saw Stan happily sharing a bath with his mother while scrubbing her vagina clean.

Real Life

• There are multiple accounts of the TSA and other security agencies forcing mothers to drink their prepumped milk.
• A chef in N.Y. made cheese from his wife's breast milk.
• An ice cream parlor in London called Baby Gaga is now serving breast milk ice cream. The milk is provided by donors who must first have their blood tested. This didn't go without controversy, however. Westminster City Council shut the place down for a few months pending word from Britain's Food Standards Agency (the UK's equivalent of the FDA), ironically questioning whether it was safe for human consumption. (It reopened later.) Also, Lady Gaga threatened the place with a lawsuit over copyright violations, but was unsuccessful.
• Guess what's the latest trendy workout recovery beverage among the athletic set?... You guessed it! Proponents (yes, adult male proponents) also tout breast milk's effectiveness at settling nausea, clearing up psoriasis, and boosting the immune system. (However, physicians are not yet convinced of any supposed value for adults.)
• One little-known reason why it's medically unwise for human adults to drink breast milk is that it contains a mild laxative, intended to help newborns whose pelvic nerves are still developing to defecate as needed.
• After being fed up with someone stealing the milk, an office worker switched it with breast milk as payback. (See above picture.)
  P.S., It's organic. So, no worries. [Smiley face.]
• Vegans will often refer to cow's milk as "breast milk" to attempt to invoke this in non-vegans, arguing that adults drinking milk is infantile. Also, cow's milk doesn't come from the breast.

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