Pistacio Cupcakes and Healthy Milk

This story has not been given much play in the media, (we'll get to that in a second), but the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has determined that rbGH and rbST, hormones given to cows to increase milk production, have a detrimental effect on the quality and healthfulness of the milk. You can read the article here on NPR.org. 
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said there is a "compositional difference" between milk from cows given growth hormones and those without.
The court gave three reasons they're different:

• Increased levels of the hormone IGF-1;
• A period of milk with lower nutritional quality during each lactation; and
• Increased somatic cell counts (i.e. more pus in the milk).

Now, why wasn't this front page news?  The adverse effects of hormones and anti-biotics in foods, and the ability of producers to label their products, and of consumers to get information about how their food is produced, should be an important news topic.  Not as dramatic on the front page as e-coli or salmonella, hormones and anti-biotics (and other farm practices) are a much more insidious threat to food quality and public health.  Anyway, I hope that this gives serious researchers and serious food producers hope that their efforts to label foods to provide information for consumers will not be quashed by regulation.

OK, Now for the food stuff.  In the previous post, Michael gave the link to the Pembroke College kitchen blog.  I browsed around it for a while yesterday.  Oh, my!  How does the chef do it?  He creates gourmet meals every day with incredible variety and sensitivity.  He is not just slinging the same old hash around every day; the menus are ever-changing and spectacularly presented.  The green pistacio cake caught my eye.  I searched the internet for a recipe and was disappointed to find mostly recipes that called for boxed mix and instant pistacio flavored pudding mix.  HMMM, I finally found a recipe that used fresh ingredients and real pistacios at a site called PlanetGreen.   I slightly modified it by using whole wheat flour and adding dried shredded coconut.  I did use eggs in the recipe, but I will experiment with an egg-free version.  I made 24 mini cupcakes from this recipe.  Of course my daughter loved them!  I feel OK about that as they are pretty healthy and I used a relatively small amount of sugar.  They didn't turn out green, however.  I'm not sure where one gets "green" pistacios, but I didn't want to put food coloring in them.  Maybe some spinach juice in the next batch!

I didn't take a picture of my cupcakes, since they didn't last long enough, but here is a pic of the cake that inspired me.  Doesn't that look yummy?

OK, here is my recipe

Pistacio Cupcakes
makes 6 large or 24 mini

1/2 cup "white" whole wheat flour
2 oz ground raw pistacios
1/4 cup dried shredded coconut
1/4 t cardamom
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2T goat milk butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3-4 oz goat milk (use your eye to mix in enough milk to make a thick batter)
2T spinach juice???? for green color????

Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl.  In a larger bowl, cream the butter and sugar, then add in the egg and whip until creamy.  In batches, add in 1/3 of the dry ingredients and 1/3 of the milk, folding until just mixed each time.  Continue adding in until you have a nice cake batter.  Pour into lined muffin tins and bake at 350F for 30 min for large cupcakes, 18-20 min for mini cupcakes.