If there’s one thing that unites Americans each summer, it’s the perennial hunt for the season’s oddest new ice cream flavor. Every July, some local creamery somewhere tweaks the boundaries of dairy etiquette—a cheddar swirl here, a lobster chunk there. But in 2025, the oddity contest has been handily won by what might be the most disarmingly intimate flavor note yet: breast milk. Not actual breast milk, of course, but ice cream that claims to taste like it—or at least, as close as a legally responsible ice creamery dares.

According to USA TODAY, Frida—a brand best known for its baby care products—teamed up with OddFellows, a small-batch ice cream company based in New York, to engineer this nostalgia-laden nod to humanity’s first food. Their limited-edition breast milk-flavored pints launched earlier this year and promptly ignited a social media maelstrom. Now, the flavor is available for home delivery nationwide, while supplies last. For anyone near Dumbo, Brooklyn, OddFellows’ scoop shop offers free samples at specific lunchtime hours through August 10.

Not Quite a Milky Confession

Naturally, the internet’s first burning question: is this actual, frozen human breast milk in a pint? Frida and OddFellows anticipated this, and as USA TODAY explains, the answer is a definitive no. The flavor is meant to mimic—not deliver—the real thing. An ingredient list provided by Frida, and cited across reports by ABC News and Pulse.ng, features standard ice cream elements: milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, sugar, dextrose, and honey syrup. The novelty comes from small additions, notably liposomal bovine colostrum, which is included in a nod to breast milk’s own “liquid gold” features. For color, there’s yellow food coloring and a blush of FD&C Red 40—so the result is distinctly yellow-tinged.

As ABC News highlights in its ingredient breakdown, while human colostrum—a high-nutrient first food for infants—isn’t present here, the bovine version contains similar nutrients and is often prized for its perceived health benefits. The makers emphasize that no human breast milk was—or could reasonably have been—used in commercial production.

A Pint of Baby’s First Memories?

Describing the flavor experience, Frida’s statement included by Pulse.ng explains it as “sweet, a little salty, smooth, with hints of honey and sprinkles of colostrum, and features a distinct colostrum yellow tinge.” OddFellows, as noted by La Voce di New York, leans into the brand’s reputation for “compulsive creativity,” assuring the flavor aims to be as close as possible to what “mom used to make”—or at least what adult imaginations think that was.

The pricing, according to USA TODAY and reinforced by Pulse.ng, is $12.99 per pint, with a minimum order of two pints required for online purchase. Those who’d like to sample before committing to 32 ounces of simulated childhood can visit the OddFellows Dumbo location, where free scoops are available for one hour on designated days. The limited nature and higher price point seem designed to encourage sharing—either with friends or, perhaps, therapists.

Timing Is Everything (and Kind of Ironic)

Why breast milk, and why now? The timing isn’t accidental. Both Pulse.ng and La Voce di New York note the launch coincides with National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, making the stunt as much a statement about visibility and destigmatization as about flavor innovation. Recent years have seen a cultural fascination with breast milk gain traction, including celebrities like Kourtney Kardashian, Ashley Graham, and Coco Austin publicly sampling their own out of curiosity or for health claims—trends detailed by USA TODAY.

Campaign slogans—“taste it yourself” and “pumping now”—are more than just clever one-liners. As reported by La Voce di New York, the promotion aims, in part, to cast a playful spotlight on something primal that still manages to make people squirm. Social media campaigns have heightened both confusion and curiosity, with trucks brandishing “Breast Milk Ice Cream” prompting passersby to double-take or post their surprise online. The same outlet suggests this sort of playful provocation could help erode the awkwardness many people still feel around breastfeeding, turning taboo into talking point.

From Nutritional Gold to Netizen Goldmine

When it comes to reactions, the reception is as split as a batch of Neapolitan. Pulse.ng documents social media users ranging from genuinely curious to gleefully baffled, with some lauding the campaign for its cheek and others wondering where the flavor arms race will end. A statement from the company in the same article claims, “This is a pitch-perfect representation of the sweet, creamy, nutrient-packed goodness we’ve all wanted to try but have been afraid to ask.” Appropriately, more than a few people admit they’d take the dare—though perhaps not in public.

Reflecting on cultural memory, La Voce di New York observes that traditional desserts are often nostalgia engines—vanilla birthday cake, bubblegum ice, even the humble Oreo blizzard—each seeking to transport us to cozy moments of childhood. In this light, breast milk ice cream is perhaps less outlandish than it first sounds; it’s just tapping a memory none of us can consciously recall, but all once shared.

A Gentle Spoonful of Reflection

All told, 2025’s most memorable taste test is both a marketing stunt and an invitation to question why such basic parts of early life have become so unmentionable. As detailed by USA TODAY, the attention-grabbing element is not just taste, but the strange comfort of something so fundamental—and so rarely discussed—being offered up on a cone.

There’s a kind of understated charm in Frida and OddFellows’ daring: they took a universal experience and made it both literal and tongue-in-cheek, offering nostalgia not so much for childhood as for the very start of all things. Is this a flavor for everyone? Hardly. But in a landscape of maple bacon lattes and pickle slushies, it’s reassuring to know there’s still room for a little human kindness—served cold, smooth, and with a dash of collective curiosity.

Would you try it? Or is this one comfort best left locked away with all the other secrets of infancy? As ever, perhaps the true flavor is in the wondering.