Marked with a logo depicting rolling green hills and blue skies, Garelick Farms dairy products are found in grocery stores across New England. Their “Dairy Pure” milk commercial often appears on television during the day while I work and study from my home in Brookline, Massachusetts. From its very name, Dairy Pure, this brand of milk promotes itself as a safe and perfect food. The commercial’s language and imagery are particularly interesting when analyzed alongside E. Melanie DuPuis’ Nature’s Perfect Food: How Milk Became America’s Drink. DuPuis tells the nineteenth-century story of how milk was transformed in the American conscious from a poison to a universally and naturally necessary, perfect food. The present day marketing for Dairy Pure milk also works to assuage fears about milk’s safety and promote milk’s place in the lives of mothers and children. DuPuis describes the high infant mortality rates of mid-nineteenth century America, which stirred many milk reformers into action. Increasing urbanization had caused changes in societal expectations and cultural norms for middle class women, as well as increased …