Got Milk?
A clear California story, when the passion for organic runs up against Big Brother. It seems that there are a number of people in California who prefer raw milk, for all sorts of reasons (they think it healthier, they want to support local business, they don't want their food from an impersonal supermarket, whatever). Raw milk is not illegal in California. But selling it is.
The solution: Goat shares. That is, people buy shares in a goat; the money goes toward the upkeep of the goats; in return they visit the farms and get a certain amount of milk each month. Now the state has raided one such farm -- Evergreen Acres in San Jose -- saying that the practice is illegal.
A college professor has challenged the DA. The Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund has filed suit against the California Department of Food and Agriculture on behalf of Mr. Hulme and other affected farmers (and by the way has a very interesting website with more fascinating info on the case for raw milk). Once upon a time, you got in trouble for making moonshine. Now it's milk.
What's this country coming to if you can't buy the cow (er, goat) and get the milk for free?
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Aug '10
Re: Got Milk?
This has got to be a moment of true cognitive dissonance for some lefties in California. Organic is always good. Big government is always good. So - how can the two be at odds with one another???
Jun '10
Re: Got Milk?
Ahhhh the Dept of Ag. Tyranny in the name of "what's good for the citizen," is the worst kind of tyranny of all.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-C.S. Lewis
Sep '10
Re: Got Milk?
Liberals don't care what the policy is as long as it is mandatory.
I don't know where that comes from but I have always thought it apropos to these stories.
Re: Got Milk?
We live in the county seat of a rural county with a substantial Amish population and lots of people who insist on drinking raw milk. Our pediatrician -- an old guy with a wealth of experience and, as far as I can tell, impeccable judgment -- has warned us quite emphatically against raw milk. "If you want to see your children die," he says, "that's one way to go."
I do not know the science here, and I am no friend of the nanny state. I can only say that our pediatrician has seen a great deal in his many ears of practice and that he is apt to be right.
We should be wary of fads -- raw milk, organic food, attachment parenting -- which reflect in a vulgar fashion that posture propagated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau: that nature is good, that civilization is evil, and that sentiment should conquer all.
I would like to hear from the scientists in our number on the raw milk question.
May '10
Re: Got Milk?
The California Puritan control-freak hyper-regulatory totalitarian nanny Brave New World is unstoppable. We vote for it.
O'er the Land of the Cheese, and the Home of the Whey.
Aug '11
Re: Got Milk?
I've spent the last five decades working exclusively on the science of raw milk, and I cannot tell you the number of curative powers it works on the human body. It reverses the aging process, which means drinking raw milk should always be done in moderation. We don't want anyone turning into babies from overdoing it. Also, raw milk makes body odor smell like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. It provides free energy to your Smart Car (TM). Best of all, consuming it gives you an unearned feeling of moral superiority to the faceless masses who cannot afford the delicacy. One would always need that moral superiority to hide how consuming raw milk is really just a way of cloaking ostentatious wealth--like the guy who buys recycled art for thousands of dollars.
Oh, and raw milk kills unborn infants! http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm
May '10
Re: Got Milk?
Clearly, we need yet another layer of government to regulate the regulators. That way, nonsense like this will become impossible.
BTW, I looked into buying raw milk for my family. In the end, the logistics made it impractical (the supplier was more than an hour away) but I would have liked doing it, mainly for aesthetics and partly for health. I do worry about the risk of scaling up raw milk production to industrial, mass-market levels, so the rule I've adopted is, never drink raw milk from an animal you do not have a personal relationship with.
Re: Got Milk?
If only this were just a California story. The US FDA has been waging a relentless war against interstate sales of raw milk, treating it as though it were crack. Last year, FDA agents, backed up by armed police, conducted a 5 am raid on an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania for the crime of selling raw milk to willing consumers. And that was the culimination of a year-long "sting" operation against the farmer, where undercover agents scored raw milk -- without the proper labelling!
Seriously, I think these regulations infringe fundamental rights of liberty and property; namely, the right to earn an honest living, the right of willing buyers and sellers to enter into contracts, and the right (for heaven's sake) to choose what to eat.
I'm not a raw milk enthusiast, but I've had it without ill effect. And it is considered sufficiently safe that in Europe -- Europe! -- you can get it out of vending machines (vive le lait cru!). The state and federal crackdown on raw milk sales would almost be amusing, if it weren't such a sad example of our nanny state.
Sep '10
Re: Got Milk?
Louis Pasteur was a bought-and-paid-for tool of Big Milk and Big Pharma! It's the biggest conspiracy since they shot Lincoln... or maybe Kennedy!! They are trying keep us weak and in ill health so that we'll buy Big Pharma's medications.
More seriously, I can't understand the need to raid these places and shut them down. Raw milk can't be any more dangerous than Marlboros. The FDA has a tried-and-true harrassment methodology for this: warning labels. Just force the raw milk providers to print a picture of a dead baby on the label. There - everyone is happy!
Gotta agree with Songwriter: this is a delicious collision of the nanny-state liberal demographic. I can't decide whether to just giggle or try to recruit these raw milkers into the Tea Party big tent.
May '10
Re: Got Milk?
Paul, my grandparents, like so many grandparents in this country, grew up on farms where they drank raw milk every day without incident. While I'm sure there are possible health hazards, I doubt they are much more common than Salmonella and such. In any case, the risks are not so great as to discourage farmers everywhere from enjoying fresh milk.
The human body adapts quickly, though. Perhaps the necessary antibodies are quickly lost if one is not accustomed to it.
To say that world history is full of people drinking raw milk while generally getting on with their lives is not to say the practice is without severe or common risks. But we should be embarrassed to look back at those thousands of generations and realize that we, citizens of an "advanced" civilization, are not free to take the same risks.
Dec '10
Re: Got Milk?
Owl of Minerva:
Oh, and raw milk kills unborn infants! http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm · Aug 10 at 8:34am
"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 800 people in the United States have gotten sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk since 1998." -- article last updated May, 2011
I'm no advocate for raw milk consumption, but really?? 800 sick people since 1998 is supposed to scare raw milk consumers straight?
I haven't looked up the numbers, but I'd bet more people get sick and even die from unsafe handling of raw chicken every year! I dress in a hermetically sealed clean suit with my bottle of 10% bleach solution in one hand to clean chicken. The bleach and isopropyl alcohol treatment is applied to everything within 3 feet of the sink when I'm finished. Slight exaggeration, but can you tell? I hate raw chicken.
For raw milk we call out the SWAT teams? Huh.
Re: Got Milk?
Western Chauvinist
Owl of Minerva:
Oh, and raw milk kills unborn infants! http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm · Aug 10 at 8:34am
"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 800 people in the United States have gotten sick from drinking raw milk or eating cheese made from raw milk since 1998." -- article last updated May, 2011
I'm no advocate for raw milk consumption, but really?? 800 sick people since 1998 is supposed to scare raw milk consumers straight?
I haven't looked up the numbers, but I'd bet more people get sick and even die from unsafe handling of raw chicken every year! I dress in a hermetically sealed clean suit with my bottle of 10% bleach solution in one hand to clean chicken. The bleach and isopropyl alcohol treatment is applied to everything within 3 feet of the sink when I'm finished. Slight exaggeration, but can you tell? I hate raw chicken.
For raw milk we call out the SWAT teams? Huh. · Aug 10 at 10:00am
It does seem a bit much.
Jun '10
Re: Got Milk?
I grew up drinking the stuff. I found it disgusting. Little globs of cream floating on the top. I consider myself reasonably well-adjusted, but raw milk just about did me in. I'd love to see the real scientific case for why it's better.
On the government intervention issue, however, my view is let anyone who wants to drink the stuff--you can count me out.
May '11
Re: Got Milk?
This may not be a case for government intervention, given that the only people taking the risk are the ones who drink the raw milk (well, and their kids), but that issue aside, the demand for raw milk is an interesting cultural phenomenon. Does anyone know of studies showing that raw milk is good for you?
Sep '10
Re: Got Milk?
I don't know if that is the right question. I would assume it is nourishing and so is good as a food, but carries some additional risk when compared to Pasteurized milk. This is one of those bell curve arguments with multiple outcomes that defies a single answer. I think the answer denpends on as opposed to what? It is certainly good compared to starving (I don't mean to be snide there). But I expect there is ablsolutely no measurable benefit over Pateruized milk (or I suspect even powdered milk).
I think the big question is one about what is your freedom worth? Maybe you treasure the taste? Is allowing this petty tyranny which I have no doubt will save a few lives and stomach aches worth handing the government the club to enforce it?
Increasingly I am worried.
Edited on Aug 10, 2011 at 12:15pmJul '11
Re: Got Milk?
Ross Conatser
I would assume it is nourishing and so is good as a food, but carries some additional risk when compared to homogenized milk.
Not to be pedantic, but homogenizing milk is simply to add vitamin D so that the milk stays uniform without the cream rising. It has no anti-biotic effect. Boiling and condensing the milk (pasteurization) kills the bugs but also makes the milk taste more bland.
Sep '10
Re: Got Milk?
grotiushug
Ross Conatser
I would assume it is nourishing and so is good as a food, but carries some additional risk when compared to homogenized milk.
Not to be pedantic, but homogenizing milk is simply to add vitamin D so that the milk stays uniform without the cream rising. It has no anti-biotic effect. Boiling and condensing the milk (pasteurization) kills the bugs but also makes the milk taste more bland. · Aug 10 at 11:20am
Fair enough I should have said Pateurized
Feb '11
Re: Got Milk?
Back in the day, drinking raw milk was how many people got tuberculosis. Pasteurization also eliminates E. coli, Listeria, O157:H7 and Salmonella from milk and milk products. That's why pasteurization is still the law in much of the developed world.
I drank lots of raw milk as a youngster and suffered no ill effects that I recall. I always thought it tasted kinda greasy and was never a fan. I would not give it to my children.
If hippies want to drink raw milk out of an open pail, let them. Just another drop of chlorine in the gene pool.
Dec '10
Re: Got Milk?
Wickard v. Filburn. Aside from any health concerns, the national government will still find itself justified in this. If you cannot feed your own animals your own grain, then surely you cannot drink from your own goat because, for the good of all, you should be drinking from some other person's goat.
May '10
Re: Got Milk?
Certain cheeses simply cannot be made from pasteurized milk. Since allowing raw milk cheese to be made in the US is unthinkable, what should we do? Import it from Europe, of course. Raw milk cheese making: another job Americans won't do!
Fortunately, the above is an exaggeration, but generally, raw milk cheese still have a shaky legal status:
After at least nine major domestic cheese recalls this past year, the F.D.A. is considering making food safety rules stricter for cheese made with unpasteurized milk.[. . .] The new rules could extend that aging period to ninety days or could even goes as far as to completely ban raw milk altogether. [. . .] Though it is in part the recalls that have spurred on the investigations, the FDA has not said whether or not the recalled cheese was unsafe because of its raw milk makeup.
Don't you just love that little line at the end? Raw milk may not be the issue, but our wonderful federal government prepares to act with all the precision and finesse of a sledge hammer in a tornado.