The Raw Milk Freedom Riders – Milk and Cookies Rally is scheduled for Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. The ride is beginning in PA, where participants will legally purchase raw milk, then illegally drive it over state lines. You go! Break a dumb law!

Speaking of dumb laws and people who do not know how to responsibly use their power, a farm-to-fork event got raided by the health department for no good reason.

Michael Schmidt began a hunger strike on September 29 to continue his efforts towards engaging a “constructive dialogue about the issue of non-pasteurized milk in Ontario and Canada.”

Last year, Schmidt was charged with selling and distributing raw milk. It is illegal in Canada to sell or distribute raw milk. It is however legal to consume raw milk from your own cows. Schmidt and the raw milk consumers had a cowshare arrangement where the consumers own the animals and Schmidt cared for them.  In turn, the consumers were provided with the milk from their own animals. Schmidt was found innocent of those charges. However, recently, the decision was reversed and Schmidt was found guilty.

On October 18, Schmidt sent a letter to Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario. You can read it at The Bovine or The Complete Patient.

For the Michael Schmidt Solidarity Raw Milk Fast, a group will be assembling in front of the office of Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario. They are asking for people to express solidarity with Michael’s fast by consuming only raw milk for the 24 hours. If fasting is not possible, they ask that at some point in the day, you raise a glass of raw milk to salute Michael.

Additionally, concerned people of the US and Canada are being asked to write to Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario.
Dalton McGuinty, Premier
Legislative Building
Queen’s Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1
1-800-387-5559
Fax: 416-325-3745

If you’re on Facebook, you can join the Support Michael Schmidt group.

For a while, people were posting comments on Premier McGinty’s Facebook wall to take the meeting with Michael Schmidt. At first, McGuinty’s people were deleting comments, now they’ve disabled commenting.

There are numerous places to get the back story as well as other ways to get involved:

• Amanda at Traditional Foods has an excellent summary of the facts.
• Food Renegade has a post with specific actions you can take.
• Cheese Slave also has a post with specific actions you can take.
• Hartke has a particularly moving and insightful post.
• Midlife Farmwife also has a particularly moving post.

In Michael’s own words (as posted over at The Bovine):

I have been fighting since 1994 for the right of men, women and children in Canada to be able to make the simplest and most important of all choices -what they eat.

Thank you Michael.

I’m laughing because this is stupid. On so many levels. Still, I’m left with this nagging question: Isn’t milk sold in sealed containers?

I’m crying because this stupidity and government overreach is apparently legal and I have no alternative but to conclude that my country is stupid.

So, unrelated to the above, but interesting to view, I leave you with a prominent raw milk purveyor making outlandish* medical claims about this food:

* Outlandish because they are unsubstantiated by government-sanctioned studies and we are not allowed to do that. Ye (in case you were wondering) our government has not ever sanctioned a legitimate raw milk study.

As it happens, we have all the laws we need in place today for a safe food supply but the FDA and USDA lack the funds to appropriately inspect farms and facilities. (Makes me wonder where the FDA is getting the funding for the stings and shut downs of one-cow farms.) This bill gives additional power to the FDA and the Secretary of Health and Human Services that has yet to be defined, even though the FDA has been repeatedly wrong on food issues (rBGH and GMO labeling come to mind).

When it comes down to it, this bill is really about control of the food system. Naturally, I’m not for federally controlled food, being more of a local free range type. It’s not that I don’t think the government is here to help—I just doubt they will be very good at it. I’ve been incredibly safe with my local fare while the general population has not been safe with their national and international federally-regulated foods. I count my blessings through every food scare.

Not to rub their noses in it, but I can make egg nog from scratch using fresh (unpasteurized) milk and cream and fresh (non-irridated, unpasteurized) eggs and drink it without fear. Most of the consumers in this country cannot. A good food safety bill would make it possible for everyone to do that yet, this bill could make it illegal for me to do that anymore. We’ll see how well the Tester amendment holds up. Still, my whole personal food pyramid could collapse.

My fears are not unfounded. Take raw milk for example. I know my farmer and I trust his delicious, wholesome product over the alternative. For some reason though, the authorities have taken every opportunity to raid, invade, sting, or otherwise entrap purveyors of raw milk. The FDA is already on record for saying we have no inherent right to choose what we eat. So why give them more power until we can believe they will use it fairly and wisely.

Forgive me for being a skeptic when it comes to the benevolence of our public servants, but goodness in politicians is measured by how well they stay bought. The passage of this bill into law is subject to the scrutiny and approval of Big Food. Yet Big Food’s production practices are at the heart of our food safety problems! This bill will be to food safety what the Patriot Act is to our freedom and the Health Care Act is to our health: helping a very few, a reduction of some liberties for the many, and financially lucrative for very large corporations in related industries.

Henry Kissinger is credited with saying, “If you control the food supply, you control the people.” You don’t need to be part of the tin foil hat crowd to see the Big M’s dominance on the global food scene. Talk to farmers in Iraq and India and see how their food security is working out.

It seems obvious to me that a safer food supply would be made up of decentralized, small-scale farms, following sustainable practices. It would be good, clean, and fair.

I’m certain that no matter what happens, my farmers will make lemonade out of lemons, applying their usual Yankee ingenuity to keep their farms viable and productive.

There’s a dangerous sense of superiority shared by Minnesotans who buy raw milk and serve it to their families.

Even if we did have a sense of superiority, which I don’t think we do, what makes that inherently dangerous? It’s not like we’re advocating on behalf of pathogens, which is what this irresponsible editorial would have you think. What’s dangerous is having the eating population think for themselves because we can draw conclusions that differ from the FDA and USDA.

The editorial goes on to cite a few examples of bad conditions at farms I wouldn’t buy milk from, but never mentioning the kinds of farms I would. They do not mention the stings on farms that have had no incidents nor out-of-compliance conditions. They don’t mention the millions of people who drink raw milk and have never had a health issue, who have in fact, noticed improvements to their health.

It cites studies, largely funded by those who stand to gain from the sale of pasteurized milk. Because as people know, corporations and politicians are far more credible than nature.

Is this what passes for journalism today—marginalizing a niche group by antagonizing the rest of the population?

As we have been saying long before the USDA caught on: know your farmer and know your food.

h/t to David.

Update: I wanted to add this information to the mix (h/t to Don):

Every year in the US there are:

• 12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;
• 7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;
• 20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;
• 80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;
• 106,000 deaths from FDA-approved correctly prescribed medicines.
• The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is 225,000.

This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in the US, behind heart disease and cancer.

So, why isn’t this being pursued with the same fervor?

• arugula
• spinach
• a lovely potted lavender plant

The new barn at Sport Hill is really coming along. It is beautiful. Sorry, no photo since this was an impromptu visit! Next time.

Cecelia is up for a weekend of wine trailing for the 2010 Passport contest, so we planned on an abbreviated Saturday forage.

Serendipitous score: at the Newtown Deli, there’s a (newish) fresh meat market called Butcher’s Best Market. Their lamb and pork are from local farms. I scored

• lamb chops from Sepe Farm, Sandy Hook, CT
• a container of lard, made from Rowland Farm hogs

At the New Milford Farmers Market (on the green, Saturdays from 9 AM to noon), I scored:

• patchouli soap from Goatboy Soap (for my eternal collection)
• cilantro and spring garlic from Riverbank Farm
• bacon from Grayledge Farm (thanks to Riverbank Farm)
• and had a couple of apple cider donuts from Averill Farm

Lots of folks at this market were selling seedling starts for the garden.

At the Hopkins Vineyard Barrel Tasting (more on that in another post), I scored

• Womanchego cheese from Cato Corner Farm and Asiago chese Cherry Grove Farm, Lawrenceville, NJ and goat milk Feta from Beltane Farm, all provided by Artisan Made, Northeast of Southbury.
• Raspberry Peach jam from Twin Pines Farm, Thomaston, CT

At Chapel Hill Farm in Sherman, I scored blueberry and peach jam.

At Bluestone Farm, I scored

• Cavolo Nero starts (Tuscan Kale)
• Maple syrup (2010)

And at New Morning Natural Foods, I scored:

• Stone Wall Dairy raw milk
• Deerfield Farm yogurt

And that was it!

Here in CT, raw milk can be sold in retail stores and I am quite grateful. My milk comes from Stone Wall Dairy in Kent, which is an hour away. I don’t know if I could make the trip every week. I only know of four raw milk producers in the state, and none of the others are any closer. Besides, after three years, I am fond of these cows and their farmer.

To deal with precisely that kind of situation, raw milk consumers in MA organize buying clubs. Members take turns driving to the farm to collect the milk for the group.

Because these clubs are unregulated, MDAR wants to make them illegal. But these are contracts between private citizens, which do not require regulation.

Of course, if the buying clubs get shut down, the small dairy farmers will effectively be put out of business. Qui bono?

Thanks to David Gumpert (author of “The Raw Milk Revolution), Mark McAfee, of (Organic Pastures Dairy), and others for taking the time to testify and support those who did.

Holbrook Farm, where I scored:

• spinach
• arugula
• mustard greens
• ramps
• cilantro
• greenhouse tomatoes from March Farm
• Kenyon‘s Rhode Island sea salt (Yay! It’s back!)
• Holbrook’s own bread and butter pickles
• Beltane Farm Goat milk
• Womanchego cheese from Cato Corner Farm
• Roma tomato starts

Then on to Opening Day at the New Milford Farmers Market. I arrived at the new Milford green at 12:20 PM but the market runs from 9-12. I’ll say this, they sure clean up well after themselves because there wasn’t a trace when I got there! I’ll just need to get started earlier next week.

Then on to Maple Bank Farm, where I scored:

• something that looks like long radishes from Riverbank Farm
• bok choy from Riverbank Farm
• bacon from Greyledge Farm
• organic potting soil from McEnroe in Millerton, NY

And winding up at New Morning Natural Foods, where I picked up these local items:

• arugula from Riverbank Farm
• raw milk from Stone Wall Dairy
• yogurt from Deerfield Farm
• Woodbury Farm eggs
• San Marzano tomato starts from Fort Hill Farm

And then to Rich Farm for a treat!

Holbrook Farm, where I scored:

• spinach
• mustard greens
• scallions
• raw goat’s milk from Beltane. (Yes! Holbrook carries raw goats milk!. Tastes like, um, milk.)
• cheeses from Cato Corner Farm and Sprout Creek Farm. This one, with a tangy brie-meets-light-blue-cheese kind of taste, had my name all over it.

Sophie Cheese

DiGrazia Vineyards, where I picked up the Passports because it was Opening Day for the 2010 Wine Trail!

Stuarts Family Farm, where I scored:

• several different cuts of beef
• eggs

And gazed upon the grazing cows.

Stuart's

Maple Bank Farm, where they were having an open house up at the greenhouses and sheep shearing open to the public. I scored:

• collards
• arugula from Riverbank Farm
• Starts for the garden: basil, thyme, tarragon, parsely, eggplant, beets and red cabbage

Freshly sheared and following the food

Spinning Wool

New Morning Natural Foods, where things seem to be back to normal after the huge Earth Day event. I scored:

• raw milk from Stone Wall Dairy
• yogurt from Arathusa Farm Dairy

Whew!

Raw Milk Tee

I went to Meet the Author, David Gumpert at Molten Java in Bethel. Gumpert wrote The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights. Not a bad crowd for 6 PM on a Wednesday—farmers, consumers, raw milk advocates, bloggers, journalists, locavores, children, and avid readers. David Gumpert was warmly introduced by Ed Hertz (the Milkman).

Gumpert talked about how he got into raw milk from business writing, about the apparent obsession regulators have against raw milk and the lengths they have gone to in an effort to eradicate it. He says the issue isn’t just this one product, raw milk, but that “raw milk is a proxy issue; it is symbolic of other issues.”

When asked why they’re going after raw milk drinkers and suppliers with such a vengeance, Gumpert and the audience speculated:

• Raw milk consumption is associated with the lunatic fringe; raw milk drinkers are the modern-day hippies
• Regulators feel that the problem of food-borne pathogens has already been solved. Why re-introduce it?
• Commerce. Follow the money. Are the large commercial dairy producers anxious to see their profits slip away?
• If raw milk can heal our chronic conditions, would we need as many pharmaceuticals?

Gumpert spoke about the FDA public relations campaign against raw milk and how the old press releases would always say “drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette with your health.” Evidently, people don’t trust the FDA, because raw milk sales would go up after each of these campaigns! So the FDA started going after the raw milk producers: small farms.

Gumpert spoke about the upcoming food safety legislation. He told how it gives all decisions regarding food standards to the FDA, greatly increasing their jurisdiction. The FDA could impose universal irradiation and put an end to raw food in general. The bill is supposed to protect us from food-borne illnesses but is really tilted against small farms. The bill has passed in the House and is coming before the Senate this week. If you’re at all inclined, now would be a good time to call our Senators. By the way, the FDA is currently working on regulations for creating compost. Another by the way, the new food safety bill fulfills our (the USA’s) obligations to the WTO and WHO.  WTF?

It is important to realize that raw milk advocates are not against food safety. As Chris Hopkins of Stone Wall Dairy said, he “would rather go from fixing a symptom to fixing the problem.” He explained how pasteurization merely fixes a symptom of a poor process. He said that we now know how to make good, healthy milk holistically.

Attendees had a chance to sample raw cows milk from Stone Wall Dairy, raw goat milk from Butterfield Farm, and low-pasteurized un-homogenized milk from Ronnybrook Dairy.

Gumpert let us know we can look forward to a new film about raw milk called Farmageddon.

Check out this book review by one of the event’s attendees.

Read David Gumpert’s take on the evening.

Looking for raw milk? In this area, you can get raw milk at:

• Holbrook Farm
• New Morning Natural Foods
• Chamomile Natural Foods in Danbury

See my Foodshed page for more local food sources.