I drink raw milk and it fascinates me that there is so much controversy over this liquid that has been in the human diet for thousands of years.
I don’t understand why the people who are against it simply don’t drink it and go on about their business. Why are they so hell-bent on trying to make it impossible for people who do want to drink it to do so? I don’t want to have to break the law to drink milk! (I’m not sure if I’m offended by the moniker “lactivist” yet. I don’t want to be called a raw milk activist either. I just want to drink my milk in peace without having to wonder if I’m going to be cut off every other day.)
Here’s a guy in Wisconsin (a dairy state), railing against raw milk. He is concerned about a “Proposed legislation would allow on farm sales of the unpasteurized product.”
On farm sales. That means a person has to deliberately go somewhere to obtain this product. On purpose. We’re not talking about someone secretly slipping raw milk into someone else’s coffee while they weren’t looking.
Here’s an article about a small dairy farm in Canada who is constantly being harassed by Fraser Health. I agree with their observations about the situation.
“There are a lot of things they could be doing better with their time,” [Alice Jongerden, the farmer] said. “The question is: why are they doing it?”
“It’s completely ridiculous,” [Wojtek Szuminski, a customer] said. “They spend the taxpayers’ money looking for a loophole in a legitimate right. Let me decide what is healthy for me.”
Another guy (an MD at that), thinks the only reason people drink raw milk is because it’s a food fad and goes as far as to call us foolish because it could contain harmful bacteria. Could.
I have been drinking raw milk for over two years now, without incident. My milk comes from Stone Wall Dairy and Foxfire Farm, where their love of the land and their animals is apparent. I don’t feel like I’m taking any kind of risk at all. Frankly though, if ALL of the dairies in CT pooled their raw milk and bottled it, I wouldn’t drink it. I don’t know the all the dairy farmers and wouldn’t trust the final product.
In order to sell raw milk, a dairy needs to be clean from end to end. Commercial milk dairies selling pasteurized milk don’t have that requirement. They count on killing the zoomies at the end of the process. They can have the stinkiest, filthiest, bacteria-growing-est operations ever, but the zap right before bottling covers a multitude of sins. Yum. Can I haz some of that?
Raw milk dairies tend to be small family farms without the kind of resources it takes to go to court, without the kind of resources it would take to be shut down for even a week. I wonder why people would take the time to go after small dairies. Qui bono?
Naively, I feel that since am not forcing anyone to drink raw milk, I should be left alone to make my own choices. Silly, eh? Qui bono, indeed.
If you have a moment, click on over and take this raw milk survey.
P.S. If you’re an enterprising scientist, consider designing a home E.coli test. This way, small dairies and raw milk drinkers can do their own testing on the spot.
And then there is the milk is for newborns and cow milk is for baby cows debate…
I drink raw milk too, and find it funny that people are so against it. Here’s a great video that I used to help convince my husband to let us get a herdshare:
http://www.jonnybowden.com/2009/04/is-milk-healthy-for-humans.html
Biblio: That’s an interesting debate and I am all in favor of having the debate or at least the conversation. But I think I’d get perturbed if one side of the debate said, “I think this, therefore I’m going to spend my free time and resources making it illegal for you to hold your opinion.”
Local Cook: Cool video!
As the owner of a dairy operation, I totally agree with Sophie. There is a problem with her thought process, however. She makes SENSE! Did you know there are cow milk producers who will not drink their own milk? Or milk from the cooperative they sell to? Did you know that bulk tanks of milk can be held for up to a week before they are homogenized and “zapped”?
Also, I know Sophie and trust her. Were I to sell or give her raw milk and she got a case of the scoots, I would have no fear of her suing me out of business. Her common sense would tell her that her stomach bug could be any one of a thousand things.
I will not go through the expense or aggravation of becoming dairy certified. I’ll continue to use my milk for soap and keep the gov’t out of my life.
@sophie: I see your point about not wanting someone to decide for you and make your choice illegal. On the other hand, we do depend on government to set certain standards for all of us, that we expect to be uniformly applied since we can’t all be informed consumers in all aspects of life to evaluate when variance from the rule/law is safe/desirable, etc. Take for example building codes, electrical codes. Rather than have to seek out a trustworthy electrician who does things safely but “his way”, I’d rather not have to worry about knowing his business well enough to evaluate his expertise and go with a licensed electrician who works strictly in compliance with the electrical code. Should I be allowed to employ non-licensed electricians to work on my house and wire things up in a non compliant fashion? It is my house after all… Oh, I want insurance coverage too? Hmm…
@Biblio: I do agree with you. I expect the government to set standards and I expect businesses to follow those standards. I’m not talking about purchasing anything that has been fabricated in a non-compliant fashion. Following your analogy, I should be able to hire an unlicensed electrician who does everything in compliance with code AND MORE than code, but simply can’t afford to purchase a license or who doesn’t want to be part of the unionized electrical complex or doesn’t want to have to buy his wire from a huge monopoly.
Since you brought it up, though, the standards for compliance for Big Ag are different than the standards for little Ag. The laws are skewed against the small family farms. Big Ag determines the standards by which government measures compliance. The welfare goes to huge multinationals. If you really dig into the Farm Bill, it will turn your stomach.
@Crabby: You mean I’m not supposed to be eating the soap? 😉
Oh, it’s edible allright … it falls under the category of “You could…I wouldn’t…but, you could”!!
Crabby: Okay, so, let’s say (hypothetically speaking of course) that someone’s parent says, “I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap!” Would you rather it be Goatboy or Irish Spring?
Well, if you want them to learn a lesson…Irish Spring. If you want to not kill them…Goatboy is a good alternative!