Raw milk regulations tighten as demand increases

[The Northerner]

PANOCHE VALLEY, Calif.—On a stretch of California grassland, workers milk 70 Jersey cows and bottle several hundred gallons of milk into quart glass bottles topped with bright yellow caps -- without heating the milk to pasteurize it.

Claravale Farm, two hours west of Fresno, has been producing milk with minimal interference between the udder and the customer for about 80 years. It's one of two licensed raw milk dairies in California, which allows the retail sale of milk that has not been heated to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds.

But even as consumers inspired by the local food movement line up at farmers markets and specialty stores to buy raw milk, pressure on the producers has intensified in California and elsewhere around the country.

"People have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years around the world," Claravale's owner Ron Garthwaite said. "But recently, raw milk has become a biohazard."

Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/08/05/raw_milk_regulations_tighten_as_demand_increases

[cbc5g]

1. Raw milk

Was one of the few things that helped me recover from crohn's disease. My allergies and sebhorreic dermatitis also went away after turning to raw milk/kefir. Obama and his food police and his medical cannabis police..can go to hell. This, after PROMISING to respect states rights. I am very, very disappointed in this administration and its tyrannical tactics. I expected this from Bush and corporate republicans but not from a democrat. Its very disappointing to see the same lobbyists and insiders that ran the Bush administration now running the Obama admin. Sending armed thugs to steal, trash and attack a milk/cheese coop is tyrannical and not American. People can flame me, but thats how I feel.

[The Northerner]

2. +100

[Javaman]

6. I can't drink the factory crap...

I thought I was lactose intolerant, but it turns out, I just can't stomach the garbage from the factory milk mills.

With raw milk, I have zero stomach and lower track problems.

[KittyWampus]

9. The issue isn't pasteurization. It's homogenization, hormones & antibiotics? Edited in a question

mark.

I eat almost exclusively whole foods.

Is the pasteurization really at fault or homogenization? I know the later makes milk very hard to digest.

[blueamy66]

24. Where does one get raw milk?

As a kid, growing up near a friend's dairy, I drank the good stuff daily, even tho my Mom forbid me from doing so.

I have IBS and my guy has psoriasis.....would like to try drinking this raw stuff again. Nothing tasted better. Maybe I'll get back into contact with my friend, as they still work the dairy.

[dtexdem]

3. And people have also been dying of food-bourne illnesses for thousands of years.

[MedicalAdmin]

12. REd Herring alert. n/t

[Horse with no Name]

4. That's because the price of corporate farmed milk is almost $5 gallon

in areas, full of hormones, antibiotics, and other impurities.

IF there was a healthier alternative (people ARE starting to notice when their 8-year olds start entering puberty)...then you will cut into profits.

Now, in a "free market" society...we CANNOT and MUST NOT allow the average Joe to STEAL one cent from their corporate masters.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

18. Once the demand becomes high enough

raw milk will be just as corporatised.

Corporations don't put hormones in milk because they like hormones, they do it because it makes more money.

As soon as the profitability of raw milk grows large enough to draw investor attention you will see mass-produced raw milk.

[fivepennies]

5. Short story

My grandson could not tolerate breast milk, formula, cows milk, soy milk or anything else we tried. He was in and out of the hospital for the first two years of his life with stomach and respiratory problems and at one point in time was even quarantined for possible whooping cough.

That was the last straw for me. I didn't buy goat's milk - I bought the whole damn milk goat. Problem solved within two weeks of the changeover. Now he's grown and as healthy as a horse.

But I do worry about him contracting e coli or salmonella from some plant grown by a mega farm that the FDA approved.

[LWolf]

21. +1

[Boudica the Lyoness]

7. Vitamin D

Cheeky buggers putting unhealthy shit in our grub!

I have a disease that causes my body to produced potentially deadly amount of Vit D. I avoid the sun and vit D. I challenge you to find milk without added vit D. There is only one organic brand and most stores don't carry it. It's unavailable in the town closest to where I live.

My husbands family had milk cows here when he was growing up and he drank raw milk everyday. He's very healthy and has good teeth despite drinking water from a well....without fluoride. :o

I'd like to get a milk cow.....a nice Jersey or Guernsey.

[LWolf]

22. Try a Dexter:

They're about half the size of other breeds, which means they eat less and are easier to handle, while they still give 1-2 gallons of milk a day; plenty for the average family's needs.

http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/dexter.html

[Boudica the Lyoness]

23. Thanks for the link

I will look into them :)

[Mojorabbit]

8. From promed(infectious disease listserve) just this past June

Health officials say 3 Michigan women who reported consuming raw milk
have been diagnosed with a rare bacterial infection called Q fever.

The Michigan Department of Community Health says that the raw milk
was from a Livingston County farm, where people own shares of cows in
exchange for unpasteurized milk products. The department says 2 Q
fever cases were in Washtenaw County and one was in Monroe County.

People can become ill with the bacteria if they inhale barnyard dust
particles contaminated by infected animals or consume raw milk. They
suffer flu like symptoms, including high fever, headaches, malaise,
abdominal pain, chills, vomiting, and diarrhea. Left untreated,
serious cases of Q fever can lead to chronic illness that may affect a
person's heart, liver, brain, and lungs and may be fatal.

The discussion that followed by the inf dis doc had this tidbit among others that I had never thought of:
In 1996 and 1998, there were 2 episodes involving rabid cows that
occurred in Massachusetts (1). Milk from rabid cows can contain rabies
virus, and transmission via unpasteurized milk is theoretically
possible. Temperatures reached during pasteurization kill the virus.
80 persons consumed unpasteurized milk that was collected from the 2
cows, and 9 more had contact with saliva from the cows. All 89 persons
received postexposure rabies prophylaxis, and no human cases of rabies
eventuated. A similar report in Oklahoma of possible rabies exposure
associated with the consumption of raw milk or cream from a rabid cow
was circulated in 2006 (2).



http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=2400:1001:1720436792652856::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1011,89073

[Richard D]

10. An interesting thing to do . . .

. . . is find out how many food-borne illnesses have been transmitted though pasteurized milk. More than you'd imagine, I'd imagine.

[Mojorabbit]

13. Would not surprise me with the lack of inspectors we have. nt

[MedicalAdmin]

14. This remind of the statistic that 100,000 people die from ...

... properly prescribed and consumed prescriptions a year in the USA. That means that the drugs were prescribed correctly for the properly diagnosed conditions and 100K people drop like flies.

And then some folks point to the one case of an herb causing some problems because some dumbass ate 5 bushels of the stuff a day and then start chanting "woooooooooo" over and over while supporting everything that the jackbooted and corporate owned thugs at the FDA do to raw foods or to supplements....


Talk about a disconnect from data.

[fivepennies]

16. Telling it like it is!

And many who don't die outright from many of those properly prescribed and consumed drugs become suicidal and/or homicidal maniacs.

Drugs for depression. Common side effects to drug: depression.
Drugs for headaches. Common side effects to drug: headaches.

I don't even blame the FDA or the pharmaceutical companies or the doctors anymore, they don't cram the stuff down our - or our kid's - throats.

And so far they haven't made an individual's ability to study natural remedies for his/her ailments illegal or impossible.

[MedicalAdmin]

17. Really, they are trying again right now.

And if the new FDA rule gets passed then expect supplement companies to start either dropping like flies or being taken over and suborned by big pharma.

They are always trying to take over herbal medicine companies. It's not to shut them down or any such nonsense. It's just greed.

[fivepennies]

19. Codex Alimintarius

You're right, its basically greed driven but its also control over our health and well being and population. Its a prescription for soft kill in the millions with no accountability.

[Marrah_G]

11. It's just going to get worse until the people finally revolt

The corporations own our government now.

[applegrove]

15. I holidayed at a farm as a kid. They served raw milk. It had the most wonderful taste.

[LWolf]

20. I grew up drinking raw milk.

Delivered, by the milk man, in glass bottles.

Before I moved out of state, I had a neighbor with dairy goats. She kept me in fresh raw goats' milk for many of my adult years.

I've always preferred fresh raw milk when I could get it.

Glad to know I survived.