Posted on 05/01/2011 11:36:53 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Milk might do a body good, but if it’s unpasteurized milk sold by an Amish farmer across state lines, it’s a whole other story… or at least according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Washington Times reports:
A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.
The product in question: unpasteurized milk.
It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
And so, let the nanny state regulation begin. Well, actually, let it continue. We’re seeing an awful lot of it these days, especially when it comes to food. Take vending machines, for example. Heritage’s Diane Katz writes:
To temper the snack food cravings we are supposedly incapable of controlling, Congress is forcing vendors to post the calorie counts of vending machine items. Thus, we’ll supposedly pick the healthier brand of potato chips, cookies, candy, and soft drinks.
Expect to see more of it. Last year, President Barack Obama signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which grants the FDA a host of new powers. Katz explains:
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act would authorize the FDA to dictate how farmers grow fruits and vegetables, including rules governing soil, water, hygiene, packing, temperatures, and even what animals may roam which fields and when. It would also increase inspections of food “facilities” and tax them to do so. And, fulfilling the dream of a long line of agency officials, the bill grants the FDA unilateral authority to order recalls.
On top of being costly ($1.4 billion in new spending between 2011 and 2015), the necessity of new regulatory powers is questionable. The motivating force behind FDA regulations — and the reason for the crackdown on Rainbow Acre Farms — is a concern over food-borne illness. Katz says that incidents of such illnesses “have actually been declining for more than a decade, in spite of higher consumption of the raw foods that are most often associated with outbreaks of food-borne illness.”
If I were these people, I would sell plastic milk jugs for 5.00 a piece and give the milk with it.
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How many people died from drinking Amish milk? None?! I have occassionally bought milk with a future date on it, only to find it soured. So, are dairies relabeling old milk, or what? Maybe the FDA should bother with them.
Government is worried about salmonella, e-coli and the like from milk produced and sold in the states, but will do nothing to stem the tainted produce and what not from Mexico and other countries.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Having worked in the dairy industry my whole career, I would never drink raw milk. [Just spend one hour in a milking parlor and you'll know why.] That said, this is stupid. As long as people are told about the dangers of drinking raw milk, they should be able to kill themselves if they want to. What's next: The MEA and a War On Milk?
No, they are not worried about it. Raw milk sales are legal in Pennsylvania. I think they busted them for selling it across state lines.
However, it's sounds like their customers were the ones coming from out of state.
Nanny State PING!
Trust me, it's not even in the same ball park as people that sell raw milk.
A regular milking parlor is disgusting. It would make most people want to stop drinking milk altogether, whether it's pasteurized or not.
infiltrating the Amish??????
that’s pretty damn low
what’s next? registration of home gardens and prevention of sharing/truckfarming veggies? oh wait....
I heard that there was an amendment to S. 510 preventing regulation of home gardens. What the FDA itself will do, I have no idea.
I was raised drinking raw milk...it was not however from a milking parlor... rather from a Jersey cow milked by hand by my grandfather.
In Arizona, there was a company that would sell unpasteurized milk wih the labeling of “For Pets Only”.
Maybe they should vote in the next election.
Let me get this straight, billions of dollars of illegal drugs flow into the USA from Mexico along with some very dangerous criminals and they are spending my tax dollars busting Amish dairy farmers?
My son does work for this place “stritesorchard.com” all year as a second job and we get food, milk, etc., no money involved.
If they infiltrate a Mexican drug gang thats dangerous. Safer to infiltrate the Amish.
The Amish had better be careful! The Feds might show up with automatic rifles, snipers, and tanks with flame throwers. The Amish could go up in flames. the Amish have to be taught not to mess with the Feds.
You hit the nail on the head.
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