Free Republic

Those raw milk proponents advocating "teach, teach, teach" may want to enroll Wisconsin Judge Patrick J. Fiedler in their first class--in the kindergarten section. In response to a request from the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, the judge issued a clarification of his decision last week regarding his assessment of the constitutionality of food rights. The judge expanded on his original statement that such constitutional issues are "wholly without merit." He explained that the FTCLDF arguments were "extremely underdeveloped." As an example, he said the plaintiffs' use of the Roe v Wade abortion rights case as a precedent does "not explain...

Cambridge University researchers have discovered that lactose tolerant milk-drinkers in India and Europe could be related to the same person who lived at some point in the last 10,000 years. The Cambridge team, in association with fellow researchers at CCMB Hyderabad, UCL, University of Tartu, Harvard and University of Chennai, were studying genetic changes that allow some 32 per cent of the world’s population to be lactase persistent – able to digest lactose, the sugar in milk. To their surprise they found the same mutation, with the same origin, at high frequency in Europe and India. The team’s study may...

This is bullet-proof human skin - made from spider silk and goat milk. Yes, really. Jalila Essaidi is testing the limits of human endurance, and it starts by having to milk spider-goats. Spider goats are otherwise innocent-looking goats that have been genetically engineered to produce milk packed with the protein made in spider's silk. (There is no definitive proof that this also gives them a propensity to skitter up walls or hide out in your sock drawer, but I think it does.) Once the goats are milked, Essaidi spins the protein into fiber that is ten times stronger than steel,...

Raw food enthusiasts fit right in here, in the earthy, health-conscious beach communities of Venice and Santa Monica, along with the farmers’ markets, health food stores and vegan restaurants. But this week, the police cleared the shelves of Rawesome, an establishment in Venice Beach, loading $70,000 of raw, organic produce and dairy products on the back of a flatbed truck. And then, on Thursday, James Stewart, the proprietor, was arraigned on charges of illegally making, improperly labeling and illegally selling raw milk products, as well as other charges related to Rawesome’s operations. Two farmers who work with Rawesome were also...

Multiple sources have confirmed the fact that all three individuals arrested – James Stewart, Victoria Bloch and Sharon Palmer – are being charged with ‘conspiracy’ related to the sell of unpasteurized raw milk products. This reportedly includes sections of the California Penal Code Section 182a. Additional charges may also be pending, including a charge of ‘mislabeling cheese’ for Sharon Palmer, was arrested during a raid of Healthy Family Farms. As video of the raid on Rawesome Foods (also raided in 2010) demonstrates, Feds not only seized cash and raw milk supplies (much of which was also dumped out) but also...

The owner of a Venice health food market and two other people were arrested on charges related to the allegedly unlawful production and sale of unpasteurized dairy products, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said. The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch on Wednesday marked the latest effort in a government crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Responding to a wave of criticism, a California milk board on Thursday modified an advertising campaign that targeted men by promoting milk as a way to lessen the effects of premenstrual syndrome. The California Milk Processor Board decided to alter its two-week-old campaign, which portrayed men as the victims of temperamental women. Instead, it redirected users from its website, www.everythingidoiswrong.org , to another that will encourage discussion of the issue. Ad campaign spokeswoman Tatum Wan said it succeeded in promoting the board's message that milk can soften the effects of PMS symptoms.

DELAWARE, Ohio (WTVN) -- A Westerville woman faces a number of charges after deputies say she sprayed them with breast milk following an argument at a wedding reception. Deputies received a report of a fight and responded to the Bridgewater Banquet Facility on Sawmill Parkway early Saturday morning. They found 30-year old Stephanie Robinette, who had apparently locked herself inside a car, along with the woman's husband and witnesses who say Robinette got drunk and had struck the man a number of times after an argument. As deputies tried to get Robinette out of the car, she told them she...

Elma, Wash. (AP) -- Laurel Gordon of Washington state has been putting on a tiara to promote milk products the past two years as Grays Harbor County's dairy ambassador. The funny thing is, the 18-year-old from Elma is a lactose intolerant dairy princess. The Daily World of Aberdeen reports that unless Gordon takes special pills, her body is unable to digest milk, so she drinks soy milk.

Chocolate milk might be the most popular choice for school lunch -- not to mention milk bubbles and milk mustaches. But soon it will be no choice at all in Minneapolis public schools. [Snip] "Consuming chocolate milk every day can train a child's palate toward sweetened foods," said Rosemary Dederichs, the district's director of nutrition services. The decision is opposed by the Midwest Dairy Association, a trade group of 11,000 dairy farms. While applauding the focus on health, the association noted that chocolate milk sold in Minneapolis schools has less sugar than other versions and only 20 calories more than...

You probably spend all of one second deciding what kind of milk to put in your coffee. What's to debate? If you want to keep the pounds off and avoid heart disease, choose skim. This is gospel, after all: It's recommended by the USDA and has so permeated our thinking that you can't even find reduced-fat (2%) milk at places like Subway—and forget about whole.

Analysis of dairy intake and heart attack risk found no statistically significant relation in thousands of Costa Rican adults. Dairy foods might not harm heart health, despite saturated fat content, because they contain other possibly protective nutrients, researchers say. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] —Dairy products can be high in harmful saturated fat but not necessarily in risk to the heart. A newly published analysis of thousands of adults in Costa Rica found that their levels of dairy consumption had nothing to do statistically with their risk of a heart attack. “Things like milk and cheese are very complex substances,” said...

Four weeks after the government moved to shut down Amish farmer Dan Allgyer for selling fresh, unpasteurized milk across state lines, angry moms who made up much of his customer base rallied on the Capitol’s grounds Monday to demand that Congress rein in the food police. The moms milked a cow just across the street from the Senate and served up gallons of fresh milk, playfully daring one another to drink what, if sold across state lines, would be considered contraband product. “The FDA really screwed up this time. They got between a mom and a farmer,” said Mark McAfee,...

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...

TrueNorth found an article saying the risk in Europe from Fukushima fallout is “no longer negligible”. Children up to two years old are the most vulnerable and ingestion of 50 becquerel (Bq) is enough to deliver to the body a dose of 10 mSv, according to the institute. There’s no way that’s enough for a “body” dose of 10 mSv, or 1 rem. But since they’re talking about I-131, I’ll assume they mean “thyroid dose”. Thyroid and body aren’t interchangable. Radioactive iodine-131 values …0,08 Bq/kg in salad, spinach and leeks in Aix-en-Provence, 0,17 Bq per litre in milk in Lourdes...

A man dressed in a cow suit managed to rob a busy Stafford, Virginia Walmart of 26 gallons of milk on Tuesday night before being nabbed by the cops. Apparently, the cow-suited criminal escaped the megastore by crawling out the doors, "trying to emulate cattle." He then began handing out the stolen jugs right outside the store before making his escape, in a sort of bovine interpretation of Robin Hood. Stafford County Sheriff's office spokesman, Bill Kennedy, tells us that he believes the cow suit did not entirely cover the suspect's face, making him easy to spot at the near-by...

Los Angeles schools will remove high-sugar chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk from their lunch and breakfast menus after food activists campaigned for the change, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced this week. Deasy revealed his intent, which will require approval by the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education, during an appearance with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Tuesday night. The policy change is part of a carefully negotiated happy ending between the Los Angeles Unified School District and Oliver. The chef's confrontations with the school system became a main theme in the current season of the TV reality...

VALPARAISO — A 12-year-old faces two counts of resisting law enforcement for his alleged actions when he refused to clean up spilled milk in the Ben Franklin Middle School cafeteria. A police officer was helping supervise the lunch period on Tuesday, because both the principal and assistant principal were in a meeting, and the boy got into a confrontation with a school staff member. After refusing to wipe up the mess, according to the police report, the sixth-grader refused to sit and wait for the other students to return to class so the staff member could deal with him individually....

Washington, D.C. -- The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to exempt dairy farmers from provisions of the Clean Water Act, U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday. The Clean Water Act since 1970 required dairy farmers to develop and implement plans on how to handle a milk spill -- the same sort of plan as oil companies had to develop for handling oil spills. Schumer said the EPA claimed that since milk contained animal fat -- which is an oil -- the milk spills had to be treated the same way. Schumer said he has fought this regulation because...

(NaturalNews) The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to release new data showing that various milk and water supply samples from across the US are testing increasingly high for radioactive elements such as Iodine-131, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137, all of which are being emitted from the ongoing Fukushima Daiichia nuclear fallout. As of April 10, 2011, 23 US water supplies have tested positive for radioactive Iodine-131 (http://opendata.socrata.com/w/4ig7-...), and worst of all, milk samples from at least three US locations have tested positive for Iodine-131 at levels exceeding EPA maximum containment levels (MCL) (http://opendata.socrata.com/w/pkfj-...). As far as the water supplies are concerned,...