Will Raw Milk Still Be Available in California After Jan. 1? New Reg May Shut Down Largest Dairy

The Complete Patient ^ | Oct. 25, 2007 | David E. Gumpert

[davidgumpert]

Californians’ easy access to raw milk—it’s available in 350 health food stores and 40 Whole Foods grocery stores around the state—has been placed in serious jeopardy by a few words about a bacteria standard included in Assembly Bill 1735, a piece of agriculture legislation signed into law a couple weeks ago by Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneger, and due to take effect January 1.

Also in jeopardy is the mini-empire built up by Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Co., the dairy that supplies about 95% of the state’s unpasteurized milk, consumed by more than 100,000 Californians each week. Mark has had such ambitious expansion plans that he has been negotiating in recent months with venture capitalists for millions of dollars of investment.

[davidgumpert]

This debate is about much more than a bacteria standard. Underlying the debate is a major difference of opinion about what causes and prevents disease. Mark McAfee and other raw milk proponents argue that people should build up their immunity, and much of the bacteria in raw milk help in that effort. The FDA and CDFA take the view that we need to stamp out as much bacteria as possible, since we don’t know which is beneficial and which is pathogenic.

[Gay State Conservative]

Raw milk? Uck!

[Tamar1973]

I would never drink pasterized/homogenized milk. When I drink raw milk, I have no lactose intolerance issues. If I drink pasteruised/homogenized milk, my stomach attacks me.

[edcoil]

Looks like our politicians are tying to shake down the milk industry now.

[billorites]

Well, maybe on Castro Street...

[TruthConquers]

I finally get my daughter to drink milk; she only likes raw milk. If this succeeds, she will get an early lesson in the perils of governments dictating to a free people what they can’t and can do. She will learn early at 14 that her government is not about freedom at all.

[DaveyB]

This is about whether the consumer has a choice and if the free market can be trusted. Government tyranny or market choice. It's amazing how many liberals claim to be pro-choice when they force everyone to pay for their choice and then eliminate choices in the free market and the market place of ideas.

Personally I like the goat milk that comes from my own back yard.

[an amused spectator]

In the interests of full FR disclosure, have you ever had raw milk?

No, I have not, myself

[Sherman Logan]

The FDA and CDFA take the view that we need to stamp out as much bacteria as possible, since we don’t know which is beneficial and which is pathogenic.

Actually, I don't think they say that we don't know which bacteria are pathogenic. We do.

They (correctly) say that we cannot ensure the absence of pathogenic bacteria without killing all the bacteria.

[Gay State Conservative]

In the interests of full FR disclosure, have you ever had raw milk?

Nope.And I never will,God willing.I'm familiar enough with bacteriology to find the consumption of raw milk a singularly unappealing prospect.But...whatever floats one's boat.

[crazyhorse691]

In the interests of full FR disclosure, have you ever had raw milk?

---

Yep. Raised on the stuff until we moved into the city. And, my oldest son (as a young child) could not drink pasteurized milk as it gave him night terrors/bed wetting about 4 times nightly...Dr. Lindon(sp?) Smith suggested we change over to raw milk...it was like somebody flipped a switch.

[P8riot]

Raw cow’s milk is great, but raw goat’s milk is better for you. We think it tastes better too. I only raise cattle for meat, but one of these days we may get a milk cow.

[Ronin]

Raw milk? No thanks. Tried it and had the runs for a week.

[P8riot]

The voice of experience. </sarcasm>

[P8riot]

That’s probably because your immune system has been stunted because pasteurization has removed all of the organisms that would allow it to develop naturally. A lot of folks are diagnosed as lactose intolerant for the same reason.

[Malsua]

That’s probably because your immune system has been stunted because pasteurization has removed all of the organisms that would allow it to develop naturally

Rofl. I love reading all this garbage from you "yer body is borked because you didn't drink bacteria laden milk as a child" types.

I grew up on a farm. I drank cow-warm milk all the time. I had the shitz pretty regularly until I moved away and drank some of the dreaded pasteurized milk. It actually took me a year or so before I figured out the difference. As a teen, I thought that having explosive @#$%'s once a month for a day or two was normal.

[EQAndyBuzz]

I thought our nanny was supposed to provide us with milk.

[ThePythonicCow]

In the interests of full FR disclosure, have you ever had raw milk?

Yes. For the first year of my life, it kept me alive. One cow out of my Dad's entire (modest) herd gave milk that I could keep down. I could not tolerate my mothers milk, nor any other cows milk.

I get raw milk every week from Organic Pastures Dairy Co, via my local health food store. I'm moving to Texas in a few weeks, and carefully chose a place there to live that was just a few miles from a farm in Krum Texas selling raw milk because in Texas one can't sell raw milk retail.

Last month, the online seller of one of my preferred vitamins would no longer ship them to me, because of some California law (Prop 165, as I recall.)

I can't get out of this damn state soon enough.

[Mase]

The voice of experience.

I have a lot of experience with raw milk and spent years studying food borne pathogens. I would not, under any circumstances, consume raw milk and anyone who gives it to their children, especially young ones, is not thinking clearly.

Even if you have your own farm there is no way to fully sanitize udders. Even if you could you'd still be unaware of any pathogens transferred from the cow/goat through the milk like brucellosis or salmonella.

I remember a kid from the next farm over who missed about six months of school one year thanks to brucellosis from raw milk. He was never the same.

It's interesting that one of the very last countries in Europe to pass mandatory pasteurization laws was Scotland. Prior to the enactment of this legislation in 1983, the rate of milkborne Salmonellosis in Scotland was the highest in Europe. A year after pasteurization was made mandatory, Scotland's rate was one of the lowest. A study was then conducted on the remaining incidence of milkborne Salmonellosis over a three-year period following forced pasteurization. During that time there were only 15 outbreaks and all of them were in the rural farming communities and none in the general urban population. This was attributed to the fact that milk consumed in the remote farming districts was exempt from the pasteurization legislation that applied to the rest of the country.

Now the raw milk advocates blame pasteurized milk for just about everything from colic to cancer but there is no debate among people who take science seriously.

[television is just wrong]

are you kidding. it is the best. cooked milk is
dead food.