Civil Disobedience in Pennsylvania, and Cops Arrive at Raw Milk Dairy

"Did you hear that raw almonds are now required to be pasteurized also?"

This is going to sound like a tinfoil hat party, but there is a definate reason why they want to destroy raw almonds, in fact two reasons that are very much related. Raw almonds have trace amounts of amygdalin in them, and amygdalin cures several forms of cancer very quickly. Heating destroys the amygdalin, rendering the almonds worthless for nutrition purposes. Heating also kills the germ of the almond, so that it will not sprout and become a wild almond tree. Wild almonds have massive amounts of amygdalin; even enough that they are still nutritious after a light roasting, so the medical gestapo wants to prevent them from growing.

"I’ve drank raw milk and never got sick as I know, but it can and will happen, it’s just a matter of odds and conditionals."

What you don't know can hurt you. First, the dairies that produce the raw milk are far cleaner than those that produce the pasteurized milk, and they feed their cows real food, i.e. green grass, alfalfa, oats, rather than silage made from other animals that have died from disease, any form of waste celulose, spoiled dairy products, spoiled produce, stale bakery goods, waste crushed seed from vegetable oil production, and ground up green waste from rsidential garbage pickup as all the others do. They also raise most of their own animals, and quarantine the animals that they purchase outside for months. Illness from consumption of commercial raw dairy products is extremely rare, almost to the point of nonexistence, as opposed to regular dairy products that produce thousands of illnesses per year. Much of the difference is due to the amount of care taken in handling the raw product, which is essentially absent in the regular dairies. Regular dairies are foul, disgusting places.

Right on, David. The benefits and risks aside, this is a rights issue for both farmers and consumers.

Also, the increased harassment of small dairy farmers in PA isn't surprising given the fact that Sec. of Ag., Dennis Wolff is a 500+ head dairy farmer and Director of Food Safety Bill Chirdon's former employer is Dean Foods. Safety, my arse.

The fact is, Big Dairy will never be able to match the quality and safety standards of sustainable, grass-based dairy farms. The raw milk market is one that responsible stewards of land and animal will be able to exploit. Big Dairy doesn't like this, if the National Dairy Council's worn "Russian roulette" warning is any indication. Grain-based, confinement dairies simply cannot compete - and they know it. The scare-mongoring may have worked twenty years ago but this is the age of Google and more and more consumers are connecting the dots themselves.

A good place to start, for those just learning about the benefits of raw milk, is http://raw-milk-facts.com and Ron Schmid's book, The Untold Story of Milk. Here's a free download of Chapter 15 - The Safety of Raw versus Pasteurized Milk and Appendix A - A Reply to US FDA's Statement on Raw Milk.

Fanna

That's right. Ron's book has an excellent exposition on the history of pasteurization in our country. Thanks, in large part to the unsanitary conditions, inhumane treatment of cows and their attending ill health at distillery dairies of the late 19th and early 20th century, unhealthy milk was the result and therefore, affected the health of the growing population of cities quite negatively, especially children and the pasteurization movement gained steam.

Even today, with stricter standards of safety, you couldn't pay me to drink raw milk from grain-based, confinement dairies.

While I am all for personal freedom, please don’t make the mistake that I think “distillery dairies”, as you called them, are the bastions of illness, unsanitary conditions, and mistreatment. Dairymen from both sides have no reason to be unsanitary as it leads to illness amongs the cows, or mistreat the source of their livelyhood. They, on the other hand, understand that the cows are not pets.

I grew up drinking pasturized milk, and don’t know of any attending illness caused by it. However, I’ll bet there are those that couldn’t/wouldn’t attribute illness to drinking raw milk either.

"While I am all for personal freedom, please don’t make the mistake that I think “distillery dairies”, as you called them, are the bastions of illness, unsanitary conditions, and mistreatment."

I should clarify, from Ron Schmid's book, The Untold Story of Milk that distillery dairies of the 19th and early 20th century produced raw milk for public consumption, not for pasteurization, at least not initially. Clearly, there were other contributing factors to the high mortality rates during that period, but the role distillery dairies played cannot be ignored, nor it's catalytic role in producing many states restrictions on raw milk sales and consumption today.

The distillery owners back then got into the dairy business by housing cows right next to their distilleries. The cows were not grass-fed (not even grain-fed for that matter), but rather, were fed hot slop waste straight from the stills. The cows were basically milked to death, regardless of what ailments they may have had due to their poor diet and filthy living conditions.

No healthy raw milk could have come from these cows. The milk these distillery dairies produced was so inferior that it had a pale blue hue and additives like chalk, flour, sugar and even plaster of Paris were added to improve consistency and color. Butter and cheese were impossible to make with this slop milk.

In any case, it's an obvious point that food producers should have impeccible sanitary conditions. My farmer doesn't treat his herd like pets, but rather, understands the basic principle that cows, given their natural diet and spending the majority of their days outdoors are healthy cows and healthy cows produce the best milk.

I too grew up on pasteurized milk and never got sick - but people do. Only 1.2% of reported cases of foodborne illnesses are attributed to dairy (at least in 2002). I surmise most of these are from pasteurized sources given how small a market raw milk currently is. Does the safety card really justify the unreasonable roadblocks between farmers and consumers though? Of the 76 million cases of foodborne illnesses reported to the CDC each year (so much for regulations keeping our food supply safe), shouldn't our regulators focus their efforts on the top five offenders: fish, produce, poultry, eggs and beef?

Thank you for clarification.

We shouldn’t equate the dairies of the 19th & 20th century with those of today for obvious reasons. The dairies of today don’t resemble those earlier dairies. Nice history lesson though.

Agreed. Dairies should have impeccable sanitary conditions, and I believe they do. It would be counter productive to do otherwise.

I have to disagree with your proposal that the regulators focus on the top five, because milk is such a staple.

You’re quite welcome. Actually though, pasteurized dairy isn’t such a staple food with the majority of the population. Lactose intolerance affects nearly 95% of Asian Americans, 74% of Native Americans, 70% of African Americans, 53% of Mexican Americans, and 15% of Caucasians.

In fact, since consuming raw milk/dairy for almost two years now, my lactose intolerance, or rather, my lactase deficiency has all but disappeared.

I do agree that dairies producing for public consumption should be regulated, however, regulators have no right interfering with direct farm sales to private consumers.

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