CA Raw Milk Dairies Seek Temporary Restraining Order--Say They're Near Shutdown

The Complete Patient ^ | March 7, 2008 | David E. Gumpert

[davidgumpert]

The California raw milk situation is on the verge of becoming as dire as the state’s two producers predicted it would since they learned about AB1735 at the end of last year.

Now the stage is set—Monday afternoon in California’s San Benito County Superior Court in Hollister—for a judge to hear a request from Organic Pastures Dairy Co. and Claravale Farms to issue a temporary restraining order barring enforcement of AB1735 and its coliform standard.

[davidgumpert]

The California raw-milk battle moves from the legislature and regulator realm into a courtroom Monday, and a single judge may answer the question of whether 40,000 consumers retain access to their unprocessed food. It's a decision many people await with considerable anxiety.

[Brilliant]

You’d have to be insane to drink unpateurized milk from anywhere other than right out of the cow.

[Revelation 911]

actually - the process is very mechanical now - Ive seen self milking booths with laser guided milkers, and comp chipped cows that are automatically read and sampled as theyre milked.

I wonder if cold pasteurization works - solving both concerns

[Kirkwood]

Exactly.

[Ford4000]

If a few people want to accept the risk of drinking raw milk, I say, let them.

The only requirement should to be that they are making an informed consent regarding the risk. Advertising raw milk as safer or more nutritious ought to be banned (as it ought to be banned for anything produced organically).

[gridlock]

This is a freedom thing. If people want to assume the risk, they should be allowed to.

It is a matter of finding a dairyman you trust and being confident in his procedures and safeguards. With modern industrial processes, pasturization is necessary because so much milk is comingled and there is simply no control.

But if the milk is kept in small batch lots, handled very carefully and inspected, it should be quite safe and wholesome. Whether it has any nutritional benefits over pasturized milk I will leave to others. To me, the benefit would be more of an aesthetic one.

If I can have a pretty cow in a pretty field living a lovely life that brings me a pretty glass of fresh delicious milk, I may decide to pay extra for pretty. If I am the kind of person who will pay $50 for a bottle of wine, why not $15 for a bottle of milk?

[TenthAmendmentChampion]

Here’s a link to a local dairy (near Fresno) selling raw milk and raw milk products:

http://www.organicpastures.com/

[ThePythonicCow]

You’d have to be insane to drink unpasteurized milk from anywhere other than right out of the cow.

Is it ok if I watch the lady who owns the cow put the milk into a bottle, and I take the bottle of raw milk home, and then drink it?

Well, actually, I don't care if it's ok with you or not. I'll do it anyway.

And I may well be insane; certainly the cow looked at me with suspicion.