Posted on 07/24/2010 10:16:54 AM PDT by thecodont
With no warning one weekday morning, investigators entered an organic grocery with a search warrant and ordered the hemp-clad workers to put down their buckets of mashed coconut cream and to step away from the nuts.
Then, guns drawn, four officers fanned out across Rawesome Foods in Venice. Skirting past the arugula and peering under crates of zucchini, they found the raid's target inside a walk-in refrigerator: unmarked jugs of raw milk.
"I still can't believe they took our yogurt," said Rawesome volunteer Sea J. Jones, a few days after the raid. "There's a medical marijuana shop a couple miles away, and they're raiding us because we're selling raw dairy products?"
Cartons of raw goat and cow milk and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese were among the groceries seized in the June 30 raid by federal, state and local authorities — the latest salvo in the heated food fight over what people can put in their mouths.
On one side are government regulators, who say they are enforcing rules designed to protect consumers from unsafe foods and to provide a level playing field for producers. On the other side are "healthy food" consumers — a faction of foodies who challenge government science and seek food in its most pure form.
They want almonds cracked fresh from the shell, not those run through a federally mandated pasteurization process that uses either heat or a chemical to kill off salmonella and other possible contaminants. They hunger for meat slaughtered on the farm. And they're willing to pay a premium — $6, $8 or more — for a gallon of milk straight from the cow.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
So despite research outlining the dangers of consuming raw milk and other unprocessed foods, they're finding ways to circumnavigate federal, state and local laws that seek to control what they can serve at the dinner table. Such defiance, they said, comes from growing distrust of a food sector that has become more industrialized and consolidated — and whose products have been at the root of some of the country's deadliest food contamination cases.
"This is about control and profit, not our health," said Aajonus Vonderplanitz, co-founder of Rawesome Foods. "How can we not have the freedom to choose what we eat?" -----------------------------
This presents an interesting confluence of two mutually antagonistic political groups: the environmentalists who want more government involvement in people's lives, and the conservatives who want much less of it.
People should be allowed to eat raw foods, regardless of disease risk. If they want to risk their health, they should be allowed to do so. If they want to better their health, they should be allowed to do so.
I agree. Let the USDA slap a big ol’ warning label on the packaging, and if people want to accept the risk, let them.
It's an interesting confluence of two mutually similar political groups: the birkenstock wearing 'natural food' nuts versus the birkenstock wearing 'we know better than you' nuts. Rather than outlaw raw dairy products, why don't both groups concentrate on getting the cows & goats healthy?
I don't like the feds any more than these folks, but, seriously, way to throw your fellow hippies under the bus, dude!
Yes, but...the irony here is that the folks who own and work in these “health-food” groceries are all way left politically. And here, they get a dose of what they actually support (more government intervention) and they’re flabbergasted.
They just want the government to intervene in families, religion, education, agriculture, others’ small businesses, energy, banking and major industry. They’re useful idiots learning life-lessons the hard way, and the ultimate irony is that this won’t change their political outlook.
/johnny
I can't drink pasteurized milk or eat cheese made from pasteurized milk without suffering a serious bout of diarrhea. When I drink raw milk or eat raw milk cheese I have none of those issues.
Organic Pastures, a raw milk dairy in California was inspected by the state about a year ago and they found their milk had much less bacteria and the facilities were cleaner than the pasteurized milk dairies.
When you drink pasteurized milk, you aren't drinking pure, clean milk, you're drinking milk that is laden with dead bacteria.
The revenooers done took all our cow squeezin’s.
My point exactly!
RATS wanted a powerful government, now they find out it bites back!
It’s always a bad sign when satire is taken as serious...but to find out that the article is serious v/s satire is even worse.
This government is completely out of control. If someone wants to eat dirt it’s not anyone’s business. Guns drawn? For God sakes...what the hell is going on?
I am lactose intolerant. My pro-biotic friend informed me that raw milk would not affect my innards. I have yet to try it but it fits in with what you’re saying.
When I was a kid my mom got our milk from a farmer friend who sold it for cheap before the milk truck came. She just put it in a big pot and heated it on the stove before we drank it.
Must be a shock to the hippies to learn that they’re people are now ‘the man’. That raw yogurt is going to have to be sold on the streets now by dealers.
I'm 45 now, and all my life I have an immune system that kicks butt. When I was young I'd show off in stupid ways like drinking from the same bottle as someone with strep throat. Yes, very stupid. But I didn't get strep. I almost never get anything. I've never broken a bone (knock wood), and I have the kind of plow-uphill stamina that people generally associate with oxen.
I'm just sayin'.
Ban soda and give the kids pot and porn instead.
what a messed up country we have.
I’m almost hoping for an Apocolypse
My guess is these were USDA enforcement types who don't get to play cop very often. ,
I remember a number of times before I retired from flying, that I'd get an "armed LEO" (law enforcement officer) form and the individual would be with the Dept. of Agriculture/USDA. When I'd ask them about their need to carry while a passenger, the answer would be that they were on duty when they arrived and that the weapon was needed in the course of that duty. I'd usually roll my eyes to my FO and say "ri-i-i-ight!"
Now I understand./s
LOL!
Since that comes across as so much organic cow pie, why should the rest of the article be paid attention to?
Friggin propaganda. This is the second day in a row where disinformation has completely destroyed otherwise interesting news.
When they came for my neighbors goat's milk I said nothing...
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