Raw Milk Renegade

My family and I purchase raw milk from a local dairy which has a permit to sell raw milk. I make my own yogurt, butter, and cottage cheese with this wonderful stuff, and my whole family raves about the freshness and taste. When I was a little girl growing up in the late 60's early 70's our neighbors were dairy farmers, and every few days we walked through the field with our milk bucket and got fresh raw milk. It was what I grew up on, and I am extremely thankful that I live in a state (PA) that allows the sale of raw milk.

It is unfortunate that Nolt did not comply with the due process of securing a permit. Granted, it is probably an arduous process, but if he had this hullabaloo would never have happened. And while I agree with Goodman's many points, it is unlikely that we will turn the government on its head anytime soon.

ND: Your well-meaning suggestion to extract the beneficial bacteria from natural milk and distribute as supplements to pasteurized milk is unfortunately the same approach that denuded health from our traditional foods; e.g., bread nutrition was downgraded by extracting the healthful fiber and natural nutrients from whole grain and replacing with poorly absorbed and sometimes toxic synthetic vitamins. Most often, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. There are infinitely more variables involved in a whole natural food than scientists can extricate in a laboratory. It is this mentality - that we can disassemble life into particulates and put it back together "better" than it originated in nature - that has led to our mega-giant industrial food system and subsequent, increasing rise in degenerative diseases. I have yet to hear a convincing argument that this approach has improved our health, environment or food system, let alone justify the inhumane, community-destroying, solely commerce-driven practices of agribusiness. Identifying yourself as a public health/medical professional explains your stance on conventional recommendations for food and health, but I am struggling with your statement that health benefits from natural milk and other probiotic foods (like traditionally-made sauerkraut) "are currently only loose associations seen in observational studies." Observational, perhaps, but recorded over tens of thousands of years compared to barely a century for pasteurized industrial products. Natural milk has been used successfully as a folk remedy for centuries. Even the esteemed Mayo Clinic once prescribed clean, grass-fed natural milk high in butterfat for successful treatment of a variety of ailments; only when government intervention supporting industrially-produced milk did it fall aside.

Re: the alleged raw dairy outbreak statistics from 1998 - 2005, these will need to be properly substantiated, as I can find nothing to confirm these. In fact, most dairy-borne outbreaks in the last 50 years have been caused by improperly handled pasteurized milk. From 2000-2004 there were several listeria-related food recalls associated with pasteurized milk products and ice cream. Other outbreaks have been caused by fruits/vegetables that were tainted by conventional feedlot runoff, but were initially blamed on raw dairy. The USDA and FDA are run by big agribusiness who are eager to pin these outbreaks on raw dairy without so much as a proper investigation. When challenged, the actual source turns out to be something else (spinach, tomatoes, etc.) but no vindication of raw dairy is ever offered - instead, stern warnings against it remain, despite lack of evidence.
For a partial list of outbreaks from 1982-1997, see http://www.realmilk.com/foodborne.html
Everyone harbors E. Coli in their intestinal tract, it is a naturally occurring bacteria in all humans. It is when an imbalance occurs causing a lack of beneficial bacteria to counter the growth of E. Coli that illness strikes. Scientific studies show that pathogens will not multiply in properly grass-fed ruminants given no antibiotics/growth hormones/etc., specifically because other beneficial organisms exist to keep them from flourishing.

Re: the alleged raw dairy outbreak statistics from 1998 - 2005, these will need to be properly substantiated, as I can find nothing to confirm these. In fact, most dairy-borne outbreaks in the last 50 years have been caused by improperly handled pasteurized milk. Other outbreaks have been caused by fruits/vegetables that were tainted by conventional feedlot runoff, but were initially blamed on raw dairy. The USDA and FDA are run by big agribusiness who are eager to pin these outbreaks on raw dairy without so much as a proper investigation. When challenged, the actual source turns out to be something else (spinach, tomatoes, etc.) but no vindication of raw dairy is ever offered - instead, stern warnings against it remain, despite lack of evidence.

In response to the posting about 25% of all food-borne illness can be attributed to dairy products, this is because in the late 1800's, most dairies were already becoming filthy manure pens situated next to breweries to be fed highly acidic, spent brewer's mash as cheap/free food. By 1938, illness from tainted dairy was rampant, not only from sick milk and poor handling and sanitation practices from the dairies. As it still does in modern CAFO dairies, grain and grain-based industrial byproducts make the cows very sick - hence the need for massive antibiotics. Sick cows produce sick milk/meat, plain and simple. This was and still is the impetus for pasteurization - but it is unnecessary in pasture-fed animals. Raw milk from a conventional feedlot is indeed extremely dangerous, but raw milk from pastured cows and properly handled by a conscientious farmer is not only safe but substantially more nutritious and healthful.

So long as we live in a nation where we assign the task of assuring food safety to the federal government, I don't think that certain foods should be exempt due to unverified health claims. The most reasonable course of action is to verify those bacteria in raw milk that are beneficial to human health and their mechanism of action, and to offer probiotic dietary supplements containing these bacteria. Whenever my friends here in North Carolina talk about their love of raw milk and its health benefits I remind them that, as a public health and medical professional, these food are not advised. Those in doubt should learn more about listeria monocytogenes, just one of the bacteria that is often found in raw milk products and threatens the health of immunocompromised people including infants, pregnant women and people living with HIV/AIDS. Probiotics is complicated business, and we should ask for more investigation into its risks and benefits instead of just consuming raw milk and assuming that it has myriad health benefits which are currently only loose associations seen in observational studies.

"Outrageously unacceptable behavior"! In the first place, we only have one side of the story. While a squadron of police cars and state agents would seem like overkill, we don't really know how much of that is hype.
Second, last time I checked, we are a nation with a system of laws, and by the story line, Mr. Nolt did not have a permit. So, we can infer that he deliberately broke the law to provoke the state to react.
As for the sale being a private matter between a producer and a willing customer, it could be argued that a meth sale between a user and dealer is a priate transaction also. Should this be allowed? Using this arguement is a slippery slope.
My grandfather was a dairy farmer. He took pride in running a clean operation. But at the same time opportunities for contamination are rampant on the farm. Regular inspections to protect the consumer should be expected.
As far as the merits of unpastuerized milk, who knows. Is there a definitive, double blind long term study available? Or are we really relying on anecdotal evidence.
Even the pages of TMEN are full of advertisements with questionable products. Some of them are outright scams, but because they are printed in TMEN, they gain an inference of respectability.
HHMMMMNNN..... are we being sold out by TMEN for the almighty dollar? .......................I'M JOKING!

A Robison, If you will please state the study where you got your information. I would like to know more on the good and bad of raw milk. Thank You

In 1938 (prior to milk pasteurization) milk borne disease outbreaks accounted for 25% of all disease outbreaks from contaminated food or water, in 2005 that number had dropped to 1%. However, between 1998 to May 2005, 45 illness outbreaks implicated raw milk or raw milk cheeses. These outbreaks accounted for 1,007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations, and two deaths.

In 1938 (prior to milk pasteurization) milk borne disease outbreaks accounted for 25% of all disease outbreaks from contaminated food or water, in 2005 that number had dropped to 1%. However, between 1998 to May 2005, 45 illness outbreaks implicated raw milk or raw milk cheeses. These outbreaks accounted for 1,007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations, and two deaths.

Sorry, I didn't know how many characters posters were allowed. My last sentence was supposed to be, "Develop the resistance-to-tyranny mindset necessary to becoming effective in opposing this kind of garbage government behavior."

Many thanks to Mother Earth News for exposing the "government's" outrageously unacceptable behavior in this case.
Who died and left these government clowns God?
"Government" is primarily concerned with stealing labor (money) from A and giving it to B. "Government" is merely a widely recognized euphemism for the dominant members of the stupid-human pecking order struggle.
Government is its own means and its own ends, and exists ONLY to grow itself. As JRR Tolkien tried to teach us, inherently evil and inevitably corrupting One-Ring (political) Power cannot be used to solve problems, only create them, no matter how pure the initial intentions of the wielder of Power-Over.
The government we have now does not remotely resemble the individual-freedom-based society envisioned by America's Founders.
Unfortunately, what Nolt may not understand (I hope he does) is that we got this way (loss of individual freedoms) via a long pattern of revisionist-history lying on the part of various U.S. Supreme Court majorities. There are a plethora of books on the subject (e.g. "Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush", by Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R. C. Gutzman, "A Nation of Sheep", by Andrew P. Napolitano, "The Dirty Dozen: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom", by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor, etc., etc.), and the Internet makes it a snap to look up the offending decisions.
The answer to this kind of government tyranny is 1) decentralization, 2) self-sufficiency, 3) a sustainable life style, 4) learn to live with as little money as possible (save and invest as much as possible), and 5) using the Internet to network and share information with like-minded individual-freedom-loving citizens.
Buy raw milk. Boycott "government" milk. Develop the resistance-to-tyranny mindset necessary to becoming eff

If the farmers are selling the milk as RAW MILK, the government should get its nose out of there. I grew up on a dairy and raw milk didn't kill me.