Gradually, ever so gradually, public health and medical professionals are moderating their tone against raw milk. There is nothing en masse going on, no official policy change by organizations like the Intnernational Association for Food Protection (IAFP) or the American Medical Association (AMA).
But a case in point is Michele Jay-Russell, a research microbiologist at the Western Center for Food Safety and Security at the University of California, Davis. She has over the last half dozen years been outspoken against raw milk, in media articles and via her editing of the Real Raw Milk Facts web site.
But in an interview on an online radio program last week, Real Food Real Talk, Jay-Russell stated her newly evolving position on raw milk as clearly as she ever has. I do support informed consumer choice. I am not supporting a ban. (Also interviewed during the program were Wisconsin farmer Vernon Hershberger, Weston A. Price Foundation president Sally Fallon, food safety lawyer Bill Marler, and Organic Pastures owner Mark McAfee.)
Now, this wasnt a case of some major life change or suddenly seeing the light, as Jay-Russell made clear in other statements. The risks (of raw milk) outweigh the benefits, she insisted at another point during the program. I do recommend not getting too romantic about it. It is a high-risk food.
But it was highly significant nonetheless. because Jay-Russell had begun to answer differently than she might have a few years ago this key question: Is raw milk inherently unsafe?
Until recently, most regulators and public health experts would have answered that question affirmatively, arguing that raw milk cant be produced safely, no way, no how.
But over the last year or so, weve begun to hear some disagreement. Even the food safety profs I quoted in my previous post, condescending as they seem to be in their acceptance of raw milk, appeared inclined to answer the question in the affirmative. Thanks in part to the efforts of the Raw Milk Institute (RAWMI), some in public health are beginning to suggest that raw milk can be produced in a way that reduces risks of illness substantially….that raw milk isnt inherently unsafe. Once you acknowledge that raw milk isn’t inherently unsafe, well, all kinds of things become possible.
Jay-Russell actually acknowledged what has been considered heresy by the American public health community– that there might be something to the research out of Europe indicating health benefits for raw milk in reducing allergies and asthma in children. European researchers have come up with some interesting correlations, she said during the podcast.
Moreover, she added. We have looked a lot at pathogens, in raw milk. Increasingly worthy of attention, she noted, is to look at the biome in the milk and how other bacteria might be reacting with the pathogens.
As I said, this kind of even tepid acknowledgment about possible health benefits of raw milk is the equivalent of an earthquake in the world of raw milk. We saw the first indications of the shift in publication of an article 15 months ago favorably assessing the European research by the International Milk Genomics Consortium at the University of California, Davis,
Ill be asking my litmus-test question when I am on the podcast of food safety professors Don Schaffner and Ben Chapman (the podcast recording has been put off until Jan. 29). Ill be curious what their answer is.
**
We know what the answer to my litmus-test question would be among many lawmakers, judges, and regulators in Maryland. The home of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is hard-core anti-raw-milk, and is now seeing a lively campaign on behalf of legalizing herdshares (which were declared illegal about eight years ago).
Raw milk supporters have scheduled a number of hearings and gatherings over the next week, beginning on Wednesday at the state house. See Liz Reitzigs blog for updates and press releases:
**
Ill be giving a couple of talks this week on food rights, with a little different slant than past talks. On Wednesday evening at 6, Ill be at Groton Wellness in Groton, MA. Its the home of an impressive holistic dental practice run by Jean Nordin-Evans.
And on Sunday at 2:30 p.m., Ill be speaking at the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA-NJ) Winter Conference at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. (Joseph Heckman, professor at Rutgers University, will be speaking that same afternoon.)
At both the MA and NJ sessions, Ill also be showing a gripping preview of a documentary about food rights currently in production.
Poisonous or deleterious substances,
Generally, if a food contains a poisonous or deleterious substance that may render it injurious to health. It is adulterated. For example, apple cider contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and Brie cheese contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes are adulterated. There are two exceptions to this general rule. First, if the poisonous substance is inherent or naturally occurring and its quantity in the food does not ordinarily render it injurious to health, the food will not be considered adulterated. Thus, a food that contains a natural toxin at very low levels that would not ordinarily be harmful (for instance, small amounts of amygdalin in apricotkernels) is not adulterated.
Second, if the poisonous or deleterious substance is unavoidable and is within an established tolerance, regulatory limit, or action level, the food will not be deemed to be adulterated. Tolerances and regulatory limits are thresholds above which a food will be considered adulterated. They are binding on FDA, the food industry, and the courts. Action levels are limits at or above which FDA may regard food as adulterated. They are not binding on FDA. FDA has established numerous action levels (for example, one part per million methyl mercury in fish), which are set forth in its booklet Action Levels for Poisonous or Deleterious Substances in Human Food and Animal Feed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adulterated_food
But of course we already know raw milk has been proven a low risk food.
Raw milk myths and evidence by Nadine Ijaz pdf
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/RevisedPresentationJuly8RawmilkmythsandevidenceNadineIjaz_PROTECTED.pdf
And it is not enough to say they don’t recognize our research or that certain evidence is anecdotal just because they don’t publish it in their journals. They bear the burden of proof if they want to regulate or ban our food. Appeal to Ignorance is a fallacy in which the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. Another version occurs when a lack of evidence for side A is taken to be evidence for side B.
Nevertheless, I don’t think that Food Safety folks necessarily need to acknowledge the benefits in order to be a positive part of this discussion. There was a clear acknowledgement that raw milk markets are growing hugely, and that consumers choose raw milk for a wide variety of reasons. Given that, can we talk about how to make that raw milk as low risk as possible through processes?
At the last RAWMI training, more that 60 raw milk producers, most of them unregulated small herd operators, voluntarily gave up their entire day to learn about STEC, Campylobacter and the rest of the pathogen gang, milk testing and interpreting results, herd biosecurity, risk managment plans, and collaboration with fellow producers. What motivated them to be there? Their genuine desire to produce high quality, low-risk raw milk.
Raw milk producers are also changing their tone from “raw milk from pastured cows is inherently safe” to an acknowlegement that raw milk production requires responsible risk management. Producers are hungry for information.
Researchers, scientists, and food safety experts have the opportunity to do something very positive for food safety when they lend their research and experience to the creation of better raw milk production practices.
Shawna, her remarks about the potential health benefits of raw milk were made at the very start of the program, in the context of the European research that has strongly suggested raw milk helps reduce the incidence of allergies and asthma in children.
I think your litmus test question “is raw milk inherently dangerous?” is perhaps easier to answer than “does raw milk have inherent benefits?”
http://futureofnutritionconference.com/conference/future-of-nutrition/
Still, I will give it try.
Is this talk about organizing to resist, or at least to encourage discussion about the idea of resistance, and the likelihood that such resistance will be necessary? It seems to me that at such conferences, when the idea even comes up, the moderators/”leaders” always rush to knock it down. They insist that “the new regulations are here to stay”, as one moderator put it at a farmers’ market conference, and that the only possible (and, implicitly, desirable) course is to adapt ourselves to it. That’s even though such “regulation” is clearly intent on eradicating Community Food as any kind of viable movement.
Given what they are taught, public health and medical professionals find the first question so difficult they can’t even think about the second question you raise. They definitely can’t answer the second question positively until they have answered the first one, about raw milk being inherently dangerous.
Russ, the answer to your question is “yes.” I have posed the title as I did because so many “progressives” want to trust, and hope those holding power are sincere and really do have our best interests at heart, and so resistance is unnecessary, even fruitless. For my talks this week, I am taking a somewhat different presentation tack, assuming the role of policy maker, confessing all.
Much of our conversation about food, and milk in particular, is, like our modern measure of economy (i.e. the more money that transfers from one hand to another, the better off we all are) very flat, and I think in many ways misguided, even in its way fueling the problem, which at its base is the compartmentalization of life and thought into bits and pieces out of context with the whole of Nature and Humanity. We talk, for example, of a milk market as if food were a financial commodity, and we talk of lab tests as if they accurately measure the intricate goodness of creation. Well, food is no more a market than is human relationship, or ecology, or love, and lab tests tell us no more than any lens might when focused on a tiny part of a massive landscape.
If that sounds like gobbledygook, spend $20.00 and watch this video.
http://www.localfutures.org/component/option,com_rokecwid/Itemid,88/view,ecwid/#!/~/product/category=4029288&id=16039065
It documents the effect of industrial-technological progress, and demonstrates poignantly why it is no coincidence that liberation from our agricultural roots simultaneously liberates us from each other. Please watch and understand this very beautiful anthropological study. You will never again blithely think yourself part of a market. (Be prepared… the film is about the people of Ladakh, in the Himalayan Mountains of India, whose society, in the span of a few short years, changed from ancient, isolated, and largely self-sufficient, to one linked with the industrial-technological, corporate-government, world.)
Whos side are you on? Why do you keep saying raw milk is unsafe? Haven’t you seen:
Raw milk myths and evidence by Nadine Ijaz pdf
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/RevisedPresentationJuly8RawmilkmythsandevidenceNadineIjaz_PROTECTED.pdf
Researchers, scientists, and food safety experts are only concerned with cheaper milk production practices not better milk production practices otherwise they would have never allowed pasteurization and homogenization in the first place. And the same goes for food safety.
The link below is a described pictorial chronology of events in Ladakh.
http://permaculturenews.org/2012/12/12/letters-from-ladakh-culture-demolition-in-fast-forward/
Ken
Hmmm!
To date, their research and experience has focused on and is the product of invasive and destructive food production, food safety, and preventative health care practices that contradict the concept of natural living food and good health. It is these practices that are inherently dangerous and that have served to undermine the credibility of raw milk and our food supply as a whole. Entertaining such research on the premise that raw milk is inherently dangerous would be a mistake and is a compromise that I am not willing to make.
After having consumed raw milk for over fifty years and raising nine children on it, including my grandchildren who cant seem to get enough of it when they come to visit from Ottawa, I am one of those farmers who believe that raw milk when produced naturally is inherently safe.
Ken
The greatest scientist of the time announced a public demonstration of his discovery of how to make life! The demonstration hall was filled to capacity. Even God took a seat in the first row. This was big! The scientist came out and began First, he said, take some dirt Hold on there!, said God, make your own dirt.
And, then, this point-of-view (POV) (borrowed from an accomplished herbalist): we eat foods that contain vitamin B-327. Whoa! Theres no such thing, says an expert. Well heres the point: it may be another 200 years before science discovers vitamin B-327. But if we dont mishandle the raw food, its there today for us.
To take in a rigorous description of what scientists are capable of when they confuse their expertness in one area of study with being thereby expert in some other area, look-up the category scientism at maverickphilosopher.typepad.com. Then look for Krauss, or Hawking etc.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Thanks for this.
Dont thank me; thank Dave.
If it werent for his initiative I wouldn’t have searched out the link.
Ken
Germaphobes I can tolerate, its the overbearing self-righteous types I have difficulty with.
Ken
Translation: “We have not done any studies on this and we refuse to do them, because we have Faith and trust in God that they will amount to nothing. And we’re also going to cast aspersion on European studies, because, well, they’re European.”
And we know that North American universities refuse to study the nutritional and health benefits of raw milk – in fact, they’ve come straight out and said it would be “unethical” to do so. Meanwhile, they discount the thousands of first-hand reports of raw milk nutritional benefits and improved health, because our “case studies” don’t fit their doctrine that says that we should all be falling over dead.
David’s question is so key, because if “raw milk is inherently dangerous”, it makes no sense to look at what makes some raw milk low risk, while other raw milk should be pasteurized. We might as well ask how to make cigarette healthy.
At the same time, as a raw milk producer responding to my community’s demmand for milk, I carry a lot of responsibility to get it right. Good information, especially pre-RAWMI, has been hard to come by. We need farmers, scientist, researchers, and regulators to put their politics aside and start looking into what contributes to some raw milk being risky, and other raw milk not. The work of RAWMI has been key to opening up dialogue.
Not all researchers and scientists are corporate sell outs. There are many who are honest and opened minded. But they are surely under pressure from collegues and funding sources to maintain the status quo. That is why we need to continue to engage in respectful dialogue such as David is planning to do soon with Drs. Shaffner and Chapman. There is always opportunity to learn from one another, if we are open to it.
What happens is quite amazing…the work you do comes back as evolution and time works in your favor. No one else is doing this work. Just you!
I truly think that out there in Academia land there are some visionary PhD’s and I think that Michele is one of them. She is probing and making friends in our camp to see if we are real or just filled with snake oil. What she has found is that Dr. Cat Berge ( RAWMI board member ) is serious and very very real. What she has found is that I am very serious about innovation and food safety. What she has found is that our consumers absolutely love raw milk and she hears those voices. She is not a follower and she will be noted as “true leader of the laggers” that tend to follow after the market signals a true change. I mean nothing durogatory with the label laggers. I could use a different label…but it is very true that most of academia and truely all of the FDA lags behind the trends and innovations by at least 10 years. Michele is funded by these agencies but has taken a pioneering lead to get out in front, connect with the innovators and find out what is really going on.
I respect her deeply for that.
There is really no replacement for time and patience while at the same time….innovating food safety applications ( RAWMI stuff from Grass to Glass ) and teaching like crazy. Take measure of ten years ago, take measure of three years ago…take measure of today…mark your callendars for two years from now. With time, patience and hard work. You will all be shocked at the progress.
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/RevisedPresentationJuly8RawmilkmythsandevidenceNadineIjaz_PROTECTED.pdf
They’re not all sell outs. Many, perhaps most, are committed ideologues of corporatism and scientism. Most are also dedicated elitists who will side with corporatism and against any kind of outside-the-system dissent on anti-democracy principle. Thus we have the common type of the credentialed technical cadre who knows nothing about GMOs but on principle supports Monsanto because the technocrats have to stick up for one another against the people, who they all see as the enemy. (Even as they all live as leeches off our work and taxes.) Their contempt for democracy and the people comes out most clearly in their sneering dismissal of GMO labeling, which they openly oppose on the grounds that the people are too stupid to understand it.
Meanwhile, the type of coward and opportunist you describe above is the epitome of a sell-out.
I don’t know offhand which type the hacks from the prior post are.
Either way they’re not “honest”, or else you have a very different definition of honesty than I do. Either way they’re liars to the core.
“There is always opportunity to learn from one another, if we are open to it.”
Anyone who’s followed agriculture and food politics has learned plenty about these corporatist technocrats. You should take the opportunity to learn about them yourself. Then you wouldn’t so easily keep falling for this scam and spend the rest of your life trying to appease enemies who will never do anything but try to destroy us.
I think any self-respecting farmer would feel demeaned at having to abjectly submit themselves to the scrutiny of a system hack, “proving” to the likes of them that “we’re real!”
Meanwhile Russel’s record speaks for itself. When she had the option of speaking out against GMOs, the escalation of agricultural poison use, subtherapeutic antibiotic use, and the many other overarching system threats to human health, she chose to kick down in the most loathesome, cowardly way, attacking what, even if she were 100% correct, would be the infinitesimal threat from raw milk.
If she’s honestly had a change of heart, that’s great. But any rational person would wait for her to prove that with actions before spewing all this happy talk, which in itself is nothing but snake oil.
As for “indelible elitism” … Take a good hard look at the pork-choppers who run the unions in Ham-merica … triumphant socialism, after your ilk have had their way for 80 years …. oh, I know, I know … when you and yr pals bring in “REAL” communism, then a Soviet utopia will come down from the sky, right here in downtown River City, at least =in Madison Wisconsin….
’til that glorious day, poor little us’ns have to put up with Mark McAffee, who’s produced and delivered more REAL MILK, than all the rest of the nattering Nabobs of negativity, put together.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/22/246721724/why-slather-this-spinach-field-in-poop-its-all-for-science
The fact they are even doing such research, (albeit impractical in relation to the real world of agriculture), in order to settle a contradiction between FDA and USDA standards, demonstrates the lack of scientific rigor behind such standards. It appears that for all intent and purpose that the above regulatory agency standards are in reality based on a whim or hunch.
Farmers, at least in my neck of the woods if they were to observe people such as Michele Jay-Russell and her team spreading fresh manure decked out in hazmat suits, would probably shake their heads and quip, and they are using our hard earned tax dollars to pay for this anal retentive bullshit!!!?
What they need to do is come over to my farm and Ill show them how to spread shit, without hazmat suits, and with the wind blowing at their back. It may be a sailors good fortune to have the wind blowing at his back; its certainly not a farmers good fortune when working on the land in dusty conditions or spreading manure.
Farmers who use chemical pesticides and herbicides on the other hand have learnt the hard way (no thanks to the chemical companies, government regulators or scientists) and have started to wise up and wear hazmat suits, wear breathing apparatuses and take into account wind conditions when spraying such toxic chemicals.
If they wish to do some constructive research and justify their need for hazmat suits then they aught to spray pesticides and herbicides such as glyphosate onto the soil to determine how much of these chemicals are absorbed into the plant, and what effect these toxic chemicals have on various microbiota.
Farmers have been spreading shit on the land for millennia and although some cultures considered it taboo or too labour intensive at times and would thus through it into the river rather then spread it on the land; it is only in the last several hundred years that we have been using these toxic chemicals. Go figure!!!
Ken
The Tyvek disposable coveralls and shoe covers or boots are common protocol (and common sense) for field work. They prevent us from dragging something unwanted on our clothes or shoes into the experimental field. They also keep our clothes from getting soiled. We could have worn washable coveralls or scrubs, but the disposable covers are convenient.
Michele
Your snipes at Mark McAfee tell me that you have no understanding of the mans motivation. Ive met and fellowshipped with him a couple of times, since 2007, when he dropped by and personally lit the fuse for the Campaign for REAL MILK in BC. The kindest way to put it, is : youre UN-clear on the concept.
In 1999, when his family homestead was besieged from various forces particularly, unfair competition from globalization – Mark McAfee could easily have sold the farm then gone to sit pool-side in Palm Springs = Marguerita in hand = and wed never have heard of him. Had he taken the easy way out of his predicament, about 99.99% of California raw milk fans, would never have had the opportunity to purchase it, perfectly legally, today. But his innate Protestant work ethic, didnt allow that to even cross his mind.
One of his talents, is = hes adaptable. In war and lets keep in mind this is a war of ideologies = statism versus free enterprise one has to use whatevers at hand. If the corporate structure works to produce + distribute millions of gallons of REAL MILK, so people get healthier, then I can live with that compromise. If we know one thing fer sure : the Soviet model of collective-ization is NOT sustainable.
Mark McAfees vision to go big was what inspired me to do the same in BC = rather than hide out under the radar, in which case REAL MILK would be forever run off to the fringes. If you want to support your little local dairy, milking a couple of cows, with the milk supply sporadic, under pittance farming conditions perpetuating serfdom = feel free thats OK with me too. .
Although his critics harp-away as though he’s attempting to run all competition off the playing-field, his actions prove just the opposite. Small raw milk dairies are surviving under the shadow of guys like Mark McAffee, as he fends-off govt. idiots, whod shut them down in a trice, were it not for the prestige he brings to the contest. Not to mention = experts now coming on-side because of his efforts to educate not to mention = real $$ to toss on the bonfire of the legal racket, when necessary. Who financed visonary Aanojonus von der Planetzs legal bills in the LA County round ? That raw cash / FRNotes didnt precipitate from the hot air of the likes of progressives Bill Anderson / Russ and their fellow travelers, intellectuals so long on Marxist doctrine . yet conspicuous by their absence when it comes time to do the chores, and pony-up for the court co$t$
Mark McAfee all but single-handedly created the market for REAL MILK in California. The kvetching against him is just a classic example of covet-ous-ness
We must all be very tolerant, mature. We must appreciate where we have all come from…on all sides. Dr. Michele Russel is from mainland UC Davis and the FDA. We are from planet raw milk Pluto as far as her beliefs are concerned ( at least originally ). She initially saw us as mostly hocus…pocus. The rest of most academia ( aside from Dr. heckmand and a few other visionaries ) are still on Mainland, UC, FOOD INC, FDA ground. Why wouldn’t they still be there. Their paychecks come from grants and bidding for that FOOD INC FDA culture and that church of Shelf Life Belief. Their concern and interest in GUT LIFE is far behind their own investments in the huge discoveries down the hall at the NIH funded Human Genome project or at the IMGC effort at UC Davis.
I know this well. I have been dropped on my head by researchers that LOVE RAW MILK and what we do…but can not ever been seen in the same picture as me because it destroys their Big Ag grants.
When money and livelyhoods get involved, social and economic dynamics very closely follow for sure.
Michel is a real gift to us regardless of her paycheck affiliations. How would we have ever understood the concerns, issues or politics and make enroads to change is if an emissary of peace was not sent across the bridge.
Do not shoot the status quo PhD messenger. I also went half way across that raw milk bridge or more than half way. I like the dialogue. I praise the progress.
Patience….time, evolution. It takes time to evolve, prove our point, collect data and change this paradigm.
Patience….time, building safe raw milk markets and teaching.
I thought about that, and it would all make sense if your experimental field were situated under a dome. It isnt however and by using your boots and suits you are merely controlling the human element. What about the birds, the insects, or the many other critters that roam and forge around day and nigh? Considering these variables do you not think that your effort to prevent dragging something unwanted on our clothes or shoes into the experimental field is in vain?
If your intent is to mainly keep yourselves from getting soiled then fair enough.
Ken
Joel Salatin’s “Folks this Ain’t Normal” concludes with a chapter on food safety over regulation. It is a compelling rant, based on his own personal struggle with regulators. At the end of that chapter, he offers five possible solutions to deal with unscaleable food safety regulations.
At the top of his list is a move to “Empirical Benchmarks.” (His other recommendations are worth considering, but I won’t mention them here.) By this, he means moving away from sweeping arbitrary rules and regulations, and rather requiring certain testable standards for cleanliness and quality.
When the USDA challenged his primative, outdoor chicken-butchering operation, Salatin immediately sent his birds off to be tested for pathogens. The carcasses had about 25x less pathogenic bacteria as their USDA processed counterparts. Despite eschewing industrial-sized regulations, Salatin is not afraid to demonstrate the safety and quality of his product. Quite the contrary. He’s proud of his growing and processing methods and is telling the whole world about it.
To some degree, that is what these manure-spredding trials may be trying to do. The FDA/USDA arbitrarily says that raw manure should not be used to grow greens. The trials are challenging the need for those regulations with empirical data. How long does it actually take for e coli to die off in raw manure? Is there any merit to the requirment for exclusively aged, treated, and tested manure? Does the die off vary between one manure and the next? Before we burden farmers with yet another regulation to content with, lets make sure there is actually a real net benefit.
Future studies could include…is all raw manure the same? Is manure collected during the winter time from low-density, deep carbon-litter bedded cattle fed hay, and then areated by pigs in the spring less likely to contain pathogens in the first place than raw manure from a CAFO? How about manure from cattle that are not given antibiotics?
I’d like to point out that Michele is holding a chicken on her lap in the above photo…and does not appear to be wearing a hazmat suit.
Amusingly, a few days after the video was posted on the BC CDC website, it disappeared. More political manouevring went on … after the cover-up became too embarrassing – it was re-instated.
We also grow a lot of greens, as argula and kale are almost as popular here as raw milk! But we never use uncomposted manure….basically because my gardener-grandma taught me never to use “hot” manure on tender plants. So I’m also interested in seeing what the results yield, and if there is anything we can glean and apply.
http://www.keepthesoilinorganic.org/
RAWMI LISTED farmers have shown the applied brilliance of the RAWMI approach. Very soon, one of our own, right here at TCP will be LISTED. I am so excited to be able to announce soon!! This will be the 6th LISTED farmer.
…
You said Your snipes at Mark McAfee and nattering Nabobs of negativity,. These comments are only a response to Mark’s negativity. He is the one constantly saying raw milk is unsafe and then gets upset when no one wants to join his RAWMI, completely ignoring the fact that raw milk has already been proven a low risk food.
…
Raw milk is not illegal in the U.S.
…
Mark McAffee, who’s produced and delivered more REAL MILK, than all the rest put together.? what can one really know? What do you really know ?
…
Your experiment is great for students on a limited budget but as a consumer I see a study intended to prove whether raw manure from sick animals spread on a field 4 months before planting can make people sick. This means the manure should be from sick animals and the spinach should be eaten by humans to see if it does in fact make them sick(or should I say give them diarrhea?). The minimum infectious does for E. coli consumed in raw spinach has never been determined and how did you determent how much E. coli to spray on and which type to use? A study like this is kind of like inventing the atomic bomb. If it is used by unscrupulous businessmen to restrict the production of healthy food.
Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class by Ian Haney Lopez
Listen – Aired January 22, 2014 – 8:00am;
http://www.wpr.org/shows/racism-politics
Read – Posted on 2013-12-12;
http://ebookee.org/Dog-Whistle-Politics-How-Coded-Racial-Appeals-Have-Reinvented-Racism-and-Wrecked-the-Middle-Class_2412499.html
Watch, Published on Jan 14, 2014;
I agree with this sentiment completely.
Do you have cats?
If there is one thing that irks me more then anything else, its digging into fresh cat shit when I am planting the garden.
In days gone by it was common practice to cut a small hole into the bottom of a granary door in order to give access to the cats so that they could catch the mice. I still have vivid memories as a kid, having to scoop dried or frozen cat scat out of the grain and tossing it onto the manure heap before shoveling the grain into the roller mill or cleaning it for seed. The latter is less irksome.
That being said however, here is a book that has some good common sense info, Holy Shit: Managing Manure to Save Mankind by Gene Logsdon (Chelsea Green, 2010).
The author explains the crucial role manure (farm, pet and human) plays in food production and how we can conquer our societal fear of it.
Ken
It’s especially funny to see you consorting with liberal professional types like these bureaucrats.
I also wondered why anyone supposedly on our side would be saying that we’re the ones who are supposed to prove to history’s worst snake oil salesmen that WE’RE “not selling snake oil”.
On the contrary, it’s up to any of them to prove they’ve stopped selling theirs. Meanwhile our wares have always been proven to anyone who deserves such proof.
The goal of real activists is always to speak directly to the people. Wanting to “dialogue” with system types is invariably a sign of collaboration, of wanting to sell out. Anyone who doubts this need only look at the record of history.
Gordon Watson, you’re full of s***. That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever said that to anyone, so this is a great honor for you 🙂
JMHO Marietta
raw milk is unsafe raw milk is too cheap Mark should be able to ship to all 50 states or that Race traitors in the pulpits of the nation delivered America into communism. Gordon S Watson | Thu, 01/09/2014 – 11:54 or maybe my main theme = white people are suffering for having rejected our heritage : the Law of God. Gordon S Watson | Sun, 01/05/2014 – 23:32
Appeal to Ignorance is a fallacy in which the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. Another version occurs when a lack of evidence for side A is taken to be evidence for side B.
Dr. M. Croserio, M.D., president of the Homeopathic Society of Paris circa 1837.
Homeopathy is too directly opposed to old opinions, and can therefore not be judged by them. Being founded on experience, it can be demonstrated by experience alone.http://hpathy.com/past-present/history-of-homeopathy-3/
Raw milk myths and evidence by Nadine Ijaz pdf
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/RevisedPresentationJuly8RawmilkmythsandevidenceNadineIjaz_PROTECTED.pdf
And it is not enough to say they don’t recognize our research or that certain evidence is anecdotal just because they don’t publish it in their journals. They bear the burden of proof if they want to regulate or ban our food.
More to the point, why are these “scientists” targeting raw milk? Who told them to do so? Where does their directive come from? I can think of about 10 “directives” right off the top of my head in just a few seconds.
This is all just a diversion of tactics that we aren’t supposed to notice, I think, because instead of concentrating on items in the food chain which they already KNOW are dangerous, or possibly posing dangers to humans (think salmonella-laden poultry, and/or frankenfish just for starters), they continue to blindly concentrate on a niche food because people who have tasted it and then gone back and re-tasted that crap in jug off the grocery store dairy case shelves decide they cannot tolerate the fake milk (read: dangerous white water) and want the real thing directly from a cow. Many of us grew up drinking milk fresh from a cow, raised our babies on unpasteurized breastmilk (!), raised our children on raw cow or raw goat milk, and now those kids are craving what they can’t have access to because someone pushing a pencil says we can’t? What hogwash.
But someone has to make access to this wonder food impossible. It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it. So they will. Eventually. But they have to make their “research” sound good first; not logical but passable will satisfy the FdA.
I believe in local raw milk from many different sources, as long as all the sources are committed to the safe and clean production of that raw milk. Corporations tend to do a piss poor job of serving people…they instead tend to serve the bottom line and their Wall Street Crap Shoot stock-value on any given day. That does not necessarily mean that humanity is any better served.
This comment may be general and overbroard, and there maybe exceptions to some green or caring corporations. But my experience has shown me that the reason Corp CEO’s are paid ungodly amounts of money…is because they do ungodly things morally & ethically to get that check.
That is not me…just to be clear. I am driven by our consumers and their families health. Pure and simple.
Mama, the big problem, part of the divide between the public health community Michele represents and you is how you define safety. Her community defines it very narrowly as being based on the presence or absence of pathogens, while you (and many others like you) define safety much more broadly, including the presence of GMO feed, synthetic vitamins, hormones, antibiotic residues, etc., etc. Part of what Mark McAfee and others are suggesting is that it is up to us to educate the public health community about the changing realities out there.
Not quite sure that I have ever said that rawmilk is unsafe. I have said that it can be unsafe or very safe and everything in between. Raw milk is a direct reflection of its production conditions and standards of care bedore, during and post production. In my opinion…raw milk is one if the safetest foods on earth under certain conditions.
It can also be very unsafe. The one factor that changes everything is however the human component of management. We humans are the wild card!!
The public health community has invented their own definition of illness, pathogen, adulteration, safety, protection, and milk even though they legally work for us and should then be using our definitions.
Epidemiology is a new made up science to go with the new made up illnesses. Math is math and diarrhea is a symptom not an illness.
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/…
http://www.bccdc.ca/NR/rdonlyres/00E8757C-99E4-4414-8C54-2C92BB776567/0/RevisedPresentationJuly8RawmilkmythsandevidenceNadineIjaz_PROTECTED.pdf
The projects that we work on are largely focused on developing better ways to detect, control and eliminate microbes along the food chain, from the farm to the table. (Mike Doyle, regents professors and director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, Griffin, Ga., 5-24-2010)
http://thepacker.com/Chat—Mike-Doyle/FreshTalkBlog.aspx?oid=1088238&tid=
I think you hit the nail on the head. In the past, I used to make excuses to myself for the behavior of system propagandists and supporters. They were well-intentioned, just doing their job, blah-blah… Now that I’m older and wiser,while I don’t believe they’re all deliberately evil, I’m concluding they’re brain-washed, foolish, and full of what my dad always called “The arrogance of ignorance”. So, why would I pay any attention to their pontifications? Does one take parenting advice from an abusive parent, for example? Maybe not the best comparison, but I’m in a hurry right now 🙂
Pathogens are only produced in high numbers under certain conditions ( things out of balance ) and are only virilent under very special and extra-ordinary conditions and host body or GUT chemistry.
Pathogen virilence is enhanced by increasing our fight against them. Anti-biotic abuse, GMOs ( yes…Round-Up as an extra strong anti-biotic effect ) CAFO conditions that block sunlight and feed anti-biotics, decreased grass pastures, and increase stress & wetness and crowding of animals. ==== more pathogen virilence and increased pathogen populations, match that with weak humans…shazam…sick and dead people!
Mankind is the pathogen creator!!! We are the ones that create unnatural and pathogen promoting conditions!! Most importantly…mankind feeds itself in ways that decrease personal immune strength and decrease health thus encouraging a welcome mat for pathogens to reduce the numbers of our ever slower, fatter, stupider species.
All makes incredibly good Darwinian sense to me. Earth does not generally encourage bad or stupid things. Stupid things become eaten by smarter more evolved things…like pathogens. Lets stop creating smart pathogens!
Our job is to recognize these variables and try to reduce them to a minimum. That is one of the big lessons of the Human Biome project. Lets be smart and start taking personal responsibility for our immune status and our health! Lets stop encouraging pathogen virilence by creating good bug balance in our lives! These are the lessons of the Human Biome project. We spent at least $4 billion of NIH dollars to figuer this out, we can at least be smart enough to use this information in our lives.
When I click on the link you provided, a message comes up telling me the page cannot be found.
Yes, their narrow perspective of eliminating microbes does seem to have a commanding influence on their gray matter.
Having the ability to eliminate something is the cornerstone of absolute power and is the epitome of arrogant control.
These food safety scientists should know better. They choose rather to protect their credibility and paychecks, by attempting to give the public the impression that they are in control of food safety; hence, their preoccupation with eliminating and/or marginalizing something or someone.
Unfortunately the methods they use to achieve this so-called elimination of microbes, is nurturing increasingly aggressive microbes, disrupting ecosystems, and devastating the quality of our food and our overall good health.
Ken
1. CAFOs and other filthy but profitable agricultural practices are taken as normative.
2. The task, depending on the cadre, is then to either do what can be done to ameliorate the harmful effects of the filth, or to lie and pretend one is doing so. This cog claims that arbitrarily targeting (or pretending to target) “microbes” will serve as such an amelioration. But whatever is recommended, under no circumstances shall it be allowed to significantly hinder the corporate imperative. “Regulation” can take place only as a minor modification within the corporatist project, which is taken as normative, almost as a law of nature or kind of religious faith.
3. The regulator/academic/NGO then puts its imprimatur on the fraudulent result, calls it “safe”, and implicitly or explicitly tells the public to go back to sleep and leave things in the hands of the regulatory bureaucracy, “professionals”, system NGOs, etc.
As we see with Community Food, this process is also used to demonize and repress truly safe practices which constitute an economic rival to corporate agriculture and a political rival to the “representative” bureaucratic system.
This same template applies in every economic sector as well as with many or most political problems. The goal is to exalt bureaucratic rule, and in particular the corporate imperative, and suppress economic and political democracy and freedom, by enervating and lulling them to sleep if possible, directly repressing them where necessary. So it is with the FDA and raw milk.
The demarcation is clear-cut – it’s humanity vs. bureaucratic rule. It makes zero difference whether the nominal form of concentrated bureaucratic power is “government” or “corporate”.
The FDA is the latest organization to issue an absurd warning to pet owners to avoid the dangers of raw pet food. The basis for the warning is a two-year study the agency conducted of 1,000 samples of pet food to check for bacteria that causes foodborne illness.
The anti-raw movement also conveniently overlooks the fact that pet owners have been feeding raw diets to their dogs and cats for decades, yet to date, not one documented case of raw pet food causing illness in humans has been reported.
http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2014/01/24/raw-pet-food-diet.aspx?e_cid=20140124Z1_PetsNL_art_1&utm_source=petnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20140124Z1&et_cid=DM38151&et_rid=407289885
I wonder how long these clowns figure they can get away with preaching this kind of nonsense.
When I bring scraps home from the butcher the dogs quickly gather them up and bury them here, there, and everywhere. After a couple of weeks they start digging them up and eating the partially decomposed chunks at their discretion.
Ken
Mama, your concerns are well taken. I’m not sure any kind of new “alignment” is taking place. What I see happening is some potentially constructive dialog. Whether it leads anywhere substantive remains to be seen.
Also this may be of interest: http://www.thepacker.com/opinion/fresh-produce-opinion/qa__mike_doyle_center_for_food_safety_at_university_of_georgia_122026794.html
In the wild, a dog would never eat wheat, corn or soy. People get the weirdest ideas about things sometimes, don’t they? I guess my DH and I live on the edge because everything we do is against the laws of nature, apparently. 😉
You’ve probably noticed how many people are losing their furry buddies to cancers and other diseases at surprisingly young ages. I have no pets now (because I would marry a man with allergies), but when I was growing up we had a steady stream of dogs and cats in our lives, and they lived well into their teens. Now there’s this absurd propaganda that one shouldn’t feed pets table scraps, only commercial “food”(ugh, that stuff nauseates me), and coincidentally my friends who have pets are watching them die at 10 years old or younger. Off-topic, but canned soup smells just like dog food…
My horses get pasture when its available, alfalfa, grass hay, oats, local on-the-ground apples from our trees, salt lick, mineral lick and fresh water right out of an aquifer well. I use lots of the products from here for them, as well: http://www.annieoakley.com/journeys-natural-horse-training-tools.aspx
I use some of the products myself, too. They have a women’s line and a men’s line that are just terrific.
I haven’t opened a “can” of soup in years. I can only imagine, however. My homemade “Cream of Anything” soup is the answer to most every need we ever have!!
Doesn’t your *husband with allergies* respond to the healing properties of raw milk?
We carry a variety of raw products and people are starting to come back specifically to buy those. The testimonials I hear daily are very powerful, when people change from those cheap crap foods they buy at the big box stores to high quality food: the allergies and digestive issues disappear! Good food is the best medicine. You know what they say, you can pay me now or pay your vet later. One of the most satisfying things of this job is having customers come back and thank me for the advice that really worked for them. I feel like the Mark McAfee of dog food! Teach teach teach…
Growing up in Portugal 50 years ago, there were NO pet food stores, animals ate our leftovers and whatever they could catch in the wild, and they were all very healthy. I usually bring one of our two dogs with me to the store, and show them off as a testament to good nutrition – shiny soft coats, no allergies or digestive issues, happy and healthy. I also give them a little raw milk mixed in on a semi regular basis.
The experts are not just referring to raw food in general. They are also referring to these so-called commercial raw pet foods that have been supposedly rendered sterile via high-pressure processing (HPP), aka Pascalization.
It is not just rover they are concerned about. They also claim that feeding raw food to your pet is a threat to humans who handle it and come in contact with dogs who eat it.
Suggesting that these HPP dog foods are raw is deliberately deceitful and it is equally deceitful for these so-called experts to suggest that feeding raw food to your pet is harmful.
Ken
How could I tell if a commercial “raw” pet food has been subjected to HPP? Does it show on the label somewhere? How can I know if a commercial raw pet food is trustworthy? Is HPP used on all forms of raw pet food: frozen, fresh, or dried?