In the ongoing debate over raw milk safety that simmers on this blog, I’ve been struck by a subtle change in tone and approach of late. This change is epitomized by two items: the barely civil exchange between Mark McAfee and Concerned Person over a so-called protocol for safely introducing newbies to raw milk, and by a comment by dairy farmer Brian Keeter on possibly weeding out people who’ve been on antibiotics or other serious prescription drugs from joining a herdshare.
In the latest skirmish over the protocol, CP provides a series of steps following my April 20 post that a raw milk newbie can take. But interestingly, she/he concludes, in Step 7,referring to the previous six steps, “However, if people did this first, they would feel so great they wouldn’t need raw milk. “
Brian Keeter says following the same post, “I have considered, for example, not selling to folks who have taken antibiotics or other hardcore prescription meds in the past 6 or 12 months. It would be part of the herdshare contract and would help insure a good first experience with raw milk.”
I’ve come to realize that, to the extent we obsess about germs in raw milk, or in spinach, peanuts, pistachios, cold cuts, and so forth, we push to the back burner another key issue: the extent to which raw milk and other nutrient-dense foods help prevent disease. And to the extent we look to certain foods to help build our immune systems, we see food safety as less of a risk than we once might have.
In other words, the issues of food’s safety and food’s nutritional value are inextricably intertwined, to their mutual exclusion. Concerned Person is so obsessed about food safety she/he can’t truly embrace the intriguing protocol. And XBrian Keeter, though he mainly hints at it, wants to have as herdshare owners individuals focused on the nutritional benefits of raw milk, rather than people who have embraced the conventional health-care system and its emphasis on long-term use of pharmaceutical drugs.
So my new theory of food safety is this: To the extent consumers are focused on bad bugs in milk, veggies, or almonds, they can’t truly focus on the good bugs. That’s the problem many raw milk drinkers have come to see with pasteurization: to the extent it kills bad bugs, it also kills good bugs. To the extent we focus on the good bugs, we question this model that has guided our society for over a century: technology will make us healthier (not only pasteurization, but pharmaceuticals, surgery, etc.)
All that helps explain why so many of the regulators at the National Conference of Interstate Milk Shipments really couldn’t comprehend what Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures was saying when he talked about the importance of using raw dairy to strengthen people’s immune systems as a way to counter not only food-borne illness, but many chronic diseases. For them, like for most people, it’s an either-or proposition.
***
A number of individuals here have bemoaned the absence of good current research on raw milk consumption habits. Now, there’s a survey ongoing, launched by an individual who is both a consumer of raw milk and a writer on the subject. Amanda Rose, who comments frequently on this blog, invites raw milk drinkers to complete her questionnaire by the deadline of next Thursday, April 30.
She will be presenting the survey results at a professional medical meeting taking place in July, a symposium on raw milk July 12 in Seattle, sponsored by the American Veterinary Medical Association. Unfortunately, Amanda Rose will be the only raw milk advocate included in the program, which includes regulator opponents from the FDA and CDC, along with others like food-borne illness lawyer Bill Marler.
Amanda Rose describes the survey further in an article on The Ethicurean.
"comment by dairy farmer Brian Keeter on possibly weeding out people whove been on antibiotics or other serious prescription drugs from joining a herdshare.
Didn’t someone post a while back about requiring potential cowshare owners to read a binder full of information? It appears that the majority of raw dairy farmers do inform thier buyers of potential risks. How much information are "those people" wanting the farmer to dish out? What would satisfy them? Would anything satisfy them, other than banning the raw milk? Does any other food do this? Is any other food required to do this? Why is the farmer expected to feed all this information to the consumer? What is the consumers responsibility? This is like suing the bar you got snockered at, drove and caused an accident. It isn’t the bars fault, it’s the drunks fault. Do the raw sushi places go into great detail about the hazards of consuming raw fish? Cigs and booze have a short blurb about the hazards if you are pregnant. Why aren’t they pushed to hand out binders full of information?
David, has technology made us healthier? I don’t think it has. Is cardiac disease down from 1900? Is breast cancer? gastric ulcers? GERD (acid reflux) is one of the popular diseases of the last 20 years. Alzheimers used to be so rare no one ever heard of it, now it has become common over the last 25 years. Mother Nature knows best, foods in thier natural state are healthier than processed foods. Medications have thier place, yet look at how they are passed out like candy. Look at how many americans are on antianxiety drugs and they are not getting therapy with the drugs, if no therapy, how will they ever learn to cope with whatever is causing the anxiety? Oh yeah, just keep taking the pill and you don’t have to deal with it. There is something wrong with the over-all picture of our society.
Thank you for trying to make a difference. Your survey is a good start.
Be careful. You are the only pro raw milk person at the conference for a reason. No producers were invited for a reason. These raw milk haters want a public lynching and you are the trophy they will hang on the wall.
I know the FDA MO and protocol and they rule with military edict. They hate raw milk. Marler…well…he is Marler. He makes money when people have weak immune systems and get sick. You need some support. A raw milk producer and medical doctor should sit on the panels. Where are they???
Ask your self why this did not happen. This is intentional.
As to the question of immune building….
The best answer to this question is to visit http://www.californiarawmilk.org and view the videos. These are real people and they share their real experiences.
If you are scared of bacteria…then do not drink raw milk. If you want to improve the biodiversity in your gut and improve your immunity then raw milk is a conscious choice.
No one ever promised perfection with raw milk. The promise comes with improved immunity and your personal choice. A promise or guarantee is rediculous. Peanuts, Pistacios, Spinach, tomatoes, peppers, ground beef, pastueirized milk (recently killed three) etc….and yes even on rare occasion raw milk can make you sick. But which of these will build your immunity. Food borne illness is a sign of a weak America. Blame anti biotics, crappy foods and poor nutrition.
So weigh the benefits verses risks. The risk being death by bad bug if you have a depressed immune system. How do you avoid death by bad bug….drink raw milk and become immune to bad bugs.
This is not rocket science. It is simple…the vaccinations we take may save our lives from rare and specialized bad bugs by giving us exposure to them ( Polio etc ). Raw milk does much the same thing…but much safer, with out pain, needles, naturally and deliciously.
It is so frustrating….are people brain dead. Why is chosing a strong immune system such an act of treason. Those of us that love our raw milk will defend this sacred choice with our lives…because it has saved and protected our lives. Until you drink raw milk for a while….shame on you for judging it.
If this is a free country, then Raw Milk is the canary in the mine shaft of freedom.
The NRA says "they" will pry my gun from my cold dead hands….well, the same can be said of my glass of delicious raw milk. I met " they" last week in Florida.
Amanda you will sit all by yourself among " they". Good luck to you.
All the best,
Mark McAfee
You can sterilize a food to make it "safe," (which then ironically makes it even more vulnerable to "bad bugs"),or you can use time honored husbandry protocols and present nutrient dense, wholesome food for consumption. We must depend upon pasteurization, pharmaceuticals, surgery precisely because we are not honoring mother nature’s protocol for raising/growing wholesome food, starting with the soil itself. And as long as we, as a society, insist on allowing CAFO’s to operate, then there is little hope of our food chain ever becoming healthy, ergo our immune systems. We must get back to treating the soil, fruit/vegies, animals with correct farming/organic protocols, not factory protocols to produce our food. I don’t blame the herdshare farmer for not wanting those who depend upon phamaceuticals to be his clients. If they eat the typical SAD, then there is no doubt they don’t have an 85% (good) to 15%(bad) bug ratio in their own guts. He’s just asking for "trouble" taking on people like that, and again, it’s not because raw is inherently dangerous, but because such people can’t handle "real" food. Many experience a ‘healing crisis" and think they are sick because of the food, when that is not the case at all! The only reason we’ve gotten away with CAFO’s this long is because we then sterilize the products (meat/milk) before it reaches the grocery store shelf, but we are paying a huge, huge price for this madness, and we are beginning to pay the devil his due now with all the food borne pathogenic outbreaks we are witnessing as of late, along with our general poor health as a nation. I don’t know the answers to all this, but I do know that my family and I can affect our own health by supporting our local CSA, and enjoying all the fresh fruit/vegies/milk/meat that they have to offer. I believe our farmers can feed this nation, but not until such time that agricultural policy allows them to do what they can and do best: GROW and PRODUCE decent, healthy, whole foods. Alyssa Pellicano
<< Microbe attack
The study has also identified new genes involved in the cows’ immunity.
These are linked to the animals’ digestive system.
Cattle are ruminants, which means they have a four-chambered stomach that contains a multitude of resident bacteria, allowing them to digest plant material, such as grass, that is very tough to break down.
"We think these genes evolved in response to how vulnerable cattle are to microbial attack," said Dr Tellam.
"Because of all the microbes that live in their rumen, and because the animals live in such large herds, they are very vulnerable to disease." >>>
I note that humans live in large herds also… but i’m sure there is no relationship between living in large dense herds (cities) and immunity, after all we’re different…. right?
If cattle are vulnerable to microbial attack, wouldn’t they have died off hundreds of years ago? Don’t the feed-lot dairies/beef producer bovines have an unnaturally short life? Probably from forced unhealthy living conditions, unnatural foods and chemicals pumped into thier systems; this has the same affect on humans. Disease spreads in prisons, nursing homes, hospitals or too many people living in tiny spaces, unhealthy diets and chemicals pumped into thier systems. it doesn’t take a scientist to figure out that nutrition and environment are the two major factors for health.
http://www.bestfoodnation.com/dairy.asp
Are these true industry facts?
http://www.preventcancer.com/consumers/general/milk.htm
Studies have shown hazards and yet tptb "allow" the continued poisoning of Americans.
A couple of comments in response to this post trouble me, to the extent they seem to assume that you need a decent immune system even to try raw milk. That’s not the problem – which I think even CP would admit. The problem is the very small risk that the particular glass of raw milk that an immune-compromised person first drinks, MAY have some pathogens in it. Of course, this person has higher risk when he/she eats deli meat, or the bad batch of peanut butter, spinach, etc. Setting aside this risk, there are few foods which would be better than raw milk to help the immune-compromised claw their way back to health. As always: if you know and trust your local farmer, then have at it.
Mark posted on the Ethicurean as well and is concerned that I’m out-gunned. It’s easy in this raw milk world to think that this raw milk fight is really big, but I’ve actually been a part of panels with much more controversy where I’ve actually had something to lose. In this case, I just about don’t even have a dog in this fight. No money, no tenure on the line. I’m just going there to share a viewpoint. I don’t actually expect everyone to agree with me. If it all goes south, I’ll just get some sushi and enjoy Seattle.
Amanda
Alyssa Pellicano
– CP’s list of 6 (#7 is just silly) is okay, but I disagree completely with the idea that children and pregnant women should refrain from consuming raw milk. My 5 year old and 2 year old consume it regularly, and are in great health. We haven’t needed a doctor in years. My oldest son’s story on what raw milk did for him is incredible. My wife and I’s health has improved dramatically as well. Better regularity, no allergies, no migraines. The tangible benefits for me are what put me in the business.
– Full disclosure: I am a rookie dairy farmer. I got my first milk cow last October and she just had her calf on Sunday so I have been milking for a whole 5 days now. I am by no means a subject matter expert. However, my family has been consuming raw milk for over 18 months.
– I am libertarian to the core. I could never advocate for involuntary laws that by their nature restrict human freedom. That’s one reason I am interested in the voluntary, contractual approach to this first time raw milk drinker’s protocol. I think this protocol, in combination with independent raw milk certifiers, could go a long way to growing the healthy, raw milk market.
– The idea of eliminating heavy pharmaceutical users from the herdshare was mainly to mitigate risk. My operation is as much about education as it is providing nutrient dense food. I hope to sponsor nutrient dense food education, seminars and classes (perhaps in gardening or animal husbandry) all on farm to give folks the opportunity to learn the difference between phood and real food. Also to get a taste of farm life! This would be the gateway for getting pharmaceutical folks to "qualify" for the protocol.
I blog, along with a weekly podcast, about my farm (and the occasional political rant!) at http://freefarmgeek.wordpress.com/
It’s great to have a place like David’s blog to get these ideas out in the open.
How did you get invited to the American Vet Med Association meeting?
Is the public invited to attend…when and where is this meeting. Raw milk advocates need to attend. This is our target rich environment. The FDA needs to know we give a damn and this is the kind of place we need to be. Marler is going to there we need to be there.
Marler will pick on Raw Milk as the next great blame game cash cow if we do not show him why we love our living bacteria in our raw milk….yes that’s right…that’s living bacteria not dead bacteria. I got the taste of the FDA in Orlando at the NCIMS and I want some more. We must pursue them and not let up. They must know that they have blood on their miliitary uniforms. This is the blood of tens of thousands of immune depressed and pharmacudicaly treated Americans that die every year because of their policies of increasing immune depression, sick care… and not supporting prevention and whole food nutrition.
We must be the Green Peace Ship that never stops stalking them on the high seas or bumping into them everyday and everywhere.
Amanda, how do we get invited to speak at this special raw milk bashing event? If it is a scientific gathering…they will want both sides. If it is political of course it is private.
Mark
I’ve been busy and it gets hard to keep up with all the interesting comments here. But, didn’t you say that you liked Marler a bit ago? Now you describe him like a demon again…confusing, which is it?
The continued mention of "both sides" is just strange to me in this context. There is a panel with various papers. I have my paper which makes a certain argument. There is someone discussing the grass/grain/ecoli issue for instance. I suppose the best way to get on an academic panel is to have something academic to present. That the world is black and white and there are only two arguments to be made (one black and one white), doesn’t sound very academic.
I don’t know if the attendance to the meeting is private. I’m not a AVMA member obviously. I really don’t know how their annual meeting is set up.
A couple of things:
1st…When will your survey and study results be made public? Can you do it here?
2nd…Please come visit the Fresno Farmers Market Saturday morning before you go meet in Seatle and present your papers on raw milk.
This will be essential to your grass roots pulse check prior to representing raw milk. There are literally hundreds of families that will passionately share their stories of healing with you. Ear infections, colds, asthma, IBS, bone density improvement, reactions to pasteurized milk or dairy, excema….all kinds of immune related diseases healed by consuming raw milk or raw Kefir and a whole food diet etc…
When you go speak to Marler and the FDA you must have the energy and passionate support of those whose food you represent. This can only come from meeting and hearing the testimonials first hand. Blogging is too distant to get that conection. Moms do not lie. Marler and the FDA and all those Vets must hear the message in its whole form…complete with science and the "do not tread on me" content…raw roots direct.
The deadline has passed to be able to apply to speak at this conference. The panels are stacked with an agenda. I wish you all the best…..
Please come see the people on Saturday mornings in Fresno….it can not imagined. It must be experienced. Doctors send their patients to get their raw dairy products.
And 2500 years ago…Hypocrates said:
" first do no harm" then he said, "let food be your medicine and medicine be your food."
Sounds like 99% of doctors forget their oaths. Lots of harm being done and food is not mentioned in medical schools as part of healing or health. We must carry this message. We must be the Green Peace Ship that rams the FDA aircraft carrier… so that they get it and never forget it.
The FDA has the blood of Americans on their clean pressed military uniforms. We must rock their sterilized, industrialized, and greed based world.
All the best,
Mark
I have no idea how well my immune system was funtioning on the day started drinking raw milk. In the highly unlikely event that I (or one of my children) encountered a pathogen, would we have gotten sick? Maybe. Would we get sick now? I doubt it. But I have no way to prove it, which is probably too much uncertainty for most people. For some reason, our population can handle the uncertainty of driving, and are willing to take risks with their health every time the eat out, but can’t handle the uncertainly of raw milk. Too bad we don’t have an immune-function test to rassure some of them.
Bug discussions are fine, but even that is, IMHO, too narrow. I would offer this expansion on David’s statement:
To the extent that we focus on our inventions, interventions, and various modifications of the natural systems of life and health, we can’t truly focus on the benefits of living within that natural system. (It could be fairly said that any sort of intense focus is narrowing, and therefore damaging.)
The background components of a healthy life are immensely complexbugs, fungi, chemicals both biological and mineral, work, play, faith and spirit (along with others I’m not thinking of). They all work together in marvelous synergy and symbiosis. Our great ideas to crowbar that system to our benefit are not great at all, but symptoms of a narrow focus. As Solomon said, All is vanity.
With due respect, cp’s inclusion of a probiotic in the list of items necessary to attain health is a very narrow, and really, a very suburban idea. Look around the world at all its myriad cultures and environments and political dramas, and then imagine how you would implement cp’s plan. Hopefully we can look beyond the grocery store in Omaha. Raw milk fits God’s scheme much more elegantly (no surprise) than a probiotic pill, both in itself, and as an emblem for other natural foods and the uncountable, decomposable elements of a healthy life. (We happen to live, by the way, as many do, in and around a vast grassland. God gave us ruminants as a means of harvesting all that grass. How about that!)
Now we discuss the details of our various inventions as if tweaking them this way or that will (finally!) produce a right and healthy mix. Forget all that. Live real.
cp
cp
The FDA narrowly defines probiotic bacteria. Raw milk does not meet the definition of probiotic per the FDA. Raw milk contains far more biologic biodiversity than any probiotic pill. Plus….raw milk contains the specialized sugars needed to assure that the bacterial cultures survive transit through the stomach. That is why raw milk helps with allergies.It is the environmental bacteria that are reflected in the raw milk that assist with our ability to deal with the ecosystems that we live in…." Milk and Honey…healers for all time".
David Milano is so right. Raw milk is so much more than what probiotic pills could ever be. Raw milk is exquisite and can not be replicated by science or pharma.
There are so many parallels that can be drawn between medical marijuana and raw milk.
Both are hated and criminalized by the FDA. Both are found to be essential to the users that have medical needs. Marijuana makes farmers money and so does Raw Milk.
States have each decided for themselves what is best for its citizens yet the FDA raids anyway.
Very interesting….I just watched " Waiting to Exhale" a Medical Marijuana documentary by Jeb Riffe the same producer that is working with Christine Chessen and CREMA in CA to produce a major Raw Milk documentary.
My conclusion: The FDA is a public enemy. They have not acted to protect Americans, but instead they have enacted and now enforce "A Raw Milk Apartheid" right nere in America. ( and I do not smoke anything and never have )
What right does our government have to play policeman about my food. They have no right. Bottom line….these are government criminals protecting the rights and profits of drug companies that are killing Americans….under the big lie of protecting public health…when it is actually private wealth that is being protected. This is food for rebellion.
We must all show up when Amanda is in Seattle at the AVMA. The FDA must hear this message from we the people. Scientists inside the FDA are calling for the complete rebuilding of the FDA because of corruption and fraud. Lets stand with the good FDA sciencists and get this done….enough of the policies of greed, fraud, corruption, sickness and death. I am interested in attending the AVMA meeting and wearing a raw milk tee shirt. Who else can attend???
Mark
Probiotics in a pill or in a brown expensive bottle tasting chalkie and all the enzyme pills did not help me when I made the U-turn on the road that was taking me to Hell. At 68 and unable to digest any food without great discomfort [this began many years ago] I think it would be safe to say my immune system was severely compromised. And had I heeded the warnings of the CDC and the FDA that the eldery should never ever consume raw dairy would I even be here this morning and having just enjoyed a glass of beetkvass made from RAW WHEY?
There is nothing complicated about the TRUTH. Our marvelously DESIGNED human bodies were DESIGNED to require certain pure nutrients. The same DESIGNER designed cows to provide us with many of these life sustaining nutrients. Cows are designed to eat grass agreed? So what do we do we create the SAD for humans and we create the SCD [ standard cow diet] and put fenses around the cows so they cannot possible reach a blade of grass. How smart is that ln this so called ENLIGHTENED AGE?
What is the result of this folly? 7500 US hospitals for very sick Americans any many sick cows that employ many Vets. and a failed USDA trying to make something good out of utter folly.
TRUTH or CONSEQUENCES? I CHOOSE TRUTH its worked for me so far and boy does it all taste SOOO good. Let the CDC and the FDA consume the other stuff and I guess we will have to help them WHEN the get sick.
As a society we are being trained to see "getting sick" as some horrible event, and try to avoid it at all costs. This is a natural part of life! The avoidance of sickness and contamination has what led us to the germ theory to begin with.
ps. (i’m not saying being sick is fun, but because i drink raw milk, and eat wholesome foods, exercise, i know my body can handle whatever it’s exposed to.)