How I Look Past the Negativity, and Stay Positive, and Committed, in the Food Rights Struggle
By Liz Reitzig
This is Part 2 of Liz Reitzig’s guest post.
One of the things I do to help people access real foods in my area is I help run a buying club that makes local deliveries of real, non-GMO foods. About two and a half years ago, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began an undercover investigation and sting operation on my buying club and on one of the farmers supplying fresh, healthy food to the members.
As the FDA brought charges against our beloved Amish farmer and as the case made its way through the courts, I watched in amazement as the wonderful beneficiaries of this farmer rallied to support him! People bought extra food, sent letters of encouragement and acknowledgement, paid into a legal fund for him, rallied on his behalf, alerted local news media, and generally got active about the use of force against a peaceful farmer who supplied food for his community.
Unfortunately, the force and violence from the FDA eventually led the farmer to shut down in order to protect his family. The actions of a few individuals at the FDA shut down a wonderful farm, put a small family farm out of business, and deprived a community of their food source.
But only for a short time. Because of the cohesiveness of the group and the action and dedication of the community this farmer created, we were able to quickly find new farmers to work with while simultaneously leaving our previous farmer feeling supported and with great hope.
This is an example of the effectiveness of community support for our food producers. It works!
Everyone reading this is in a different place right now--some might be like the chickens, some like the pigs, and some of you may have never bought food directly from a farmer before or even known where your food comes from.
But in this ballet of initiative and synergistic endeavors to secure our freedoms for future posterity, everyone has a role to play. Everyone can do something!
Wherever you are in your activism, supporting your food producers is an important step. To those who have a deeper understanding of what our producers face and have taken an active role in supporting them, I acknowledge you for that. For those who haven’t, today is your new starting place!
We may not all be the pigs in the story I related in Part 1, but we can at the very least wholeheartedly support those who are giving their lives over to it! All of us who are involved have the option today to reach out to others and ask them to become involved—to share the responsibility.
Imagine how different our landscape, job scape and economy would look if every American family took steps to join a CSA, purchase from a farmers market, grow some of their own food, or otherwise contribute to securing our agriculture heritage.
Every time I catch myself saying “that’s not possible.” Or, “It’s too hard” or “I do not have enough time,” I practice saying, “What would be possible?”
It’s true that we all have to deal with our daily lives, our time constraints, and the choices we have made in the past. But these are also not limits. What is possible? What could our food system look like if the community worked together? What are your measures of success for a local food system? What do you want to see happen? And what can YOU do to make it happen?
While it might not be realistic to think that all of us can immediately take on production of all our food, or run a CSA or buying club, buy a farm, or engage full time in activism, there are tangible ways we can each immediately become responsible participants in our food production.
It takes a community to make a local food system work! When you think of the “pigs” from our story and the commitments those members of our food system make, the “contributions” from the chickens become so much more than just the face value of the contribution. Every time you give it is an affirmation and endorsement of the commitments that our food producers make. It is an acknowledgement of them and their work.
Whatever you have to offer, whatever you can give or do--do it! Our food producers are our lifeblood. Let them know you believe in the beauty of their commitment!
This site's mission is to provide news and analysis about food rights and raw milk. Increasingly, our access to privately available food is under attack by government and industry forces that seek to impose their choices on us. The Complete Patient seeks to provide up-to-date information and encourage the development of community to maintain traditional food acquisition options.
The biggest question of all....
If Pasteurized milk is so great, why are all the pasteurized CAFO ( small or big alike ) dairies failing and why is the pasteurized milk market in full blown colapse? ( 2-3% of the fluid milk consumption disappears every year ).
The truth has a way of getting out regardless of the extremely well paid spin managers or Hollywood milk mustache wearers.
Mark the failure of the boiled milk industry has little to do with the the food value or lack of food value of the product.
The big dairies have a captive clientele because the individual farmer is prevented by law from pursuing other more lucrative marketing options. Using this control over the farmer, big agri can purposely set milk prices so low as to bankrupt the farmer, and them buy up the bankrupted farms and consolidate them. This model of vertical integration has been implemented and succeeded in other areas of agriculture. For example look at how chickens are raised today.
What we need in this country is to legalize freedom again. It would solve most of our problems.
Focusing only on food rights is like Thoreau said: hacking at the branches, when we need to be striking the root.
Keep Reverend Martin Neimueller's poem in mind - it applies to so many things in life:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Focus on all rights, and where rights originate. And that is certainly not with government.
Words that I wish every person in both our great countries would take heed of and especially those raw milk drinkers who are still sitting back silently "waiting to see what happens". The time to "wait to see" is over. Thank you Liz for your excellent articles on this blog and for all your hard work on everyone's behalf. I might be from Canada but I am only too aware speaking to those in charge of our food supply that our government watches what yours does like little children following big brother. Any changes you manage to make down there will help us here. We don't even have research of our own on raw milk and I'm finding out we don't really have very good records of anything to do with raw milk so our "authorities" quote US government research and statistics 9 times out of 10. It's frustrating to say the least. Canadians reading this post can help us by going to www.rawmilkconsumer.ca and signing our petition, passing it around and getting involved. We need help getting our education package out right across the country in the fall so please heed what Liz says and take action. We all need to be involved.
My comment came up under a strange user name instead of my own. I don't believe in commenting on blogs without identifying myself clearly so adding this comment. Margo McIntosh, Ontario
Dear Canadian friends and "Cow Share Canada- RAWMI Alliance" members.
I will be speaking in Vancouver BC on Octobor 20th as a guest of Cow Share Canada in defense of Raw Milk rights. I will also be speaking about the supportive science behind raw milk biology, producing safe raw milk and human physiology with regards to pasteurized milk and its human toll disaster.
I love BC and can not wait to breath in your fresh clean air and watch the sea planes taking off and landing!!
Glad you will be there Mark. Wish I could. It's across the country from me. Do you have any links to actual research done or peer reviewed studies on the health difference between raw grass fed and raw grain/feed to feeding? I am trying to locate something to send to an official here that has at least started to talk to us.
Margo
Grass versus grain
Here are some references that may be useful:
Karsten, H. and D. Baer. 2009. Grass and Human Nutrition. In Wedin,
W.F. and S.L. Fales. (ed). Grassland: Quietness and Strength for a New
American Agriculture. American Society Agronomy, Crop Science Society
America, Soil Science Society America, 677 South Segoe Road, Madison,
WI 53711, USA. Agronomy Monograph 54. Madison, WI.
http://njaes.rutgers.edu/pubs/soilprofile/sp-v19.pdf
Try these links for starters for peer reviewed studies on grass fed fats and medical values for raw milk.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21875744
This is NIH published GABRIELA Study of children, raw milk and Asthma
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17456213
This is NIH published PARSIFAL Study of children, raw Milk and Asthma
http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/05/09/raw-milk-promotes-health/
Published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology
http://www.eatwild.com/
There are links at this website that connect to many University studies that focus on grass fed verses grain fed fats.
A great article here, a big win for the Bechards in Missouri:
http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/news_wp/?p=1105
What in general are the legalities of a buying club? You could sell food products to members that have not be inspected/approved by the state could you not?
Any one familiar with dining clubs that came out of Italy to the States?
Thanks
InalienableWrights - in answer to your first question...it varies drastically from state to state. As seen by this example in Missouri, they definitely allow a buying club quite different from here in California. But, as seen in this article, not everything is rosy in Missouri, even though they allow it, they still went after the Bechards. The catalyst that caused the Bechards major problems is that they sold to a "stranger" who happened to walk up to their distribution setup and supposedly you can't do that, they can only distribute to those that have previously contracted prior to the drop off. While this court case did cost them dearly, they still won the right to keep up with the club & their drop off site, so that is a big win for both them & the club members. Wish we could do that here in California!!
We feel under pressure, don’t we? How is this not tyranny, this sword-grasping, governmental thumb that applies the pressure? Partiality under the color of law is misuse of law.
But, please read what we ourselves write. Go through what we write, define the terms as you go. Everything has a definition. So define terms. That’s a first-go. Now look at each definition, considering what falls within and what falls without the definition. This reveals us to be in crazyville in my opinion. (Gee, do you suppose my breathing permit is current? And did you hear the latest from xynuts.gov and the “ad council?” -they remind us that following your each exhalation, you should remember to inhale before you engage in another exhalation.) Of course, we are an unrooted people, unrooted in the way that peoples (not all peoples, true) the world-over have been rooted- living generation to generation, accumulating life-negotiating knowledge that is locale-specific.
Is our situation a bad one, then? What have we that bygone locale-static generations did not? We have: 1. education, 2. transportation, 3. communications, 4. refrigeration, 5. science. We carry some heavy burdens as well. We are burdened with corruptions and diminishments of our liberty and freedom. The U.S. Constitution is magnificent but it wasn’t born yesterday. It’s producing spanned a hundred years or more. If we don’t understand that production how can our grasp of our Constitution be anything but more fragile than firm? But enough. Let’s practice our definitions:
Define: previous (“previously contracted”). Define: stranger (“sold to a stranger”). Define: drop-off (“prior to the drop off”). Define: take-a-hike-Barney-Fife.
Cheerfully yours,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
p.s. Is Ron Klein recovering well? ( He of the water buffalo fracas. )
Thank you Mr. Odegarard---—just lurking….glad David had Ms. Reitzig as a guest. Recovery—slow, but walking and talking----more use and flexibility than anticipated of left side …much discomfort---.having to get stuff done in preparation for winter is quite a physical therapy motivator. Still tough to sleep. My wife took on milking and running the farm for 3 months and continuing her law practice, while I was out of it. She is amazing. She still has to do the milking--I''ve slowed down a lot. I have got caught up on plans for getting our farm into good production….as anticipated for ground that has been hayed and tilled for decades soil tests show depletion of macro and micro nutrients. I have given much thought and analysis to this. I calculated if I spread rich bovine manure-which I had analyzed- using my spreader I would need to spread 1,100 loads per acre to reach a nutrient balance to produce a forage base of 4-5 Tn/acre. Spreader volume is 1,500 US gallons (dry volume measure).
Sobering-the cost of reclamation, and our land was not heavily tilled and mined via corn and soy. And is much-much more healthy than most of the land in our area. I am following Dave Milano’s lead—spraying milk, finding sources of nutrients that will not bankrupt us We are on the right path to heal this land and continue to produce high quality milk and cheese-improve animal health and ours—but we all have a very long road ahead of us.
Peak oil---peak soil—I need a boost of optimism—thanks Ms. Reitzig.
Comments on definitions are the basis of legal actions—they are most important.
Live Happy
R
@ Ron Klein: Hi Ron, glad to hear you are making some improvements, albeit slow, in getting around. Your wife sounds like a real trooper!
I've posted this little 13 min video here before, but don't know if you saw it or not. You might be interested in this method of "farming" , as it requires little effort on the part of the workers (!) and helps restore the land; sort of a do-nothing-much way to provide forage for your dairy animals.
I don't know in which part of the country you live, but as the guy in the video states even if you can only work it for a few months out of the year it's better than nothing. Give it a look-see. Scroll down just a ways to the smaller photo of the cows and click on the vid. http://www.ecocentricblog.org/2011/03/07/old-time-farm-solutions-12-apri...
My brother is a veterinarian so he gets around to a lot of the local farms in this area (I live where there are four seasons, summers are quite short as a rule) so he's been telling locals about this for a year or so now. Many of them are attempting to adopt the procedure, even if they have to alter it just a tad to make it work for them. The hardest part for most of them, so far, has been waiting for the animals to produce enough good, unadulterated manure (because of previous diet) to introduce that part of the regimen. But at least they're interested in trying! That's something, I guess.
Simplicity at its finest and no chemicals. Hoping you, and maybe others who've not seen it, find it helpful.
You are in the Dakotas right? At least from some of what you have posted I surmised that. We are in SW Michigan--we have four seasons on our farm: Spring deep slick suck your boots off mud, Summer rock hard adobe-trip and twist an ankle mud, Fall deep slick suck you boots off mud, and winter-frozen-trip and sprawl mud. I'm working on good drainage-to be mud free.......
Thanks,
R
@ Ron Klein: Yes, I'm in the dakotas and we have no mud right now in my area of the State, although up where my brothers live (about 300 miles from me) they've had some nice, timely rains so things are much different there. Down here the ground is rock hard because we've had no rain since May. Right in the town where I live we've had some showers periodically so the hillsides and ditches are green, but you get outside the city limits and within 20-30 miles it's very dry. Also, the ground here is red rock and turns to gumbo muck when it rains. Up where my brothers live the soil is black and rich and perfect for pasture grasses but gets muddy as heck when it rains. At least it's not gumbo, where wellingtons stay put!
Thanks Deborah.
I wish I could afford legal advice from someone that specializes in this area. It is my understanding that we have pert near absolute right to contract in any state, and that within the constraints of a contract you can have a club where you can do just about anything. That does not stop the criminal government from harassing you though. Perhaps I should pick Arrmonds brain some day he often is at the Marchsfield Farmers market. The whole system is very discouraging to the near destitute like myself.
I often hear the charge that people are lazy and don't want to work. That charge usually comes from those that do not have a clue about a system that hates and discourages entrepreneurs.
Anyone out there want to collaborate on the legal research needed to do something like this?
Thanks again.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-red-vines-black-licorice-...
"after the state’s Department of Public Health warned of high levels of lead – more than double the amount deemed healthy for children."
.....Wow, I didn't know that any level of lead was acceptable in any food let alone a childs.....
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57499354-10391704/fda-avoid-canta...
What can I say....grow your own, buy local..
Sylvia as an accurate generalization every cubic inch of top soil on the planet contains 80 or 90 elements (minerals) to some degree or another. That means that the organic vegetables that you eat contain lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, fluorine, uranium, and more. They are however in organic molecules and the human body has evolved in this environment. You do know that both vitamins B12 and B17 contain arsenic? So if arsenic were not in the soil you would likely not be alive.
Another factor is that different plants pick up different elements. Most plants do not pick up much fluorine compounds (fluoride) from the soil but the plant that we get "tea" from picks up a lot.
My rule of thumb is to NEVER believe anything that a government agency states. They are poor sources for anything but propaganda.
Here is a good one.... 11 of 16 research studies show that consumption of dairy fat is protective and is associated with weight loss and not obesity. Several of the studies associate weight gain and obesity with low fat dairy consumption.
http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-news/Study-dismisses-obesity-high-fat-dai...
Early antibiotic use in infants and toddlers seems to cause a radical change in their metabolism. There is an article in the most recent Nature that I can't share, but it seems to be common knowledge now.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/08/23/antibiotic...
Here's a video of some of the happenings at the Lemonade and Raw Milk Freedom Day.
http://libertypenblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/video-look-at-lemonade-raw-mi...
Kinda hard to look past this kind of negative propaganda aimed at children. Makes me see red.
http://www.foodrightsnetwork.org/2012/08/looking-for-kids-books-avoid-th...
Please excuse the thread hiccup, but...
In the previous thread somebody took umbrage with Mary Martin's statement that, “From a food safety perspective, owning, living with, and milking your own cow is the safest option. Having to care for only one cow decreases the risks.” The commenter asked her to justify her supposedly “radical assertion.”
Well, regarding the question of farm-theory radicalism, I must side with Mary on this (though perhaps for different reasons than she would cite).
If there is a radical assertion being made in our food marketplace today it is that large-scale monoculture (and its enabler, long-distance transportation of food) is safe.
For the vast majority of human history farms were pretty much as Mary's “only one cow” description implied. Not actually one-cow farms perhaps, for market milk. But certainly not three hundred cows or three thousand, and not three hundred or three thousand miles away. Right up until our tiny sliver of the present, farms were small, diverse, numerous, and suppliers only to local markets.
That was the way it was before cancer and heart disease and “super-bugs” (and their cousin, faulty immune systems) and asthma and diabetes and obesity were the norm. So then, intuitively and scientifically, which model is the more radical, and which is the safest? Is it the one we are used to, or the one countless of our ancestors knew?
(Some will inevitably take this comment as a slam against OP. Let me try to deflect jab that in advance. While I stick by my assertion that small, diverse farms well integrated into our residential landscapes is the best practice--what we ought to be shooting for--I recognize also that it is a very long-term goal for this energy-dependent, industrial-technological economy, and at best many generations away from realization. I know I am extremely fortunate to eat mostly from my own well-managed land and from that of nearby friends and neighbors. I know also that most cannot do that now or maybe ever. For them, good clean raw milk from far away is far better than manufactured crap from far away. If I were in their shoes, I would drink Mark's milk gratefully.)
Amen. And historically we have “models” for disaster of why many civilizations have collapsed for reasons that parallel the path we are on in our sliver of human history. There are many books and articles that carefully document the correlation of abusive agricultural practices, limited nutritional diversity, and the like with civilizations becoming just a layer of debris under dust, sand or jungle. For us the irony is that “we” as a society have the scientific, intuitive and historical evidence laid out before us to answer the question you pose. I doubt that those failed civilizations of the past had access to the same depth of knowledge.
It is truly incredible to browse through the USDA’s agricultural year books prior to ~1950 and compare them to those that follow and realize that the modern agricultural monoculture system- considered how it is done—is an extremely recent event in human history. And it will pass-
When I moved to the farm with my parents milking machines had just recently been acquired by my grandfather before he passed away. The largest dairy farm in the area would have had at most 40 cows and would have probably recently upgraded to machine milking as well. The smaller farms however were much smaller (5 cows or less) and continued to milk their cows by hand.
I often went to visit a classmate and friend of mine whose parents housed their three cows with calves in a log barn with log floors. They had no electricity in the barn so they had to use a coal oil lantern and milk their cows by hand. This fascinated me since I was only accustomed to milking cows in a whitewashed barn with electricity, milking machines, ventilation, concrete and steel.
I drank their milk when I was there and so did their neighbors who came to the door to purchase milk and cream on a daily basis. Whatever went sour was sold as butter or buttermilk.
I agree with you and would also gratefully drink Mark’s raw milk.
My question to Mary is this however, based on her perspective of food safety would she consume raw milk and feed it to her family if she owned, lived with and milked her own cow?
Ken
Ken, I have pondered that question in my head many times. I love the idea of a small family farm where you have your own animals and grow some of your own food. Chris and I are total animal lovers. Tony always jokes that if we lived on a farm, Chris and I would probably be sleeping in the barn with the animals.
Based on the experience we had with Chris’ illness, even owning my own cow, it would be impossible for me to give Chris raw milk. I would have to home pasteurize it. I don’t believe raw milk is the “do all, end all of good health”. There are many other ways to get probiotic bacteria into the body without taking a pathogen risk. If I had my own cow, making kefir and yogurt from home pasteurized milk would still be very healthy to consume.
For those who are adamant about consuming raw milk, the family cow is the safest option.
Mary, interesting to learn your ruminations. Your own decision making on this is logical and sensible...from your viewpoint. Unfortunately, you have long been unable to see past your own situation and past experiences, to the extent you feel obliged to impose them on others. When you say, "For those who are adamant about consuming raw milk, the family cow is the safest option," I fear what you really mean is "the family cow is the only option." Not your (or your political representatives') decision to make.
David,
I express my personal opinions on this blog. I have one political agenda—accurate information about both the pros and cons of raw milk consumption.
There is a huge difference between sharing my story about Chris as a warning to other parents who may make the decision to give their children raw milk vs. believing people should not have access to raw milk. Banning access to raw milk is not the answer. You know that is my stance on the subject, so don’t try to frame it differently.
Sharing Chris’ story is about leveling the playing field for raw milk consumers. You can be in the camp with others that down play the significance of raw milk illnesses, but I think the recent Oregon outbreak is an example of the disaster that can happen. It is not OK that people get lured into trying raw milk because it is presented as a miracle food and healthier option for children. Just because you know your farmer and you think you’ve checked to make sure safety procedures are followed, doesn’t mean a damn thing in the food safety world. My goodness gracious, the farmer who ran the herd share sickened 4 of his 5 children and his youngest developed HUS. Add to this another 2 year old who consumed the same contaminated raw milk, developed HUS and had a stroke that leaves the child permanently disabled. This child was perfectly healthy before drinking raw milk. There is no amount of benefits from raw milk that can outweigh this type of risk.
I bet the families whose children became ill from the Oregon outbreak wished they had watched the videos on the Real Raw Milk Facts website before giving their children raw milk.
So, if you want to consume healthier milk than what can be found in the grocery stores, buy some raw milk and pasteurize it at home. If that option does not work for you, buy healthy brands of pasteurized yogurt and kefir. If you don’t consume dairy at all, there are some great dairy-free probiotic kefirs made with coconut water and a variety of fermented veggies and Kombuchas that can be purchased. High quality probiotics also do wonders for the gut. Natasha McBride recommends Biokult.
Raw milk is not the only path to a healthy immune system. People need to know there are options.
"I bet the families whose children became ill from the Oregon outbreak wished t...."
The same can be said about those who consumed cantaloupe, spinach, or any other food. There is no doubt that people are aware of various options. The majority who are seeking healthier foods don't live with their head in the sand and do research to the best of their ability.
"So, if you want to consume healthier milk than what can be found in the grocery stores, buy some raw milk and pasteurize it at home. "
To many boiling the milk makes it unhealthy. Fermented foods can and do carry pathogen risks just like any other food.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/es/esn/food/Gilli.pdf
Ken,
When my dad was a young boy in Phoenix, they had 50 head to milk twice a day by hand. (These cows belonged to someone else). I think 4-6 of the kids did the milking. Dad was around 10yrs old at the time and not the youngest one milking. He doesn't remember anyone becoming sick from the milk, he recalls that what the cow ate affected the milk taste. He had talked about the pain of cleaning, I think it was the separator, and that you had to do it a certain way to keep all the pieces in correct order or it'd take forever to put it back together. He said the cream was so thick, grandma would use a spoon to scoop it out of the bowel for her coffee. He never had pasteurized milk until he was drafted for WWII at the age of 18. As an adult, he rarely drinks milk, and rarely eats ice cream, which was something he really enjoyed years ago.
D Smith's small scale farms sounds perfect. If I had the money that is the direction I think would work the best; sustainable and profitable.
@ Dave Milano: When I mentioned keeping things on a small basis at this site a couple of months ago, I was darn near attacked and strangled for even bringing up the idea. I think even the big operations (like Mark's) can be better managed (IMPHO) if they are divided into smaller farms at other/separate locations where less cattle are run per operation, but the money still funnels to the same proprietor (if money is what you're after). Not that there's anything wrong with making a living selling raw milk. As you say, I'd rather buy good, clean raw milk from a farther distance than have to deal with store-bought junk. But dividing up operations is not impossible to do and may be a better solution in the long run. Easier to oversee, handle and manage, for sure. Still, paying the milk pool fees that Mark has to deal with is daunting and would make me want to throw in the towel and/or go for *smaller scale* - in a heartbeat.
Mary's ideal of a one cow operation is fine for a family who has all the right pieces to the puzzle. That doesn't happen for, realistically, about 85-90% of the population. After all, you can grow food on a rooftop in Manhattan, but you can't raise a cow there. Availability will always be key to raw milk consumers. But if Mary intends to home pasteurize the milk anyhow, really - what is the point? Yes there are other ways to get probiotics and prebiotics, but there are so many other factors to raw milk besides that aspect, and you lose a lot of those factors when pasteurizing because it also changes the milkfat ratios and other properties which can only be gotten from raw milk - as a RAW product. It may be a solution for her, but it's not a solution for a true raw milk drinking person/family. Not even close.
And while I do agree with your (Dave's) polyculture idea as a perfectly ideal answer to our current problems for most of the country, as you say, it's a long way off and in some areas isn't even in the idea stage much less the planning stage. With out rights being deteriorated at the speed of sound, I am certain this option will be under the bus before we can say boo.
There are many people who'd love to milk a cow for their family; but for most it is simply not feasible; the skills, the land, the resources; they are just not there. Not only that, but economically and genetically speaking, milking a single cow isn't sustainable. Their existence depends on larger farmers to steward and propagate appropriate cattle genetics. You really need to get into the 6 to 30 cow size to be able to genetically be sustainable; which is too big for personal use but too small for commodity production.
As I look back on the history of my family back before industrial agriculture, many of them and their neighbours had small diversified farms of which one competent was a small dairy herd, often around 6 cows, and from which milk or cream was sold to folks in town. It was appropriately scaled, feasible, and healthy for all involved. But those days died when the PMO came into force. So too did the rural economy and the majority of farms.
People with single animals just use the genetic resources of their neighbors to continue the line. It is done all the time my friend even here in Missouri and more so in poor countries. Having a milk cow or goat is not rocket science.... well may be it is for city people.
Dave,
While I agree with most of your analysis, I disagree with the false dichotomy you set up here,
So then, intuitively and scientifically, which model is the more radical, and which is the safest? Is it the one we are used to, or the one countless of our ancestors knew?
As WAP pointed out in his research, not all our ancestors models were good, safe, or healthful. History is a teacher that instructs on both sides.
BTW, Mary's comment isn't supposedly radical, it is radical, as are most all encompassing universal statements. With no supporting research or evidence, to state that the safest manner of raw milk production is singular back yard cows is a whee bit arrogant, or at least merely rhetorically motivated. More research is certainly needed, too bad most of the money goes to drug research to treat the problems our unwillingness to tackle our food and farming system has created.
I bet a moderate size dairy (5-30 or so cow range) would be both the most fiscally, environmentally, and genetically sustainable and safest for production.
At one cow, while you have intimacy of experience with your lady, but for many people, you also have a very large learning curve.
Mary,
Your experience is a compound reality. It was not raw milk that made Chris sick...it was a set of conditions that made Chris sick. For the sake of not arguing with you...lets say it was raw milk that made Chris sick....then why do we have antibiotic resistant bacteria in our food chain...why do we have children with weak immune systems? Why didn't one thousand more kids get sick when Chris got sick? Tens of thousands of kids drink OPDC raw milk every week and tens of thousands drank raw milk in September 2006.
Your challenges should not be all about raw milk.....your issues and challenges should be about immunity and the "conditions" that created a child that was suseptible to illness.
These are all questions that I can not definitively answer....but one thing is for sure. More and more science and more and more people point directly to Modern medicine and the abuse of antibiotics, the abuse of our food by processing, the use of preservatives, antibiotic abuse in CAFO cow feeds, and bacteria phobia as the central reason we have the conditions and immune disaster we have today.
I understand your emotional injury from 2006...however, that injury does not address the broader questions I have listed above. It also does not answer the huge question:
Why are people dying from cantaloupes??? What is driving our immune systems into a ditch? What conditions prevail in your child...who ever that child may be?
Raw milk is not like ay other probiotic. There are living elements found in raw milk that can not be found in any other food.....the antibodies, the oligosaccarrides ( special sugars that play a critical role in bacterial colonization of the GUT ), special beneficial fats, and a million other living whole things that can not be created by man....that build immunity and save lives. Simply consuming freeze dried bacteria ( as a commercial probiotic pill or powder ) is not the same as consuming whole raw milk.
Not the same at all. Plenty of science behind that statement as well. By the way....Department of Public Health just completed testing hundreds of our milk cows fecal samples. Not one sample was positive for a pathogen.
We can not guarantee zero pathogens all the times in our fecal samples...however, we have created the right kind of "conditions" and it appears that pathogens do not like to live in our cows at OPDC even during the stress of the heat of the summer.
Have a great weekend and hug and kiss your precious son.
Mark
@ Mark: What a great explanation concerning immunity and about the conditions within the human bioframe which allow things like Mary's son's illness, when there were also many other children who drank the same milk - with no problem. There is/was certainly a bigger picture. And we definitely need to find out what is steering immune systems into the ditch.
As much as we can know anything, we must know that biological integration of plants, fungi, animals, and humans, is essential for health. That we have been attempting to ignore this bare reality for the past hundred years or so only makes the truth of it that much more poignant. We will not, cannot, optimize human health until biologic integration is optimized, and that requires (requires!) human symbiosis with diverse life forms.
For humans, living as we do (and must) with one another in economic synergy, biological symbiosis is expressed in part as local, diverse, bio-dynamic food production.
Every once in a while I like to drag out and repeat an “ecologic summary” I wrote way back when. It's an attempt to describe the connections between milk and our biological, economic, and social environments, and an attempt also to debunk the claim that milk is just another food. I'm repeating it again here. It is best read with the constant background thought that relatively few humans live American-style lives (i.e. regularly going to work at the office or factory, going to the grocery store, traveling often, and partaking of an endless streams of manufactured goods from plastic forks to pro-biotic pills).
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Raw milk ecology begins with the most abundant and durable crop on earth--grass--which unsurprisingly is an extravagantly effective solar collector, a perfect companion ti the soil and its microbial colonies, a cleaner of water and air, and a tremendous carbon store. Virtually indigestible by humans, grass is a staple food of cattle. Fortunately for cattle, eating grass is the best way to generate more of it, since grazing it, walking on it, and expelling wastes onto it stimulates its growth and balances and maintains the complex biological and geological factors that create healthy soil, water, and air (which are necessary for grass, cattle, humans, and everything else).
Cattle transform that grass into milk, a food easily digested by most humans, which happens to contain an astounding mix of ingredients beneficial to human health, including a complete protein, beneficial bacteria and enzymes (that can be enhanced by culturing, which also preserves the milk), calcium, vitamins A, D, B6, B12, and the anti-cancer agent, conjugated linoleic acid. Not incidentally, human exposure to that ecology all along its chain creates a strong immune system and probably resistance to many non-infectious disease (a process we are just beginning to understand). That is at best a mere glance at the glorious interconnectedness of milk ecology.
Now put it all into its historical context as a supporter of human health and economies since the dawn of man, and one might begin to understand how fatuous, silly, and really puny is the notion that we can improve lives by wrenching mankind out of nature and into our modern centralized, industrial, technological, legal, and regulatory systems.
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Our industrio-technological food system will, as Ron Klein said, certainly pass. A diverse, bio-dynamic, local food system will take over, because life cannot continue any other way. It is already happening (from the bottom up, predictably). More “hobby” farms and market gardens are appearing. Land once used for industry or urban or suburban residences is being used to grow food. More and more people are abandoning the manufactured-food paradigm. “Front yard” gardens have probably never been more in number since suburbia was invented. The least we can do is not stand in the way.
@ Dave Milano: What a great post! Packed with information we all need to see again and again until it sinks into our brains! We need to look backwards sometimes, in order to see what lies ahead of us.
I just saw an article this morning about a Canadian urban dweller who won a court case to keep his front yard garden (Ontario or Quebec, I think). Canada is at least attempting to make strides with food rights. Now, if only they could unload their animal misconceptions without decimating whole herds of heirloon sheep. Such a shame - and for what?
Maybe America will take notes about the front yard gardening from them and stop persecuting people for growing their own food. Walmart and Target can make money off all the other foreign, crappy junk they sell, let the food come from locals or our own gardens. This idea of food deserts is ridiculous, but it's how places like walmart are infiltrating every vacant space available. Another shame.
The public have been lambasted with outrageous health claim advertisements since the late 40's & 50's...just take a look at these vintage Ads that will have you fuming!! http://www.takepart.com/photos/old-advertisements
These tactics, as well as, similar tactics for Big Pharma are also seen in Martha Rosenberg's book "Born With a Junk Food Deficiency", this book is very informative & a great read.
For those of you that have been keeping an eye on the GMO labeling efforts, especially to those of you living here in California, the book "Seeds of Deception" by Jeffrey M. Smith is a MUST read. Now granted it has been many years since my molecular biology training, but this book brought back to me the discussions that my professors had shared with us with regards to the ill-advised ideas of genetic modification. This book will really shock you, but most importantly it will give you a great prospective of the dangers of GMOs in an understandable way. It has been known for many years how unstable genetic modification is & anyone who has had any training in molecular biology will remember the surprising & strange behaviors that genes & cells posses. As Joel Salatin states "Folks, This Ain't Normal" & that is the best way to sum up the unpredictable way that modified genes and/or cells behave. This is messing with Mother Nature & I don't care how intelligent a scientist claims to be, they will NEVER, EVER have the full understanding of how & why Mother Nature works...only the great Creator does!
I would like to add more data to the discussion of the evolving problems with agricultural-monoculture In the NYT this morning
An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/immune-disorders-and-au...
Related to our discussion regarding changes that have occurred in agriculture over the past decades:
“. . . .when you consider that, as a whole, diseases of immune dysregulation have increased in the past 60 years — and that these disorders are linked to autism — the question seems a little moot. The better question is: Why are we so prone to inflammatory disorders? What has happened to the modern immune system?”
To then add to this- our knowledge that mass produced/processed foods lacking essential nutrients and studies that indicate the breeding of food plants for yield and ease of processing that lack essential micronutrients—genetic depletion or dilution. Google, Bruce Ames or Donald Davis-(for example Food Technology, March 2005). Davis is the scientist that studied USDA date from the 1950s onward and showed a significant decrease in the nutrient content of 43 vegetable crops. Davis has noted in his Food Technology article:
“Our findings give one more reason to eat more vegetables and fruits, because for nearly all nutrients they remain our most nutrient-dense foods. Our findings also give one more reason to eat fewer refined foods (added sugars, added fats and oils, and white flour and rice), because their refining causes much deeper and broader nutrient losses than the declines we find for garden crops.
Technology should allow us to increase selected nutrient con¬centrations. But will we learn 20 or 40 years later that there were new, unintended side effects? Another question looms large: Is it wise, in the era of technology, to keep crop size (or even the con¬centrations of a few, selected nutrients) as our primary measure of farming success? “
A correlation?..... 50 years of data showing decreasing nutrient content, the rise of various chronic disorders over the past 50 years, massive increases in the consumption of highly processed foods,—then Bruce Ames’ (member of the US National Academy of Sciences) laboratory results of the metabolic consequences a diet lacking “micro nutrients”…there is much solid-- scientific data.
As a society we know or have knowledge of what is happening.
Establishing healthy soils and likewise healthy, probiotic, immune boosting food is extremely important. Unfortunately however our efforts are all for not unless we address the direct effects of toxic medical intervention.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/08/23/antibiotic...
“The overuse of antibiotics has fuelled the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but their impact on our beneficial bacteria could be equally detrimental. Blaser has been vociferously banging on this drum for years. As he wrote in a comment piece for Nature, “Antibiotics kill the bacteria we do want, as well as those we don’t… Overuse of antibiotics could be fuelling the dramatic increase in conditions such as obesity, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, allergies and asthma… We must make use of the available technology to protect and study our bacterial benefactors before it is too late.”
http://www.healthychild.com/do-vaccines-disable-the-immune-system
Vaccines are destroying our immune systems. Amazingly, the medical profession ignores the incriminating evidence against vaccines, and continues to inflict more unnecessary and harmful vaccines on our nation’s infants. A recent study from the New England Journal of Medicine of May 1996 revealed that tetanus vaccine disables the immune system in HIV patients. Tetanus vaccination produced a drop in T cells in 10 of 13 patients, a classic sign of immune deficiency. HIV viral replication increased dramatically in response to tetanus vaccine. Finally, white blood cells from 7 of 10 uninfected individuals became more susceptible to HIV infection following tetanus vaccination. Despite these findings, the authors made no comment about the immune depleting effect of the vaccine.
http://www.whale.to/vaccine/mercola.html
“Vaccines create the foundations for auto-immune disease when foreign animal tissues are injected into our blood streams. It alters our genes ("jumping" genes) and creates havoc in our lymphatic system. Auto-immune conditions are more common today than before massive vaccination programs began in the 1940s. Auto-immune conditions such as ALS, MS, RA, and Diabetes are severe diseases and not to be taken lightly. They alter people's lives for ever and cost more than money when we consider the time involved, the stress involved, and eventually death ensues. There is even some speculation that auto-immune conditions may be behind the brain conditions they see in autism and there is some talk in the medical literature of auto-immunity to brain cells. If the body can not even recognize its own cells, then it has been tricked into thinking that those cells are no longer self. Why does this occur? Could AIDS be an auto-immune condition where the lymphocytes are reacting against each other? What about the myriad of neurological disorders, kidney disorders, blood disorders and the many diseases associated with vaccinations? When we are looking for excellent health, we need to avoid auto-immune disorders. One must remember that Vaccines Prevent Health!”
Ken Conrad
@ Ken Conrad: I've been on the no vaccines are good vaccines bandwagon for over 35 years now, and I still find the same resistance. Or maybe it's laziness on the part of parents, I don't know. I find a few young couples who are willing to buck the established dogma about vax, but today I find most of the parents feel they are just too busy to fight the "system" when it comes to requirements from day cares, pre-schools, and our regular school system - which is about everything BUT education - not to mention fighting with their pediatricians concerning vax. I try to educate them without being too intrusive, but few can understand the term collateral damage, but they do understand herd immunity because it's been drilled into their heads for a long time by our corrupt medical industry.
I've lost many a client because I do not require vaccinations, and in fact I discourage them. Go figure.
I do believe vaccinations and other PhRma drugs are responsible for the decline in health. I also believe it is an intended decline. Call me a skeptic.
Ken, that is interesting about tetanus and T cells. Earlier this year I had cut my hand and required stitches. Because of the filth of the items we were cleaning out, I did allow the tetanus only shot (not the combo variety) I had a lump in my deltoid for 2 months, along with a painful arm for over a month. With your added information, I'll better weigh my options in the future.
There does appear to be an increase in the autoimmune diseases, along with cancers, mental disorders, etc. I remember when Guillain–Barré was rare and the average lay person didn't know what it was, the same with alzheimers. I believe that they are caused by a combination of assaults on our bodies internally and externally. Changing our environment, internal and external, is key to healthy survival.
@ Ron Klein: The soils of today are so lacking in minerals (put there by nature) and so overloaded with chemicals (put there by do-gooding farmers who bow to monsanto et al) that nothing stands a chance of being nutritious if it comes from a huge farming operation. Smaller farmers stand a chance of being able to remineralize the soils by natural means but the larger operations will always opt for cheap chemical answers. And this option, of course, leads to foods which are depleted. And then they're processed, which further depletes them.
In this country, if we keep following the path we're on right this minute, we will be repeating history in no time. We're already repeating the financial aspect so I cannot believe the agri aspect is far behind. The greatest man-made environmental catastrophe in US history was the decade of the dirty thirties, superimposed over the greatest economic chasm in world history, the Great Depression.
I wasn't around for the first cataclysm but I don't want to see it happen again. I fear we will, however.
Yes, but let me add. Soil mineralization varies from region to region-even “natural” soils can be depleted for minerals important to various crops. (the majority of our most important crops are not natural to this country.) Small farms-even if we practice organic methods -still can be depleted. It is important that we pay attention to detail. Applying manure-or compost….important as it is-still requires that all of us take a closer look at what we are doing in an integrated manner. We often need to give back more than we remove to have healthy soils.
Regarding the dust bowl and depression-I recommend to you the following book that well explains most of the background and tragedy of the dust bowl and provides compelling lessons for us all. We must never forget. (So why are farms removing windbreaks? To plant more corn………)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Worst-Hard-Time-Survived/dp/0618773479
@ Ron Klein: Looks like an interesting book, which I will no doubt order. I am a sucker for stuff about that era in time. I always think I was born 100 years too late because I don't fit into this timeframe very well !
Here's another book about that decade. Might interest you, as well as others, since it is accounts from real people, too. http://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Thirties-Nineteen-Occurred-Depression/dp/093...
Most all soil requires the same basic elemental minerals for growth of any "crop" whether it's grass or a planted crop. I know each part of the country has different amounts of certain minerals but the basic building blocks are pretty much the same all over. My area of the country, for instance, is rich in selenium (or at least it used to be) but much more than selenium replacement would be needed to make up a healthy, organic, rich soil. I use the whey on my plants (sometimes) from my homemade yogurt after I strain it to make it thicker like Greek yogurt. My kitchen groans when I do that though, because I have so many other uses for the stuff!
I did order the book Ron Klein suggested, it does look interesting as does Dirty-Thirties. Hearing my parents stories from when they grew up in that time, is amazing. They were from different backgrounds.
@ Sylvia: If you like "true from survivor" stories, William H. Hull also wrote All Hell Broke Loose, which is an accounting of the huge snowstorm in Minnesota on Armistice Day. It's riveting and has some great photos.
Ack. I'd give anything for an edit button on this site! I wanted to add that PBS is airing a Ken Burns special on November 18 & 19, 2012 called Dust Bowl. It looks fascinating. I like Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan (who helped collaborate on the special) because they do a good and thorough job. Dayton Duncan has a book, as well, called Miles From Nowhere which I'm almost certain to order at some point. I have about five other books in my queue to order and read first, however. I hardly ever read fiction, so when a good true story comes out, I'm onto it!
I'll make my calender for Nov 18-19. My sister and I went to a special showing in Sacramento of "The War" by Ken Burns. Both my parents were in WWII, They met in Wiesbaden in 1945. They weren't in the documentary, but were mentioned locally. Dad was in the Ardennes and mom was with SHAEF with Bradley, she was at least, at one point inside the front lines, she spoke French, German and some Russian.(I did not inherit her flair for languages, can barely speak english!) I wish she would have put in writing her experiences over there.
@ Sylvia: How very interesting about your parents! I always loved hearing stories from either my grandparents or my parents about the way things were when they were growing up, and then how things were when they were young newlyweds, after they had children, etc.
I ordered the book Ron suggested, as well. I also ordered one about Children of the Depression because it looked interesting and the description mentioned a lot of photos, so we'll see if it turns out to be ok. I prefer to look at the actual books before I buy, as a rule, but you can't beat prices online sometimes. I am sad that internet is taking over for printed books. Just in the past two years my city has lost a Waldenbooks and a Borders. Not much left now except the library unless you want to order online. Maybe Tom Hanks could come here and open a FOX bookstore! (My name is Joe Fox F-O-X)!!
D Smith, My mom was part of the detachment of WACs who landed on Omaha, Dog green section beginning mid July 1944. I still find it difficult to envision her climbing down rope netting and leaping into a landing craft on the rough Channel and then wading up onto the beach wearing full backpacks. I remember she had said you could smell death, the beach was sectioned off because of land mines and metal skeletons littered the beach and waters. She experienced the bombs in London, snipers on the Contenent, spies who infiltrated the camps. Those were the only WACs (@47 of them) who followed the men, living as they did, with Bradley. She didn't have heat during the Buldge and refused to eat spaghetti after the war as she had only it in either C or K rations for 2 solid weeks and nothing else. She was a quiet person, rarely said a negative word about another person. I miss her.
The money quote from the NYT article on autism is this:
" Since time immemorial, a very specific community of organisms — microbes, parasites, some viruses — has aggregated to form the human superorganism. Mounds of evidence suggest that our immune system anticipates these inputs and that, when they go missing, the organism comes unhinged."
This statement neatly meshes with the hygiene hypothesis. By exposing our children to an ultra-clean environment and multiple courses of antibiotics in earliest childhood, we ultimately cause them to be chronically ill - whether it be autism asthma, or some other auto-immune disease. Forget the triclosan and the lab-manufactured probiotics. We need to be much more in touch with our local biome to stay healthy.
KTurner...Amen....dead on!!
The obvious is not so obvious even though our best science and our very own NIH knows the truth of it all...when 26% of our GNP relies on a paycheck that is directly related to sustaining the current Medical Industry Illness Mill...things do not change.
Pay checks are sacred things...this is the basis of why this will be so tough to turn arround.
Dollar voting and Market building works fabulously....simply stop supplying the funds to "make the FOOD INC payroll" at the places we want to change. Capitalism works...if we use it properly.
TEACH TEACH TEACH!!!