China-portablemilkinggoats.JPG

Consumers in China await the freshest possible raw goat milk. This from a food blog, http://foodrepublik.com/got-goat-milk/ One of the most incisive scientific assessments on all that European research on raw milk of the last few years has just appeared, of all places, on a web site backed by the conventional dairy industry and academe. 

In a footnoted article by an experienced  science  writer, a newsletter put out by the International Milk Genomics Consortium (IMGC) has concluded that the European research on  raw milk in recent years did, indeed, come up  with significant findings strongly suggesting health benefits for children from raw milk. The IMGC is a joint operation between the California Dairy Research Foundation (CDRF), which is  a non-profit backed by California’s conventional dairies  and  processors, and  the University  of California Davis (UCD), which includes among its faculty and staff long-time opponents of raw milk.

The IMGC’s  article points out the well-known risks associated with raw milk, but comes to two basic conclusions apart from the risks: 

1. Raw milk is likely nutritionally superior to conventional milk. “The data suggest that raw milk can cause both trouble and advantage to a human body…To be sure, heating milk to 72°C for 15 seconds reduces the odds of a bad belly, but does it also destroy complex proteins and other components that could bolster human health? Apparently so.”

2. More  study of raw milk’s benefits is essential. The article  concludes that  “there is strong evidence that (raw milk) benefits young children, but almost no information of substance about adults. To answer the question fully, the world needs studies testing whether large numbers of grown-ups suffering from asthma, hay fever, and similar medical problems see their allergies dampen down after drinking raw milk for a prolonged period. Until that day, the question is still open.”

The article’s  author, Anna Petherick, is a writer with Nature, one of  the  foremost scientific journals in  the  world. Her assessment  in  the Consortium newsletter makes a serious effort at being well balanced, and I strongly suggest readers here study it.

Well balanced isn’t  something  we’ve  seen much of from  the world of academia or dairy  processing. This first  sampling could signal an  important shift in  that  world’s  approach. If so, it  would  be  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 

**
Arlin Bender  is a Mennonite who has been slaughtering cattle for 40 of his 58 years. He learned the trade from his grandfather, and until two years ago had been practicing his trade for neighboring farmers in New York state. 

Two years ago he moved to Wisconsin, to be closer to other members of his extended family, He confined his slaughtering and butchering to neighbors and friends…and that is when his problems started.  

Everything was fine for a while. “Neighbors would ask me for help in cutting up meat from their cows,” he says. 

Then Bender ran an ad in a local publication offering to butcher deer for local hunters. There was no problem with that, except an inspector with Wisconsin’s Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection saw the ad and, according to Bender, “figured if you are cutting up deer, you are probably cutting up  beef.” 

And beginning nine months ago,  Bender began a journey through DATCP hell.  Agents arrived Jan. 5 threatening to take Bender’s beef. He tried to explain that he wasn’t serving the public, but they returned Jan. 10, with a local sheriff’s deputy, and no warrant. “They said they didn’t need a warrant because there is contraband here.”

The agents proceeded to red-tag all the food in the walk-in freezer in his garage. “They said, ‘You don’t have the right to have your son’s meat in your freezer. Just your meat.” They put tags not only on beef, but on venison, and frozen blueberries and  cherries. They left alone a lamb he had just  butchered for himself. 

“They said the  detained tags have to stay there 30 days. There’s a $5,000 fine for each tag removed. I have friends from Russia who used to tell me about the KGB, and this is what this seemed like.” 

Bender has had heart trouble, and not surprisingly, this encounter with the law didn’t help things. He collapsed the day after they put the tags on his food–a doctor prescribed anti-anxiety medication. 

DATCP insists he have an approved facility and a license to butcher the meat. “That means building a shop or building to their specs, nice shiny and white,” he says.  “I tried to check into some prices, and seems like it would be about $30,000.” All that expense to buy things he doesn’t really need. “They said I need a restroom facility. I said I can go in the  house, 50 feet away.” 

“I am supposed to have a holding tank. Why? If I kill an animal, I do it  on the farm. All your blood and guts are at  the farm where it is done.” 

Aside from all that, he’s just not doing that much slaughtering. “I might kill one cow, then it’s three or four weeks before I do another.  I work hither and yon to keep busy.” 

Yes, “hither and yon” is something for another age. In the meantime, the DATCP obtained a temporary restraining order  on Bender in February. “It says I can’t go to any place to butcher meat, and no one can come to me.” 

In July, he helped a neighboring farmer slaughter a cow that couldn’t walk, with the farmer taking the meat. DATCP somehow learned about the event, and Bender has received a summons to appear in court Oct. 16. “They want to fine me $1,000 for helping butcher a farmer’s cow that he was going to be eating himself,” Bender says with  amazement. 

Bender says he has had three court hearings since was first hit with the tagging, and at one of them, he says he tried to argue to  the judge that the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantee of  “the  right to be safe in your own home” gave him the right to butcher meat  at his home.He said a retired inspector from  the U.S. Department of Agriculture had told him there was  such a thing as a “producer’s exemption” whereby a farmer can engage an outsider to help him slaughter a  cow.

Low-level judges generally don’t like to  hear about Constitutional guarantees  and such. They are mostly in  the  business of backing up  the regulators. And they also don’t like to hear from ordinary folk representing themselves instead  of hiring a lawyer,  as Bender has  been  doing. 

“I always thought that honesty was  the way to be with people,” Bender says. You have  to admire his sincerity, but then you have  to remember the people he is dealing with. 

For another account of Bender’s problems, see this account from the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association (NICFA).