To Deal, or Not to Deal, That Is Question for Stewart, Others Facing Food Rights Charges; Petition Campaign in Ventura County Case; Two Raw Milk Events
On Tuesday, James Stewart, the jailed founder and principal of Rawesome Food Co., was offered a deal by the Ventura County prosecutor: Plead guilty to 14 of 37 counts of fraud and securities violations, and you'll receive a six-month jail sentence. The two months you've spent in jail will be credited to the jail sentence, so in the end, you'll "only" have to spend four more months in jail. Then, you'll be a free man.
Could be tempting on one level, given that a judge could mete out up to thirty years in jail time if Stewart is convicted by a jury of all the charges filed against him. And that Stewart may well have served close to six months by the time a jury actually hears the case and renders a verdict.
The discussion never got to the next step, as to which charges Stewart would plead guilty to, since he immediately rejected the proposal. He's moving forward toward a trial, which could begin by the end of October.
The charges against Stewart grow out of the acquisition of the Healthy Family Farms site acquired by Sharon Palmer back in 2008, using funds borrowed from at least seven families, at least some of them members of Rawesome, along with mortgage funds secured from a bank by long-time Rawesome member Larry Otting. No deal terms were spelled out at the Tuesday pretrial conference for Palmer, who is charged with 39 counts of fraud and securities violations in the same case.
The prosecutor could come back with improved terms for Stewart before a trial begins, just as prosecutors in the Los Angeles County part of the Rawesome case--charges having to do with raw milk distribution-- improved terms to Sharon Palmer on the day her pretrial hearing was to begin earlier this month. She accepted those terms.
It's safe to say that defendants in politically motivated raw milk and food rights cases upcoming will be facing similar kinds of decisions. Alvin Schlangen was offered a deal just prior to his trial last week whereby he would plead guilty to a single misdemeanor and pay $200 in court costs to avoid a trial. He chose to go on trial, and we all know what happened there.
If and when farmer Dan Brown of Maine "food sovereignty" fame goes on trial, a deal will no doubt be offered to him beforehand. And prior to Vernon Hershberger's scheduled trial in early January, a deal will likely be offered.
The decision as to whether or not to take a deal is a highly personal one. As some pointed out when I suggested Palmer and Bloch got a good deal when they pleaded guilty to single charges and incurred small fines, it's not me who has to bear the consequences of the outcome. It's not me who has to have a criminal record and deal with probation officers in the event of a settlement, and it's not me risking a possible lengthy jail sentence if a jury decides on guilt.
The plea deal has become a standard part of our criminal justice system--an unfortunate part for the increasing number of individuals being dragged into the system on seemingly minor charges or, as in the cases I've described here, in politically-motivated cases. As a result of plea deals, it's been estimated that 95% of all cases never come to trial. The typical approach by prosecutors is to pile on seemingly endless charges, hoping to intimidate defendants from seeking their right to a jury trial. The huge number of charges improves the chance that, if the case does go to trial, jurors will bring back a guilty plea on at least a few charges, and a judge irritated by having to do his or her job will impose a stiff sentence on whatever conviction results.
It seems to me that when you are dealing with politically-motivated cases, and a system that has shown itself to be highly biased against you via the politicians, regulators, and judges, then facing trial offers the only hope of exoneration, and sending a message to arrogant prosecutors that they should spend their time prosecuting real crime. But as I said, it's not my rear end that could wind up in jail if a jury votes to convict.
Certainly the tenor of the offers being made to defendants like Stewart will provide insight into the confidence levels of prosecutors. The Los Angeles County prosecutors obviously were loathe to go in front of a jury with their evidence, given the kind of deals they offered Palmer and Bloch.
In the case of James Stewart, the Ventura County case is so flimsy, so bereft of solid evidence that he was an active participant in the land deal, that it would seem as if a jury would struggle to convict him. A victory would send a strong message, on a par with Schlangen's, that prosecutors shouldn't be messing with our food.
**
As if to underline the political nature of the Ventura County case against James Stewart and Sharon Palmer, a number of their supporters have begun a petition campaign on their behalf. The petition, headlined, "Free the Farmer & Release the Milkman", accuses the Ventura County District Attorney's office of "misconduct" and "unethical behavior" in bringing the case forward.
The petition and its statement of background information is worth reading through to appreciate the absence of victims in this case. It's only been up a couple days, and already has more than 1,000 signers.
**
Two forums on raw milk are upcoming.
On Oct. 12, an evening program examining the political assault on raw milk will be held in Milwaukee. The program, "Raw Milk, is it Dangerous?" will begin at 7 p.m. at the Irish Culture & Heritage Center, 2133 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, and it is free. Speakers will include Elizabeth Rich of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, Max Kane, an activist, Gayle Loiselle of Nurished by Nature, and Vernon Hershberger, a farmer facing criminal charges in connection with his food club. Hundreds are expected; doors open at 6:30.
On Oct. 19-20, the fourth International Raw Milk Symposium will be held in Vancouver. Sponsored in part by the Weston A. Price Foundation, the event will be held at the Hotel Delta at Vancouver Airport. Registration is $225 (Canadian).
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.
James has some real guts...proud of him. I hope he has a great lawyer that can really ride the grande legal event to a vindicating conclusion. Lots of ifs? and what ifs and maybe's....litigation is the grandest gamble of them all. Your life is literally in the chips. Certainty is certain. The egos of those that with hold evidence and prosecute is the darkness I would fear. History has shown the ugliness of prosecutorial misconduct.....over and over again!!
in the Ontario case, off the record, Michael Schmidt was offered a deal ... they'd drop the charges if he'd promise to not park his blue bus in York County. Refusing it, he proceeded to turn the Courtroom into the classroom. Out that so-obviously politically-motivated show-trial came a very valuable piece of obiter dicta : Justice of the Peace Kowarski volunteering his opinion that 'there are 2 kinds of raw milk. that which is produced by artisan dairies for human consumption, versus that which is produced for commerce'
"just send my mail ... to the Ventura County gaol!"
someone please post a postal address at which James Stewart can receive surface mail
Hi Gordon. Ventura County apparently does not all inmates to receive any mail other than postcards and third-party verified gifts (with packing slips - like books from amazon, for example). If you'd like to send one of those items, please see the end of this blogpost for links and details: http://www.thegirlsgoneraw.com/2012/08/food-rights-responsibilities.html...
And here is the address:
James Stewart #1279100
P.O. Box 6929
Ventura, CA 93006
If, however, you'd like to send him a lengthier message, then the best arrangement we've got right now is for you to email it to someone who can read it to him when he calls from jail. If you'd like to trust me with it, just send it to angela@thegirlsgoneraw.com. I'd be happy to see that he gets the message.
Hope that helps!
Angela
*does not ALLOW inmates (silly phone)
James should suggest an offer in compromise.
Here is James offer:
Pay me $5,000 a day for being kept in jail and eating toxic foods.
Apologize to me and every member of RAWESOME on the front steps of the court house with all media rolling live.
resign from your jobs and never hold a public prosecutors job again.
Never ever step foot onto anyplace that I sell real food to people that I love.
Do this I will not sue you to oblivion where you will have to write a check for multiple fold what I have offered. Kind of like Bravehearts offer to the King.
Sounds like James is taking the long road....what else is there to loose. He has already had to deal with the worst. Now the jury will pity him for his time in jail when his crimes deserve a parking ticket or less.
James will win...watch this unravel. He must not take anything other than a full apology and a pound of flesh plus treasure for this atrocity. He is nothing less than a political food prisoner.
I have to think that James has taken heart from the verdict in Alvin Schlangen's case. I also have to think that the petition on behalf of James (and Sharon Palmer) may be making the Ventura County prosecutors a tad uncomfortable. It has more than 1,500 signatures already. If you haven't signed, give it a look.
http://www.change.org/petitions/free-the-farmer-release-the-milkman-stop...
Some interesting stuff here. Towards the bottom of the article - a few words about James Stewart.
http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/09/28/four-simultaneous-monsanto-attack...
Jewish Mom's certainly aren't taking it sitting down! http://foodfreedomgroup.com/2012/09/28/monsanto-trolls-and-jewish-mother...
Nice. I admire their passion... While I agree Monsanto is ultimately behind it all, the narrative here re James Stewart confuses the facts somewhat. Agents involved in the first *Rawesome* raid were missing oaths. (I have direct knowledge of this, because I went to the county recorder's office myself to check. See my blog post from February: http://www.thegirlsgoneraw.com/2012/02/oafs-of-office.html?m=0 ) I have no knowledge either way, however, whether agents involved in raids on Health Family Farms were missing oaths. Would be worth looking into, I think!
Or, at least, Monsanto - and agendas LIKE Monsanto's- are ultimately behind it... As a friend of mine recently put it: "Big money talks, and small money goes to jail."
@ Angela: I think when people hear about GMO's and things of this nature their thoughts just move towards Monsanto without really realizing there are myriad other unscrupulous vendors of chemicals. It's a problem which keeps their name at the forefront which, really, is too bad. IMPHO the less press they get the better.
I know a lot of people who don't agree with me when I say I'm sorta glad (or at least not sad) about the drought conditions this year in my area - for one purpose only - and that is because the corn and soy crops did very poorly, which means foods containing these crappy substances and all their counterparts (think HFCS & soy oil which is in EVERYBLASTEDTHING) will be more expensive and maybe people will gravitate towards fresh, whole foods for a change, rather than expensive, non-healthy boxed crapola. I know it's a rather twisted form of logic, but that IS how I feel! Really, if people take time to think about it, it's just as easy to buy a head of romaine lettuce and a couple of tomatoes and fix a salad with a squirt of fresh lemon juice as it is to buy a box of, say, hamburger helper which is loaded with various and sundry junk - like MSG and heaven only knows what else. Yeah, the box itself provides more nutrition than the contents. I don't know, maybe it won't work that way, but one can always hope that something good will come out of something which SEEMS bad at the time.
I subscribed to the RSS feed for your blog, since I don't participate at fb or anything else like that.
Thanks very much for subscribing to the blog! It would be nice to get back to writing more about my own journey out of diabetes, but the food politics issues seem to be more pervasively urgent at the moment. Ah well. All in good time... I hear you on the drought. That's one way of looking at it. At the very least, the events certainly do seem a timely new opportunity to raise awareness of GMO. And I agree, that's not all bad!!
Yes the GMO thing dose run a very close second to the raw milk issue. I,d love to hear your diabetes story. There is very little new in the food access thing.
Aaack, GMO... Exactly!
And to your inquiry, Mike, as to my progress out of diabetes, here's a link to the short version: http://www.thegirlsgoneraw.com/p/my-story.html?m=1. There are a couple links within the body of that text too - links to more details, should you find yourself so inclined to read more. My site is a work in progress, but you may find my "Insulin Free" tab most informative. It contains the bulk info on what I've been doing personally to go off, and stay off, the pharma insulin.
My neighbor is from the Loure Valley (the heart if French farm country) besides food tasting bland here, she said she would get farm fresh food at home at a farmers market without the premium prices of the likes of our CA farmers markets. THAT is a crying shame.
*Loire Valley*
High emotionality here: I highly doubt the deputy district attorney is losing any sleep about this petition. For McAfee to suggest that Stewart is a political prisoner is laughable. Stewart did not uphold the terms of his bail and McAfee, afraid of losing his home or whatever, called in the bounty hunters. That is why he is in prison and continues to stsy there. Sheesh.
Kristen raw milk is all about the politics.
This case is about fraud, Mike.
Just like the Hershberger case is supposedly about non-existent permits.
Indeed. Ventura County prosecutors appear to be working very hard to make this attack on food rights look like a series of financial crimes. But those of us who know these folks, who have sat through the court proceedings and who have seen the so-called "evidence" against them for the groundless factual misrepresentations that they are, understand what's really going on here. The DA's office has itself impeded a farmer's ability to earn revenue and then charged her with felony crimes related to her inability to repay farm investors on time. Now, I'm no expert in law (and in fact I'm new to activism) but if the law of the land allows any government agency to behave in such a way, then what's clear to me is we have much more work to do. Where the Ventura case is concerned, the petition is certainly a good step, but by no means should it mark the end of our progress. (We're approaching 2000 signatures now, by the way!! Please continue signing and spreading the word!)
I continue to be the lone troll on this story for a reason.
If this thing goes to trial I hope they find highly educated people for the jury who can think rationally and logically and do not succumb to emotionality and high drama.
This will be another trial, not of people privately associating to procure food of their choice.
Lets listen in to tonight’s campfire story at Camp Food Freedom:
Narrator: then after all the careful surveillance…OH LOOK! Is that a camera under that rock????? Anyway after all the surveillance, the Leader of the Government Guys with Guns had to have authorization from a Judge of the Court to actually get their hands on samples, not just take pictures with hidden cameras and record all the plotting with hidden microphones. And arrest warrants were drawn up!! For James the Manager, and Victoria, and Sharon. It was going to look real goooood. So they found a Judge, The Honorable Judge Wink Nudge-Nudge and sent the Judge a request like this:
Dear Judge, we request authorization to drop-in unannounced and take samples. (signed) Leader of Government Guys with Guns.
Dear Leader of Government Guys with Guns, Here is your authorization to drop-in unannounced and take samples. (signed) Judge.
Narrator: then! Boys and girls, on Wednesday, August the third two-thousand eleven, the government guys with guns SWOOPED in and destroyed the place, maybe $80,000 or so of private property, throwing Sharon, Victoria, and James in the hoosegow for a list of reasons as long as my long arm. Would they be locked-up a long, long time? Would they wear a probationary chain for the rest of their lives?
Now go turn in and sleep well, I’ll finish the story tomorrow night.
Boys and girls: Oooooohhhh!!!
Now this is a cheese I’d like try out!
http://www.culinate.com/books/book_excerpts/The+Revolution+Will+Not+Be+M...
The article by Sandor Katz sates, “My current favorite example of an outlawed food is the Italian cheese called casu marzu, a traditional product of the island of Sardinia… Of course, the tradition of casu marzu continues. People do not simply say, “OK, we will end our inherited tradition because you say so.” People resist any new order imposed upon their culture. And so casu marzu continues to be made and eaten, though now not sold, at least not openly. The tradition now holds a different place in the culture, as a symbol of resistance against an ever-more-distant, out-of-touch centralized authority”.
Ken
Ken,
Thanks for that link. Sandor Katz gets it, and says so clearly by describing harm caused by an “ever-more-distant, out-of-touch centralized authority.”
Centralized authorities are, of course, out of touch by definition--impersonal, unable to consider the individual or his circumstance. They may begin relatively innocuously, but, driven by imperfect humans, inevitably grow in power and influence. That is why they are always such colossal long-term failures.
Doctors and nurses and maybe others here, upon reading Sandor's article, will instantly be reminded of the use of maggots in wound care. Maggots eat only dead tissue, and will do an amazingly thorough job of debriding necrotic wounds, leaving behind fresh, living, growing tissue. (I have seen this occur naturally. It is amazing to see a once troubling, non-healing wound suddenly on a healing trend, tended by maggots.) Once the maggots transform into flies of course, there can be a very different picture, and that, in concert with our fear of all things “unsanitary,” has led us to ignore or even prohibit the use of maggots to treat necrotic wounds.
I suppose Sandor's observation that maggots on pecorino cheese “migrate from the creamy area to fresh cheese” is related to maggots' preference for a dead diet. (That could make the open minded wonder if the maggot-digested pecorino has an improved nutritional profile!)
Dave
I agree the maggot-digested pecorino more then likely does have an improved nutritional profile. Make sure you watch the video in the following link.
http://www.worldaccordingtocheese.com/2011/11/taste-of-casu-marzu-day-i-...
As for maggot wound debridement, it is increasing in popularity and represents a progressive step by the medical profession, albeit a desperate one, into the past.
I’ve seen wounds naturally tended by maggots as well and it is indeed amazing. However, and I am not saying this as a warning but rather as an observation, maggots used for medical wound debridement are “sterilized” and for no other silly purpose but to cater to the medical establishments superstitious obsession with that which for the most part is beyond their control.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11296817
“Green fluorescent protein-producing Escherichia coli were used to investigate the fate of bacteria in the alimentary tract of sterile grown maggots, Lucilia sericata (Meigen), using a laser scanning confocal microscope. A computer program was used to analyze the intensity of the fluorescence and to quantify the number of bacteria. The crop and the anterior midgut were the most heavily infected areas of the intestine. A significant decrease in the amount of bacteria was observed in the posterior midgut. The number of bacteria decreased even more significantly in the anterior hindgut and practically no bacteria were seen in the posterior end, near the anus. The viability of bacteria in the different gut sections was examined. It was shown that 66.7% of the crops, 52.8% of the midguts, 55.6% of the anterior hindguts, and 17.8% of posterior hindguts harbored living bacteria. In conclusion, during their passage through the digestive tract the majority of E. coli was destroyed in the midgut. Most of the remaining bacteria were killed in the hindgut, indicating that the feces were either sterile or contained only small numbers of bacteria.”
Ken
Morte Alla Francia Italia Anelia! 'Death To the French Is Italy’s Cry'
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. To try this cheese is definitely NOT on my bucket list. To each his own.
Hmmm. Guess it's not just happening in America anymore.
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/09/city-of-toronto-workers-destroy-free...
If you haven't done so already, you might consider starting a greenhouse. Of course, it might not be long before those are outlawed, as well.
Government agents stomping on food-growing plants... What a photo-op!! I'd shoot it and then send the agency some copies to keep! Or maybe make postcards out of them and send them to their bosses: "You guys must really HATE food."
I wonder what will finally help these people see themselves.
This is what Pasteurization has done to the proud CA dairy industry. Pitiful and sad.
Darwin treats loosers viciously. Lying to consumers and nature....is a bitch when it comes back arround. Every professor at UC San Luis Obispo and UC Davis that ever took a dime from Monsanto should go shoot themselves. The mantra of "feed the world" ( when you can not feed your self ), use BST hormones, and GET BIG OR GET OUT....sure worked didn't it. Payback should be paid by the professors and the Monsantos and the processors that love low dairy prices. Instead real families are tortured.
OPDC thrives in the midst of this carnage....consider the differences in our practices, food chain relationships, and biologics of the final product. For the conscious CA dairyman, there is a lesson here.
It is too late to learn now....it is slaughter and BK time. I feel for them,....tragic!! CDFA should be ashamed. Their lack of pre-emptive leadership and vision has helped destroy a key CA agribusiness.
http://m.yahoo.com/w/legobpengine/news/calif-dairies-going-broke-due-fee...
Mark
So sad, Mark. Its time for a revolution in the dairy industry.
OCCUPY THE DAIRY INDUSTRY!
The bigger and more specialized they are the harder they fall.
Large specialized farming operations grew out of a demand for cheap food. Thy are white elephants, which lack the flexibility needed to effectively deal with catastrophic events such as overproduction and unpredictable weather patterns.
Ken
"Large specialized farming operations grew out of a demand for cheap food."
I accept that as a true statement. In my mind I ask "Who demands cheap food?"
If two food vendors access one orange tree, each taking 100 oranges to sell and one
vendor can profitably price oranges at 2/3 the price of the other vendor, the one with
the lower price will get the customers that are low-price-driven.
But. If I offer you "food" that will not so much nourish your children but bring on weakness
and disease and all that at a drum-banging labor-day blowout sale price good through
sunday, I may have created demand, but for what?
Grandma: "I would rather spend money on food than on doctors."
(a real Grandma, verbatim.)
These tools: education, refrigeration, transportation, and communication, can be used to heal the
breach between food producers and their customers, to the health benefit of all and to the
livelihood economic benefit of the food producers, their communities, counties, and states.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
To much to little to late for CA Dairies. The survival of the greediest and the deepest pockets will be a miracle. CA dairies over produce about 1.7% per year swamping their markets. The market can only use 2.3 % growth instead they dump 4% more into the Milk Pool wishing for a return.
In the good years, they spend too much time at Pismo Beach in the 4x4 raised trucks and not enough time market building and listening to real consumers.
Stupid is as stupid does. There are rammifications for all actions and continued stupid actions have really bad outcomes. This one is really really ugly.
Every great movement and change needed a tragic incident. Bill you are right. These are the seeds of change. Too bad they were PMO CAFO GMO seeds with Cloned BST injected into them. All this tragedy upon CA dairymen and their families.
Where is their leadership??? Where is their change???? Will they just die off???
So very sad. Extinction comes to those that fail to learn, adapt and change with the environment.
Kristin P...
I still have that kiss you gave me lingering on my cheek....if nothing else you are a great cheek kisser.
Got my attention. I am a sucker for affection. We need more love in this world. As Mike Schmidt says....Raw Milk is LOVE.
So I guess we need more kisses and raw milk in this world.
This link is for Mark :-) http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/01/14173274-cow-named-daisy-make...
A cloned cow? Just what we need.
Mary
The article you referenced epitomizes a destructive and perverted way of dealing with a natural substance that has, as a result of human manipulation, evolved into an irritant for certain individuals. It parallels our ongoing, unhealthy manipulation of the microscopic world and likewise subsequent susceptibility to the organisms that live in that world. The term “jumping from the frying pan into the fire” describes well the above approach and indicative of humanities obsession with control.
Ken
@ Ken: I agree. But Mary finds those types of articles because that's what she's looking for.
D. Smith, I hardly went looking for the story. I was posted as a news story on MSN yesterday. I laughed when I saw it and thought Mark would get a kick out of his new competition. This also goes along with the the lastest research regarding the whey protien as the problem in CAFO milk.
http://news.yahoo.com/peanut-butter-recall-includes-major-retailers-1526...
"recall of peanut butter and almond butter to include cashew butters, tahini and blanched and roasted peanut products." "Some of the brand names included in the recall are Target's Archer Farms, Safeway's Open Nature, Earth Balance, Fresh & Easy, Late July, Heinen's, Joseph's, Natural Value, Naturally More, Peanut Power Butter, Serious Food, Snaclite Power, Sprouts Farmers Market, Sprouts, Sunland and Dogsbutter.
Sunland's recall includes 101 products, and several retailers have issued additional recalls including items made with Sunland ingredients."
Will they close them? Take them away in cuffs? Naw, they're in bed with the so called regulators......
I'd not knowingly try any food with maggots, live or dead...yuck
@ Sylvia: "I'd not knowingly try any food with maggots, live or dead...yuck." Ah, c'mon Sylvia, be a sport! Heck I've been taking Serrapeptase for about four years now, and it's made with silkworm saliva. Seriously. See: http://paleoceuticals.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/the-profound-benefits-of-...
But I'm not sure I could get past the maggot thing either. I can see using them in a medicinal way, like they used to use leeches or whatever, but in my mouth, er, not so much. Of course you're not really eating the maggots but still . . .
About the p. butter recall: why do people buy peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, etc.???? I've been making my own for so long I wouldn't even think of buying a jar of any of those. Ewwww. Every time I think about peanut butter I remember a high school science project (and I'm old, keep that in mind!) where we set out to find out how many rodent hairs were allowed in things like peanut butter, hot dogs - whatever. What we found out was not pretty. It was enough to gag a maggot (pun intended).
I'll pass on the maggots & spit (even the synthetically made) thank you. I've used leeches on patients about 20 years ago. It seemed effective, yet I still shuddered in revulsion as I counted them as I removed them.
I do recall reading about all the 'crap' the govt "allows" in our food. Disgusting for sure. Like you, I don't buy premade p-butter, or other nut butters. Would a maggot eat a twinkie?
@ Sylvia: Ha! I'd have to say probably even a maggot has his standards! I don't know if they'd eat a twinkie or not but I used to eat a few when I was in college. They always seemed rather tasteless to me, so I could never understand the fascination with them. My Mom's homemade pound cake beat twinkies all to smithereens. She made homemade lemon curd and whipped cream to put on it and it was excellent!
My Dad, as much as he loved dairy foods, would not eat cheese, other than cottage cheese. He could NOT get past the smell, he said. I have to agree about the smell of some cheeses, but they taste SO good.
A little note to all you cheese makers- I so look forward to sampling your cheeses. I’ve slowly broadened my cheese palate to include cheeses without salt, quite a different world that is. In principal I’m skeptical of "modern methods" in, say, cheese making, thinking, as I do, that the reasons for changes are often more excuses than sound reasons and, finally, unsound from a pure cheese perspective.
You all seem to be talking about cheeses with critters. I have had cheese inhabited by little critters; it was a fine cheese, itsy-bitsy critters included. I wish I had more of it to enjoy. Such a wonder filled world this is. My wife passes on this one (with a roll of the eyes!).
A few weeks ago serious, non-specific, negative criticisms were made in a comment here at TCP with respect to “The Untold Story Of Milk.” I requested specificity. I have not, to my knowledge, seen a reply. Does anyone know anything about the substance of these comments that were made by MW?\
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
@ Ingvar: I haven't seen a reply from him either, in regard to your request, but he'll just end up telling you that you misunderstood him. It's an easy out for him. He seems the sort.
I don't recall mw ever responding to anyone's questions or requests for responses to his statements. As said, he will accuse you of being confused or not reading his statements correctly-blames you for not understanding....there is a name for people that behave like that, it escapes me right now. mw is one of the commenters that I skim over or just ignore, he says the same drivel over and over.
A book review I published in J. Sustainable Agriculture: The Untold Story of Milk, The History, Politics and Science of Nature's Perfect Food: Raw Milk from Pasture-Fed Cows, by Ron Schmid
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10440040903396441
Joseph Heckman
@ Joseph Heckman: Yes, we understand that it's a book by Ron Schmid, but another member here made some comments about the book (not favorable) and Ingvar had asked him to clarify what he meant by his statements. So far he has not done that, as far as anyone here can tell.
I do recall MW comment from sometime back and wondered the same.
Hey Joseph: Is there a way you could provide a link to your complete review? (I don't have an account with the publisher of JSA).
I do not know what the general critical references were to, but my understanding is that some of the health related issues were revised and clarified in the second edition.
Thanks,
I reviewed the second edition. Anyone wanting a copy of my review can send me an email for reprint request.
I also have an extensive collection of literature relating to the subject of raw milk. I needed it so I could conduct such a review.
Do a web search for Joseph Heckman and Rutgers to find my work address.
Joseph, what are your thoughts about Sally Fallon editing 3 chapters in the book and adding in false information pertaining to facts about raw milk outbreaks? I think it was chapters 15,16 & 17. Also, what about the famous BSK study. Why was it left out of the second edition?
I did say in my review some statements in the book need references.
If you have special knowledge about the contents of the book, I suggest you write your own review.
Mary and all,
I have seen all sorts of crap come out of New Zealand. It seems as if the NZ farmers and researchers love to apply broad strokes to the uses of new science when it is not even tested or shown to be safe. A2 comes to mind. Not one independent test has been done to confirm A2 Milks values....yet marketing gurus love to speak about all of its virtues based on one book with two dead authors.
The very idea that one protein is responsible for allergies in children that consume milk is really a very narrow look at the all the causes of milk allergies.
Milk allergies are associated with milk processing...not a single milk protein as is claimed in the NZ cloned cows milk. That cloned cows milk will still cause all sorts of allergies if it is processed.
What that cow produces is an incomplete raw milk that is missing its protein. What they have created is a defective milk that is low protein...is that supposed to be some kind of newsm worthy Nobel Peace Prize break through??? only for an idiot.
Natures lab developed raw milk over many millions of years to be not allergenic and the perfect food to optimize a babies survival and growth. It is perfect food. Mankind is pretty darn arrogant to think that some GMO Cloned "Down Under" solution would be better than millions of years of GODS work.
Just stop messing with nature....put the cows on pasture and stop processing it....easy solution to food allergies. Making a partial food with missing proteins....not so smart. Who knows what kind of problems it will create.
Drink raw milk....a million years of gods work is a bet I will take for sure. Mankinds patented Clone greed is a bet I will run from every day.
Mark,
You're a pilot. Would you say the PMO world has flown into a box canyon?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Ingvar,
Worse than a box canyon.
They do not have a pilot or a flight plan and now no more fuel....they are all passengers. Ouch!!
The pilot bailed out with all the money, the SOYMILK and GMO, BST years ago and left this rudderless, pilotless CAFO jumbo jet to crash all alone on the darkest of nights.
At least in a box canyon...there is a "Curtis Turn 180" to save the day. There are no turns for this CAFO PMO Jumbo in deep shit.
It is crashing...and it is painful to watch and very ugly. Sadly the funerals are all private and there is no connection to the public so...the public has very little empathy and pain to share with all the victums.