The government-sponsored dump of nearly $5,000 of milk, eggs, butter, and cream from Michigan’s My Family Co-Op yesterday carried a very clear and powerful political message to all Americans: We control your food and we dont like you buying your food outside the corporate food system. Every now and then, we are going to remind you of what bad children you are being by taking your food and throwing it in the garbage. In fact, we are going to do more than remind you, we are going to completely humiliate you by preventing you from even feeding it to farm animals and instead forcing it to be disposed of in a landfill or dumpster.
(For more photos and a brief video of the food dump that took place see the Facebook Page of Hill High Dairy LLC, the producer of the food.)
Its the same message that was communicated in Minnesota when the regulators seized food from Michael Hartmann and Alvin Schlangen in 2011. And in California in 2010 and 2011, when the regulators twice took food from Rawesome Food Club. And in Wisconsin in 2010 when the regulators threw blue dye into Vernon Hershbergers raw milk. And in Florida in 2012, when regulators confiscated $45,000 worth of food going to half a dozen food clubs in that state (described in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Food Rights), and forced the farmers who produced it to pay $2,000 in dumping fees to have it thrown in a landfill. And in Oregon in 2011 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sought personal legal penalties against Kelli and Anthony Estrella of Estrella Family Creamery for the high crime of feeding condemned cheese to farm animals, as if to say, the humiliation must be complete. And the message first communicated in Michigan in 2006 when the state confiscated and disposed of $8,000 of raw milk from farmer Richard Hebron (and forced him as well to pay a $1,000 fine).
If you think I am exaggerating the intent of what is going on here, ask yourself this question: When was the last time you saw government agents seize and condemn food from a place like Foster Farms or Taco Bell or Del Monte or Kelloggs or Trade Joes when their food has been found to contain pathogens, or made people sick? Theres been not even a suggestion that food at My Family Co-Op contained pathogens or made anyone sick.
There were all kinds of other ways for the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to have handled any problems they saw with My Family Co-Op. They could have warned Jenny Samuelson, the co-ops owner that she was possibly violating a 2013 policy statement on herdshares. They could have given her a citation, listed the charges against her, held a hearing where she and the owners of the food could have attempted to answer the charges, and then levied a fine if she was found to be in violation. (Actually, the fine and such can still happen, since the seizure order placed on the food last week carries possible penalties, at the MDARDs discretion.)
But those kinds of civilized steps would have forced the state to be businesslike and law-abiding. Collective punishment isnt about being businesslike and law-abiding. It isnt about presenting charges and letting the accused respond. It is about brute force and complete control. It is about sending a message about who is in charge, and what happens if you cut into corporate profits.
The big problem with collective punishment is that, while it may deal with the immediate problem at hand (an unwanted competitor), longer term it breeds alienation among the people who are being penalized and humiliated. I naively thought that possibly such actions were being curtailed or eliminated as officials got the message that it is dangerous to mess with such fundamental rights as the right to obtain food from farm animals you have ownership of.
We can expect more such examples of collective punishment. Dean Foods and its henchmen are losing big bucks in the precipitous decline of pasteurized milk sales. (Dean Foods is understood to control as much as 90% of the milk market in Michigan.) Like the Mafia, oligarchs dont take well to losing money. Their modus operandi is control and bullying, so they dont take the customary business steps of trying to find ways to compete. No, they pay big money to the politicians who control the hacks at places like the MDARD, and they demand action. Yesterday, they got it.
We need more William Wallace and William Wilburforce, and less Barney Rubble and Britney Spears…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEOOZDbMrgE
This from Hill High Dairy, which produced the food, and where it was dumped: “100 dozen eggs… Each egg had to be broken. 248 gallons dumped in a sprayer that had to be witnessed by MDA being dumped and sprayed on the field.”
Well said, John, by you and William Wallace. I think the members of this co-op, and others that are dispersed, need to be prepared on occasions like this to hop in their cars, bring their children if need be, and come get their food. Yes, it may be inconvenient, may interfere with work or a soccer game, but it must be done, to send the bullies back to their cubbies. Maintaining freedom requires commitment.
Shelly, I don’t believe any shareholders were present. I’m not sure exactly why, but I presume it was because Jenny Samuelson decided, for whatever reason, not to ask them. She has assumed from early on that the shareholders won’t travel to pick up their food, since most live an hour-and-a-half or more from the farm. I’m not sure that is an accurate assumption, since members who have commented here and on Facebook seem pretty upset about what’s happened…as well they should.
These are desparate times for fluid pasteurized milk!! Meanwhile….RAWMILK sales rock! It tis the end of pasteurized milk. The end of 100 years of dead milk.
Just as a caution, William Wallace was given a traitors death- he was to be hanged, drawn and quartered– the body parts were sent to various places far & wide, to show what happens when you are treasonous. Many types of intimidation tactics will be used to divide and confuse the people. It is easier to conquer when people are divided.
With todays personal media, it is harder for opposing foes to lie, though it is still done.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/goebbelslie.html
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
There’s a website, remineralize.org, that speaks very favorably of using rock dust to put minerals back in the soil. Also, I seem to recall that one cheese maker that used to post here, saying he noticed a difference with raw milk from farms that regularly remineralize their soil.
It looks like in Nature, soil is naturally remineralized, as everything gets put back.
That leads into “terra preta”, this very rich black soil found in the Amazon, apparently made by the Natives, and people today are trying to figure out how it was done. I found this while looking into “biochar”, which Dave Milano recommended I do, after I had asked about info regarding using heavy mulch to farm. He also recommended a great video, “Back to Eden”, which you can find on youtube, which I linked to Russ’s blog.
I’m still researching biochar, Dave, you can find contradictory things online, don’t know who’s telling the truth, but to give one example, one person says don’t use it in California because soils are alkaline and don’t get much rain, but in eastern soils which tend to be acidic, it works well, as it tends to make the soil more neutral.
I guess biochar is just charcoal renamed. Looks like that terra preta soil was filled with it. I think the answer to the riddle of how they made it is simpler than people think. When I lived on the land for two years, I learned to put animal bones and unfinished parts into the fire after eating (or else it would be calling to the whole forest). When the fire goes out there’s always some charcoal (biochar) left in it, and if you put the fire out early , which I had to do a lot so as not to have an open fire going, the coals are biochar.
I also used a simple system with a bucket for humanure, and crushed leaves on top… once a week I’d take the bucket, and also the fire ashes and coals, and any plant food scraps, and dig a hole and bury it all. But over time it occurred to me I could just pile it above ground and it would decompose faster. I believe this is basically how that amazing terra preta soil was created, it’s simply the “waste” from a village, which becomes super fertile soil. These terra preta areas in the Amazon are never bigger than two acres they say, which seems to fit well with what I am saying.
Sylvia, I’d imagine that as Dean Foods execs watch sales of raw milk blossom in Michigan and elsewhere, and also watch the pasteurized milk market crumble, they get pretty pissed. Now, it would seem the natural thing for them to do would be to try to enter the raw milk market. But my guess is many of their farmers couldn’t produce safe raw milk, and the Dean execs know that. Besides, Dean would have to get the laws changed in many states to allow retail sales, since that is where the company does its distribution. Can you imagine a huge factory-food corporation like this organizing herdshares and food clubs and trying to sell directly to consumers?
So, yes, the decline in pasteurized milk sales could cause Dean Foods to become more aggressive or, put it this way, cause Dean to push the politicians and regulators in their employ to crack down more heavily on raw milk. That’s mostly what they know about “marketing.”
I’m not familiar with remineralization using rock dust, but unless your land is pure dust I’d be thinking more about biology than geology. Nevertheless, if you learn anything interesting about rock dust, and would post links here, I’ll be on the lookout for them.
My thinking: If you want to use the acreage for agriculture in the next year (including pasture) a complete soil test (to determine organic matter, macro- and micro-nutrients, and availability) is probably reasonable. I use Agri-Dynamics (Jerry Brunetti’s business) for such analysis. The samples get sent to a lab in Ohio, and if you want, you can pay Jerry to review the test and make recommendations. If you want to go it on your own, then be patient and try to discover what’s going on by asking questions: What’s growing there now? What is the topsoil like (loam, clay, sandy, etc.)? Are there earthworms?
Around here land that has been in corn for a long time has typically been fed with NPK fertilizers and sprayed with various herbicides and insecticides. It is pretty dead. When left finally to Nature, the pattern is one of quick-recovery plants and nitrogen-fixing plants taking hold (ragweed, sweet clover, etc.), then deep-rooted plants like thistle, wild carrots (Queen Ann’s Lace), plantain and the like. These plants help rejuvenate the ground, and can be left alone for a few years to do their job, perhaps with a rough mowing once or twice a year beginning in the second post-corn year to prevent the establishment of woody plants (i.e. to prevent succession). When you’re ready to do something with the ground, its status at the time can be assessed, and you can decide then if amendments are appropriate, e.g. applications of manure and/or compost tea.
Agri-Dynamics homepage is here:
http://www.agri-dynamics.com/
Click on “Soils and Forages” for the testing information. Or just give them a call.
Dave
Krickette, excellent Q about Dean Foods, because they really try hard to hide their identity in the milk they sell. While they sell under the “Dean” label in a few places, most of their milk is sold under other brand names that say nothing about Dean Foods, including Garelick, PET, Brown’s Dairy, Meadow Gold, Oak Farms. The full list is at their corporate site:
http://www.deanfoods.com/brands.aspx
I think you will find this companys site interesting. The company Boreal Agrominerals Inc. is devoted to mining carbonatite ore primarily as a natural mineral fertilizer and soil amendment.
Their slogan, Remineralize your Soil with Spanish River Carbonatite!
http://www.borealagrominerals.com
Ken
http://www.acresusa.com/the-farm-as-ecosystem
You can call us at 1-800-395-7004 (weekdays 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. CT, excluding holidays).
Or write to us at:
Dean Foods Consumer Affairs
P.O. Box 961447
El Paso, TX 79996
EMAIL ADDRESS : DeanFoods@CaSupport.com
Funny little dream….the reality is that in 2004 I was invited to speak about organic raw milk ( before OPDC was a real threat ) at the IDFA convention in Palmsprings. I met the then president of Horizon Organic Dairy products…When I said who I was he asked what is raw organic milk? I explained. He then turned to his operations manager who was standing next to him and said…can we make that stuff? He said no. We are not set up for it.
I asked Horizon at the time to consider investing in OPDC becqause they were buying extra raw milk from us ( prior to OPDC building its larger full utilization markets ) after Organic Valley chased me out of the OV COOP for competing with them on the shelves at WF markets. We needed a creamery in 2004 ( ten years ago and I was hungry beating all bushes to raise money ). To his credit the president of Horizon sent me a nice email a month later saying that Horizon was built on UHT organic milk with 45 day shelf life and to do anything with raw milk would be in conflict and be destructive to everything that they had built.
Well….the house of UHT has come tumbling down 10 years later. This is not a dream….this has happened and the reverberations are sending shock waves through the dairy community. We are in the midst of a consumer shift and Deans is totally screwed. Their DNA dictates a prayor to the wall street gods and not gut life or the people. Justice has been long in coming.
if Deans Foods executues came into my office ( while I was awake ) ….as William Wallace said….they can kiss my arse…or….in the alternative, I would take their $100 million and make them a non controlling minority interest in a beautiful new raw creamery and dairy and grow raw milk with massive consumer educational efforts and a $5 million dollar pledge to FTCLDF and a donation to RAWMI for another $5 million to provide massive increases in raw milk food safety education for all farmers in North America. I would also place $10 million into a raw milk bank to assist with raw milk production micro loans to build micro Grade A raw milk faciities where hard working farmers needed them most!!
Obviously….I did not get the $100 million from Deans…dreaming again. But these dreams are near and dear in my heart. I am however well on the way to raising funds for a new creamery and dairy facility. Lots more to come on that front. Hint….it is an international effort with all sorts of colaborations, but OPDC will not sell one little bit of its ownership or control. It will stay McAfee Clan all the way.
My Family Co-Op has just posted some videos of the food dump on Monday.
In this one, you can hear the MDARD inspector, Michael Juhasz, explain to farmer Joe Golimbieski the view that My Family Co-Op is re-selling food and thus needs a food handler’s license. (Explanation begins at about 2:06 of the video.)
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=593615530755163&set=vb.243319925784727&type=2&theater
You can watch eggs being smashed here:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=593641327419250&set=vb.243319925784727&type=2&theater
Here the MDARD inspector seems to indicate that My Family Co-Op’s problem was that it was selling food via the Internet. When told this has been going on for at least two years, he backs off, doesn’t want to discuss. Then, he refuses to get involved in dumping any food to speed the process up, and says it can all be delayed further if co-op doesn’t have the labor to accomplish the dumping of 250 gallons of milk.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=593642790752437&set=vb.243319925784727&type=2&theater
The Facebook page with all these videos is at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Family-Co-Op/243319925784727
http://www.alisorganics.com/search?q=rock+dust&search-button.x=7&search-button.y=10
My son Aaron then told me that the FDA had a booth at the food event. Off I went to pay a little friendly visit to our good friends at the FDA. It started off friendly enough….but quickly became a very firm dispute about CDC data. I then went direct to the heart of the matter and quoted my CDC FOIA and the exact data. The FDA rep went silent….she then agreed that she did not understand why the data crunchers at the CDC and FDA chose certain date ranges that avoid deaths from pasteurized milk. On the FDA table were very colorful FDA brochures warning consumers to never drink raw milk. I asked if it was common that the FDA warn consumers not to eat a legal food????
I took that to task and reminded her that states like CA have set very strict standards for raw milk and safe raw milk is widely availsble in 625 stores and that the FDA does not need to like or support raw milk to be able to set good standards and testing protocols for raw milk. I reminded her that it was pasteurized milk or cheese that had killed 9 prople since 2007 and listeria had exactly zero cases of illness related to raw milk in the cdc database. She had to nod with agreement that raw milk was here to stay and that it is better to lead with good standards than to suppress raw milk underground. We ended the conversation with a nice hand shake. I reiterated how serious we are about food safety and how pathetic it is that the FDA refuses to hold a dialogue and acknowledge the work of RAWMI and the hard data that flows from good food safety practices. When she quoted the CDC by saying raw milk was 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized milk….I said that was simply BS….and reminded her that “outbreaks were not the same as numbers of people made ill” and that just one outbreak case of pasteurized milk illness in 1993 caused 180,000 illnesses and that outbreak was counted as one incident!!
She became very quiet. I left her with a request….please ask your leadership to open up the dialogue and please invite OPDC RAWMI and others to the table to work on safe raw milk for all of America,…not just the lucky few in CA, Penn state, WA and a few other places. Consider a raw milk seed planted at the FDA….not sure if it will get any water or fertilizer….but it is planted. Kind of fun meeting a real FDA person and imparting some reality directly unto them in person. Kind of a therapy and catharsis of sorts.
Mark, sounds like a very worthwhile conversation. I suspect you knew much more about this subject than she did. But I also suspect that if FDA had a booth at this particular local food event, it has booths at others as well. This suggests that FDA is trying to improve its image in the world of local food (maybe I should have said it is trying to present a less negative image than it generally presents). When people encounter FDA reps at events like this, I suggest they take the opportunity to do what you did, and begin a dialog and do some educating….while understanding that these people are starting from way behind.
And Mark, this is the best news I’ve seen all week. Thank you! 🙂
That remineralize.org talks about getting rock dust for like 1 to 8 bucks a ton. Online I see it for more like a dollar a pound. Slight difference in price. Well the idea appeals to me because aren’t minerals rocks?
If a cow can turn an acre of pasture into say 1000 gallons of milk per year (for easy numbers), I mean that’s a lot of calcium, magnesium, potassium… In the establishment food system, after it goes thru your body and does its part, it gets flushed away, all those nutrients…
And they’ve been doing this to the land for how many years? So these are strange times. And then add in all the exposed topsoil lost to erosion from wind and rain. And then what is NPK farming, a way to trick plants into growing, where they look like food, but have almost none of the minerals normally present?
I would never suggest that the establishment has deliberately promoted this weird modern farming model to create severe mineral deficiencies in people, thereby generating mega billions for the pharmaceutical cartel to endlessly “treat” but never cure all the disease caused by this, but I did post the revenues here once of the top fifteen pharmaceutical corporations, and as I recall it was over half a TRILLION dollars a year. Business is good!
You’d think with all this talk about testing foods for meaningless “pathogens”, there would be a lot of info online where various types of rock dust have been tested to give us the breakdown of how many minerals are in each and in what amounts… but I don’t see it. Does anyone know of any active volcanoes in the north florida area?
Well I will take a look at those products you guys recommended. The Back to Eden video Dave recommended is based on using heavy mulch… and I had asked about this after being inspired by Basics of Natural Farming parts 1 and 2 on youtube, which were based on that Japanese no-till farmer’s ideas who doesn’t till but uses heavy mulch such as straw… This stuff all fit with messages I believe I received on the land that may or may not apply to larger scale farming or others but here they are:
When I first went out to the cleared area of my land (that old field), and plunged my new bought spade into the earth, I hit a large tree root, and felt bad, as the main theme of my land is to be a nature preserve. I didn’t realize tree roots grow so far from the trees. So it was always a hassle trying to plant around these tree roots.
I had only hand tools, so when I would till the soil with this spade, well it was more than a bit of work, … and I’d be pulling up this yellow sandy soil and the thin topsoil would get mixed below… it did not seem like a good idea.
I had a guy come out to give an estimate for putting in a well and he wanted like three grand, and as me and my dad were standing there (he had come down to visit), we both felt this water being sprayed onto us, even though there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Reflecting on this, I took to as a message that I don’t need a well to grow food, plants are watered from the sky. But, when I did grow potatoes later, in tilled soil, we had a five week drought and they didn’t die but never produced potatoes.
One day I was looking at my neighbor tilling his farm with his tractor, thru the trees, and I thought, hey maybe I could pay him each spring to just till like an acre here for me. Just them I got hit in the face with this big cloud of diesel smoke from his tractor, even though he was literally a block away.
So these various things seemed to be genuine messages for me, but I was confused as to what they meant. And then when I placed an ad to retry me community idea, I noticed ads near mine talking about “no till” farming using heavy mulch… and this led into a way to farm where you don’t need tractors just light tools, don’t need to water because the mulch keeps the soil moist, don’t need to plow, etc. So that is the direction I am heading. I planted small packets of 10 different varieties of old time wheat last fall, and a few grew this spring, so I will be replanting the seeds this fall… Pushing on.
http://www.amazon.com/Stones-Classic-Reprint-Julius-Hensel/dp/B008TYUOG4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406385478&sr=8-1&keywords=bread+from+stones
Here’s another link, the “Rock Dust Primer” from that site I mentioned, remineralize.org:
http://remineralize.org/a-rock-dust-primer
if you want to take a quick look.
By Peter Van Straaten
To request reprint of this review article send email to author: pvanstra@uoguelph.ca
“The use of whole rock silicate fertilizers is attractive
as these types of fertilizers have the potential
to supply soils with a large array of macro
and micronutrients in comparison to commercially
available soluble fertilizers, which commonly only
supply the main macronutrients N, P and K, but
not nutrients such as Ca, Mg and micronutrients
(Fyfe et al. 1983, Leonardos et al. 1987).”
I believe that statement right there goes to the crux of the whole raw milk “debate”.
Modern farming does not replace the calcium (Ca) and other key minerals lost in soils due to farming. > Weston Price’s pictures from around the world show that modern people suffer from epidemic levels of severe mineral deficiency, and the most obvious is Calcium ie their teeth rot. > The modern chemist Robert Barefoot (who’s never even heard of Price) says in his book The Calcium Factor, that 95 % of Americans have a severe calcium deficiency, that sets the stage for all kinds of illness, and simple ways to address this are blocked by the pharmaceutical cartel. > I’ve concluded raw milk is probably the single best way to reverse calcium deficiency,
Thus it is demonized. So do you think simple inexpensive ways to get the calcium and other minerals back in the soil (such as by using rock dust “waste”) are going to get a lot of airtime with the media cartel and in the school systems? Don’t hold your breath.
Anyway, if you’re interested in a different way to use wheat (green) check this out.
http://cookingupastory.com/frikeh-freekeh-fereek-green-wheat-wonder-video
Even just reading the story was interesting, without the vid.
Anyway, if you’re interested in a different way to use wheat (green) check this out.
http://cookingupastory.com/frikeh-freekeh-fereek-green-wheat-wonder-video
Even just reading the story was interesting, without the vid.
I’ve been rummaging through the rock dust information, and while I’m not saying I’m skeptical (I occasionally supplement my own animals, garden, and pasture with minerals from various sources) I think it’s worth pointing out that mineral presence, bio-availability, and balance are to a large degree moderated by biological factors and water, and that mineral applications are best viewed in a big-picture context. Adding minerals in biologically dead soil, or in soil that cannot gather and hold water for example, can be wasteful, especially if the minerals are not given time to integrate into the whole.
Getting into the details of soil analysis can be mind-numbing, and frankly, while I do recommend a complete soil audit, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to focus on numbers. Such tests are useful of course, but they are just another tool, and cannot replace thoughtful observation of general soil and water conditions and observation of the condition of plants and animals on the land.
Regarding your former corn land: Modern sweet corn is a heavy feeder, but the majority of its roots at maturity are in only the first 12 inches of ground. (I’d guess that, from the cheap-oil, high-quantity-equals-more-money formulation of industrial-scale agriculture, that makes corn a good candidate for quickly-absorbed chemical NPK fertilizers.) So it’s possible that your land is loaded with minerals, but at depths out of the reach of shallow-rooted plants. The deep-rooted recovery plants I mentioned before are custom made to pull those minerals up. Patience, therefore, may be your most valuable commodity. Nature over time will integrate the micro-biological, macro-biological, geological, and atmospheric factors to bring life back to the ground. Unfortunately, we may not have time for that, which forces us to consider just how much toil (I use the word toil as a stand-in for time, effort, fuel, and other resources) is appropriate to modify whatever natural processes we cannot live with. (An example: Soon I will be broadcasting tillage radish seed on my sections of pasture. These quickly grow heavy, long roots that mine minerals from below, then die back and leave organic matter, minerals, and a hole that catches air and water. Toil, but worth it in my opinion at this time, place, and circumstance.)
Since we move around a lot these days we are more often faced with relatively dramatic decisions about land use than, say, a family might be that has been on a particular farm for generations. Where I live, I figure it takes about 8-10 generations for natural succession to bring bare ground to climax forest. That means (big picture view) each generation will always have some ground ripe for agriculture, and some that is not. If we cannot live with the current state of things, then toil will have to be substituted for time. How much toil is a piece of ground worth? An important question that has no transferable answer. When I arrived here at my current home I saw yard, meadow, swamp, and a good bit of forest, old and new. I chose (sometimes wisely, sometimes not) to put some of the yard into garden (high toil land), some of the meadow and forest into pasture (moderate toil land) and the rest (mostly forest in various stages of succession) I left alone to proceed without my intervention, “used” only foraged foods and other resources like lumber and cord wood, chip mulch for the garden, etc.
By the way, these are great discussions which ought to be interesting to anyone who eats–farmer, gardener, and otherwise. Notably, anybody willing to give time to watching Nature at work can learn and teach effectively. I appreciate the compliment you threw my way, but the truth is that I really don’t know much. I rather depend on those who have been at it a long time, which includes the collective knowledge of generations gone by.
http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-K2-Calcium-Paradox-Little-Known/dp/0062320041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406613756&sr=8-1&keywords=Vitamin+K2+calcium+paradox
“On the Trail of the Elusive X-Factor: A Sixty-Two-Year-Old Mystery Finally Solved”
I’m rereading his book now, and he always talks about the importance of these fat soluble vitamins, in the absorption of minerals. This makes raw milk all the more appealing. I’ve never taken supplements. I think we were meant to eat food. I’m trying to find real foods from rich soils and Nature.
Speaking of suppressed science, I was talking to a guy last week who saw me buying some raw milk, and he told me he’s lactose intolerant, but he tried some raw milk and he can drink it with no problem, He said to me, “Isn’t that weird? I wonder why?”
I told him it’s not weird, lot’s of raw milk drinkers say the same thing, but the government denies this fact. Didn’t David have an article recently about some study, where they defined “lactose intolerant” in such a way that the study didn’t show this basic truth? The point is, many people cannot tolerate pasteurized dairy, regardless of what you want to call this condition, but they can tolerate raw dairy.
Morale: the real world evidence is our best information, “studies” can easily be faked and spun.
Weston A. Price Foundation website: About 600 mg in 8 ounces of raw milk.
USDA 305 mg
Neither go into what the cows ate, etc. Kale between 100-200mg per 1 cup cooked (Collards @ 350mg/cup)
I don’t recall where I read the following: your body will retain @ 40% of calcium from dairy products, It will retain between 50-70% calcium from produce. Plus the produce has the other nutrients that work in conjunction for optimal metabolizing of those nutrients. Mother Nature does NOT work with single nutrients, they require a whole group to do what they are suppose to.
The endemic of osteoporosis is caused by many factors. Toxins in the water systems, poor quality foods, environmental toxins, etc. Example: fluoride, chloramine and chlorine affect the thyroid (perhaps this is why hypothyroidism is also endemic? Synthroid is one of the top selling drugs in the USA) If the thyroid is affected the bone remineralization is affected, as is BP, kidney function, etc.
Indeed, I do use a lot of various streams to remineralize and keep healthy our land, and since I commented whenever the above was, I have learned a great deal more. It is very exciting to learn soil science, not primarily the “science” side, save some of it (a lot of crazy technical), but to match the science side with good soil practices and see how quickly nutrient rich, resilient soil can be created.
I don’t know if you subscribe to New Pioneer, I am writing an article for them that will be in an upcoming issue, actually a series of articles at this point. I also may, and that is a true big may, have a book forthcoming on this whole subject of instead of buying fertility from mountains and oceans, creating fertility using locally reoriented “waste” streams and good practices.
http://rt.com/usa/monsanto-glyphosate-roundup-epa-483/
Monsanto just can’t seem to lose, no matter what. I do believe food will soon have no nutritional value left because the soils are so damaged. Do you think maybe the message is that we’re purposely being slowly starved to death?
Looks like.
We are always an ongoing experimental bowl know that and thrive, fear not and mutate!
Just got back from your friendly neighborhood “construction aggregates” supply place, they have something that looks like “rock dust” for 42 bucks a ton. They called it the “screenings” and also called it “tailings” produced as a byproduct of gravel. I had thought this gravel is local to north florida since it’s so heavy, but the guy there said it comes from out of state. Then he called it “limestone gravel”. I thought limestone and gravel are two different things. I asked him if limestone is the same as “lime” put in soils to increase ph. He said it’s different, but looking it up here, I see people saying it’s the same thing…
Anything you can sort out in your articles would be much appreciated. (and where’s that ol Miguel when you need him? Didn’t he say once he remineralizes his soil? )
From all I’ve read so far, foods in their natural form are the most nutritious. (Sans chemical additives,etc)
Here in Arkansas, my soil is heavy clay with huge quartz rocks. It was the quartz I hit when I sunk my spade into the earth. Most are softball and football size. Between the rocks and clay I knew the soil was not good for growing what I wanted to. So I have begun the layered method (Heard it called lasagna/no till, etc). Since it is so humid and wet here, I used 5 layers of heavy cardboard first, then topped with small sticks/leaves, then layer bought soil (just to get things started), manure, and hay and my compost and repeat. The areas are 8’X3′, have 3 plots so far. They will eventually be about 2 ft tall as I keep putting layers on. I haven’t used those areas yet as I am letting them do their thing (I have lots of earth worms that showed up, so I think I am doing it right.)
I currently have a little raised area with tomatoes (not doing well with all this rain here) and cucumbers. The squash bugs have eaten most everything. It is a learning experience as everything is so different here than in Sacramento, plus the bugs! My God I’ve never seen so many different bugs. Not to forget the ticks and chiggers! I did not notice many bees and I think that may be a big factor why my harvest is so poor. I have planted flowers, will plant more for next spring.
I would add a picture if I could, of the Big-Horned Beetle my son found near the house.
“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion –
When you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing –
When you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favors –
When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than work and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you –
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self sacrifice –
You may know that your society is doomed.”
While I don’t agree with all this person says, it gives a good list of what nutrients are needed for healthy bones. http://www.betterbones.com/bonenutrition/20keybonenutrients.pdf
Also, calcium and magnesium work against each other and if taken at the same time, one will cancel the other out.
It is my belief that if you eat fruit and vegetables daily, and some dairy, you should not need to take any calcium supplements. Supplements aren’t meant to be taken forever, they are for short term use for you to build whatever deficiencies back up along with consuming nutritious foods. Sadly, most Americans consume the SAD and do lack the bodies needed nutrients for long periods and that contributes to disease/illness. IMHO
You are not differentiating between raw dairy and pasteurized. The reason you hear that osteoporosis gets worse the more dairy you consume, is because they are using pasteurized dairy.
Same thing when you hear about mucous buildup in the intestines and other problems from “dairy”, it’s because it’s pasteurized.
As far as getting too much minerals from eating natural foods, I don’t think that’s possible. As far as the mineral/vitamin/lipid… content of raw milk, if you look into it it’s amazing. Why it almost sounds like a substance you could live on alone (oh yeah, that’s what milk is).
Once again, no one is saying you need only one mineral to live. Raw milk is filled with minerals, including magnesium, vitamin K2, and tons of others.
Regarding consuming too much calcium, Barefoot points out that long lived superhealthy mountain cultures consume an astonishing 100 000 milligrams of calcium daily, because their water is so loaded with it, and have no problem. Price talks about healthy Arab cultures that lived on camel’s milk for a large part of the year because there is no other food available then.
So the idea of getting too much minerals from your food is yet another distraction from the real cause of disease, such a hydrogenated oils, which are what harden and clog up your arteries.
I also neglected to mention here the number one cause of calcium deficiency, refined sugars, which don’t burn right in your body, and so strip minerals out of it.
And once again I don’t take supplements. I don’t know if our bodies can absorb rocks and I don’t know how combining elements in strange ways might have unforeseen consequences. So I look for real food grown on real soil. Dr Heckman mentioned that it’s common to put calcium and magnesium back in soil today, but, it’s still not the norm. That means to me most foods at the stores are going to be deficient in this.
As I’ve said all along, they call it the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, but the only thing they are protecting is big business from competition. It’s all about money. These people continue to find something wrong to justify their own existence so they can continue to collect a paycheck from the tax payers. And it goes much deeper than that. They have sterilized our food supply to the point where no one has any immunity to common bacteria. Many bacteria’s we actually need to live a normal life. In turn the pharmaceutical companies have developed drugs to counter act this, dangerous drugs with terrible side effects including sudden death! But that’s ok, you just keep taking all those drugs, just be sure to avoid bacteria, you might get an upset stomach or diarrhea. Have you ever read the grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance? It’s a big thick book of ridiculous regulations that make if difficult if not impossible for small companies to exist. Furthermore, most of their own people do not understand it completely. As the President, field rep and quality control person for a small dairy cooperative I deal with these people all of the time. I can always count on a different opinion and interpretation of the regs with each person I deal with. WDATCP places more importance on making sure your records are in order. They generate an unbelievable amount of paperwork that needs to be kept in files both in their offices and in the dairy plant office. When I need an inspector to come and do inspections to issue a producer license I am told that they are shorthanded and no one can come right away, so I fax a copy of a safe water test and they issue a temporary license to ship milk without ever looking at the farm. On the flip side, they will inspect the records on time on a regular schedule, and if there is a discrepancy we face a disciplinary hearing as happened to us a few years ago. During this hearing I asked the agent why in this day and age there was not an electronic central data base where these records could be kept and anyone with a pass code could examine the records from anywhere. I was told that a data base like this would be so large and creating it would take years and it just was not feasible. Five minutes later when I asked a different agent in the same office to look up water test results, I was told that their data base was so large that it would take hours to find and they could not waist someone’s time for this. FDA and DATCP continue to try and put stiffer regs on how cheese should be aged. People have been making and ageing cheese for centuries, long before FDA and DATCP came along. To the best of my knowledge no catastrophic issues have ever came of it. I say, if it aint broke, don’t fix it. My mother-in-law who is 95 years old now lives with us. She lived the majority of her life during a time when most of these regulations did not exist. Other than her loss of hearing and vision, she is in better health than a lot of 25 year olds. Still not convinced, consider this; in the state of Wisconsin, and many others for that matter, if you are going to sell meat to consumers that meat needs to be slaughtered and processed in a licensed facility under the watch of DATCP inspectors. However, if I want to sell rabbit meat to consumers this falls under different regs for commercial food processing much the same as for shell eggs or baked goods. This is because rabbit meat isn’t considered meat, its considered food. Why is this you ask, well, could it be because there is no large corporation involved in the production, processing and marketing of rabbit meat? There’s no big business to protect! FDA and DATCP have no interest in protecting “we the people” They are only interested in protecting their jobs and those who fill their pockets the fullest.
Well said, Jay. And you’re right – rewarding corruption will never benefit the good honest people of america.
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