When I testified before the Vermont House of Representatives about raw milk risk, I presented annualized data and risk data that I and others had calculated.
I pointed out that the legislators would never, ever, receive data about raw milk in an annualized, trend-based format from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The data is always presented as a total over a number of years, and theres never any comparison to previous periods, plus its nearly always different, from report to report. So, in a recent Washington Post article, the CDC data was presented this way: The agency reported that 796 people in 24 states had become sick after consuming raw milk between 2006 and 2011, the latest years for which complete data are available.
A new Fox News report states it this way: According to the CDC, there were 2,384 illnesses, 284 hospitalizations and two deaths attributed to raw milk or raw milk products from 1998 through 2011.
Now, I wouldnt be all that worked up about the data if it werent used heavily for political purposes, such as to concoct the idea that raw milk is 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized milk. (It did that by counting outbreaks, not illnesses.)
The discussion following my previous post highlights further the problem of not only screwy raw milk data, but screwy data about food-borne illness in general. A Canadian food scientist, Art Hill, was quoted at the University of Guelph conference as saying that raw milk isnt just 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized, its 1,000 times more dangerous. Hey, CDC, can you top that?
And now, as Mark McAfee points out, we do have data to top thathigh-temperature pasteurized milk is 40 times more dangerous than standard pasteurized milk, for listeria, according to a new study. But is the data based on real CDC data, CDC estimates, other estimates, or the authors own data? Who knows, and the lead author of the study, Matthew Stasiewicz, hasnt replied to either of the two emails Ive sent him. Maybe he doesnt know where the data came from.
Why is the data about food safety so screwed up? In significant measure, because it is difficult to access, or just not present. The raw data, as it were, is all at a not-easy-to-locate CDC web site. This is the data that tells us we have about 15,000 reported illnesses from food each year. And the data itself is nearly inaccessible, unless you have huge amounts of time.
Lets say you want to determine all the illnesses from a particular foodraw milk, pasteurized milk, chicken, ground beef, peanut butterbetween 1998 and 2011, which is the reporting period available. You have to go through 787 pages of data, and manually locate the food vehicle under one column and total ill under another. But even then, your findings will likely be incomplete, since the food vehicle isnt always identified. And the listings are often imprecise. Raw dairy illnesses can be identified as “Milk, raw,” “RAW MILK,” “Goat milk, raw,” “Cheese, unpasteurized,” “Whole milk, unpasteurized,” “Queso fresco,” with no pasteurization status listed, and so on and so forth. The reason for these varying descriptors is that there is no drop-down standardized menu for the states to fill in.
You can hone in on particular states, in particular years, and particular pathogens, to help narrow a search down.
But getting back to a particular food, you either have to do the tedious work yourself, or look to someone else to do it for you. So, when I highlighted data compiled by the Real Raw Milk Facts web site on pasteurized milk illnesses and deaths, the people at that site had done the tedious work of searching through the CDC data to compile statistics.
Another option is to search a database compiled by the Center for Science and the Public Interest, a nonprofit organization. Here, you can search by food, pathogen, or state, between 1990 and 2011 (but you cant search on two at a time; thus you can search out all the milk illnesses its database contains, but I couldnt find a way to then isolate by state or year). Still, more accessible than the CDC database.
Where does CSPI obtain its data? It says it has tracked foodborne illness outbreaks — events where two or more people become ill from eating the same food — since 1997. In another place, it says it has data going back to 1990.
How closely does the data at CDC compare with that at CSPI? Your guess is as good as mine. To find out for sure, youd need to manually compare the two databases since they are set up according to different criteria.
My sense is that the two are fairly similar, since the CSPI reported last year that food borne illnesses had declined about 40% between 2000 and 2010.
This is something the CDC reported .in very small type, as I reported last year in Food Safety News.
Now, there is one other wrinkle to the shameful state of food-borne illness data, and thats the estimated food-borne illness statistics. Since the CDC in effect says it does such a terrible job of collecting real-life data, it must resort to estimates to provide what it considers to be a real-life sense of how many illnesses there. Lo and behold, those numbers are huge, thousands of times the actual reported illnesses. 48 million illnesses (versus 15,000 reported illnesses) and 3,000 deaths (versus about 15 reported deaths) each year.
Within those estimates, the CDC provides estimates of which pathogens are causing how many illnesses .but nothing on which foods it estimates to be causing how many illnesses.
Why such huge discrepancies and inconsistencies? No one knows for sure, but my sense is this is both a make-work issue as well as a control issue. So long as ordinary people cant easily access and compare data, we are dependent on the CDC scientists and academicsall of whom have lots of time and lots of (our) moneyto ferret out the data for us.
When the CDC in 2010 lowered its estimates of food borne illnesses from a mammoth 76 million to just a huge 48 million, some academics were concerned that the “mantra” of a food safety crisis was being undercut. Marion Nestle, a prominent food safety professor at New York University, bemoaned the timing of the reduced number because it came just as the Food Safety Modernization Act was being debated in Washington. It would be painfully ironic if CDCs better numbers undercut enactment of the food safety bill, she wrote.
So long as food-safety data remains inconsistent and incomplete, and subject to primarily propaganda usage by politicized bureaucrats and scientists, it has little in the way of credibility. And thus subject to endless debates that do nothing to help set food safety priorities.
Curved sticks are being used to define what is straight.
The bearers of curved sticks work towards the goal that everyone must receive from them permission.
To do anything.
Those who benefit financially from this consolidation of power are foes of freedom. Foes of truth. Foes of life.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
You raise some good points in this post. I think it’s a bit unfair to criticize CDC for reporting estimates. It’s not the CDC’s fault if someone gets sick from food poisoning and doesn’t go to the doctor. It’s not the CDC’s fault if they go to the doctor but the doctor doesn’t order stool culture. The CDC estimates are designed to take into account these underreporting factors.
I think the food safety data will always be inconsistent and incomplete. Rather than bemoaning the fact, we need to try to find ways to make it more consistent and more complete, yet at the same time make the best decisions we can with the data we have.
I would be very interested to learn what specific plans you have for improving data consistency and data completeness.
– Don
I believe the gov will always be inconsistent, it promotes their fear agenda.
Art Hill Professor and Chair, Department of food Science, University of Guelph, who himself was raised on raw milk, should know better then to make the ridiculous claim that raw milk is 1000 times more dangerous then pasteurized!
How can an individual with his credentials get away with fabricating such BS.
Ken Conrad
“Careerism also encourages exaggeration and the cherry-picking of results. In order to safeguard their exclusivity, the leading journals impose high rejection rates: in excess of 90% of submitted manuscripts. The most striking findings have the greatest chance of making it onto the page. Little wonder that one in three researchers knows of a colleague who has pepped up a paper by, say, excluding inconvenient data from results based on a gut feeling.”
“Conversely, failures to prove a hypothesis are rarely even offered for publication, let alone accepted. Negative results now account for only 14% of published papers, down from 30% in 1990. ”
“The hallowed process of peer review is not all it is cracked up to be, either. When a prominent medical journal ran research past other experts in the field, it found that most of the reviewers failed to spot mistakes it had deliberately inserted into papers, even after being told they were being tested.”
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble
“Statisticians have ways to deal with such problems. But most scientists are not statisticians. Victoria Stodden, a statistician at Columbia, speaks for many in her trade when she says that scientists grasp of statistics has not kept pace with the development of complex mathematical techniques for crunching data. Some scientists use inappropriate techniques because those are the ones they feel comfortable with; others latch on to new ones without understanding their subtleties. Some just rely on the methods built into their software, even if they dont understand them.”
“Models which can be tuned in many different ways give researchers more scope to perceive a pattern where none exists. According to some estimates, three-quarters of published scientific papers in the field of machine learning are bunk because of this overfitting, says Sandy Pentland, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.”
Doesn’t this last one sound familiar? A pattern (of raw milk being dangerous) where none exists…
The CDC never discloses which illnesses were caused by milk “produced by methods intended for pasteurization and processing” (industrial, CAFO, IPP milk) and which were caused by fresh milk (i.e. pasture-fed, non-industrial fresh milk). And even a small farm could still be producing IPP milk if the farmer hasn’t learned that production methods are different. Let’s see the stats – but no – no food safety inspectors ever go out to the farms and ask to see their test results, RAMP plan, biosecurity measures, etc. and include these in their reports. They want to confuse IPP milk and fresh milk, because if you can label it *all* as “dangerous” then you can carry out your political campaign to try to get it banned (i.e. like here in Canada).
Don, I am glad you asked. Here are three things I would do to improve data consistency and completeness:
1. I would eliminate politics from the entire data collection and analysis process. This includes re-allocating budgets to not support politically inspired studies (like the MN raw milk study and the study comparing outbreaks in states with and without raw milk restrictions); all these do is foster cynicism about the agency’s goals and the quality of its data, not to mention wasting valuable financial resources.
2. I would seek to inject much more professionalism into the data collection process. Other government agencies are able to collect data in tough arenas–notably the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau. This requires tough standards, incentives to data gatherers, no excuses and no whining about how food-borne illness is a special area, too difficult to track.
3. Upgrade technologies and methodologies. The current CDC databases are crude by today’s IT standards. Not surprisingly, the resulting data is crude, as I pointed out in the post. This is part of the professionalization that needs to occur.
These are for starters.
I agree completely that those that don’t know the facts shouldnt make ridiculous, unscientific, inconsistent statements to suit their biases.
– Don
– Don
– Don
Fact one….fluid pasteurized milk is rapidly declining.
Fact two….the higher the temperature used to cook milk…the more dangerous the end product.
Fact three….RAWMI test data is flowing in from six dairies and the track record is powerful, consistent, safe, clean and compelling.
Regardless of CDC funny data….consumers dollar voting tells all!!!
Consumers are increasingly making it very clear that their freedom to choose, usurps the systems preconceived obsession to manipulate and dictate what they can or cannot eat, or feed to their children.
The governments intransigent attitude and use of oppressive tactics when dealing with consumers especially when it comes to their choice of food and medication is unwise. The insidious attempt to incorporate and regulate GMOs into the diet of every man, woman and child or to likewise vaccinate is a prime example.
Indeed as Peter Ustinov suggested, In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
Ken
– Don
I’m not sure if I understand what you mean by “system bias” but the way you pose the question assumes that one “side” or the other will “win”.
If we would look at what is happening with two other issues that I see as similarly related: legalization of gay marriage and legalization of marijuana, what we see is that state by state, different states are making decisions with respect to these two issues. Similarly the status of sale of raw milk is different in different states. If we look back on prohibition, I think we can see that was an experiment with a noble goal, but one which failed miserably. Eventually we as a nation decided we wanted to be able to consume alcohol, and for the most part we can, although in certain dry counties it still can’t be purchased.
– Don
I’m not sure which comments you are referring to as “snarky”. I really am interested in this issue, and that’s why a beautiful Saturday afternoon, when I am not paid to work, I’m responding to your comment on this blog.
You are correct that I am a university professor, and I am paid to study food poisoning, and ways to prevent it. I am not paid to do any research specifically on raw milk. The majority of my salary comes from the taxpayers of the state of New Jersey, although a small fraction also comes from federal monies so yes I suppose a small fraction of your taxes goes to pay my salary.
Please show me exactly where I have promoted the idea that raw milk is a dangerous product. I don’t remember doing that. If you know of a source for decent statistics that I can use to inform my knowledge of raw milk, please let me know.
I’m not sure how you know whether or not I “got really mad”at Ken’s answer. In fact I thought it was quite a good answer and that’s why in my response I said I was opposed to “ridiculous, unscientific, inconsistent statements”.
Again, I’m not really sure I’m trying to “defend” anything. I’m here to learn, I’m here to listen, and I’m here to ask questions and interject my opinion or the facts as I see them when I see it’s appropriate.
– Don
How can you possibly compare alcohol availability to raw milk availability? Raw milk shouldn’t HAVE to be “legalized”. There is a very sordid story behind alcohol, where there is none behind raw milk.
If you want to defend the stance that the CDC “estimates the numbers to take into account unreported data”, there is little left for any of us to try to explain to you, IMPHO, much less present you with data which you already know is out there.
I think any food that contains pathogenic bacteria is dangerous. There are many foods that can contain pathogens. Just because sprouts have caused outbreaks in the past do I think that sprouts are “dangerous”, no. Just because peanut butter has caused outbreaks in the past, do I think that peanut butter is dangerous, no. just because leafy greens have caused outbreaks in the past, do I think that leafy greens are dangerous, no. Just because cantaloupe has caused outbreaks in the past, do I think that cantaloupe is dangerous, no. I think you see the pattern here. You can keep that sentence and fill in the blank with any food that you like including raw milk, and my answer will be the same.
I would point out that raw milk is in fact legal in many states.
I want to make very clear I am not defending the CDC, I am just trying to explain part of why they use estimates.
– Don
As far as winning is concerned, its the government that has set the stage and flexed its muscles. They are the ones that have declared war on our freedom to choose.
If winning means successfully defending our free will to choose then as far as I am concerned, there are no losers, only winners, unless one is obsessed with power and control.
Ken
Do I grow my own sprouts? Yes. Do I grow my own leafy greens? Yes. Do I grow my own cantaloupe? Yes. Do I grow my own peanut butter? (!) Uh, no. Do I buy peanut butter? No. What I buy is raw peanuts and make my own. I do the same with pecans, cashews and hazelnuts. How long will it be before “relying on CDC estimates” will make it illegal for me to do any of that? Are we really that afraid of ALL bacteria?
I really don’t think the CDC, which is not a regulatory agency, has any interest in stopping you from growing your own food.
I am absolutely not afraid of all bacteria. Heck, I’ve got a boatload of them in my intestines. I’m not sure “afraid” is the right word to describe how I feel about foodborne pathogens. I have a healthy respect for them. We treat them with the respect they deserve when we work with them in the laboratory. I sure as heck don’t want it in my food. I’ve experienced food poisoning, and I don’t care to experience it again. I know people who’ve lost children to pathogenic E. coli. I can’t imagine what that would feel like. I certainly don’t want anyone to lose a loved one to foodborne disease.
– Don
—
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/03/diabetes-rises-in-kids/8604213/
—
“The increase in type 2 diabetes appears to be driven by increasing rates of obesity, lack of exercise and low-quality diets, Ludwig says. ”
–
–>>”low-quality diets” that include everything pasteurized!!!!!!!!!
—
“Eating diets rich in vegetables and plant fiber encourages the growth of gut bacteria that help to break down these foods, Ludwig says. As people eat a more processed diet, with little plant fiber, these bacteria may decrease. Although doctors aren’t totally sure how these bacterial changes affect the body, scientists are examining whether the trend could be related to rising rates of certain chronic diseases, from asthma and allergies to autism.”
–
–>> “doctors aren’t totally sure…” Until they learn, stay away from them for health issues…
Well, I guess it is time for these “doctors” to study **real** foods!!!
—
“Gut bacteria influence inflammation and the immune system,” Ludwig says. “As our diet changes and is increasingly sterile, we’re getting rid of a lot of beneficial bacteria.”
–
–>>Say it ain’t so Joe!
Could part of the answer be…..raw milk and all of its derivatives??????
—–
On a side note, we started making Kefir Whey from the whey “by product” from our cheese making. If there are folks out there that make cheese in your home for your personal use, I highly recommend taking the whey and adding kefir grains and allowing the whey to ferment….this kefir whey is a very tangy and tasty drink….just in time for summer…We use raw goat milk….so for you cow milk drinkers, you will need to experiment for yourself…
Jerry Brunetti teaches that if you have acid reflux, the problem is not too much stomach acid, but not enough stomach acid….this kefir whey (which is high in lactic acid) would be a great addition for your stomach….I know it helps me a lot.
–bill
Food is no more an industrial product than is air or water. And like air and water, food is only good (read safe) when it is natural and unadulterated. The industrial products we today call food, are not food, or they are, at best, food that is fabulously abused, unnatural, and adulterated. Industrial food is weakening, or frankly poisoning, almost every one of us while its production processes are causing soil destruction, air and water pollution, and species degradation. No amount of FDA, USDA, CDC, blah blah blah monitoring, regulation, or enforcement will ever fix it. (Quite the opposite really–all that government attention tends merely to legitimize it.)
For good health we need–NEED–intimacy with natural, diverse biological environments, balanced mineral intake, full, rounded diets, and minimized toxin exposure. (We also need diverse, gracious, and giving social connections, but that’s another story.) We have created, largely with our beloved food industry and its government (and medical, and educational, and scientific, and media) enablers, much the opposite. Isolation from diverse farm and natural environments is making us ever sicker with allergies, asthma, and sensitivities of all sorts (now even to the point where basic foods like nuts, many fruits, and plain milk have become our enemies). Lack of proper mineral support is triggering rampant degenerative disease. Unnatural food groupings (think processed, manipulated grains and sugars) are destroying our cardiovascular systems. Exposure to chemical toxins (many in and on our food) is giving us cancer. Where in hell did we get the idea that monitoring and regulating these death- and disease-inducing industries is going to protect us? Where in hell did we get the idea that the problem is a few bad actors that government need only wrestle into compliance?
We desperately need a paradigm change. Fat chance, however, while money is god and the people gladly belly up to the system koolaid bar.
Food is no more an industrial product than is air or water.
When Don states that, I really don’t think the CDC, which is not a regulatory agency, has any interest in stopping you from growing your own food, suggests to me that he is somewhat out of touch with reality.
Now, although the CDC itself may not be perceived as being directly involved, they are nonetheless part and parcel of an overall system that is.
Local small family farms and local small abattoirs are being systematically eliminated in large part by, the prevailing political, bureaucratic and social order that exist today. Its all about control for the sake of greed and/or the so-called greater good.
http://www.naturalnews.com/030799_food_freedom_Wickard_vs_Filburn.html
http://www.permanentculturenow.com/are-governments-attempting-to-stop-citizens-from-growing-their-own-food/
The numbers of small local dairy farms lost across our nations (the US and Canada) is a testimony to this fact and of excessive ever increasing and abusive regulation. As Dave correctly stated, all that government attention tends merely to legitimize it.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
Ken
Heads. In. Sand.
Same with guns – once they’re out of the hands of the “people” and into the hands of myriad agencies, we’ll all be cozy and safe and sound. Right?
In the end data are just numbers subject to manipulation, errors, and interpretation – it’s not the golden egg. Life doesn’t happen in graphs and spread sheets, get out on the farm, talk to some of these people about why they reject the regulated food system, really listen to them, and then go talk to your students, your community, your colleagues and the CDC, FDA, USDA, about what you learned. As a teacher you have the opportunity to expand minds and inspire students to think for themselves, trust their instincts, question the political/corporate party line and be a part of the solutions to the very real problems facing our world in a way that benefits all peoples, and the planet, not just those who own the system.
” Over the most recent two decades, fluid milk consumption per capita has declined, ”
http://www.epa.gov/oecaagct/ag101/printdairy.html
http://www.cobank.com/Knowledge-Exchange/~/media/Files/Unsearchable%20Files/Knowledge%20Exchange/KEFluidMilkReportJune2013.pdf
“Per capita fluid milk consumption has been in long term decline for a myriad of
reasons,”
http://www.uaex.edu/farm-ranch/animals-forages/dairy-cattle/ Sometimes it is really easy to see where schools and companies get their propaganda from. I didn’t check to see if the wording was verbatim.
http://books.google.com/books?id=DOJMAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA604&lpg=PA604&dq=fluid+pasteurized+milk+is+rapidly+declining+sales&source=bl&ots=eHxsJsn5LK&sig=AQ9PAOxpYFAW8rh0l6b4e7FJyTk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6d1mU6myL8mh8QHc0YG4Ag&ved=0CE4Q6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=fluid%20pasteurized%20milk%20is%20rapidly%20declining%20sales&f=false
Don’t want to leave out Canada http://www.canadiangrocer.com/top-stories/while-u-s-milk-industry-in-crisis-canadas-remains-stable-19218
http://foodsci.rutgers.edu/schaffner/
The same one who contributes to barfblog? Most know what barfblog views are on raw dairy and other foods. http://barfblog.com/tags/don-schaffner/
Since you asked, my vision:
Food in context is life. Life lived best is natural, caring, and responsible–all about proper relationships–with each other and with the planet we live on (the two go hand in hand). Proper relationships are not, cannot, be created from the top down. They are not system fodder, but only the result of individuals deciding to help each other.
So my advice is to just begin, on your own, with your family, by growing something for yourselves and your community. Use biodynamic principles. Experiment with permaculture. Plant as many edible perennials as you can. Then share your harvest, charging money if you must, but if at all possible instead encouraging others to help you grow things in exchange for food.
Process something you grow in your kitchen. Dry strawberries, for example, or herbs. Make pies, or canned soup. Share that with your helpers and with those who need it but can’t help you.
Expand as opportunities arise.
If you are like me, circumstances will conspire to make rural living seem suddenly, strikingly, important, and you will feel an irresistible urge to transform your life. If you have it in you, you may even become a farmer, perhaps eventually scrapping together a meager farm income from a market garden, orchard, chickens, milk, value-added products… This, if it happens, will engage you with your community like nothing you have ever done before, and, not incidentally, will also require significant financial supplementation, which you will not mind investing, because the long days you will inevitably spend getting established will be amply repaid with better health, strong friendships, and a resilient web of like-minded people who will come to your aid if troubles arise. Only when a diverse farm is fully established, and by that I mean on the land and in the community, can it sustain itself financially.
(Not everybody needs to be a farmer, but almost everybody should be growing things. Some people who grow things turn into farmers, and that’s enough.)
By the way, I have no illusions about such a plan transforming the world. I know it won’t happen, at least not while opportunities exist (and they always do) for a man to extract undue power or money from his brother. But neither do I care. I want only to keep my corner of the world clean and right, and I’m suggesting that if you adopt such a pattern, even factoring in failures, you will be making the best of your life.
Also, for the record, I know this all sounds painfully esoteric. All I can say to that is that I believe it, and have seen enough of it at work in the real world (in various stages of success and failure) to heartily sustain my belief.
I would say virtually 100 percent of food microbiologist in industry, in government, in academia find that raw milk poses significant risk and should not be consumed, Schaffner said. I dont know of any food microbiologists that are raw milk advocates.
http://news.rutgers.edu/issue.2011-11-29.5885625106/article.2011-12-14.9418220400#.U2bwDVfg_yB
I would be glad to share the reference and market Summary data showing fluid pasteurized milk sales in rapid decline. Monday morning I will send it to you. I think I have your email address. As far as RAWMI test data….our very own PhD Dr.Cat Berge DVM is in the midst of writing a acedemic research paper with RAWMI data as its foundation and source. I would glad to send you a taste of it….but she would ring my neck if I sent all of it to you. When her work is peer reviewed and published soon, the idea that raw milk is inherently dangerous will end.
We must all end the notion that all raw milk is the same or even similar at all…the new paradigm of thought must be that each source of raw milk has its very own risk profile. In the case of RAWMI Listed sources it appears that these sources are very low risk and consistent in their low risk profile as well.
I just sat down after 36 hours of being the focus of the fulfilling connection I have ever experienced. OPDC just completed its 3rd annual Camping with the Cows event. 350 of our dear and very special consumers showed up ( stores and their teams that carry opdc even showed up !!) and the times were so very special. Great food, lots of events, milk chugging contests for all, all you can drink raw milk, a movie in the pasture at night, camping on the pastures, Bon fires and roasting marshmallows, farm tours, milking demonstrations, six booths with intensive educational demonstrations showing all of our systems from grass to glass including our food safety RAMP program. Our OPDC team did a fantastic job. Fb is swimming is wonderful pictures.Our OPDC farmer to consumer connection is forever welded!!!
This morning after everyone had awaken…we had a VIP tour of our new labeling room and the creamery…followed by Blaine’s super smoothies with kefir, banana, berries, honey…totally yummy.
Moms came to me one after another….each with a story of thankfulness and healing. Asthma kids with a history of repeated ER visits and multiple anti biotics treatments every year…after OPDC raw milk, no more ER visits, no more anti biotics, no more meds. Easy breezy winters…healthy kids. Tearful moms!!!
This is what compels me. No amount of FDA, industry, or university PHD dogma will put a wet towel on our work and our nourishing of real families. This is real…this is humanity and this can not be suppressed.
It is tragic to even think that what I experienced with our consumers is not worthy of study or FDA focus.
That is an American tragedy. What is not a tragedy and is the greatest hope for our future is the consciousness of people that have awaken to the pharma FDA mess and choose a farmer over pharma.
My heart is so happy and my soul is fulfilled!!
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323316804578165503947704328
108:30 – Likens raw milk to illegal drugs and needle sharing, that it’s a moral issue that you can’t make it safe because you don’t want more people trying it.
109:15 – Says he can’t believe that making it illegal fixes it, because it clearly doesn’t. But then says that legalizing it gives it legitimacy, which they do NOT want to do.
So, according to Mr Schaffner and his friend Mr. Chapman, it’s just as bad as heroin and we are all therefore just as bad as dope addicts are.
Is this just an off the cuff statement by the authors of the article or were they prompted by marketers in the dairy industry to make such a statement?
Its amazing that anyone would even consider tooting such products as authentic let alone believe that consumers can be fooled into thinking that they are?
CARBMaster contains 20% more protein and lower sugar content than conventional milk?
http://www.fooducate.com/app#page=product&id=657CCF62-6408-11E2-AD7C-1231381A4CEA
Rockin’ Refuel a muscle builder version of its high-protein milk combines chocolate milk and added protein?
http://www.fooducate.com/app#page=product&id=4BE5188E-DCFD-11E2-A48E-1E047F2017A1
Ken
Ken
their side for many more years to come! California being the bread basket of the nation and OPDC are feeding thousands of families daily with this unadulterated product that is health promoting the positives on all levels will not be denied by industry hawks forever.
And one more thing your RAWMI studies indicating the relevant safety of raw milk parallels my own 30 year experience with sourcing raw dairy for my family since 1979!
Before you put raw milk on the retail self, I sourced my dairy from low risk farmers.
It is not rock science just the use of common sense! Inconvenient, yes, for I am a city dweller but certainly not impossible. And yes, it made ALL the difference in my health,
my daughters health (she is affected by cerebral palsy), and my son and husband like it too! Yes, at first they thought I was crazy that I should be so obsessed with procuring farm fresh milk, but it has paid off BIG TIME just in terms of our health no Pharma meds not even my daughter! If that isnt success, then I dont understand the concept!
I am even privileged now to help my farmer with her dairy cows 2x/week! I am a milkmaid me, a city dweller! I have to thank Dave Milano on this blog for that inspiration he really writes well!
For the betterment of mankind and all humanity I have a vision of forcing the closes eyes of the FDA and industry open to the needs of the consumers health. Currently, the system ignors consumers needs ( and even their reports and testimonials and huge EU peer reviewed studies ) and focusses on cheap and easy production and shelf life. Who suffers? GUT LIFE and people. THIS IS SIMPLY WRONG!
What is very telling in this modern age is that in the end, it is industry that finally suffers. They will learn soon that they simply can not sell hyper allergenic and non digestible dead milk. So this lie is self limiting. if the FDA is reading this….this is golden information. Golden!!!
Don…please send me your email contact. I can not seem to locate it. http://www.mark@organicpastures.com
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201206/groovy-probiotics
In reference to what she calls commensal beasties i.e. gut bacteria, the author, Emily Deans states As I mentioned earlier, there is a great deal we don’t know. As the organisms can’t be cultured, it’s difficult to study the secret life of the wee beasties while the host is walking around doing the day to day. There are zillions of varieties of beasties, and typically the probiotics used for studies depend on what company is supplying them rather than a more specific rationale or knowledge of the effects of each species.
So what, exactly, do we know? As far back as 1929 it was discovered that human carriers of certain Clostridium species who were given epinephrine to treat hives died suddenly of gas gangrene (oops). For 60 years, it was thought the epinephrine somehow suppressed the immune system, leading to the sudden fulminant infection. In the early 1990s, however, it was found that yes, indeed, gut bacteria could respond directly to human neurochemicals (such as epinephrine). It has been further proven (with the flurry of recent papers) that the communication between the beasties and the brain is a two way street. Neurochemicals are highly conserved in evolution – bacteria, plants, insects, and fish all produce forms of the neurochemicals called the catecholemines. Thus it makes sense that bacteria in our gut can communicate directly with using, to some extent, the same “language” as our mammalian brains.
She further contemplates, it seems to me our ancestors and their fermented traditions have been mining microbes for these uses for some time, without all the species typing and science. Then she oddly suggests that, You have to be careful when you ferment and can foods at home, as pathogenic bacteria can live in your food along with the healthy probiotics.
The canning process can use either fermentation heat sterilization or a combination of both. Dehydration is another commonly used option for extending the shelf life of food. I prefer fermentation and dehydration without the sterilization when possible, which initiates a type of microbial hibernation that slows down the spoiling process but doesnt totally prevent it. Its a balancing act in order to achieve an appealing palatable product. The last thing on my mind is food safety and so it was with our ancestors until the germ theory materialized.
Today there is a vast array of chemicals used along with heat in order to extend the storage, life of food, and I emphasized the word life because these foods are basically dead, toxic and nurture poor health.
Ken
http://www.naturalnews.com/044987_food_freedom_raw_milk_libertarian_lawmakers.html
But as the movement gains support inside (and outside) the Beltway, consumer advocates say they hope the movement to support small producers does not outweigh efforts to make food safer When you talk about food freedom and public health, you want food to be free of pathogens, Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America, told Politico. You have to be very careful in how you look at this and craft those proposals because it could mean putting consumers at risk in order to alleviate some regulatory burdens for local farmers.”
Rubbish if there is anything we need to be careful about its the chemicals, hormones and drugs used not only in the production and processing of food, but in our day to day environment as well, which opens the door for microorganisms to do their badly needed yet sometimes unpleasant clean up work. If we truly care about food safety this is where our focus should be.
Which brings us to the next point made in the article, However, supporters of food freedom, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who sponsored a pair of raw-milk bills and is now hoping to assume a leadership role in the movement, insist that the argument about food safety is moot, because Big Ag is causing more problems.
Food safety is indeed a moot point if we fail to address the toxic interventionary factor and it would indeed also be wise to keep in mind the medical professions insidious toxic role in causing more problems.
Ken
Food freedom has had some successes in certain areas of America. Please note that right after the legislative successes….RAWMI gets a call from ignorant producers that have made some people sick.
When food freedom does not also provide producers with training and standards, there is a really big problem. Do food freedom advocates care about the aftermath of zealot freedom? Our greatest challenge and the reason we lost our food freedoms in the first place was because industry made food safe using industrial systems that we now know can also make us sick over he long term. We as a people are now rebelling and wanting whole food that are produced in a natural system that nourishes our inner ecosystem.
When ever I speak to food freedom advocates, there seems to be deer in the head lights look of disdain….like owe not that again. However, if you speak with any RAWMI Listed dairyperson, you will hear excitement and a proud pioneering spirit with regards to their systems that reduce risk. Food safety RAWMI style is not boring…it is fun, hardwork, very cool and gives producers very tangible test results that they can see and show the world.
Just remember this….food freedom and food safety go together. I know…I get the calls.
Why not fix the safety first…freedom will follow very quickly thereafter I promise.
I have no issue with RAWMI, I think what you and others are attempting to do with respect to the process is admirable. My concern however with a stopgap measures of this kind is that it serves as a distraction and fails to address the root of the problem.
You know as well as I do that this issue is not about food safety, albeit it is being used as a powerful excuse to manipulate the masses through fear. You aught to think long and hard before you start labeling food freedom advocates as irresponsible zealots!
Ken
I really wish you could not straw man and caricature those who disagree with. It certainly does little to get people to consider your viewpoint.
do you have any proof that EVERY TIME a legislature passes RM stuff that you ALWAYS get a call from a farmer who made people sick? Because I have yet to see those glaring headlines… I mean, given those who oppose raw milk, if what you are saying is true, wouldn’t we be hearing about it ceaselessly?
I guess Mark, how am I and others to trust you and RAWMI when you can’t even handle basic facts and other viewpoints with accuracy and respect?
Every time you speak to FF adovocates? Every time, Mark?
Again, you have a real penchant for misrepresenting people who don’t quite see things exactly like you, and that is a real problem, one I encourage you to deal with and apologize and make right to the large number of people who have mistreated, insulted, and otherwise maligned here and perhaps elsewhere.
I am a FF “advocate,” I have had multi-hour conversations with the farmers who supply RM to the group I am a part of about safety, about the new on farm technologies that allow test and hold and so much else. But I guess we are all just dears in the head lights…
I know tons of other FF advocates who are doing the same, and Mark, you know this is true. It just doesn’t fit your narrative agenda, and thus you ignore it.
If you and RAWMI were not so divisive and dismissive, our whole movement would probably be farther along on the path of both freedom and safety.
Per your last comment, safety first, freedom will follow, history don’t sing that tune. And how you define freedom is important. Creating raw milk cartels via government regulation and public private partnerships isn’t freedom… even if people thus have access to raw milk.
Per MW dictionary; a zealot is a “person who has very strong feelings about something (such as religion or politics) and who wants other people to have those feelings” (Some things just make you go Hmmm)
I’m not a zealot as I don’t care if another persons views are the same as mine, I am ok with them believing whatever they wish, just don’t interfere with my beliefs or my food chain.
– Don
But I’m not barfblog and barfblog is not me.
– Dr. Schaffner
– Don
I know a man in his 30s who had lifelong IBS and eczema and both of these symptoms began disappearing when he began drinking raw milk two years ago, and they now have disappeared entirely. He has also been on a gluten-free diet for years now (has not been tested for celiac disorder but couldn’t eat wheat at all without experiencing extreme pain) and 2 years after starting raw milk can now eat limited quantities of wheat without IBS symptoms. He feels that raw milk has been healing his gut. Maybe it is the restoration of the microbiome? Either way, raw milk has worked for him.
I am glad to here you working with your suppy farmers with regards to their systems to assure that your raw milk is low risk.
Point of reference; Tennessee and their outbreak “post Cow Share laws being passed”. I got the call at RAWMI to help fix the problem after the fact. That is one example, there have been others.
Chill dude…we are on the same side.
The Pre-resident Obamas besides having an organic garden in the WH lawn also have a passion for cactus tea and also use tons of real sugar cane sugar and raw milk whey for fertilizer.
They call it Sweet Home Aloebama ~rimshot~ Old Grey Whistle Test don’ know what thats about or Neil Young but I feel the bass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwWUOmk7wO0
Please don’t call me black or white am neither or even a fake blonde sorry mary but I an gettting whiter by the years. Blue eyes extra but I didn’t have any never did.
They removed my analog meter and installed one of these last year, even though none of the other 14 units here have one. I assumed it’s some kind of spy meter, part of what did that NSA whistleblower Snowden say, the NSA wants every conversation on the planet recorded?
Anyway you all need to look into this, because my brother works for the power company up north and he says they are coming there too. Not just for dissidents, but for everyone. The govt and media cartel claim these new “meters” monitor electrical usage in your home, etc ., but obviously they can be updated anytime, remotely, to have enhanced capabilities. Clearly Big Brother is tightening the screws on their surveillance of us.
What I didn’t realize until recently though, is these things emit a huge amount of electro pollution into yoru home. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since they installed this thing. See the youtube video called How Smart Meters Affect Your Body, where a chiropractor tests his patients’ blood pressure and heart rates before and after expose to smart meters. Pretty scary. I have more to say but the library is closing here, sorry if typos, sending this out.
I’ve read stories of people becoming ill. Privacy is a big issue. Also there are numerous stories of peoples bills more than doubling after installation of the meters. My sister got one a few years ago in california. The meter is on the garage wall, away from the house itself. She said her bill went up a few dollars , less than $5 (she watched it because she heard the stories too about increased bills) She hasn’t felt any health changes. It’s concerning when one isn’t sure what or who to believe.
http://emfsafetynetwork.org/smart-meters/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/federicoguerrini/2014/06/01/smart-meters-friends-or-foes-between-economic-benefits-and-privacy-concerns/
http://stopsmartmeters.org/
That’s why checking things out directly is priceless. That chiropractor I mentioned above didn’t rely on claims or studies, he just tested his patients’ heart rates and blood pressure directly.
I think there’s little question that what these smart meters really do is record your entire life. As a kid we used to take plastic cups and connect them with a string and we could talk across the room thru them. You can place a glass against a wall and hear into the adjacent room. Certainly the NSA technology is a little more advanced than this. Most likely the “smart meter” reads the sound imprints in the house, sending records of all conversations to the bad guys.
If you are familiar with how dolphins navigate in the darkest waters by emitting sonar from two locations on their head, … this sends back an echo pattern, a 3 dimensional sound pattern that their brain reads.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these meters generate the same kind of thing by pulsing electricity into the wiring in your home. Smile, you’re on candid camera.
I first became aware of the subject of Hypnosis 40 years ago, when I got a book from the library and then hypnotized my brother. I then gave him the hypnotic command that he was unable to stop his hands from moving in a circle. I watched in amazement as his hands circled over and over, while he grimaced, trying to stop them from moving, and they kept going. I tried it with my other brother and the same thing happened.
No matter how many times I have seen hypnosis demonstrated, it still boggles my mind that the human mind has this vulnerability. A man can be told he’s a chipmunk, and he will act like a chipmunk, and you try to tell him he’s not a chipmunk and he ignores you, or even gets angry. Post hypnotic suggestions can last for a long time.
Once you understand that hypnosis can be used on the human mind to cause people to act as if they are mentally retarded, the next thing to learn is that hypnotic energy and commands can be sent unseen to the victim, and various technologies can be used and combined in this regard. One obvious example is tv screens, which flash unnoticed to you, in a rhythmic fashion that induces a hypnotic state. (oneradionetwork dot com has a good talk on this). I don’t watch tv, but when I see people sitting in front of it, motionless, eyes wide open, and you hear the “news” caster saying things that are about as moronic as telling someone they are a chipmunk… but the suggestions are entering their subconscious mind, well you get the idea.
Once you are familiar with the subject of Hypnosis, and then that it can be delivered in ways seen but also in ways unseen, then you will see evidence it is being used on people at every turn. This whole blog here, on raw milk, would be totally unnecessary if people had control of their minds. (er, is it ok to eat ancient superfoods that prevent and heal disease?)
The most obvious example I can think of to show that they have effective ways to hypnotize you is the fact that 7 billion people currently think that their own species is obscene, and children should be kept from seeing their own species. If you could come out of the hypnotic stupor they have put you in, and really see this, you would start crying like a baby that they are able to do this to the human mind.
So the smart meter, pulsing energy into your home, can be used to further disorient your bio energy, making your mind even more malleable to the hypnotic assault they constantly bombard you with.
I am not a defeatist. “God will work with you but not for you.”
The only way we can get rid of the thing is to install an analog meter. The problem with that is that first you have to find an old analog meter and then you have to find someone to install it. Also, there’s no guarantee the electric company won’t come and take it off and install a smart meter again. There appears to be little we can do about this situation. I’ve watched some videos online where they say you can do this or that – but no, you really can’t. It’s one of those decisions we citizens don’t get to vote on or take a poll about or anything else. It should be called a sort of entrapment by the PUC, but that will never happen in a gazillion years.
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/oklahoma-alternative-energy-taxes-20140423
Here’s something you might want to skim thru, some basic info on how spy devices work… I think you’ll see that between the Smart Meter, the devices already in your home, and the NSA supercomputer remotely in communication with the smart meter, well, “Welcome to Thunderdome”.
http://www.wright.edu/rsp/Security/V3bugs/Methods.htm
http://naturalsociety.com/women-fights-sovereignty-judge-declares-living-grid-illegal/