Last week, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) announced that raw milk from Claravale Dairy had tested positive for campylobacter, forced a recall of all its milk, and quarantined the dairy.
Claravale, one of Californias two largest raw milk producers (along with Organic Pastures Dairy Co.) hasnt exactly been a model of for raw milk safety of late. This is the second outbreak blamed on Claravale in the last three years; in 2012, the dairys milk was blamed for 22 campylobacter illnesses.
Claravale hasnt said a word about the illnesses on its web site. In the process, Claravale has left itself wide open to being positioned by California public health authorities and the media, and predictably, they have positioned Claravale, and raw milk, as highly dangerous.
Heres how the situation has unfolded:
In announcing the recall and quarantine, and explaining campylobacter, the CDFA said, The illness is usually mild and some people with campylobacteriosis have no symptoms at all.
Earlier this week, the California Department of Public Health went considerably beyond what CDFA had said, announcing, Six Northern California residents have recently been diagnosed with campylobacteriosis, a bacterial infection that can come from consuming contaminated raw milk. A recent investigation conducted by CDPH identified multiple bottles of Claravale Farm raw milk that tested positive for Campylobacter.
Note that the CDPH doesnt say the six people with infections from campylobacter drank raw milk from Claravale. Nor does CDPH characterize the six illnesses; it only makes a general statement that the consumption of unpasteurized (raw) dairy products may cause serious illness.
Yet in three news reports from the Bay Area, those illnesses were not only linked to raw milk, but had become serious illnesses.
6 Bay Area Residents Fall Seriously Ill After Consuming Raw Milk, headlined a Fox News outlet.
A similar headline came from Pacifica Patch, a local paper: Six Bay Area residents have recently fallen seriously ill from consuming raw milk, health officials said.
Monkey-see-monkey-do, decided a third outlet, an NBC affiliate, which said in its opening sentence on the same story, The state Department of Public Health is warning the public of the dangers of consuming raw milk after six Bay Area residents fell seriously ill
How did an agriculture department announcement about a finding of campylobacter pathogens, which most often lead to mild illness, morph into six definite cases of serious illness from raw milk?
Obviously, the CDFA and CDPH werent real careful in their terminology. But the media are supposed to read the press releases, make sense of them, and when they cant make sense of them, inquire with government officials for clarification (and then quote the government officials clarifying the situation). None of that seems to have happened.
I’m willing to accept the possibility that all six people who became ill from campylobacter had consumed tainted Claravale milk (though I would have liked to have seen an explicit connection). What bothers me more is substitution of the word serious for mild.
One word can make a huge difference in perception. Why is it that the media descriptions seem to use the most fear-laden verbiage? And why is it that the public health authorities never seem to object to the media putting out erroneous reports?
The public health professionals are supposed to be committed to keeping the public informed about public health threatsmaking sure to not under-state problems, and especially not to over-state threats, and create undue alarm or panic. And the media are supposed to be committed to accurate reporting. When it comes to raw milk, though, all such concerns get thrown out the window. And when the accused dairy withdraws into silence, it simply rolls out the red carpet to get dragged through the mud
It really burns me up when the CA Department of Health Services advises consumers not to drink raw milk, when they know damn well that Pasteurized dairy products have killed so many….and campy is everywhere with thousands of people per year sickened from products like chicken!!! It is so obvious, so disingenuous, so clearly an effort to disparage a legal food in CA.
I am sending our CA DPH a letter next week complaining of this very issue. They have no right to disparage a legal food. Especially a food that they know builds immunity and decreases allergies and asthma. A food that has been found to reduce colds and ear infections by 30% ( Dr. Loss, Von Mutius et al 2014 ) how dare they!
They dare because we do not call them on it. I am calling them on this issue and i will make this a very public issue. They work the people of California. Not vise versa. Many members of the legislature in CA drink raw milk, perhaps we can call for hearings and have CA DPH appear to explain themselves and why they fail to warn consumers about pasteurized dairy allergies and death from pasteurized dairy products.
In all honesty….I have busted my butt to work with CA DPH, this is a betrayal on so many levels.
No one appears to be in a hospital. All six are in hospitalized. How can that be serious?
It is very telling when OPDC sends out a press release announcing our super innovative first ever pathogen “test & hold” program and we get one local radio station interview. No other coverage outside of that.
The definition of what constitutes news….is all screwed up.
Said this before: ignore the background noise and focus on teaching safety and our dear consumers.
On a brighter note, a documentary film crew just spent two days at OPDC filming and interviewing. They have completed a few days with Joel Salatin and other food leaders as part of this effort. They even traveled to India to interview Dr. Shiva. Their documentary is called “Revolution Food”. The message rocks!! The CA DPH may disparage raw milk….but really who cares, their options are so irrelevant they have become part of the din of the background noise and their words are ignored by he conscious.
David,
They know damn well that if properly manipulated, these illnesses serve as a stimulus to evoke control via fear. Indeed, they pull those very same self-serving stunts by way of their so-called vaccine preventable diseases. However, in the case of raw milk, pasteurization and sterilization have become the vaccines that prevent food born illnesses yet the only similarity that exist between these various methods are their toxic immune desruptive aftereffects.
All of us here share a common objective with varying opinions as to how and achieve it; my only concern is, can we produce a product that is safe enough to overcome the systems egotistic greed? With organisms as ubiquitous and survival-driven as campylobacter and e coli I doubt that we can. So the only real alternative is for tptb to acknowledge our freedom to choose and we all know that that is not going to happen any time soon unless we assert ourselves and take it. Indeed this ongoing struggle has been the bane of humanities existence throughout the course of history.
Ken
Brilliant advice.
Thank you…will do!
This is also a huge correlation between states that allow legal raw milk and growth of dairies in the USA and the rapid growth of Raw Milk Demand in the USA. Check this out!!
Wisconsin lost 570 dairies in 2014….Pennsylvania gained 170.
We all know that Wisconsin is the land of ZERO legal raw milk…and that Pennsylvania is the land of LEGAL regulated tested RAW MILK….Edwin Shank, Amish producers, Penn State extension raw milk experts and technical achievement that supports raw milk!! The math is pretty darn simple. Pennsylvania feeds the surrounding states with raw milk! They even feed pathetic Maryland,….the land of FDA and starving frustrated consumers that are forced to drive with ice chests and kids in car seats in order to eat.
California lost 57 dairies in total, but gained countless small raw cow shares and at least 2 legal raw milk dairies ie… Schoch and San Martin. CA also gained two more RAWMI LISTED micro dairies!! Susan Munoz and Pattie Chelseth. CA now has 4 RAWMI LISTED raw milk producers with a total of 8 nationally and internationally.
This comes from a multiple page report published in the Progressive Dairymen’s magazine. It is available to view at http://www.progressivepublish.com/stats In that same dairy magazine, there are two huge articles that write about how to make safe raw milk and how raw milk is emerging in retail stores all over America!!!
Don’t you just love the true indisputable data and the facts!!
I find the word ‘supposed’ is like the word ‘if’, both can have huge meanings when informing or misinforming about something.
I think there was a recent infection in the Philadelphia area, tainted food and around 100 people infected, yet the Dept of Penn Health didn’t disclose what restaurant it “possibly” came from.
Is this selective reporting? Fear sells.
I feel for Claravale. They had a stellar reputation. Is it the drought? The weather? What has changed that has caused these issues for them?
We had been drinking OP when they had their recalls, in 2006. None of us got sick, just as the other 1000s who drank it didn’t.
So out of all the people who consume Claravale milk, only 6 “supposedly” are ill from it? Amazing.
You might want to check the link again. It didn’t work for me. Thanks.
It takes the following to become sick:
1–A pathogen must be present and it must be a virulent form
2–There must be a load of those pathogens big enough to trigger infection ( quorum sensing effect)
3–Host immunity must be susceptible ( have a weak immune system )
If these three elements are missing…no illness occurs. Makes you really wonder.
http://www.progressivedairy.com/
Also another quick Q: We’ve been drinking Trader J’s cherry juice for a long time and it says “flash pasteurized” on the label what exactly is that, similar to UHT? Also says “shake well before serving” do you recommend that for your raw milk as well?
http://www.foodrenegade.com/just-say-no-to-uht-milk/
Under #3, I’d suggest adding after weak …..’/naive’ immune system.
Also, if pathogens are not evenly distributed in milk, there can be ‘infective’ bottles and safe ones from the same milking.
Hope this helps.
John
Im assuming by your last sentence when you say, If these three elements are missing, that you mean, all three in conjunction if missing, no illness occurs.
Scientists, doctors and the public at large use the term immune system as a catch all phrase to describe why some people acquire illness and others do not. Ask them however to describe what immunity means and you are apt to get an array of opinions that may seem reasonable but are ultimately not fully understood and as of yet, not proven.
I previously referred to the following statement by Arturo Casadevall M.D. and Liise-Anne Pirofski, M.D. professors in the Department of Medicine (infectious diseases) and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Clearly, defining protective efficacy of an Ab (antibody) molecule in a predictive fashion is currently beyond the state of immunological science and may not be possible with current reductionistic approaches to scientific problems. Emphasis in brackets mine.
And keep in mind that they are only speaking in terms of antibodies!
http://hippocratesinst.org/Research-Findings/our-immune-system-a-miracle-of-creation
This article will identify the immune systems defense troops and their roles, look at possible reasons for its decline, and give you simple ways to support it. Though you may not fully understand the description of the immune system (no scientist fully understands this complex system), dont let this stop you from practicing the twelve simple recommendations at the end of this article
Our immunity to illness and disease is what it is, as a result of past exposure to microorganisms both pathogenic and non-pathogenic. So any attempt to disrupt that symbiotic relationship between man and microbe is ultimately counterproductive.
I am also curious as to how you distinguish between a virulent and non-virulent pathogen in the case of asymptomatic infections. In individuals with such infections, the so-called pathogen is clearly not virulent, in other words virulence is predetermined by the state of our immune system.
Ken
I must really congratulate the Fairlife promotion team…they got it right when it comes to the farmer pictures and an attempt at knowing your farmer….very nicely done.
The product…not so much. What a super highly processed fake dairy product.
However…this is a highly individualized experience. What may be true for one person may not be true for the next.
I suspect such studies (in humans) would be deemed unethical. My understanding is as follows. Milk fat globules are surrounded by apical cell membrane from the mammary epithelial cell. This membrane shares some similarity with that of other epithelia, such as the intestinal mucosa. Some pathogens express adhesive molecules on their surface that allows them to attach to epithelial cells. In milk, these organisms can preferentially adhere to the milk fat globules. Any that proliferate will start a colony (which will mainly remain on the same globule, i think). Therefore, at least in theory, depending on the number and distribution of affected globules, the milk can become a threat (or not) because the globules are part of a stable suspension. The rest might be as simple as a lottery.
John
The other obvious variable is temperature control. Even if campylobacter was present at low levels in milk, and evenly distributed throughout many bottles, if some bottles were not kept cold they could become campylobacter incubators. We see this when we test milk for SPC. A cold jar of milk from the fridge may show <100 SPC. Leave it at room temperature 2 hours and the count will be in the thousands. 6 hours at room temp and we see numbers in the 10s or 100s of thousands. Its a significant increase in a realitively short amount of time.
Now to the matter of CA DPH slamming and denigrating raw milk.
I am writing the letter of complaint to CA DPH right now. I have never ever heard of a government agency actively disparaging a legal food product….never ever, except for one food…raw milk!! In fact some states have passed veggie libel laws to product producers from just this type of brutality. This last week, CA DPH advised the public to never drink raw milk. This inspite of laws passed in 1977 that assures all citizens in CA of the right to access raw milk. This inspite of the fact that there have been huge numbers of people sickened by pasteurized milk ( more than 450,000 since 1972 ) and over 80 deaths from pasteurized dairy products since 1972!! And zero deaths from raw milk or raw dairy products.
I am also including the fact that 6 huge peer reviewed published studies in the EU have shown that unprocessed raw fresh milk reduces allergies, asthma, ear infections, reduces colds 30% or more. To disparage a legal food that has medical benefits is an outrage and I am going to unleash myself on CA DPH and hold them acceptable. I am asking for a public retraction of their statement and a commitment to be neutral on raw milk. If they do not comply and apologize….I know a public benefit legal firm that will drag them into court and start naming names and making certain people personally accountable.
This is not a threat or a choice or hurt feelings….this is a mandate that our state regulators start respecting the law and the people and consumers they are supposed to serve. If CA DPH wants raw milk safety improvements, then they should start holding meetings or classes to train producers. Until then, they must respect food choices and respect the slight risk consumers take to access the massive benefits of raw milk. That slight risk is a fraction of the risk of any of the foods listed on the top ten most risky foods in America list, which includes pasteurized cheese and pasteurized ice cream. No raw dairy products are on that risk list !
I will publish my letter at our website when it is ready. This letter will only come after considerable thought and contemplation. It is time that our friends at DPH start acknowledging this emerging market and bring their resources to the table to help not hurt us. For example, it was CA DPH that very generously tested all of the OPDC cows manure for ecoli pathogens two years ago. We deeply appreciated this effort and collaboration. The tests were done during the early fall on the hottest days to see how the cows did under heat stress. This is the kind of cooperation that helps all raw milk producers. We embrace and deeply appreciate this work. We do not need our state regulators playing FDA games with our sovereign foods…foods that our state legislature has made consumer accessible and 100 % legal.
Ken
The fact that I dont wash my eggs when I crack one open every day and mix it in with a glass of raw milk and drink it, may make some folks cringe. Am I worried about campylobacter on eggs or for that matter in raw milk where it may or may not be evenly distributed? Not at all, in fact I welcome its challenge.
Ken
Anyway this gangster network, which controls the pharmaceutical cartel among other things, just killed my cousin. 52 years old and he just died from “colitis”. I tried to get to my relatives info on fecal transplant therapy and other simple ways to heal this condition. Miguel the soil scientist had posted in this blog how colitis, like so many conditions today, has to do with the germaphobe disease model that is promoted endlessly by Big Pharma and company. Miguel said there’s like a 95 percent cure rate for conditions like colitis when microbes are introduced into the digestive tract, as in fecal transplant. David also wrote about this in the past. The sanitized, antibiotic, germophobic approach to health today has led to people’s systems missing the rich variety of microbes needed to sustain health. As the longest lived cultures know, the raw milk drinking peoples, it’s the rich diversity of microbes in raw milk and other natural foods that keeps us healthy.
But my relatives trusted in the germophobic disease model and now my cousin is dead. I’ve heard it’s tens of thousands of people dying every year now just in the US from these types of conditions where they lack the rich diversity of microbes that their bodies should contain, that have been killed off with pasteurization, sanitizers, antibacterial soap, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.
Btw campylobacter incidence is actually reduced by consuming raw diary and other whole foods. And it’s easily treated with a few cents worth of clay. Look into clay for healing digestive problems. But they aint gonna teach medical doctors this of course. Thinking people know that the real reason for the governments ongoing dirty trick and false science campaign to discredit the healthiest food there is, raw milk, is precisely because of its health benefits. Sickness is the biggest business today, bigger than oil or even war. If anyone would like to join me in yet another prayer:
Creator, I ask that the evil being done to block our access to raw dairy return to those doing it in the way that is best.
the ancient Israel-ites made good use of imprecatory prayer. Which is why the hirelings and barkless dogs and false teachers who infest the pulpits of Baal-barns in Hamerica, today, make sure those in the pews remain Biblical illiterates … ignorant of the power of this weapon against our mortal enemies
Just as a warm reminder….raw milk is not even mentioned on the top ten most risky foods in America List!!! Look at the middel if the list….two pasteurized dairy products. Cheese and ice cream…there they are!!! Oh…I thought that the FDA guaranteed and promised that only pasteurized dairy products were safe to eat.
What a crock!!!
Folks I just mentioned how the medical cartel/Big Ag/Government just murdered my cousin at 52. You know two of my other cousins recently died in their early 50s from cancer. Cancer usually means your body is starved of oxygenating minerals such as calcium, and good oils, the kinds of things found in abundance in raw milk. It’s unbelievable the amount of human sickness and suffering today, that is created by the “modern” tainted foods, such as pasteurized dairy, hydrogenated oils (the real cause of most heart disease), refined sugars, etc. You can buy all the toxic foods you want at your friendly neighborhood grocery store, but you can’t buy real food that protects your health and has stood the test of time for thousands of years, raw dairy. But as I’ve tried to explain, that’s the whole idea, to demonize real foods and make you sick with fake foods. And did I mention you can also buy all the weird chemical drugs you want from your friendly neighborhood drug store right next to your “food” store, to “treat” the illnesses that they in fact caused.
My friend, who’s managed a health food store for 35 years, was just telling me about some drug that several years back was found to have caused something like 50 thousand heart attacks which they admit to, the real number probably much more, … and yet no one was ever prosecuted for this mass murder. He also told me he went online to look up a plant that he’s recommended for years for certain conditions, and a customer had recently said “it looks like it might be dangerous”, and online he was shocked to find all these fake websites trying to scare people away from this plant. He was amazed at how organized the disinformation is on the web today to promote the medical cartel and slander the natural medicines.
He had been telling me about all the mothers that have come into the health food store with children that have been damaged by vaccines, where they were perfectly healthy and then as soon as being “vaccinated” they had severe health problems, and the doctors are taught it’s all a random coincidence. Thinking people know that the entire vaccination industry is based on lies. Most all my nieces and nephews have weird allergies and breathing problems from those weird chemical vaccines.
I was explaining to the people that work at that health food store how the government has an ongoing campaign running to demonize raw milk, but they didn’t need to be convinced. They were pretty aware of how incredibly evil and devious the medical cartel is, and had stories to tell me too.
My brother in law just had a big chunk of his foot chopped off. He has “diabetes” now, which is another basically new disease, created by refined sugars and mineral deficiencies. Last year I wrote my sister and told her about using raw dairy to remineralize his body, heal from the inside out. She sounded real receptive, so I was surprised to learn recently that my brother in law’s condition had not improved but had worsened. Then I just learned he didn’t take my advice, he hasn’t been drinking raw milk, because he fell for the government propaganda smearing it. So now he may lose his foot.
If anyone would like to repeat my earlier prayer, feel free.
There are doctors (MD’s), researchers, ND’s, nutritionists, etc., who are interviewed.
This is episode one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rc1rtIxvkao
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/
I enjoyed the link very much. Ty has a real message and has done a great job of interviewing doctors and experts about he wholly corrupt and misguided medical industry that has America in a chokehold of fear and ignorance. I encourage you to please post the balance of the links. This message does not conflict with raw milk..in fact, it is key to understanding the FDA and industrial oppression of raw milk!!
If I were to listen to this you tube video online, it would take up a ton of data and cost me an arm and a leg.
Is there a DVD available?
Ken
since you’ve set up an altar to a god other than the God of Israel, namely Jesus Christ … I won’t be joining in your prayer to = I guess? = yourself?
what’s obvious is: you have an enormous blindspot as to the origin of evil. The white race, being descended directly from the man, Jacob, does have mortal enemies. Once you grasp that our God is at war with them through out history – as explained in the Bible – then the situation today, starts to make sense … the enemy is not the Grand Conspiracy = each of those human beings is only a tool in His hand. Our God is using them to chasten us for having rejected Him and His laws.
there is a God, but you’re not Him
If I (or anyone else) can find the answer to your question, I’ll let you know.
Indeed, this is good information, and he picked good people to interview, IMPHHO. I’ve read books by a lot of the people he talked with in these interviews and gathered a lot of information about all sorts of diseases and conditions.
But back to raw milk. I went online to see if I could find some kind of independent source to show how many people are killed each year by antibiotics, and just establishment sources came up, but even their accounts are mind blowing. Look at this article where the establishment itself says antibiotics are killing 15000 people a year just in the US, just from one of the sickness conditions they cause, c difficile infection.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/super-bug-linked-antibiotic-kills-30000-yearly/story?id=29226704
Here’s an interesting passage in that article, and surprising they’d even admit this:
’Antibiotics kill off beneficial bacteria in the gut which fight infection, leaving space for C. Diff to come in and release its toxins,’ explained Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert with Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee.
Studies show that more than half of patients receive antibiotics at some point in their stay, and up to 50 percent of antibiotic use is unnecessary…”
Using their own numbers, 15 thousand deaths a year just from c diff illness created by antibiotics. And how many deaths a year do they attribute to raw milk consumption for the 10 million drinkers? The closest whole number would be zero, even using their fake stories. You can go into your friendly neighborhood pharmacy and buy all the antibiotics you want, but if someone wants to protect their intestinal tract by buying raw milk, it’s illegal.
There’s another article here that turned up in the search, talking about how 80 percent of antibiotic use in the US is now going to animals in factory farms who aren’t even sick, for weight gain… leading to all these weird mutations in microbes…
But they’re allowed to sell that franken food legally without even marking on the label the animals have been doped, and no one is being prosecuted for this grotesque alteration of the microbe terrain that we all have to live in.
Btw my cousin that just died had also picked up c difficile infection from the antibiotic “treatment” he had received in the hospital. And my brother in law with the foot problem who’s been scared away from using whole food to treat it, is using, guess what, antibiotics. 15 thousand deaths a year just from c diff but he’s afraid of raw milk, thanks to people like “Mr John”. Nice.
Marler-Clark’s Food Poison Journal website today has an article about 3 people having died, caused by eating Blue Bell brand ice cream contaminated with listerosis. Yet when I tried to post my comment, [below ] I’m told my name has been blocked from commenting.
……….
let me get this straight : the latest episode of deaths proven to be caused by listeria, happened at a food processor using par-boiled milk aka “Pasteur-ized” … meanwhile, your firm’s position continues to be that = all raw milk – never having caused one single death from a pathogen in the last century, or so – ought to be outlawed? Do I have that right?!
I think you will find this article interesting.
http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/ancient-remedy-for-eye-infections-might-help-in-superbug-fight-1.2305614
Ken
http://www.cornucopia.org/2015/03/merchants-of-doubt-exposes-the-bull/
The author asks the question, So why arent more people speaking out about the concentration and consolidation of our agricultural and food system?
Because consumers want their food cheap and tptb are using trade policies along with implementing efficiency and economies of scale practices in order to make it happen. Indeed cheap food policies provide them with the leverage necessary in order to wrestle control of the industry.
Ken
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode2/
Ken
Clay looks like quite an amazing thing, and certainly not something the medical cartel wants promoted, as you can treat sickness for pennies. (and without the side effects of “modern treatments” like antibiotics that cause HUS, etc…)
It would be nice if we had a group of genuine people, like yourself, Sylvia, D Smith, Miguel, Dave Milano, Rawmilkmike, etc., and could share this stuff without having to spend endless amounts of time dealing with government trolls and academia true believers in their Big Pharma controlled textbooks…
“can we create a religion that believes in drinking raw milk and opposing mandatory vaccinations”
I tried to form a community of 25 where we’d preserve Nature and have an oasis from the establishment’s constant assaults on us… and I looked into what the requirements are to have it declared “non profit” and a “religion”. I don’t recall all the details but they have created hurdles to make it difficult for individuals and small groups to qualify but easy for large establishment organizations. For example, to be non profit and exempt from property taxes like the establishment religions are, if you came up with say a million dollars of your own money to donate into your organization, you would still have to find hundreds of thousands of dollars of donations from “the general public” as well, don’t recall the exact percentage. This is easy for the establishment to do but for you and me could be very difficult. But some people have pulled this off.
Of course even if you are doing things “legally” under their laws, does not mean you are protected from them. For example their constitution says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed, yet they will put you in jail in Chicago and other dangerous places if you exercise this right, even in your own home. Their constitution gives Congress, not the Executive branch, the power to declare was, yet when Bush Jr launched a full scale invasion of Iraq when Congress had not declared war on Iraq, instead of him being impeached an put before a firing squad, he was … reelected. Yipeeeeee! Their constitution says treaties made by the government are the supreme law of the land. Ask the Native Americans if this law is being enforced. And I won’t even go into what they’ve done to “jury” trials…
But, this sector (country) of the global prison does rely on public relations to a large extent, so having a “legal” organization with the right to eat real food and not poison children with vaccinations, and a grassroots network that is aware and supports this, might give people leverage against Big Brother.
We still have 2-3 feet of snow on the ground here if you can sell it Ill give it to you, providing you pay for the shipping.
Ken
Better still, if you can give away Ill send it to you to you free of charge, providing you pay for the shipping.
Ken
In my younger years winters was a welcomed change and an opportunity to play hockey and snow shoe. However the older I get the more I look forward to summer.
Ken
http://www.naturalnews.com/049194_Indiana_Religious_Freedom_Law_leftist_media_intellectual_bigotry.html
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode3/
http://action.fooddemocracynow.org/sign/ban_Monsantos_Roundup_now/?t=4&akid=1512.948189.3qvlEp
I have been thinking about “trust of farmer” for a few days now and have some thoughts to share about trust and raw milk. I have come to know many very very good well intentioned raw milk producers that are totally deserving of human trust. But….raw milk production has very little to with trust. Raw milk production is a product of a hybrid of management systems, strong employee relationships, extreme consistency of inputs that correlates with consistency of outcomes. When the most trust worthy farmer goes home for well deserved rest….it is not he or she that is milking the cows or goats…it is the employee that he has trained and motivated that is caring for your raw milk…do you trust them also?
A well paid, well motivated, well educated, well equipped employee that is managed by a system that checks and double checks the systems that measures outcomes ….is a system that results in safe raw milk.
As a consumer….do not trust until you verify. Ask for a tour, ask to see the protocols followed, look for the test results…all of them. Then that farmer is worthy of trust because he has earned your trust. A good feeling about a brand is not the same as trust that is worthy of risking your health on a hunch.
Having traveled the USA, Australia, Canada and having visited very trusted raw milk dairies…there is quite a story to share. Trust comes after deep assessment and delving into the details and nuances that are not apparent on the surface of the trust worthy farmer. At a recent health conference in LA I had a Oregon based raw milk consumer tell me how much they trusted and loved their raw milk farmer. It just so happened that I had received a RAWMI application from her farmer. The results were nearly heart breaking….the dairy was entirely out of control: Mastitis rampant…cows milking with chickens standing on top of milk cans, …water source high in coliform counts, SCC counts off the charts over 1 million. All cows bought at cull cow auctions, raw milk keeping times of two or three days and applicant was unwilling to alter operations because sales were so good and they did not want to lose any cows.
This is trust? Trust of what?
Rethink trust…instead think: verified, farm tour-able, transparency….do they know their bacteria counts? Are they LISTED by RAWMI or if not Listed, do they test and share data??
If raw milk is going to emerge from the tortures of the dark ages of the late 1800s and early 1900s and shake off the FDA dogma, then we must emerge as an entirely different, defensible, tested, planned, well managed, verifiably clean, safe, low risk food.
Trust is earned through a process….trust is not a word to be used loosely.
And if the mainstream media does a blip that says “oopsie daisy, we were wrong when we reported that glyphosate is bad for humans” most of the dumbed down population in america is going to believe those morons – and the jackass scientists behind the retracted studies who are willing to say “I goofed” – for a big $$ price, of course, but that’s not normally public knowledge, which is why most of the population doesn’t “get it”. The money that changes hands in deals like this is almost unbelievable to a regular Joe.
Hey, at least it’s a comfort to know that even a minority of the people “get it”. It’s better odds than I ever thought this country was capable of understanding . . . (:>
Ora, your comment warms my heart, because “acknowledging with respect the various perspectives of contributors to the safety debate” was a big part of my purpose. Another similar comment was just posted by Robert Karp, executive director of the Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association: “Being an idealistic, savvy, health conscious consumer these days can be a lot of work. Thanks to David Gumpert, making the hard decision whether to include raw milk as part of your family’s diet just got a lot easier. David has sorted through loads of datagood and bad, for and against–to create this thorough, balanced, easy to read guide to raw milk for the thoughtful consumer. I hope many people will find their way to this long overdue book!”
(BTW, there is a link to the book on Amazon at the top right of the home page.)
That’s not to say they can’t learn new things, and they probably do learn new things from other small farmers or programs like yours. It doesn’t mean they’re in the dark ages, nor does it mean MOST buyers are in the dark ages. If they have any brains at all, they inspect the operation before they buy from that farmer. I often do spot checks when I’m purchasing raw milk (or my DH does) and it tends to keep dairy operators on their toes.
There’s usually more than one way to do things. Trust is essential, but it’s a two-way street. Anyone who doesn’t understand that part of a fresh milk purchase shouldn’t be buying it.
CONSUMERS: Do spot checks, often. Ask questions about how they do things if you can’t see what you’re looking for in their production methods.
Exactly! Even though I’m not producing milk for human consumption, I still have to be careful. I’m supplying to someone who is very particular about the milk. The quality has to be top notch.
I’ve often had friends, and relatives who’ve asked me to either come visit, or take a day or two off to spend time with them. I told them I can’t do it because no one else will care the way I do about the handling of the milk, and I simply can’t afford to mess things up. There are reputations at stake–theirs, and mine.
I have seen plenty of times where someone did something to a product that would eventually be consumed. The ones that knew I saw them would be like, “Well, I’M not buying it, so why should I care?”
And you discourage people from visiting your farm? You don’t have to take them into the actual milking facility and let them dip their fingers in stuff – that’s ludicrous – and not many people have the attitude you’ve described about “caring”.
But people should be able to find out how you clean the teats, how you clean the tubes (unless you milk by hand), how you store it when you’re done and a bunch of other questions pertinent to milking. If they ask about testing, what do you tell them? I wouldn’t buy from a producer who didn’t let me onto his place, that’s for sure.
https://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/the-happiest-farmers/
** It also talks about dairy farmers. Interesting!
As promised, I wrote the letter to the CA DPH in protest of the Press Release that was posted regarding the recent Claravale recall. The letter focused on the widely disparaging and very biased comments made about all raw milk. Today I followed up with a good contact I have high inside of CA DPH. I will keep the name out of this blog discussion to help the political progress we have made stay on track. Lets just say that he and I have worked hard on raw milk issues for 12 years and have deep mutual respect. We also agree to disagree.
On my call today, I made my case and restated some of the points made in my letter and then my friend then said this:
“I knew that you would object to some of the things said in the Press Release and I knew you would call”. We agreed to meet in a couple of weeks in Sacramento to catch up on RAWMI and also review the newest standards and test results that are coming out of Test & Hold and other RAWMI progress and Data.
He also shared that the new director of health had only been in her job for a few days….this was literally one of her first recalls to manage.
One of the key complaints made by CA DPH is that raw milk can potentially injure children. Of course that comment set me off on my educational tangent. I totally disagreed and we both agreed to disagree on that point and our positions.
My goal is to bring CA DPH up to speed on how less than 10 coliforms is a mathematic risk reduction that works exceptionally well to address ecoli 0157H7….because Ecoli 0157 H is a coliform and when there are no coliforms there can not be any or enough ecoli 0157H7 present to cause illness. I will also address all of the EU studies and their very specific redress of the benefits to children.
“You never sell raw milk you teach it”….that goes for policy and regulatory people as well as consumers.
I will be going to Sacramento in a couple of weeks for an educational meeting with our very own CADPH.
I will be authorizing David to share my letter to CA DPH at this blog so all of you can see the educational evolution that is happening on raw milk in CA.
If no one calls the CA DPH on their press release then the miss information will continue.
My friend at CA DPH did ask how RAWMI was doing and was very interested in learning more about how things were going.
You do not move mountains in one meeting…but perhaps the political pendulum can swing a little back to the sane middle. The current CA DPH position is nothing more than biased and completely ignores the current RAWMI standards and EU studies. I will hopefully bring a little reality check to CA DPH and get them to admit that raw milk has not killed one American in 45 years….pasteurized milk and products have killed more than 80 and sickened 450,000 or more. It is time to back off and start to neutrally support raw milk as an emerging market.
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/own/champion.php
And here’s another version with a bunch of stuff included that didn’t make it into the original 11 episode series.
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/own/hero.php
Hope that’s helpful to you.
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode4/
Sorry for the confusion–I quoted from Mark’s comment. I milk my own cows, and not very many at the moment because calving just started for me over a month ago. I only maintained a small number through the winter.
I have people here quite frequently, and for various reasons (two different ones were here this afternoon, and missed each other by about ten minutes). Some are here during milking, some show up before or after (so then we hang out in the milkhouse), and the guy getting the milk for cheese shows up too, since he’s the one doing the hauling. I’m highly visible anyway, due to where I live.
I had a guy here back in January to look at a first calf heifer. I also got a friend to come over to give him hand milking instructions on the one he was interested in, while he watched me milk the remainder of the group. I gave him my milking instructions so he could decide which way he wanted to go. He ended up taking her, and tried to graft a calf on her, but she wasn’t wanting any of that (funny thing is, she let three calves nurse right after freshening, and one of them was her own), so he bought some milking equipment.
I posted part of Mark’s comment because I totally understand what he means. As for your comment “and not many people have the attitude you’ve described about “caring”. “, if you only knew…I used to work in a grocery store, and saw all kinds of things people did to stuff they knew they weren’t going to buy, or eat. I also work occasionally at another farm, and the last time I was there, I was asked to help with milking because their sons volunteered to come over that weekend so that the parents could go out of town. One of them dropped something on the floor, and I asked it he was going to wash it off before putting it where it belonged. His comment was more like “It’s no big deal”, when in fact it was. It’s no different from the others that have helped with milking during the summer months. There is one in particular that isn’t very careful. I know I wouldn’t want milk from that farm if I was a consumer, and watched what went on.
I just know that NO ONE will care the same way I do about how the cattle are fed, milked, etc., and that includes the milking equipment, and the milk itself. There is no way I could let someone take over for a few days so that I could have a break. All it would take is one screw up, and then I’d be done with the cheese people. I *could* go back to having my milk marketed by a co-op, but who’d want to do that? I have a dairy permit, so that means I have certain procedures to follow, and definitely no hand milking allowed. I hope that clarified things. If not, you can always ask me.
You’re right. No one cares about your stuff the way YOU care about your stuff, that’s a fact. I’m the same way with MY stuff, whether it’s animals or flowers or gardens or grandkids. If people who milk a few cows (not the big herds) want to take some time off, hire someone else to do the milking, and use the milk as fertilizer or to milk-feed a pig or a pumpkin or whatever, but probably not sell that particular stuff to the public.
And I do have some idea of what you’re talking about with the “caring” thing, I just meant that people who are there to BUY the milk aren’t likely to be the ones to stick their fingers into things – that’s what I thought your other post was saying, and that that’s why you didn’t give tours or let people into the barns or whatever. When our youngest son was in high school one of his best friends worked at KFC. Some of the stories that kid told us about what went on in that place and many other phast phood joints made my hair stand on end. It’s no mystery why my family eats very little fast food, usually only when we’re traveling and we’ve run out of home-packed stuff. When we travel, however, we enjoy eating at restaurants sometimes, but even then I wonder about things. One of my biggest pet peeves in the entire world is a “buffet line” or a salad bar. Ewwwwww. Talk about an open invitation to a flu/cold-fest. We’ve seen people coughing and sneezing and everything else while they have their heads UNDER the sneeze-panel (because if you stay above the sneeze-panel you can’t reach the food!) so those things are just basically useless. I wouldn’t eat at an open buffet if you paid me good money. So . . . open buffets with slimey foods and hacked up germs and God knows what’s in the soup – those are legal but clean raw milk is illegal in most places and considered a dangerous food?? Holy socks. Whoever sets the bar on these rules and regs must be great at doing the limbo.
Yep, sorry for the confusion in the past post. Long day.
I saw disgusting things that customers did where I used to work. Nothing like kids (and sometimes adults) who would poke their fingers down into ground beef packages. They would do it to the other meat, but ground beef is squishy, so I imagine that’s why they did it. I remember hearing stories about stores that had lobster tanks years ago, and people would drop pennies into the water. The copper was toxic combined with the salt water, so it killed the lobsters, or they wanted a live lobster, only to toss it into the frozen food section because they either *changed* their mind, or really didn’t want it to begin with. The tanks were taken out, so of course, then the store got complaints because there weren’t any more. Go figure.
Restaurants in general can be places to avoid. I don’t like to eat out, not that I go anywhere anymore, and hearing about horror stories just gives me one more reason not to go, so I know what you mean about buffets/salad bars.
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode5/
Ken
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode6/
Here’s episode 7: Proven treatment protocols Pt. 1
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode7/
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode8/
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode9
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode10/
http://thetruthaboutcancer.com/spring15/episode11/