When I saw the news heading Dozens now sick with E. coli after Milk Makers FestI thought, uh-oh, milk, E.coli, and kids dropping like flies. Talk about a made-to-order story for the public health fear mongers for whom raw milk is Public Enemy Number 1.
As I read the actual article from the Seattle Times, and it didnt mention raw milkindeed, it didnt even discuss milk of any kind in its seemingly clinical recitation about how over 1,000 school children attended the event, more than 30 confirmed and probable cases, one case of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS)I figured this may not have involved raw milk. But in the code that typifies the media reporting on such things, you couldnt be sure if pasteurized milk was or wasnt the culprit.
The lawyers who report on each and every food-borne illness outbreak essentially copied the media reports to communicate the same subtle messages of uncertaintyalways mentioning Milk Makers Fest in their headings.
Not surprisingly, there is much more to the story than the raw-milk fear mongers would want to think about.
The real story is of an agricultural event that mysteriously went awry, despite the best laid plans to combat pathogens and food-borne illness. The organizers of the Milk Makers Fest in Lynden, Washington, are known as the Whatcom County Dairy Women and they have been sponsoring this event for the past 22 years.
The main event, as it were, is a six-station series of demonstrations for children about how the countys number one agricultural product, milk, is produced. According to the web site from the Milk Makers Fest describing this annual event, the most popular one with the kids is the station where The Whatcom County Dairy Ambassadors hand out chocolate milk and explain all the nutritional benefits of dairy products in a daily diet at the Dairy Products station. The students first wash their hands behind a real Milk Truck tanker, just like the ones that visit the local farms to pick up their milk for processing. The students have a chance to interact with a real princess and many write back to tell us this was their favorite station.
In a series of recent updates about the illnesses, the Whatcom County Dairy Women have been trying to lay to rest the suggestive notions of the media and lawyer reports that somehow raw milk may have been at fault, or the sanitation precautions insufficient. Here are two of their main concerns, under the heading, Addressing rumors and misinformation.
- Reports of raw milk being served at the fair are false. Here is what the women say: The only milk product served to the participants was commercially available pasteurized chocolate milk. Pasteurization kills E.coli. The Health Department has indicated that milk is not considered a likely source of contamination. Questions have been raised about raw milk at the Fest. Some may assume that Twister, the simulated wooden cow that students can milk during the event was delivering raw milk. However, the liquid used in this demonstration is not milk at all, but water with white food dye. No raw milk was served or used during the Milk Makers Fest. Cant be much clearer than that.
- Sanitation ruled. Here is what they said about preparations to ensure the children washed their hands frequently: The organizers of the Milk Makers Fest were very diligent in their plans and management of the prescribed prevention measures. Generous amounts of anti-bacterial soap were supplied at a handwashing station near the entry/exit of the dairy barn. Every child and participating adult were required to wash their hands before receiving their pasteurized chocolate milk. In addition to the handwashing station, there were three hand sanitation locations positioned near the entry and exit of the animal trailer and the hay maze. The hand sanitation was an alcohol-based sanitizer. Three large bottles were used in the first day two days and when empty, were replaced by several smaller bottles used on the last day.
So if only pasteurized milk was served and fastidiousness ruled, how did so many children become ill? Maybe we need a new version of the old nursery rhyme: All the pasteurized milk, and all the hand sanitizers, couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Anti-Biotics, GMO’s, hand sanitizers, fake cows, fake milk streaming from fake cows teats, purel, etc…etc,…all ends up hurting the little bacteria magnets we love and call our kids!! Can we all say…immune depressed and immune depraved !! Can we all say…a dairy paradigm that is huge trouble.
The current national dairy milk prices are so depressed that I know many dairymen that are giving up the trade right now as we speak. When a dairy gets $13.75 per CWT that is only about $1.18 per gallon of milk sold to the processors and many times the dairymen is forced to pay for the trucking costs!! It costs at least $18- 19 dollars per CWT ( $1.55 per gallon ) to even produce milk at the most efficient CAFO!! Who is paying the costs of losses….the dairyman and his bank credit card, which is now maxed. Dairymen now say….”plant almonds and to hell with this madness”. Those are the words of a CAFO dairymen at a recent CDC ( CA Dairy Campaign ) meeting just this last week!
We are witnessing the collapse of the US dairy industry as we read these very words! I am a member of the CA Dairy Campaign and sit on its board, I hear this first hand. This is tragic and this is a sign that processors could care less about the dairies that they serve. Processors care about Branded High Margin Through-Put… If that means bottled water or dairy branded orange juice or dairy branded almond milk…so be it. They just do not care and the dairies are held hostage by conventional systems that have them in a chokehold literally.
Fond Du Lac saw this coming years ago when they said no to running a 2500 cow CAFO and started a 26 cow raw milk dairy in AZ….they are so very happy now.
When kids get sick because of ecoli and a fake dairy demonstration….that is the epitome self inflicted tragedy. When our society and its industrial and health institutions deny our children exposure to good bugs and biodiversity in their diets this is what you get. Stupid is as stupid does!!
How public education cripples our kids, and why.
By John Taylor Gatto (7 pages, 3,500 words at the source. WORTH READING)
h/t to http://lawfulpath
John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State and New York City Teacher of the Year and the author, most recently, of The Underground History of American Education. He was a participant in the Harper’s Magazine forum “School on a Hill,” which appeared in the September 2001 issue.
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom.
Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1. To make good people.
2. To make good citizens.
3. To make each person his or her personal best.
These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education’s mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong.
Inglis(1918 ed) breaks down the purpose – the actual purpose – of modern schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
1. The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can’t test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
2. The integrating function. This might well be called “the conformity function,” because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
3. The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student’s proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in “your permanent record.” Yes, you do have one.
4. The differentiating function. Once their social role has been “diagnosed,” children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits – and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.
5. The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin’s theory of natural selection as applied to what he called “the favored races.” In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit – with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments – clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That’s what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.
6. The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.
School didn’t have to train kids in any direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the modem era – marketing.
Now, you needn’t have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular job of turning our children into children.
If David Farragut could take command of a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today), there’s no telling what your own kids could do.
After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I’ve concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious:
Let them manage themselves.
All the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
p.s. Mark, You did not yet touch on the Panoche Valley Solar Farm Project in the Milker’s Wife Comment
I know this all too well. We always had to pay for our trucking, and that was the tipping point for me–when the trucking costs were more than the milk was worth. It’s also how I ended up finding TCP–was looking for another outlet for the milk, and while doing some research, one link led to another, which eventually landed me here.
All my public school education couldn’t get me to conform, so long story short, I failed that class, intentionally! My postings may indicate otherwise, but none of you know me personally.
Pharma drugs are used to reduce the “signs or symptoms” of disease and take the pain away, but do not fix or address the actual disease process and in fact make them worse as they fester, grow and eventually kill us.
Police are like drugs….they reduce and manage the disease signs & symptoms while the disease actually gets worse.
What we are finding is that we can not police the signs of societal disease away. Drugs just like police do not fix the underlying problems!! Nutrition does!!
What would the equivalence of police nutrition be?
I think it looks like jobs, nutrition and social consciousness that gives a damn about our fellow man.
We need more nutrition in America.
http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/Portals/68/docs/regulatory/Actions/PSMAP.pdf
http://www.sanbenitocountytoday.com/opinion/columnists/guest-view-panoche-valley-is-wrong-for-solar-project/article_8d6f632a-ad5f-11e4-9982-576229e17619.html
http://www.defenders.org/press-release/panoche-valley-solar-farm-threatens-californias-heartland
http://benitolink.com/panoche-valley-solar-puts-spotlight-247-megawatt-project
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_26398651/huge-solar-farm-proposed-near-silicon-valley-wins?source=infinite
http://www.nevoenergy.com/docs/Nevo_Q1-2012_OTC_Qtrly_Rpt_Fin_Stmt_Notes_05-15-12.pdf
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/05/us-solar-wars-idUSTRE7042ZR20110105
http://www.power-technology.com/projects/panoche-valley-solar-project-san-benito-county-california/
Is this another strange aberration?
I use to have a couple hundred or more school children on average come and visit the farm in June every year over the course of a ten to fifteen year period. I always kept half a dozen cows in the barn so they could have a, hands on experience. I would let the children pet the cows on their legs, flank, back, neck and head, I encouraged them to try and milk the cows and I often squirted fresh milk into their mouths. I also squirted milk into their hands then they would run over to the calves that were nearby feed it to them. The calves were more then eager to lick and suck the childrens hands and fingers. The children were tickled pink to be able to have that experience. Latter on they all gathered into groups to have lunch, there were no hand wash stations available and they certainly didnt wash their hands.
So, the officials investigating this Milk Makers Fest are blaming e coli again!
Well, like Ive said many times before they are barking up the wrong tree and it is high time they consider their toxic sterilize everything in sight methodology as the bases and true cause of these illnesses.
Indeed those very methods are, all too common aberrations that disrupt both the external and internal microbial ecosystems, thus nurturing imbalances and disrupting immune function. God only knows what other toxic interventions these children were subjected to before they went to the fest.
Ken, they have to blame someone, or something. What I want to know is who is going to get sued over this, the milk processors or the makers of the hand sanitizers? They all meet the first prerequisite for getting sued–deep pockets.
That entire project died years ago. Interesting that the reason it died was because of PG & E’s refusal to grant access to the power grid lines. They have a monopoly on power line access….they are the power mafia or worse!!
As far as Panoche Valley is concerned, the actual solar grids were not in the Panoche Valley and would not be visible from any one visiting the Panoche Valley or Claravale. The solar arrays were located some distance away and behind some hills. Anyway….the entire project died and it is not proceeding anytime soon because of denial of access to the power grid.
There are signs still standing around the Panoche Valley that say activist things against Solar Power….
Interesting,….activists against solar power.
Does anyone else see a problem here? Such as, that women don’t count as dairy producers?
I have to chuckle when reading the links you provided on the Panoche Solar project. One of the linked stories said that Panoche Valley was a lush area with rich farm ground.
If you have ever been to Panoche….it is an old stage coach stop with literally no farming and no water. Bikers ride their Harleys up there to drink and party. It is a land that time forgot. It is truly beautiful in the ghost town sense of beautiful,….which I actually consider very beautiful personally at least in the winter and spring when some volunteer grass does grow. Claravale sits right in the middle of this very quiet place. Western access is by gravel road that goes 15 miles west of I-5 highway. No pastures, no water, no lush anything….just a few Kit Foxes and a rare endangered specie or two hiding some place under a rock. It is a perfect place to get away if you are looking to never be found. Awesome place in my book, but not as described in the media story.
Cared for and milked by the students.
Milk, Cream, Ice Cream, Butter, Kefir, Yogurt.
Cared for and milked by the inmates.
Milk, cream, ice cream, butter, cheese, kefir, yogurt.
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
p.s. I’m city folk so please forgive errors in terminology.
Also, older kids that helped set up are some of the sick kids. The description from the link I posted makes it appear that only hand sanitizer was available for anyone visiting the petting zoo. Hard to know if this was within the larger area of when the kids left and they washed their hand with soap and water. Also, if any of the kids stepped in poop while visiting the petting zoo this can be carried into a car and home.
POOP????
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVBPGZEVRH0
Remember to always use your (approved) Hazmat suit.
Pretty much drenched in paranoia, that one.
Hard to forget the paranoia.
Have a good evening, everyone,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Unfortunately the article covering the research fails to include activities such as toxic vaccines and pasteurization, which have also served to drastically alter modern-day microbiomes.
The article states, Over the last decade, the nascent field of microbiome research has dramatically shifted our understanding of what it means to be human, according to Justin Sonnenburg, a gut microbiome researcher at Stanford University, who was not involved with this study. Were a collection of human and microbial cells, he said. By cell number, were more microbial than we are human.
The article goes on to state, This invisible microbial community also mediates our health and a disturbed microbiome is being increasingly linked to everything from malnutrition to diseases of affluence, like obesity, diabetes and even acne. Scientists are therefore particularly keen to understand what a healthy microbiome looks like.
One way to answer this question is to study our ancestors guts and compare them to modern-day microbiomes, which have been drastically altered by 21st-century practices like antibiotics and Caesarean sections, which deprive newborns of crucial early exposure to bacteria in the vaginal canal.
Indeed a disturbed microbiome is being increasingly linked to lack of exposure and malnutrition. Could it be said that these so-called food born or petting zoo illnesses that are apparently caused by a bacterium are in fact the result of bacterial deprivation, which in turn leads to 21st century opaque malnutrition and a poorly developed immune system?
What about the articles comments indicating that microbiome research is nascent and that, Scientists are therefore particularly keen to understand what a healthy microbiome looks like.? Does this not call into question the validity and wisdom behind this endeavor to mandate questionable, disruptive and toxic disease and illness eradication programs that alter and destroy gut flora and immunity?
I wonder why the don’t vilify the gmos, over processed garbage, etc? Oh yea, they are bought and paid for and sleeping in someones bed, it’s all about money.
“They all meet the first prerequisite for getting sued–deep pockets. ”
Indeed, they have circled and taken bites.
Ken “Indeed a disturbed microbiome is being increasingly linked to lack of exposure and malnutrition. Could it be said that these so-called food born or petting zoo illnesses that are apparently caused by a bacterium are in fact the result of bacterial deprivation, which in turn leads to 21st century opaque malnutrition and a poorly developed immune system? ”
I think this hits the nail squarely on the head. The body can take only so many insults before it starts declining and is easily susceptible to what normally would not adversely affect it.
Thank you for your post….you are totally right and your reference to this science is dead on!!!
We are bacteriosapiens! Always have been and always will be. It is just a matter of whether we are on the trend of extinction because of our increasing distance from our bacterial origins or not. Those that ignore the warnings and the information will pay dearly….starting at the petting zoos.
Remember this…animals that are at petting zoos have been transported. Transported animals shed like crazy. The act of shipping, moving and trucking has been identified as an extremely stressful factor for animals and has been shown to be a central factor in shedding pathogens.
So a stable established happy on farm petting zoo is completely different than one located once a year in the city or at the fair or other event! Just sayin.
And your right about transportation and stress, Animals that are being relocated are definitely more vulnerable to illness due to stress and its the same for humans. As to weather cows shed like crazy, Im not so sure about the crazy part. Animals continually shed especially those that become symptomatic. That being said, I have purchased several hundred bred heifers over the years and at least a dozen bulls and although some of these purchased animals became symptomatic for shipping fever, IBR or mastitis following the move, none of my existing herd ever seemed to suffer any corresponding ill effects. And I certainly didnt ever go to the effort of isolating the new animals before introducing them into my herd.
I would like to think it was partly due to the fact that I focused on nutritious health rather then drugs and vaccines.
More suicides. More foreclosures….more totally horrible conditions.
Any speculation?
If you are not familiar with Codex Alimentarius then read the following article.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/codex-alimentarius-control-over-the-food-supply-and-world-government/21960
Codex is merely another tool in the chest of an elite group of individuals whose goal is to create a one world government in which they wield complete control. Power over the food supply is essential in order to achieve this. As will be discussed later, Codex Alimentarius will be implemented whenever guidelines are established and national governments begin to arrange their domestic laws in accordance with the standards set by the organization.
I do think its very important for kids to have opportunities to connect with animals and farms and their food systems. And I’m far from suggesting that for fear of germs, we should prevent animal contact. But, kids need to interact with livestock on real farms, with cows and goats in natural, low-stress environments, in pastures that are clean and green with plenty of sunshine and space.
However, if this is a dairy expo of largely CAFO producers, those farms may like the aesthetic appeal to be a field trip destination.
Did any of the media report where the animals originated from? We all know the cafos are breeding grounds for extreme pathogens.
The CAFOs should be banned and dissolved, that way of rearing animals and producing “food” (along with the mega produce farms) are the reasons that food poisonings are so common. IMHO
Also, I believe today’s children are now being medically mishandled (a nice way to put how I reaaaalllly feel) and their immune systems are almost non-existent thanks to over-protective, helicopter parents, doctors, day care providers, schools, etc., not to mention the crappy slop foods most are subjected to eating.
It’s not the fault of the animals or the children – it’s the fault of the society in which we must live in the world we’ve created, or allowed to be created by overzealous politicians et al. I don’t call that progress and don’t see how anyone can.
Watch this and become enlightened. This is exactly why we all love and appreciate Raw Milk!!
We all know this as raw milk consumers….but this TED talk will give you a tool to perhaps relay this very deep concept to others. Please share!! To my friends at the CDC and FDA…thank you for the funding that helped make this science available to the raw milk cause…it is truly worthy and stellar data. It supports raw milk 110%. It argues how bacteria found in raw milk is medicine… truly medicine.
The guiding hand of capitalism is banning CAFO’s. They are being bankrupted…literally. They are being financially banned and eliminated by being paid less than the cost of operation for years and years. It is not sustainable and we all know what happens to things that fail to sustain.
If anyone else has trouble, here’s the link I found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-icXZ2tMRM
Wonderful stuff!
Are we too clean? How changing a body’s microbes leads to illness | Claire Fraser
That scene from Das Boot covers an emergency dive drill; when the man topside on the conning tower yells ALARM! down into the boat, all hell breaks loose, it is nothing but assholes and elbows as the crew scrambles to dive as deeply as possible as quickly as possible, including every available body rushing to the bow for more weight up there to achieve a steeper dive angle.
Their lives depend on being able to do this, else their life-supporting metal cylinder deep down in the briny deep will get ruptured by high explosives, and. they. all. die.
Well thats what goes through my mind when Mary McGonigle yells ALARM!
Theres animals, theres poop ALARM!!!!!!!
Nothing else.
Animals .poop .ALARM!!!!!
Okee Dokee.
Not for mee eee.
I seem to remember that rawmilkmike got Marys number quickly as he politely pointed out some rather glaring inconsistencies in Marys approach to this small slice of life. Is it still that way? I dont know to say. Did Mary ever take up the cudgels in response to rawmilkmike?
All the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
This is war. Defend the truth. Battle for every precinct.
In the words of Patrick Henry, For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
Cheers to the upright,
Disruption of their wicked plans to those of an evil intent
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Dairy is a volatile industry if you are a commercial dairy farmer. By commercial, I mean anyone who has a permit to sell milk, and has someone else market it (organic can be the same way, and yes, I know about this because I still occasionally work for a friend who used to be organic). Dairy margins have been slim for a number of years, and don’t look at what prices are in the stores. Milk prices can be high, but then so can feed, supplies, fuel, etc. Then their are operating expenses, which can require borrowing money. Larger farms get to spread their costs over a broader area, so I can totally understand why they have more in the milking string. With a small farm, there isn’t much wiggle room (know this all too well). If you process, and sell your products, you may not be subjected to price fluctuations the way others are (dairy producers don’t get to set their prices if they are in a ‘typical’ US dairy arrangement).
“Maybe just the fact that the prices are so low will do the trick to slow them down & make them think.”
When milk prices crash, there are some who expand the herd to cover their losses. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s a vicious cycle. For as long as I’ve been around, or in dairy production, it is complex to where I still don’t understand all of it, and there is no way to explain everything in just a half dozen, or so paragraphs.
Try getting a loan for a farm when banks won’t touch them, and the only choice left is one from the government. The state I used to live in (where I got my start) is in the top ten for dairy, and one of their major universities helped to push the “get bigger” idea. To add insult to injury, the loan officer, plus their so-called “dairy expert” asked where all the automated equipment was, the Harvestore silos, why we were milking in a stanchion barn instead of a parlor, and why didn’t then barn have a gutter cleaner. They also said that Jerseys couldn’t be in the same herd with Holsteins (there was only one purebred Holstein, the rest were crosses). Been there, done that. Thank God that loan didn’t go through.
“they’ve *earned* whatever it is they’re going to get in the future…”
Try wearing their shoes some time, and I wouldn’t go so far as saying they *earned* all of it. It ain’t no picnic, and for some, this is all they’ve known their whole lives, and they watch their dreams go down the toilet. I’ve talked to a few people who want to dairy, but know it’s a lost cause because they want to stay small, and realize they will never earn a living that will pay the bills.
Sure, it would be nice to have a bunch of small farms, when everyone really cares about what they are doing, and where the cattle get off the concrete to be on grass. We are a long way from that, but I’ve been seeing a trend back in that direction. Don’t know if it will happen in my lifetime. As for “the face of their failures”, I’m not sure I understand that comment. Whose failures? It would have been different if *most* dairy farmers had control over what they produce, and get paid so they would have been able to make a decent living. They probably wouldn’t have needed to expand the herd. You wouldn’t believe how many people I’ve talked to over the years, who blamed the farmers whenever the milk prices went up in the stores (including some in my own family, who should have known better). Then, try to explain commodities, federal marketing orders, and such, when they are as clueless as the day is long. Also, don’t expect dairies going out of business will give raw milk a chance to shine. They aren’t the only ones you have to worry about. I’ve heard of plenty of farmers who would like to sell raw milk in states where they can’t. One of the biggest fears is getting sued by someone who does, or claims to get sick.
I know Ken talks about Canadian dairying, and what it was like in the 80s. I’ve heard plenty of stories from that time. As for Mark or Shawna, I don’t recall if either was a conventional/commercial farmer, and haven’t heard about anyone else doing so. If someone else explained their point of view, I wouldn’t know.
D., I’m not singling you out, but I’ve read comments similar to yours, and it just strikes a raw nerve when, a good deal of these people wouldn’t even know the business end of a cow (you said you used to have your own cows for family use, correct?). I responded to someone’s comment, when he/she said they hope dairy farms go out of business. They weren’t happy with milk prices going up, so ALL dairy farmers had to go. I said, “How would you like it if someone said they hope you lose your job?”
There is a lot of truth in what you have just said. Indeed it is often too easy to lose sight of the human factor when it comes to a specific model for doing business and that goes for either camps or sides. That being said however, I dont believe D Smith or anyone else are insensitive of the human factor in all of this.
No matter how we cut it we are all victims of this narrow-minded cheap food paradigm. The grief and suffering it has spawned will unfortunately continue for some time until that day when we can get beyond its self righteous and greed driven tentacles.
Thanks Ken and D Smith for posting some real world evidence. Miguel the soil scientist must have posted over a hundred links along these lines, before giving up. As he repeatedly said, How can you call a microbe a “pathogen” when it doesn’t affect healthy people? Microbes are used as diversions to hide the real cause of illness. I think those real causes have been covered in some of the comments here: antibiotics and pesticides and sanitizers killing off microbes in the gut, mineral deficiencies, sanitized living drinking pasteurized orange juice… causing the internal terrain to diverge from Nature, toxic vaccinations… Divert the audience with one hand and pull of the trick with the other. “The more things change…
From Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, c1939, page 91:
one man whom many people told us was the most beloved in all of Alaska Dr. Joseph Romig, a surgeon of great skill and with experience with the Eskimos and Indians, both primitive and modernized, extending over thirty six years He stated that in his thirty six years of contact with these people, he has never seen a case of malignant disease among the truly primitive Eskimos and Indians, although it frequently occurs when they become modernized. He found similarly that the acute surgical problems requiring operation on internal organs such as the gall bladder, kidney, stomach and appendix do not tend to occur among the primitive, but are very common problems among the modernized Eskimos and Indians. Growing out of his experience, where he has seen large numbers of modernized Indians and Eskimos attacked with tuberculosis, which tended to be progressive and ultimately fatal as long as the patients stayed under modernized living conditions, he now sends them back to primitive conditions and a primitive diet Indeed, he reported that a great majority of the afflicted recover under the primitive type of living and nutrition.
The biggest business today is healthcare, and if you have no sick people, how are you going to have customers? As long as the majority of people stay in denial about the fact that transnational gangsters control the Sickness Industry, we can expect these people to continue to fall for the fictional disease models peddled by textbooks, establishment doctors and the media cartel.
My history with dairy doesn’t go back as far as yours does, but I’ve heard all kinds of stories over the years. Some were from people I talked to, some were those I read, and others told me about friends, or family members that once dairy farmed. It just upsets me when I see these kinds of comments, and it doesn’t matter to me where they originated from. I’ve gotten into arguments with people I know (includes family), so no one is immune from me saying anything.
As for your second paragraph, I found something, and typed it up before I even came here to read what was posted, because I did not have a way to get it online. It isn’t directed at any one person, rather it is for anyone to read. Take a look at this:
Hoard’s Dairyman, April 10, 2015, page 252, “Order Reform Must Involve Shared Risk”. It’s in reference to the Federal Milk Marketing Order (FMMO). “In our minds, if that tired “processor versus producer” debate involves dairy farmers bearing all the risk, the FMMO discussion will be dead on arrival”. It goes on with how dairy is a farm commodity that cannot wait for favorable markets to sell the product, because it is highly perishable, etc. I didn’t feel like typing out the whole thing.
The final paragraph is this:
“While leadership and vision could ultimately lead to a better system of pricing milk, that model must involve shared risk from processor and producer alike. If processors are serious and can develop an updated proposal that benefits both parties, dairy farmers should listen. If the end game is merely an exercise in eroding rules to secure access to cheap milk, then it’s a discussion that will fall on deaf ears. Idaho producers know that full well, as they have never recovered all the milk margins after terminating their federal order a few years back.”
So, go on and continue to place all the blame on dairy farmers.
So you think only raw milk is making people sick?
I don’t give a damn about pasteurized dairy prices because I don’t buy the junk. They’ve done their own damage to their businesses, AFAIC. People are starting not to want it (pasteurized), and they for sure don’t want stuff coming from cattle being fed GE’d grains, etc. This is the wake-up call – turning to smaller herds. If you’re producing something which sells, i.e., raw milk is selling well, you don’t need huge numbers and big loans to make it work. Yes, they’ve earned the trouble they’re having. It’s the go big or go home attitude.
I’m self-employed – – for a reason. No one puts me out of business unless the economy tanks. I’ve had lean business times, sure, who hasn’t? But I’ve gotten through them. Dairy farmers would have to do the same.
I’m going to stay in the corner of raw milk fighters. Believe me, BIGMILK dairy-ers do their fair share to bash raw milk whenever possible, I’ve heard it myself in this little corner of the world where most people favor, and drink, raw milk for a reason.
Don’t forget the insurance industry who is now driving the healthcare industry, thanks to obozocare (the ACA). Only thing is, there’s nothing “affordable” about it for a majority of the people. We’ve lost more than we’ll ever gain from ACA. Socialized medicine is just one step along the way to getting us all in line.
When the SHTF, those of us not in line will be glad of it…. 😉
trader Joes does not sell any raw milk. Alta Dena has not produced raw milk since before May of 1999…that’s 16 years ago.
I do not follow your comment?
the whole truth is that you’re living under Fascism. “Who can make war with the Beast?” Tell us, Mr Odegaard, when the black fascists came goosestepping in to Daanmark, what did your people do about it? then. What are you doing about it in your precinct?
And what are you doing about it in your precinct, Mr Ingar Odegaard
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/mainstream-medical-myths-alternative-healing-pitfalls
At the bottom of man’s inharmonious relationship with reality lies a conditioned proclivity to rely on force to overcome his neurotic fears. Military aggression and chemically violent “wars” against cancers and pathogens are primitive brutish low intellect approaches. Greed, rape, envy, deception, consumerism and instant gratification are attitudinal creations of the chimp mind we’ve been forced to adopt in our fantasy of the American dream. No artful finesse here, it’s ecocide.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/pasteurized-milk-speeds-death-heart-disease-cancer-bone-fractures-yogurt-and
Yep, agree with that one. I’ll be “not in line” with you. If you want to do some good old-fashioned Obozo bashing, I’ll help :D. I don’t think this is the place for it though. Wishful thinking…
“If you’re producing something which sells, i.e., raw milk is selling well, you don’t need huge numbers and big loans to make it work.”
Again, this only works if you can sell it raw, and/or set your own prices. My dairy friend (the one I occasionally work for) is a rotational grazer. He still has to borrow money each year to feed his stock over the winter. Neither one of us raises our own feed (includes forages). He has ten times or more the number of head I have, but we don’t live in a state where the cattle can graze year round. Once again, the ‘get bigger or get out’ has been pushed on to all kinds of producers. I could site more examples (some from my own experiences), but then my post would be REALLY long.
It struck a nerve because of what I’ve been through over the years, and that’s why I didn’t think it was funny. “I don’t give a damn about pasteurized dairy prices because I don’t buy the junk.” It actually *isn’t* pasteurized dairy prices, it’s *raw milk* prices (whether you want to accept that term or not), unless you are referring to what ends up being processed. Dairy people don’t get the prices that consumers see in the stores. It’s not the same thing.
“So you think only raw milk is making people sick?”
I said no such thing (but my cheesemaker friends think it can). I was merely stating what I’ve heard people say about selling raw milk, legal or not. One of them is a raw milk drinker himself. When his brother lived and milked in the area, he felt the same way. They’ve had plenty of people asking to buy from them, and they turned it down. A good deal of those asking didn’t even know it wasn’t legal to sell here. I’ve been asked as well. We could lose our dairy permits, among other things. I could tell you about the guy I talked to who was selling ‘pet milk’, and what happened to him, but not now.
“BIGMILK dairy-ers do their fair share to bash raw milk whenever possible…”
And a lot of them are taught/told that, including the dairy inspectors. The one I have was trained to look at ALL raw milk as being bad. I don’t think what I’m saying is bashing at all. I’m trying to understand the ‘other side of the coin’, so to speak. It’s kinda funny that raw milk ‘fighters’ don’t seem to have a problem bashing pasteurized milk. To each his own. Think of how vegans want to force their ways onto others, but wouldn’t be too happy if tables were turned.
We really are on the same side, just a different cheering section. After all, milk doesn’t come out pasteurized, no matter who milks the cows, or what breed/breeds of cows they are. You just have to keep in mind, not everyone views things about human microbiota the way you do (and others who agree with it). I’m not going to even worry about it. Whatever happens, happens. Like the old saying goes, “If your enemy/opponent is committing suicide, get out of the way”. You can’t fix stupid anyhow, so your best bet is to try and educate those who are capable of learning. Don’t be a milk snob. If people want to listen to what you have to say, they will.
http://news.yahoo.com/fda-unaware-listeria-blue-bell-plant-outbreak-205102064.html
It’s obvious (to me) you don’t know how the dairy industry works, so trying to apply a simple solution to something so vastly complex is naive. If you’ve never been a dairy farmer, then you don’t know what it’s like. You have an opinion, and that’s all.
I can’t remember where I read it, but I want to say the “cheap U.S. food policies” got its roots during FDR’s administration, along with much of the farm subsidies. I know it wasn’t online, and it wasn’t in something that belongs to me (don’t bother with going to Wiki because they slant left). I kinda got a good idea, but getting it back to read will be difficult.
I think it was in 2009, when there was a glut of milk (and prices crashed), and I called someone from my co-op (might have been the director of marketing), because I wanted to know why volume premiums were still being offered when there was too much milk. He told me they had to secure contracts with processors in order to be able to meet the supply demands, and the way to do it was by offering the premiums. I wasn’t the only call he got, and said there were just a couple of calls wanting to know why the premium amount decreased.
I talked to the regional manager a few years later about something different. He said milk marketers have to compete to get the processors’ business, then they have to be able to provide the milk the processor needs. A spring flush could present a different problem. There were many times my farm got skipped from pick-up because the milk truck sat at the dairy plant for 24 hours or more. It couldn’t get unloaded, because there was no room to put the milk.
I read everybody’s comment, and if it’s directed at me, I typically read it at least twice, and word for word. No matter what you think or believe, not everyone is going to want their dairy products raw. Period. You may hurl insults at those who prefer pasteurization, but I know quite a few people who say raw milker drinkers are nuts. Their words, not mine.
There is a guy who has a home delivery route in my area, which started last year. His farm is over an hour away. There was a questionnaire in a small, local “shopper” paper, asking if there was any interest in the area for his products, and there was enough of a response to add a new route. He has low-temp pasteurized, non-homogenized (although it is standardized) “cream line” milk from Jersey cows. It sells out at the largest local farmer’s market, and my cheesemaker friends sell some in their cheese shop, plus he has his route. I talked to him a couple of years ago when he responded to my ad on a cow I had for sale. He was needing more milk, but I sold her before he could get here. She was small statured with some Jersey in her, and I told him that. I didn’t know he only had registered Jerseys, but I found this information out from somewhere else, and later on.
I’m not a professional writer, or journalist, so forgive me if I don’t always write things in the best possible way. I have NO formal training, which I’m putting “creative writing” in that category. It was just basic, public school education English classes, and I only took the requirements (including any classes that were needed, should I have gone to college).
We have strict laws in my State about raw milk, but we’ve been working on making SOME progress in the last year. Also, this State has a short growing season so I know all about the trials and tribulations of pasturing animals and having to keep supplemental feeds (alfalfa, hay, etc) on hand. That’s why I feel smaller is better. That’s also why I feel the BIGDAIRY people have simply gotten what they’ve asked for in terms of costs vs income. I’m sorry but that’s just how I feel and no amount of trying to explain it to someone will make it right with everyone else – and that’s ok – NO ONE has to agree with me if they don’t want to. I’m not “forcing” my ideas on anyone, merely stating an opinion just like you. As you said, to each his own.
If people choose pasteurized because it’s more readily available (because it’s considered “safer” despite the CDC numbers) they should go for it. Personally, if I can’t have raw, I choose none at all.
Ora….loved your post and link about pasteurized milk bring unhealthy verses….fermented forms of milk being very healthy…even after being pasteurized. You are right….I have always taught and said for years that dead milk is simply…. allergenic and non digestible. It is shelf friendly but not gut friendly. Your gut is not a shelf!! Yet…yogurt and cheeses are generally not allergenic and fairly easy for most to digest. The UC Davis PhDs that study this subject now say the same things. It is no wonder that yogurt and cheese lead dairy consumption internationally and dead milk is dying.
Being the ex paramedic that I am…I always new that CPR worked…and now I know that it also works on tortured milk…its called “fermentation with bacteria being added back in” and with enzymatic re activation. Yes…it appears that there is a CPR for clinically dead dairy products. Interesting. Wish there was a CPR for clinically dead FDA regulators. They and their industry bed partners are leading Americas dairymen into an economic ditch. Raw milk is alive…just like fermented cheeses and yogurt. Our bodies do not lie and trends show that consumers can not be fooled for very long before buyer behaviors simply become market road signs that are so easy to read. Pasteurized milk is dying and processors wonder why???
At my local Whole Foods, A2 Brand milk that is CAFO grown,ultra high temp pasteurized, homogenized and suppliented with all sorts of crazy stuff,,…is not moving. It just sits on he shelf with very little sales.
It does not matter what kind of sales whitewash label packaging is used…dead is dead and our guts prefer living unprocessed whole foods.
Sounds like what should be a mandated step prior to having vested power to enforce, but what do I know. Maybe they’ll wake and not just be corporate line zombies.
dead is dead, are you sure?
The visual of gut being a shelf is a cartoonists dream pass it on if you know any looking for ideas
I know that the California Milk Advisory Board ( the Got Milk People) havecdinectheir research and they figured it out. However, their advise is not being accepted…..industry is simply going down the same old path. When the CMAB research determined that the milliniels demanded less processed, local products with fewer ingredients and more probiotics….what did industry do? They brought us CAFO, A2 that is produced in Colorado at a farm that can not be toured, with Ultra High Temp Processing with homogenization and added fake synthetic vitamins. This is not aligned with the research that shows quite a different consumer sentiment. To be fair, A2 is not a product concept from the USA, but none the less…it and Fairlife are the newest products to reach the shelf and they both miss the mark totally. Neither of these products are local, less processed, probiotic, or contain fewer ingredients.
Is this just plain stupid, is it lack of true consumer connection or is it industry arrogance? thinking that they can suggest products that have been rejected by consumers ( allergies and lack of digestibility ) and get consumers to consume them regardless? Repeating failures and hoping for success….meets the definition of insanity. I just don’t get these characters. I thought innovation and creativity would also reach the realm of consumer health and happiness.
The power of group think and true herd mentality just consumes industry as they fail to even heed the advice of even their own accurate research that has suggested other pathways forward. I guess they deserve failure. The farmers certainly do not deserve failure but their industry is leading them over a cliff and they fail to recognize this coarse. Truly amazing to watch!! Kind of like watching from a helicopter in Africa as a herd of stampeding animals approaches and then run over a cliff….it is breath taking to literally watch mass suicide. Advice has been given….but ignored even when the advice is given by their own advisors. Now that is uber stupid.
We are having a Mother’s Day blizzard. About 6 inches on the ground and all the trees are sagging like mad. It’s a very wet, heavy snow. No wonder the oldsters called this time of year a sapling spring. The snow is going to break of hundreds of branches in our yard alone. My lilacs were already all blossomed, too. They look very sad today.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s in TCP country!
Happy mommy day to every one!!
Maybe this is beyond anyone’s comprehension, but the love of dairy is what keeps me going every day, so hearing jokes from those who wish the demise of dairy people they don’t like (mega farms, and producers who won’t drink their milk raw), doesn’t sit well with me. I’ve also been a little preoccupied lately, with four calves in seven days when I’m the lone ranger. Two are heifers, so there’s some training involved, and I take my frustration out on the keyboard when I try to unwind for a bit.
The latest calf arrived early this morning, and there were some problems. One leg was knuckled over at the first joint, the other was in a weird position, and once they got lined up, the head wouldn’t engage, because it was too far back inside. I got everything in position, but it wouldn’t budge. I called the vet at 3:55 a.m. (hadn’t even been to sleep yet). I didn’t know who was on call, and it turned out to be a new guy who started last fall, but he knew where I lived. I knew it would take him at least 45 minutes to get here, so I continued to work on the calf. I got him out before the vet arrived. I wanted him to check the heifer over to make sure there weren’t any tears, and that the bull calf was okay. Since this was the first time meeting him, we started talking about various things. I told him where the milk was going. He said him and his wife tried to make cheese, but it wouldn’t turn out right. I asked him where they got the milk, and he said, “The store”. The discussion turned to raw milk. He said he wouldn’t drink it, and expained his reasons. We also talked about Listeria, Campylobacter, Campy mastitis, and others. He brought up HUS as well. I told him what Mark does, along with RAWMI, and wanted to explain what that was all about. I could tell he wasn’t going along with it.
I’ve been accused of planting seeds of doubt, but what I described with the conversation I had with the vet is what you are up against. The clinic I work with has six full-time doctors, and one part-time. They work strictly with dairy cattle, and go all over the state, plus a bordering state. I’m not deliberately raining on anyone’s raw milk parade, but these vets are exposed to a lot of dairy farmers. Who do you think is going to have the biggest influence over them? DVMs, or raw milk advocates who are mostly consumers? I know some farmers will drink their milk raw, but those who didn’t grow up on a dairy farm (like me), and never had raw milk may be ones who are a little skeptical.
I wasn’t trying to consider you a naive newcomer, but I didn’t even realize the depth of what goes on in the industry (going back to my initial start in dairy), and still have trouble figuring it out. It just isn’t as simple as people like to think it is. When I first got into dairying, they ‘technically’ weren’t my cows, and it wasn’t my dairy permit. I was the one who went out to milk them, and my unofficial job (it was delegated to me) was to keep quality up via the cows and equipment, plus care for the rest of the stock. Here, I’m responsible for everything. That’s when reality hit, and I found out how little I knew of what actually goes on.
Big dairy goes way beyond just them, and the tentacles reach far and wide. The milk hauler I dumped last year is a family owned business, but they have lots of trucks on the road. Not long after I gave them the boot, they unloaded all of their small farms, and those people were left to find someone else. Want to know why? They want to be able to pull up to ONE farm, and fill the tanker. Processors have gotten to be the same way. They like large loads because it is more consistent.
Here is something you may be interested in. I was going to post it with something else, but didn’t around to it yet (explanation is coming soon). The crap with the dairy industry has been going on for decades, and long before the two of us were even born. What you are seeing now is the result of policies that were put into motion way back when. It won’t change over night. I got to know a guy through a blog a few years ago. I found out he is an attorney in another state, and because of some of the work he has done over the years, he is familiar with regulations (once worked for an attorney general in DC). What he told me was big companies tend to use regulations to hamper smaller competitors, and it’s very hard to catch people who violate the regulations in any event. So then there is both under, and over regulated at the same time. The ones who get burned are the honest ones in the middle who are just trying to do what the law requires (most of those words were his, and I did very little editing to fit with what I was posting). You can apply this same thought (regulations) when it comes to small vs. large farms, and every size in between.
Once you read my comment to Ken, you will see I wasn’t directing all of this at you. It was more of a generalization I was trying to apply to anyone who was feeling about the same way as you. I want small farms to thrive more than you’ll ever know. To wish misfortunes on dairy people isn’t funny, even if you (or someone else) were trying to make a joke out of it. A lot of good, smaller farms have gone under too, whenever there is a price crash. The bigger ones usually have a buffer. In early January 2014, a severe snow storm kept a really large dairy from having their milk picked up. This went on for days, and every day they couldn’t ship meant they were losing well over a quarter million dollars. Do you think it caused them to go out of business? Not a chance.
What I’m seeing is the ‘raw milk world’, and the ‘pasteurized milk world’. I’m basically living in both worlds. I’ve explained some things of how this can be (some I haven’t gotten to yet). My preference would be for both worlds to co-exist, and to each his own. I want BOTH worlds to be honest, and let each person choose what best suits them. When the two milk worlds are colliding, that leaves them vulnerable to the control freaks, who want to regulate everything. Both sides get screwed in the process.
Your story resonates with me….it also probably resonates with most other dairy farmers. Your love of animals, the routine and the agricultural calender is something only farmers could love….really and deeply love. It is this tradition that is probably the one thing that keeps dairy farmers going….even those that are stuck on the never ending boom and bust cycle,…what else could possibly answer why farmers would keep on doing something so crazy. They love the life and the animals. Bless them all…big and small, CAFO and pasture based organic. The heart of the farmer is the same. Tragically…this love is breaking hearts…it is not sustainable and good dairy families are suffering.
As far as vets are concerned, they only know what they are taught. They were taught “Get Big Or Get Out”. They were taught antibiotic protocols and this is reinforced by pharmaceutical continuing education. Efficient CAFO designs were the A plus target in their graduate classes. Pasture was passé
Do not blame the vets for they do not know. We spend plenty of time with our vet and he loves what we do…but this took time and patient education. When we showed him our bacteria counts…he knew something was different. That was really the tipping point. He gets it now. He especially gets it when many of his clients are departing the dairy business. Nothing like hard data and economics to show a good doc a different pathway. When we show him Mpengo data and QScout differential SCC cont data…his mind is pretty much blown. When we ask him to take our collected samples to culture 250 cows….he is completely engaged in our program. Our goal and objective is different. He gets it because he sees what our results are and our vision for safety and high quality.
Hope your calves are alright. My hat is off to you….pulling calves is exhausting.
You aren’t getting it, DD. I meant what I said that you keep referring to as a joke. I didn’t mean it as a joke. Those bigger dairy guys have earned the trouble they’re now having. You basically said it yourself . . . they have a buffer, but the smaller, mostly raw milk farmers, really don’t. If you’re asking me to feel sorry for them (pasteurized dairies) for selling an inferior product, don’t bother. Larger dairy farmers rarely take the same precautions as a smaller dairy because they RELY on pasteurization, thinking of it as the savior of the milk world; yet the CDC numbers certainly don’t show that to be the case – and many of those illnesses go unreported, we know that. That’s where the regulation had to come in – pasteurized, supposedly safe milk was causing illnesses and they didn’t want to believe that. But both sides definitely get screwed in the process, you’re right about that.
At any rate, this is a dead conversation. I’ve had it many times over the years. My brother is a veterinarian and not all of those guys think only inside the box – he certainly doesn’t. So I’ve seen much of this same world from both sides. My family weren’t into dairy as our main thing, we were beef ranchers, we only kept 2-4 milkers for our own use. But we had neighbors and friends who were dairy people so I’ve had a fair amount of exposure to all of it, you really don’t need to “explain” it to me.
As I said before, I’m not in the business of convincing anyone of anything. I’m stating things the way I see them. That doesn’t mean you will see them the same way, it doesn’t even mean you should. I just know in my own life, it’s raw milk for us or none at all.
http://worldclassmagazines.com/mark-mcaffee/
We have begun to get noticed and I hope that our friends at the FDA and CDC can read this and see this for what it is. Raw milk is a re-emerging market and it is being noticed!! Big Time!!
With RAWMI…and a team that works very hard, it is also low risk!!
This magazine is spread through out the USA, mostly in doctors, lawyers, and professional offices.
It puzzles me why certain posters keep on attacking him as UN-caring of the small holder. My own experience = meeting him in person 3 times since 2007 in BC = is the opposite. Mark McAffee understands better than anyone, that the sucess of the Campaign for REAL MILK proceeds from the efforts of individuals who do more work a’dairying than they get paid-for
Rodeny responded to you (Fri 02/27/2015 10:05 on the Simmering Cod Liver Oil Imbroglio Heats Up For WAPF Conference by: David Gumpert Mon, 10/27/2014 – 20:07 posted in: Nutrition, Research).
What do you have to say for yourself in response to Rodney, if I may inquire?
Sincerely,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Trader Joes sold Alta Dena raw milk. It was a long while ago.
Then they sold Steuve raw milk. It was a while ago.
Now they dont.
I wish they did.
After buying it once, I never bought anything else if I could help it.
I grew up in the city, not on the farm.
I didnt know what I was missing.
I hope that this information serves to encourage small dairy operations.
All the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Mark, I’ve spoken about this disconnect between corporate food producers and consumers. In my judgment, it’s a result of arrogance born of anticompetitive practices. When you dominate an industry, your focus is primarily on keeping others out of the market, tightening control, not on staying in touch with the marketplace. If you control the marketplace, there’s no need to satisfy the marketplace. The market has to take what you produce, because there are seemingly no other choices. Of course, the market in that situation goes looking for alternatives, and usually finds them. As the market crumbles, the oligarchs don’t know what to do, and invariably do too little, too late. The crumbling is in process right now.
So the question left hanging, was?
… last week I was served with a Petition originated by the Minister of Health seeking to have a judge set aside an Order made by BC’s Privacy Commissioner. That’s the culmination of an FoI I made, nigh-on 5 years ago! We’re at the point where the records at issue – what the Ministry of Health refuses to cough-up despite a formal Order, are : deliberations of the Cabinet. One has to wonder what it is that was so all-important about our tiny little raw milk cowshare, (5 years ago, mind you! ) that the bright lights atop the provincial govt. AND its best legal counsel, sat around discussing?!!
my guess is, that they were advised by their top-flight legal beagles, that what we were doing was perfectly legitimate, but they proceeded to frame us up for persecution, anyway. Which would be the govt. itself, conspiring to commit the indictable offence of “obstruct/pervert/defeat Justice”
what the Ministry wants to do, is, for the Court to focus on administrative law … the power-struggle among the apparatchiks who drink each others’ bathwater in this incestuous govt. town. What I intend to do is : turn the courtroom into the classroom
Sorry, must disagree somewhat. Pasteurization (HTST) of milk does not reduce it’s digestibility. UHT processing generates some heat damage (Maillard products for example) but a little of this doesn’t make it ‘non-digestible’. I’m guessing, but more nutrients from UHT (than non-UHT milk) might well pass the distal ileum and alter the colonic environment (not sure if this would be good or just uncomfortable).
Also. The US dairy herd has consistently been just over 9 million cows for the past decade (despite periods of both good and bad prices). Yes, fluid milk isn’t as popular, but export markets and particularly the popularity of greek style yogurt have helped lately. The industry is not perfect, but David, it is far from ‘crumbling’ IMHO.
i have no idea what our guts prefer. Rather I just see eating as an ongoing experiment, knowing I’m not what I eat (and rely on my liver to take care of the overloads).
John
Lots of kids attending. Plenty of space!! Weather is expected to be awesome!! Just 2.5 hours from San Fran and 3.5 from LA area.
The one I typically work with was a herdsman for a number of years before deciding to go to vet school, so he has real dairy experience. He will even tell me things I can do in a pinch, if I have nothing available for a treatment protocol, like trying to prevent milk fever, treat ketosis, and the like. These are usually things I have on hand, and most of them are kitchen cupboard supplies like sugar, baking soda, and salt. Colostrum (number one choice), or milk as a drench is another one I use on fresh cows (I use it on other stock too–he said it’s a good source of energy and calcium, plus by-pass protein).
The guys at the clinic I use have never pushed the “get big” attitude on me, or my dairy friend, and we try to work with the same vet for routine stuff. I can call or text him with problems, or questions, and they prefer to have us do as much as possible on our own if we can (a shock, I know, but they are usually real busy with herd health checks, or emergencies, so if it isn’t life threatening or serious, they’d rather not come out). One of them told me they make more money off of selling supplies than they do on farm calls. They can get all kinds of stuff (I even got a stethoscope from them), and since they deal in volume, the costs are way cheaper than in any catalog I’ve looked at. They’ll even set stuff out on a bench for you if pick up will be after office hours.
The guy that started this vet clinic was one I met over twenty years ago, when he was with a large/small animal clinic. He started his own dairy practice, and was one of those who had been stuck with what he was taught. My dairy friend basically ‘schooled’ him on something he was taught by an old dairy farmer, concerning the signs of parasites in cattle without having them tested (and it isn’t just rough hair coat). This guy couldn’t figure out what was going on with some cattle, and my friend told him what it was just by looking at them. He was right, and tests proved it to the vet. The younger, newer guys to the practice have a different outlook and attitude on things. They seem to be more open toward cattle being on pasture (at least the ones I have encountered).
BTW, the little bull calf is fine. It took him a bit to get on his feet (yesterday), but I had some frozen colostrum I gave him as soon as I could get it thawed enough to feed. He was still pretty wet, but I did get him to drink.
I’ve been to smaller farms that are careless too. But, keep this in mind: there ARE legal limits on SCC, SPC, PI, etc., and some of those count limits have been lowered. Too many violations, and you’re out.
The vet I just met told me Listeria is NOT found IN milk, it is found on surfaces such as floors, equipment, tracked in one someone’s feet, and other things that contaminate products (he also mentioned lunchmeats, and cheeses too, which I already knew about from working in the grocery store).
There are people who think it’s funny, or a joke. Not everybody who has a large dairy is a bad seed, and that’s what I’m getting at. The ones who only see $$ are the problem, and it isn’t just in dairy. Look at who was the concept behind “Fairlife” products. It is the SAME farm that lost a bunch of money during that January 2014 snow storm. Do you think I felt sorry for THEM? Nope. I know some things about them (not hearsay either), but I will not post it here. They also don’t believe they have an inferior product, and if you have read stories that they themselves have told, you’d know what I meant.
I wasn’t trying to “explain” it to you. A lot of people have had exposure to things, but it doesn’t mean they know all of what is going on. There are inner workings, or insider information that not everyone knows about (like the farm I mentioned in my above paragraph). The public saw one version of something bad that happened, while those of us who were directly connected, were informed of something else. The problem was/is, because of what they knowingly did, it is going to have repercussions on the rest of us dairy people (not just those who milk cows either). This incidence had nothing to do with the snow storm, in case you may be wondering about that.
In the exchange between you and Rodney Moore, Moore thought you were disparaging him and belittling his concerns ( just mad about being gouged on shipping. -R.M.).
I would say that you were doing exactly what Moore accused you of doing and that, further, a modest apology from you to him would not have been out of place. Your points, however, strike a bulls-eye in my book, in that you pushed Rodney (and the readers) to look at the bigger picture, reminding him of the pioneering work of Weitzel et al at Green Patures, and prodded him to follow one of the basic rules of customer service to which encouragements Rodney. . . fussed!
I dont fault you for not wanting to change Rodney but I doubt that the aforesaid modest apology aimed at Rodneys level plus another kick aimed at his fussy backside would have hurt him. Or you.
It can, as you said, get a bit blurry. No doubt of that.
Thanks for responding,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
God help me, reading back over the whole exchange, I am sore tempted to exchange Rodney Moore for Dangerfield. I am sure that you do give them fits in the court rooms. God bless you.
You (anybody) really need to go back to what started it in the first place. I know, it was shoved on us as well (“you can’t make a living only milking less than 20 cows, and you need to expand your herd, or we won’t loan you money to buy the farm, because you don’t have the cash flow”), but we resisted. We didn’t last long after that either, because it was the same ol’, same ol’ with the next farm, since things didn’t go through on the one before. All but a cow, and a few heifers ended up getting sold. I knew things weren’t going anywhere, so it was get out before things got really bad. I lived here ten years before putting up a dairy facility, and it’s been a battle ever since. Sometimes I wonder why I bothered, because it certainly hasn’t been easy.
I’ve talked to plenty of people over the years, and listened to their stories, plus have read lots of stories too. I could go on for days telling everyone about it, and still only scratch the surface. Just because someone is ‘exposed’ to something doesn’t automatically make them ‘qualified’ to know everything that goes on. My family has been at all the farms I’ve lived at, and some of them even stayed weekends or more, and yet they STILL don’t know what goes on in my day to day routine. They’ve only seen a very small fraction of the whole piece, and trying to explain to them what goes on in the dairy industry is enough to make me pull my hair out. My dad is *especially* bad at making ridiculous ‘suggestions’ on how to do something better (including coming up with some sort of gadget). Most of them are laughable, and no way they’ll ever work. I sometimes want to scream, because explaining the *whys and why nots* is head banging material. I once told him non-farmers should not be giving farmers *suggestions/advice* on how to do their jobs.
Feel free to check these links out. The words I wrote above are my own, but if you read the comments with the articles, you will find basically the same sentiment. If you, or whoever wants to just dismiss the links, then I guess it’s safe to say your mind is closed, and not open to anything that contradicts what you believe. If my mind was closed, then I wouldn’t have stuck around here, and would have told everyone they are crazy. I post a lot of things to make people think. This is not to say what I’ve written is ‘made-up’, quite the contrary. My own life stories, are my own experiences. If it twists everyone into pretzels, so be it. Like Mark has already said before, kick the hornet’s nest. It is a place for discussion, correct?
http://dairycarrie.com/2014/05/27/5-reasons-farms-are-getting-bigger/
http://dairycarrie.com/2014/06/27/farming-for-profit/
It’s lonely as hell, we would never live there again. But the wildlife–especially the rare creatures like kit foxes, blunt nosed lizards, ferruginous hawks, tri-colored black birds, mountain plovers and migratory birds of all kinds, they really are abundant. Yeah, driving through at 40 miles per hour you wont see many of them, but stop for even a few minutes and you are sure to see some creature that has been wiped out in other areas of the state due to things like . . .a massive solar project. Which, by the way, is currently being rushed through by San Benito County and Panoche Solar Co. (i.e. your brother) without the normal environmental studies that a huge project like that should entail. So don’t try to bologna everyone on here about Panoche.
p.s. I know the old timers who sold your brother’s company the rights to purchase their land–and they regret it! What a shame. Call him off. Tell him to leave Panoche alone.
Who knew? Boron may have been the key to the evolution of life on Earth plant biologists have long known that without boron, plants don’t grow. The element is an essential nutrient. It’s tough stuff.
http://www.livescience.com/28674-boron.html