Why Some States Want To Legalize Raw Milk Sales (difference, Los Angeles, Colorado)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Don't accept what health care professionals at the CDC have to say about the dangers of consuming raw milk because it's all "propaganda" aimed at protecting "factory style farming".
Believe all the anonymous testaments from internet bloggers and posters who claim that they never got sick and didn't die from years of consuming raw milk.
Right-o.
As for not understanding "the agri business angle", guess what, you quite obviously don't either. Here in NYS and other parts of the east, dairy farmers always pasture their cows because it significantly lowers production costs by saving on forage and bedding. Moreover, if you get too high a bacteria count in your milk, your entire shipment (worth thousands of dollars BTW) is rejected by the co-op, so dairy farmers have to make cleanliness a priority, and they can not have milk from a sick cow contaminating their entire milk. Who, exactly, monitors the production of raw milk?
It doesn't particularly shock me that this particular poster holds what I regard as an ignorant and paranoid point of view. What does surprise me are the large number of people in this country that are willing totally discount articles, studies, and advisories from reputable bodies (I include the CDC and FDA in this description) and instead rely on gossip they've heard or articles in herbal or naturopathic journals it makes me sad. Good health is ultimately the most important thing that people have. Its more important than money. Its more important than fame or reputation. With good health, human potential is virtually limitless.
What adults do, I suppose, is one thing. However, those who feed this to their children are foolishly risking their lives and health as well as their own.
It doesn't particularly shock me that this particular poster holds what I regard as an ignorant and paranoid point of view. What does surprise me are the large number of people in this country that are willing totally discount articles, studies, and advisories from reputable bodies (I include the CDC and FDA in this description) and instead rely on gossip they've heard or articles in herbal or naturopathic journals it makes me sad. Good health is ultimately the most important thing that people have. Its more important than money. Its more important than fame or reputation. With good health, human potential is virtually limitless.
What adults do, I suppose, is one thing. However, those who feed this to their children are foolishly risking their lives and health as well as their own.
I'm obviously going to disagree with you and we're both entitled to our opinions. I've seen the corruption in government and for the first part of my life, grew up in the old burbs of D.C. where a family member worked for the Dept. of Commerce, the IMF, the House of Economic Advisers, and the list goes on. I have my own reputable sources.
We do agree that good health is important and your path to good health will likely be different from mine. It doesn't negate what you believe and it doesn't negate what I believe. I don't know about the CDC but I do know enough of what the FDA and the SEC have done or maybe a better word is what they ignored.
My father was given 3-6 months to live when he was diagnosed with a late stage neck and throat cancer. He took time to look at different approaches. He used a combination of Western and Eastern medicines with the knowledge of his oncologist and lived @9.5 years longer. Coincidence? Maybe. It also doesn't work for everybody.
I'm obviously going to disagree with you and we're both entitled to our opinions. I've seen the corruption in government
I spent almost a decade inside the Beltway working in the biological sciences and several more years at a 4-state regional office. What I saw was the politicalization of science where data gathered by scientific investigations was manipulated to fit political agendas. Sometimes even the scientific investigations were guided by politics. It probably has always been this way but it seemed to be be getting much more extreme and vengeful before I finally retired.
As to drinking raw milk, logically many things that were safe and unregulated in the past have now become risky and require some regulatory forces to maintain a level of safety. Agricultural industries move at much faster paces and there are more cows and more people moving more places. As well, there are more diseases.
Personally, I would raise my own milk cow and feed my family the milk in a heartbeat had I not witnessed as a child the tiresome efforts that encompasses. For now, I'll regretfully sacrifice the creamy sweet milk I had as a child and go for the cooked white water they now call milk.
I've noticed an increasing tendency these days to try to make everything into an issue of "freedom and personal choice". The reality is that the raw milk issue is one of safety and the prevention of food poisoning. Restaurants are required to abide by a series of regulations to insure that their customers don't become sick. In this case, the farmer with dairy cows is taking the place of a restaurant by selling a product for consumption that could be unsafe.
If the customer is knowingly going to accept that risk it's up to them. Eating raw oysters has risks, eating undercooked meat has risks, eating spinach has risks... yet we do it all the time.
I spent almost a decade inside the Beltway working in the biological sciences and several more years at a 4-state regional office. What I saw was the politicalization of science where data gathered by scientific investigations was manipulated to fit political agendas. Sometimes even the scientific investigations were guided by politics. It probably has always been this way but it seemed to be be getting much more extreme and vengeful before I finally retired.
As to drinking raw milk, logically many things that were safe and unregulated in the past have now become risky and require some regulatory forces to maintain a level of safety. Agricultural industries move at much faster paces and there are more cows and more people moving more places. As well, there are more diseases.
Personally, I would raise my own milk cow and feed my family the milk in a heartbeat had I not witnessed as a child the tiresome efforts that encompasses. For now, I'll regretfully sacrifice the creamy sweet milk I had as a child and go for the cooked white water they now call milk.
You have a classic line, "What I saw was the politicalization of science where data gathered by scientific investigations was manipulated to fit political agendas." I just saw this happening at a different level but the end result is the same.
I understand with the way animals are now mass-produced and treated with a plethora of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other nasty things that we need to be careful. I'm living in an area where healthy living is promoted. So, I have learned to selectively trust the locally-produced milk products that are fortunately not cooked white water. Ugh, what an image.
You have a classic line, "What I saw was the politicalization of science where data gathered by scientific investigations was manipulated to fit political agendas." I just saw this happening at a different level but the end result is the same.
I guess I'm lucky to be at an age where milk is not as tasty as it was when I was younger. A gallon always spoils before I can finish it.
When I lived up there near where you are I would have loved to have found a small family farm in which to buy my meat, eggs and milk. I guess I was just to busy to look. I now have the time and a place down here where I could easily keep livestock and raise my own meat and produce. Unfortunately, I no longer have the energy.
Life can sometimes be ironic to the point that it seems mean-spirited.
You can decide to believe the government propaganda or you can believe the facts. Not a single person has died from raw milk consumption in over a decade. Is it possible you could get sick from it? Yes you can get sick from it. The likely hood of getting sick from eating vegetables or even milk from a store is a much higher risk. It is a fact that it is much harder for natural occuring bacteria to contaminate a gallon of raw milk than a gallon of pasteurized milk.
As to why you dont understand the agri business angle....its because you dont understand how milk is produced. To be able to serve good raw milk you have to have good grass pastures. Agri business dairies dont do pasture. They also combine the milk from way too many cows which would cause the waste of large quantities of milk. The milking is completely mechanical and/or at such a rapid pace that the cleanliness reqd to sell raw milk is impossible. They wouldnt know and dont care if one of the cows is obviously sick, it gets milked anyways.
Raw milk sales are not compatible with factory style farming practices. Its a more hands on and local business. In other words it eats into their business. So if raw milk regulations here were changed to what they are in most other countries then they would be forced to lose that percentage of their business.
Again....if its so dangerous then why is it so available in other industrialized countries?
Pasteurized milk was raw milk before it was pasteurized. Pasteurization does not sterilize milk. It does reduce the numbers of dangerous bacteria.
Raw milk was more likely to cause outbreaks and more severe disease, those affected were more likely to be under age 20, and most of the outbreaks happened in states where sale of raw milk was legal.
"Among dairy product-associated outbreaks reported to CDC during 2007 and 2012 in which the investigators reported whether the product was pasteurized or raw, 81% were due to raw milk or cheese. A study released by CDC in January 2014 examined the number of outbreaks associated with raw milk in the United States during this 6‐year period. From 2007 through 2012, 81 outbreaks due to consumption of raw milk were reported to CDC from 26 states. These outbreaks resulted in 979 illnesses and 73 people were hospitalized. Most of these illnesses were caused by Campylobacter, Escherichia coli O157, or Salmonella. Most (81%) outbreaks occurred in states where the sale of raw milk was legal at the time. It is important to note that a substantial proportion of the raw milk-associated disease burden falls on children. Of the 78 outbreaks from 2007 to 2012 with information on the patients’ ages available, 59% involved at least one child under the age of 5 years.
In a free country raw milk would not be made illegal, nor the transportation or commerce of it. What kind of a government is this that "allows" us to have stuff?
Rights are innate. They are natural. Rights do not come *from* a government.
I don't drink raw milk, but it's none of my business if other people choose to.
It's also none of my business to dictate what others can buy and what others can sell. Besides, how do we even know people buying raw milk are using it to drink? What if it's for their animals? What if they want to dump it into the toilet? Who cares? It's no one else's business.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Moreover, if you get too high a bacteria count in your milk, your entire shipment (worth thousands of dollars BTW) is rejected by the co-op, so dairy farmers have to make cleanliness a priority, and they can not have milk from a sick cow contaminating their entire milk. Who, exactly, monitors the production of raw milk?
