The Goods Are Odd

At the grocery store yesterday I was asked for my attention to a political issue. Not outside from the people with clipboards, but from my milk. That is because we buy real, raw, grass fed milk. And the stuff is the subject of much controversy.

I am lucky enough to have access to Organic Pastures milk, which is unpasteurized. The benefits of raw milk for the drinker, because of the helpful microorganisms, and for the cow and the earth, because of the cleanliness producing raw milk necessitates, are well documented and much information can be found on the OP links page, news page, and their FAQ. The owner of Organic Pastures is passionate about his products and the right to choose real, raw milk. Thus, my milk got political, donning a yellow flyer asking for support in the upcoming California State Senate hearing; Fresh Farm Milk-Assuring Safety and Consumer Choice. A joint hearing of the Senate Agriculture Committee and the Select Committee on Food-Borne Illness.

This call to action was well timed- just after reading a great article in latest Harper’s “The Revolution Will not be Pasteurized” by Nathanael Johnson who visited McAfee’s farm. Johnson discusses some of the looming policy changes threatening the production and sale of raw milk by limiting the coliform bacteria in bottled raw milk to the same levels required of pasteurized milk- a requirement that could not be met and allow the milk to remain raw.

Johnson’s article tells the shocking stories of the legal and forceful police action taken against raw milk producers. What is fascinating and frustrating about the cases of raw milk producers is how they are singled out as health risks in an industry where unhealthy animals, land, and consumers are the norm.

What is scary about milk is not the bacteria inside it but the conditions of the cows producing it and the fact that the diet fed to conventional (and organic) grain fed cows has created the harmful bacteria this legislation is trying to prevent.
Johnson’s article get high praises from me for reminding readers that we humans are in fact 90% bacteria. Yet even with this knowledge the general public and the medical and food industries has a relationship with the biotic world that is misguided and militaristic.

Why would the production and sale of raw milk pose such a threat the milk industry as a whole? There can easily be different policies for different types of products. They can easily identify good bacteria from bad (organic pastures tests for pathogens.) It boggles the mind to know that without the efforts of the few farmers like McAfee raw milk, with proven health benefits, would be banned nationwide and yet products which have only negative health impacts, none beneficial whatsoever-like tobacco- can freely cross state lines and the thousands of products made with harmful chemicals are circulated on the shelves.

What are the industries pushing this type of legislation really afraid of? Will our government ever significantly support products and production processes that don’t seem to be slowly killing us?