A Boston Globe article about the debate that happened last week at the Harvard Law forum.
If you ever have dinner, or afternoon tea, at my parents house you will be offered milk to drink (you’ll be offered other things too). The milk you will be drinking, if you accept, will be raw milk. They have been drinking raw milk for the past two or three years, driving all the way out past Worcester to a farm that sells their Jersey cows’ milk in glass bottles that they ask you to return, washed clean, when done. This started in an effort to be healthier and consume foods with more naturally-occurring nutrients.
My mother started reading Weston Price literature and was horrified/moved by what they had to say. In a nutshell: if you eat more natural foods that have been prepared in a more “primitive” manner, then you will be healthier. You won’t get sick as often, have as many health problems and get fewer cavities (but you still have to brush and floss). The idea behind Raw Milk is that since it hasn’t been pasteurized the naturally occurring nutrients haven’t been cooked out and therefore don’t have to be added back in (ever wonder why milk cartons boast that their product has been fortified with Vitamin D and when Vitamin D is naturally found in milk?).
People are scared of bacteria and other bad things that will still be in the milk since it’s going from cow to bottle and they’re afraid of this bacteria making them sick and/or killing them. But I’d like to pose this question: If the pasteurization of milk was first suggested by Franz von Soxhlet in 1886 and people have been drinking milk since time immemorial with some to no dire consequences, what is scaring people?
I’m serious. I don’t understand the aversion. As long as the farmers know what they are doing (and usually farmers do) then I see no reason why we can’t have someone from the Department of Agriculture inspect and license farms to package and sell raw milk and have it available on shelves (or skip the licensing, there are plenty of things sold for consumption that the FDA is ambivalent about). Drinking raw milk is not something that should frighten people. The fact that a pint of light cream with a sell buy date of February 10th is still good today even though it was opened on the 8th… that’s scary. Preservatives are scary; even ‘natural’ ones, scare the hell out of me. Foodstuffs really aren’t meant to last all that long and if they can last for months without souring or growing mold, then I am terrified of what I’d be putting in my body if I ate it. In college I once had a loaf of bread that lasted two months mold free. I ate it because I was a poor college student, but I was equal parts scared of what was keeping the mold at bay.
Raw milk is not going to kill you if it’s handled properly (obviously there are always exceptions, sometimes something goes wrong and suddenly people are getting salmonella from eggs and e coli from spinach - but that’s not the norm). It tastes exactly like pasteurized milk, if not better. In the Boston Globe article Ike DeLorenzo reports that the Minnesota dairy inspection director, Dr. Heidi Kassenborg showed “cartoons that depicted the messy and unsterile nature of milking a cow” that were “disarming” for the audience. She talked as if the other panelist had never seen a cow before. Kassenborg said, “The udder… is right next to the anus. And cows poop a lot.”
Diagram A:
Diagram B:
Now, I’m no expert, my knowledge of basic human anatomy is pretty slight, and I really only feel confident about squid anatomy, but I’m fairly certain this part is true: See that part labeled “Large Intestine”, that bit way up by the cow’s backside? I’m fairly certain that leads to the anus. And the udders are way down underneath by the cow’s back legs. If that’s what being “right next” to each other is then Oregon is right next to Texas. Has Dr. Kassenborg ever seen a cow?
I’m just trying to understand the other point of view. As someone who semi-regularly drinks raw milk and sees no problem with it, I’m trying to understand people who do take issue. In a time when being “green” is so popular and having no growth hormones or chemical pesticides and “Organic is OK”* why is ‘natural milk’ giving people the willies?
DeLorenzo points out that the sterotype of people supporting raw milk are “oblivious hippies” but nothing could be further from the truth. My parents, for example, never in their lives could have been called ‘hippies’. And they are nothing if not well-informed. Most of the “oblivious hippies” I know probably wouldn’t drink raw milk if their lives depended upon it (but they’d rather buy organic and frequent farmer’s markets — go figure).
There are multiple farms in Central Massachusetts that are doing well enough that they continue to sell raw milk to patrons who visit their farms. My family doesn’t go to the closest one to them, they devote half a day to going to get their milk. The environmentalist in me praises Misty Brook Farm for using (and reusing) glass jars instead of plastic jugs and my family enjoys that they have only grass-fed Jersey cows on their farm (whose milk is supposed to have the right enzymes that humans need).
If you have an aversion to raw milk, I’d love to know why. I really would. Feel free to message me your reasons. If you have anything to say in favor of raw milk, or if I’m misrepresented anything, also feel free to message me. I love learning new things.
*Not an actual slogan as far as I know.
Some Links if you are interested in learning more:
If you are interested in the laws concerning raw milk in your state go to the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund website.
To find out where you can purchase raw milk go to Real Milk.
Fred Pritzker: Food Safety Lawyer
David E. Gumpert author of The Raw Milk Revolution
Kristin Canty’s documentary “Farmageddon”
