by Alyce Ortuzar
It is obvious from this egg recall that neither the FDA nor the USDA
has any understanding of nutrition or food safety. So they should not
be telling Americans what to eat, what is nutritious, or what is safe.
The industrial farm operations with one million chickens where the
contaminated eggs come from would never pass an inspection, nor should
they. So the idea that any additional laws would protect the public,
short of shutting these inhumane, toxic waste dumpsites down, borders
on the absurd.
The fact that these facilities and their feed suppliers have been
fined, shows the clout the FDA (and state and local health
departments) and the USDA have but do not use, such as going to court
or to Congress to shut these facilities down. On the contrary, the
USDA constantly tells us that these contaminated products unfit for
consumption are “the safest foods in the world.” The USDA also insists
that our food should be “cheap.” This is one instance where we get
what we pay for, although the very low prices do not reflect the
taxpayer subsidies, the environmental clean-up costs, or the health
care costs from eating nutrient-deficient products from stressed-out,
abused, contaminated animals being paraded as food.
The FDA’s solution is pasteurization, which destroys nutrients. In
this case, the FDA will try to destroy the only eggs that contain
nutrients–eggs from small ecological farms, which are easy targets
for these fraudulent agencies. In Maryland, there has been a nasty and
aggressive campaign by the state and local health departments to raid
farmers’ markets and prevent the farmers from handing out free
samples, which obviously increase their sales and profits. I call
these campaigns “Keeping Maryland Residents Safe from Farm Fresh
Food.” Give these abusive agencies more power? They are all (including
the FDA) too allied with agribusiness and the chemical industry to
even mention shutting these operations down.
Groups such as U.S. Pirg should be advising the public to buy and eat
from small, local, ecological farms and farmers’ markets and natural
food stores that sell these products, where the animals are treated
humanely and are healthy because they live outdoors in healthy pasture
and sunlight, pursuing their normal behaviors.
Shame on these groups for not holding the FDA and USDA responsible for
promoting these harmful and disgusting operations and practices
instead of shutting these factories down, which the American Public
Health Association has been calling for (apha.org).
Local, state, and federal health departments are silent about the
widespread use of toxic chemicals in our foods, on our crops, and on
lawns and yards. So these agencies also need to come under criticism
and scrutiny for profound failures to protect the public from all of
these preventable, manufactured harms and deserve nothing more than a
complete lack of credibility. The last thing these corrupt agencies
need is more power to use against the small ecological farms that
remain our only source of safe and nutritious food.
Efforts to adulterate eggs the way the FDA has adulterated milk will
only make Americans sicker and more malnourished. The FDA tried not to
let consumers know that bovine growth hormone is in their conventional
dairy products, in addition to a host of toxic chemicals the FDA also
has no problem with.
What this recall shows is how adulterated so much food in this country
is, and how these agencies cannot be trusted to determine what is and
is not safe or nutritious.
Alyce Ortuzar
Well Mind Association of Greater Washington
Montgomery County, MD
farmparity@gmail.com
By Teddi Bechard via Facebook
Admittedly, I am NOT a reporter. I am a person with a passion. The Missouri State Milk Board has created a sub-committee to “study” the *issue* of raw milk. I’m not sure what “issue” there is to study, but they think they are studying it.
The Milk Board sub-committee met today, June 24, 2010 in Lebanon, Mo. Lebanon is a somewhat central location for board members traveling from various sides of the state.
This board is composed of 12 individuals, most of whom are pro-pasteurization and pro-regulation. Fortunately for raw milk in Missouri, Carey Raymond, SWMO Weston A. Price foundation chapter leader is one of those 12.
Also on the board is Bruce Salisbury of Lorenae Dairy in Galena, MO. Lorenae Dairy is one of only 3 Grade A Retail Raw Milk dairies in Missouri. Salisbury wishes for the State to twist interpretation of current Missouri law for his benefit and financial gain. The potential of his possible conflict of interest was brought up. It was suggested that Mr. Salisbury either be removed from this board or a non-graded producer be added to the board to bring balance to this board.
Although this meeting was open to the public, it was not made known to the public. In attendance, but not part of the board were Laclede County dairy producer Armand Bechard of Bechard Family Farm, Christian County dairy producer Steve Stephens of Son Harvest Farm, and second SWMO WAPF chapter leader, Katie Doofenshmirtz. Mrs. Raymond, Bechard, Stephens, and Ms. Doofenshmirtz addressed the board regarding the benefits of Raw Milk. According to those in attendance, the gist of the meeting was typical of bureaucrats who feel that the American public isn’t capable of making their own decisions, thus wishing to enact policy to protect consumers from themselves and the supposed evils of raw milk.
This milk board sub-committee is trying to bypass the legal system by creating regulations. Their lawsuit against the Bechard’s has taken well over a year, with no end in sight. Their actions in Christian County show how they are trying speed things up by slipping in the back door.
We as consumers need to make sure that the State of Missouri does not allow the Milk Board or their sub-committee to create regulations that would contradict the law. They are not a legislative body.
The next sub-committee meeting is scheduled for September 16, 2010. At that meeting they hope to present more scientific evidence and begin to draw some conclusions.
The following is copied from the Farm To Consumer Legal Defense Fund website. The original article can be found here.
According to the FDA’s response they apparently believe that they have the authority to decide what you can and cannot eat.
FDA’s Response to FTCLDF Suit over Interstate Raw Milk Ban
BY PETE KENNEDY, ESQ. | MAY 6, 2010
Click here for details on the case
April 26, 2010
On April 26, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) submitted its response to a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF). The FTCLDF lawsuit claims that the federal regulations (21 CFR 1240.61 and 21 CFR 131.110) banning raw milk for human consumption in interstate commerce are unconstitutional and outside of FDA’s statutory authority as applied to FTCLDF’s members and the named individual plaintiffs in the suit. In its answer to the complaint, FDA made its position on the issue of ‘freedom of food choice’ a part of the public record. FTCLDF has until June 14 to file a reply to FDA’s response.
The agency has long opposed ‘freedom of food choice’ but its response to the FTCLDF complaint represents FDA’s strongest public statement yet on the freedom to obtain and consume the foods of one’s choice.
FDA’s Views on Freedom of Choice
Here are some of FDA’s views expressed in its response on ‘freedom of food choice’ in general and on the right to obtain and consume raw milk in particular:
* “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a new ‘fundamental right’ to produce, obtain, and consume unpasteurized milk lacks any support in law.” [p. 4]
* “It is within HHS’s authority . . . to institute an intrastate ban [on unpasteurized milk] as well.” [p. 6]
* “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a new ‘fundamental right’ under substantive due process to produce, obtain, and consume unpasteurized milk lacks any support in law.” [p.17]
* “There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food.” [p. 25]
* “There is no ‘deeply rooted’ historical tradition of unfettered access to foods of all kinds.” [p. 26]
* “Plaintiffs’ assertion of a ‘fundamental right to their own bodily and physical health, which includes what foods they do and do not choose to consume for themselves and their families’ is similarly unavailing because plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.” [p. 26]
* FDA’s brief goes on to state that “even if such a right did exist, it would not render FDA’s regulations unconstitutional because prohibiting the interstate sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk promotes bodily and physical health.” [p. 27]
* “There is no fundamental right to freedom of contract.” [p. 27]
The Fight for Food Freedom
Growing numbers of people in this country are obtaining the foods of their choice through private contractual arrangements such as buyers’ club agreements and herdshare contracts. FDA’s position is that the agency can interfere with these agreements because, in FDA’s view, there is no fundamental right to enter into a private contract to obtain the foods of choice from the source of choice. As for the agency’s contention that there is no fundamental right to obtain any food, including raw milk, here is what the ‘substantive due process’ clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Obtaining the foods of your choice is so basic to life, liberty and property that it is inconceivable that the ‘right of food choice’ would not be protected under the Constitution but FDA is saying “No”.
Freedom is strangely ephemeral. It is something like breathing; one only becomes acutely aware of its importance when one is choking. — William E. Simon
Consumers and producers of raw milk are feeling the choking grasp of a tyrannical mercantilist government run amok. Many of us are ready to stand our ground. How blue in the face will the rest of America have to become before she will shrug off the choking hands of tyranny? Are those that believe in liberty ready to become outlaws in order to stand for what is right or are we more concerned with comfort and safety?
The following is a letter written by Paul Hamby owner of Hamby Dairy Supply, to the milkboard and MDA in support of the right of the individual to choose raw milk. http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=31464
To: Missouri State Milk Board
cc: Jon Hagler Director, MDA
This message is a followup to testimony presented at the State Milk Board meeting Tuesday January 12, 2010.
The controversy over raw milk boils down to people’s basic right to choose what they eat, from whom they can purchase their food and how it is produced.
There are compelling arguments for and against both types of milk. I believe raw milk and processed milk are both reasonably safe when produced, refrigerated and distributed in the proper way.
Commercial bottled milk carries some potential risks, with pasteurization often being cited as the culprit. However, if you have ever made tomato soup for your family by combining a can of soup and a can of milk and heating to just below boiling, then you pasteurized the milk. I think the other steps of processing are more dangerous. Homogenization changes the structure of fat cells. Pouring cold milk into a just made hot plastic jug changes the flavor by adding plastic particles. If toxins can leach into bottled water from a plastic bottle, then isn’t it possible that milk can get toxins from a plastic milk jug? Knowing that risk, I still drink pasteurized milk from plastic jugs, but prefer milk from glass bottles.
I am in full support of pasteurization of milk produced in a traditional commercial setting. Milk shipped to a processing plant, handled and transferred by machines several times should be pasteurized.
Raw milk is reasonably safe when it comes from healthy animals, harvested in a clean sanitary way, quickly cooled and stored at 40 degrees or below. Thousands of Americans consume raw milk every day. Banning the production, consumption or distribution of raw milk will not stop the free market – it will only drive it underground. America experimented with this concept in the 1920′s with Prohibition of Alcohol.
In the 1970′s, the media went after butter because some scientists said it caused heart disease. America switched from butter to margarine. Respected doctors told their patients to switch. Today we know that real butter is healthier than margarine. The dairy industry suffered. Americans health declined based on bad science.
‘Scientists’ and activists have been sounding the alarm a lot recently. Just a couple of years ago the nation was terrified of mosquitoes. West Nile virus was predicted to kill many many Americans. The virus is real but the pandemic never materialized.
History is full of examples where government officials with good intentions created rules with unintended consequences. Communist governments who attempted to control their nation’s food supplies usually ended with people starving.
Thomas Jefferson warned us; “If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.”
This issue is really about Liberty and personal choice. Liberty and Freedom come with Responsibility. Laws and government intervention take away all 3.
If the Missouri State Milk Board has a role to play in this issue, it should be that of educating. The Milk Board could publish a list of safe practices for those new to milk production. Become a trusted source of reasonable advice and what would otherwise turn into an underground movement will be better informed. These Safe Practices could be posted on the State Milk Board page on the MDA web site.
Safe Practices could include:
* – udder preparation
* – sanitation
* – quick cooling of milk
* – animal health and testing for communicable diseases
* – Milk testing – CMT test and electronic cell count tests
* – Lab testing of Milk
* – The pasteurization issue can be presented this way: Consuming Raw Milk is a personal choice that comes with some risk. Please study the issue and be informed before producing or consuming raw milk. Pasteurization is simply heating milk to a specified temperature for a specific period of time to destroy potentially harmful bacteria.
Since Y2K, the Homestead and hobby farm movement has continued growing. Many of these folks along with Amish and Mennonite families believe raw milk is a healthier alternative. They will continue to produce milk for their families and neighbors.
I would ask you do 2 things now.
* 1. Publish Safe Practices for Missourians who want to produce raw milk.
* 2. Ask attorney General Koster to withdraw his lawsuit against the family who were delivering milk in Springfield.
In closing, I ask you to consider this question;
Who actually owns our bodies? The individual person or the government?
Paul Hamby
Maysville Missouri 64469
816 632 0602
Paul Hamby was raised on a 50 cow family dairy farm. His entire family consumed fresh raw cow milk every day from 1955 to 1979. His children were raised (and thrived) on fresh raw goat milk from the age of 6 months to 2 years. His animals were tested for communicable diseases. His milk was tested weekly. Hamby consumes both raw and pasteurized milk and prefers milk from glass containers.
Hamby owns a dairy equipment and supply company based in NW Missouri. He has designed and installed more than 100 commercial milking systems for cows, goats and sheep.
Recommended reading;
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
http://www.amazon.com/Raw-Milk-Revolution-Americas-Emerging/dp/1603582193/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263602722&sr=8-1
The Untold Story of Milk, Revised and Updated: The History, Politics and Science of Nature’s Perfect Food: Raw Milk from Pasture-Fed Cows
http://www.amazon.com/Untold-Story-Milk-Revised-Updated/dp/0979209528/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Hamby Dairy Supply guide for Milking Dairy Goats
http://reviews.ebay.com/Milking-Machine-Instructions-for-Dairy-Goats_W0QQugidZ10000000001759182
Hamby Dairy Supply webstore www.hambydairysupply.com
The following is a repost of an open letter published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The author hit the nail on the head. It’s a shame that consumers can’t legally buy raw milk in the dairy state.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/94772269.html
An open letter to Doyle on raw milk
By Bill And Karen Dushek
Posted: May 24, 2010 |
To Gov. Jim Doyle:
My wife and I worked hard for the passage of the raw milk bill and have been consuming raw milk for the past seven years. Your veto of the bill has left us feeling betrayed. Your public comments prior to the passage of the bill indicated potential support.
We believe that you were aware all along of the opposition of “health professionals” and the “dairy industry” and the Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection to the legalization of farm-to-consumer raw milk sales. So, your last minute veto felt like a punch in the gut and your brush-off of the strong bipartisan support this bill received left us stunned.
Topping it off, your veto message made you sound like a knight in shining armor coming to save the public from serious illness and the dairy industry from financial ruin. Both of these claims are dubious at best or just plain false at worst.
The fear that had been generated by these claims during the legislative process resulted in a bill designed to protect both the public health and the safety of the dairy industry. Regular testing of milk and the registration of raw milk consumers at the farm were sound safety measures included in the bill. Any sickness resulting from the consumption of unpasteurized milk would be confined to a small, identifiable population.
Your veto does nothing to protect public health. What you’re protecting is the status quo and your friendship with large institutions in the health and dairy industries.
It is pure baloney for you to say that “experts” will continue to study the question of allowing and regulating the sale of unpasteurized milk. That study will be a sham. The concerns and interest of all sides have been fully explored. The long list of organizations and their “expert” representatives including DATCP have spoken – through you.
From our viewpoint, it is not a question of further study. It is a question of a having a governor with the political will and courage to act on behalf of the small dairy farmer and the consumers who trust raw milk. The legislature did its job governor, but you failed us.
Do you think that the people who fought for the legalization of raw milk sales and who consume raw milk are a bunch of odd balls, right wing nuts or health freaks? They aren’t. Did you ever visit a small farm and sit down with a dairy farmer and his family and ask about their operation? Perhaps get to know them and discover what the freedom to sell raw milk means to them?
Did you ever seek out a few families who believe passionately that the freedom to purchase unpasteurized milk is their right? We know that “health professionals” and the “dairy industry” representatives impress you but how much do you really know about raw milk advocates, other than the fact that they have, as you said, “strong feelings?”
We admire the courage of the legislators who stood up to the powerful organizations arrayed against Senate Bill 434. We are grateful to Rep. Chris Danou (D-Trempealeau) and Sen. Pat Kreitlow (D-Chippewa Falls), who authored the milk bill and to our own state senator, Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), who was a spirited advocate for the raw milk bill. Along with our friends at People 4 Raw Milk, we will continue the fight for the legalization of raw milk sales.
Meanwhile we will be drinking raw milk and using it for cooking and baking when we can get it. You see, governor, we feel like experts, too, since we’ve enjoyed this milk for seven years and have never been sick a day. We find raw milk to be a nutritious, delicious and beneficial part of our diet.
The state has the responsibility to regulate the sale of raw milk and SB 434 did that, but we submit that the state has no right to prevent us from purchasing raw milk from a dairy farmer who wishes to sell it.
In this so called “free” land and in Wisconsin, of all places, a land “flowing with milk and honey” that should be every citizen’s choice to make.
Because of the fear spread by the public health community and the dairy industry those consuming raw milk will be small in number. If you and the “health professionals” are really concerned about public health get behind a ban on the sale of tobacco or alcohol.
Your veto of the raw milk bill under the guise of “potential harmful health effects” was hypocritical. Please pass the milk and make ours raw – and legal.
Bill and Karen Dushek live in West Bend.
After months of hard work by raw milk and freedom advocates, and strong bipartisan support for pro raw milk legislation, Governor Doyle decided to side with big dairy and vetoed the pro raw milk legislation. When will politicians quit selling out to corporate interests and start protecting the liberties of individuals. The Wisconsin legislation would not have put raw milk on store shelves, but it would have made it legal for consumers to buy raw milk from the farm. Raw milk advocates and those who understand that all people have the right to decide what to eat will continue to fight for food freedom. As for Gov. Doyle, he should be replaced in the next election.
Our new Jersey, Olive, was delivered today. I couldn’t wait until milking time tonight.
She behaved beautifully while being led down to the stanchion. She had not been haltered regularly or been led.
She didn’t let down her milk for me well at all but I expected that. She had been a nurse cow for three calved until this morning so I knew that milking might be a challenge this evening. She let me wash, brush, and milk her without so much as lifting a foot! I was amazed.
She was AI bred a couple of weeks ago so it is too early to know if she is pregnant or not but we will be watching her closely this weekend and early next week to see if she comes back into heat.
One of her herdmates will be coming to live at my sister-in-laws on Monday and the gentleman that we bought them from hopes to be able to deliver our other heifer the same day as well. I will post more about Angel, when she arrives.
Before long, we will have plenty of fresh raw milk for fattening our hogs and feeding to our pastured poultry. The chickens are loving all their feed soaked in milk. The extra protein should make them grow very nicely.
Clara was given a little Shetland bottle lamb this spring. Clara gets the job of bottle feeding him raw milk from our cows.
He is such a cute little thing and they have been tagging around together for the past month. This picture was taken a few days after we got him. They had been playing so hard all day and she sat down outside the greenhouse while I was working in there. The next thing I see is her sleeping and little “Lamb Chop” curled up next to her. He loves to follow you wherever you go.
We will be getting a few more lambs when they are ready to be weaned so that we can put some grass fed lamb in the freezer this coming winter/spring. I want to have them sheared first so I can have the lovely Shetland wool. I will have to get my niece to teach me how to spin.
I know it is a bit hard to picture eating him right now; but we explained to Clara right from Day 1 that we will be eating him some day. She really isn’t bothered by it at all. Every once in awhile she even calls him “Pork Chop” or “Veil Chop” by mistake. This 4 year old little girl really knows her cuts of meat 
He has started to become a bit troublesome since he won’t stay in the woven wire fence because he is too small. I caught him eating my rosemary in the greenhouse one day and tried to chase him out and he ran away dragging my poor plant behind him. Matt said that we could always market him as pre-seasoned lamb if he is that partial to rosemary. He has since been confined to a small chicken tractor that we now lovingly refer to as the “lamb tractor”. He gets moved every day just like the chickens and hopefully in the next couple of weeks he will finally be big enough to stay where he belongs.
Lily is our percentage mini-jersey heifer. She was sired by Munifordia’s Gamboge, an Old World Jersey bull and her dam is our herd queen, Heart – who is registered with the AJCA.
She was the first calf we had born here on our farm. She is 30 months old now and due with her first calf in about 6 weeks. Her calving is really bringing the cycle full circle for us.
As you can see, she is a nice small heifer. Matt is 6 feet tall, so you can get some perspective on her size. I have estimated her height at 37/38″.
Watching her udder develop over the last month has really gotten us excited for her calving and eventual milking. All that delicious raw milk that I will have for butter, cheese, and fattening hogs…YUMM!
It looks like she is going to have a wonderful udder, just like her momma.
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