My family has been drinking grass-fed raw milk for almost 20 years now. Since that time, I have watched the war against farm-fresh dairy evolve from something the government basically ignored (because there were so few people doing it) to the present day policy which is to harass and illegally shut down small dairy farms across the county essentially bankrupting them in the process.
Remember the old quotation from Gandhi?
First they ignore at you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
We are clearly in the last phase of the war against raw milk and there is no doubt that the right for the consumer to choose healthy farm fresh foods will win. But there is still a long way to go.
This new phase of the raw milk war now involves consumers as well as farmers. Considered off-limits in the past, consumers are being harassed and threatened with trumped-up charges like allowing local farmers to deliver on their property.
Government officials are writing up phony cease and desist letters in the name of the FDA even where the FDA has absolutely no jurisdiction in order to frighten consumers away from procuring dairy from their own privately owned cows tended by farmers contracted with via herd share agreements.
Clearly these are desperate measures by a government that realizes they are losing the battle to scare consumers away from this healthy, nutrient-dense food.
In the early days of the war, government warnings that raw milk would make you sick and that those who drank it were playing Russian roulette with their health were enough to scare the majority of consumers away from seeking and trying it for themselves. With distrust of the government at an all-time high, these tactics are no longer working.
One gal new to farm-fresh dairy told me recently that if the government was against raw milk, that must mean she should drink it and that it was good for her!
With the old battle strategies ineffective, this new phase against raw milk involves trying to reason with consumers to dissuade them logically from consuming raw milk.  This “I’m one of you and here are my concerns” approach seems very real and sensible at first, but in reality, it is the propaganda snake simply shedding its skin and taking a new form all in the name of confusing the consumer into inaction.
Take a look at the slick, professional video below by “Food Poison Expert” and attorney Bill Marler. This short clip demonstrates this new approach to divert consumers away from raw milk very clearly. His website “Real Raw Milk Facts” even goes so far as to use the lingo of the Real Food movement.
Be warned if you are new to raw dairy. This tactic is just the same old raw milk propaganda repackaged in a more subtle and insidious way to infiltrate and fight the raw milk war from the inside and on the fringes of the Real Food Movement. Will it work?
Not a chance. Consumers are becoming way to savvy nowadays to fall for this type of baloney. But it is helpful to expose the new tools of war just the same.
This just makes me MAD. No wonder people are scared of real healthy food. So much of what he said just angers me. I too was highly skeptical of raw milk when I first heard about it, but when you actually think about it and go beyond the governmental brainwashing, it makes so much sense about why raw milk is so good for you and for people for thousands of years. We’d pretty much all be dead if raw milk killed people off. When other countries were trying to stop tuberculous from over crowded dairy swills in the 1920’s they decided to clean the cows, not kill the milk. Leave it to America to take the “easy” route and instead of take an extra step to provide clean, healthy milk, just zap it and “solve” the nasty little problem of having to take care of a living animal and keep them clean. Thanks for posting, it’s good to know what brainwashing tactics are being used.
Brainwashing. You’ve got to be kidding me. Raw milk almost kill my child. What makes me mad is how this movement denies that illnesses occur.
Mary– Have you read Ted Beals’ article in the Summer 2011 edition of WAPF’s Wise Traditions (p.81)?? Ted is a retired pathologist, formerly with the University of Michigan Medical School and Veterans Administration. The article describes in lay language the leading pathogens and frequency of illness mainly using data from the Center for Disease Control. If you don’t have access to the article, I would be glad to fax you a copy. I can be reached at [email protected].
As a person who has been seriously ill, sometimes for years at a stretch, and has had a seriously ill child at one point, what makes me mad is for people to use that as an excuse to not find the real facts and to simply agree with whatever so-called expert they landed on and then proceed to wage a war based on the fallacies that they have been told.
I can sympathize whole-heartedly with the plight of watching your child harmed.
I also know that had I accepted the mainstream opinion that no one in the government or the big pharma companies or the big medical associations could fault, my child would be in very poor shape today rather than being a functioning 21 year old young man who has a relationship with God, holds a job and has fallen in love with a girl who seems to also have fallen for him.
We all are shaped by our experiences AND by how we handle them. You have made it abundantly clear the path you chose and the blame you lay and the rabid nature with which you intend to hold to that path. None of which allows for much room for it to be meaningful whether you are just wrong or are victim of an exception to the rule. It just is what it is and cannot be ameliorated.
I can feel sympathy, but I can no more join you in your misdirected angst than I can (or would) go back in time and choose dysfunction and pain for my son and myself by siding with your dogmas and biases.
When I was researching raw milk for the first time I came across Bill Marler’s website. It is set up in such a way to seem unbiased. The “real” facts about raw milk. But then I saw that it was funded by an attorney whose main practice is suing for food poisoning (there goes the unbiased angle he was trying to play). Far from scaring me off raw milk, it made me even more convinced that switching to raw milk is what I needed to do for the health of my family.
I have to say the effects of raw milk have been amazing. I had to stop dairy products for a number of months because my daughter I’m nursing would spit-up whenever I drank milk. And not just a little dribble here or there. She would splatter the floor behind me! The pediatrician said she would grow out of it, so I tried drinking milk again when she was 11 months old. While it was not as violent of a reaction she would only spit-up after I drank milk. Shortly after that we made the switch to raw milk and she has never had a problem since, she can even drink the raw milk herself and has no reaction! Even at 13 months she will spit-up some if I have a mocha from a chain coffee place.
I thought I was doing the right thing by serving my family organic milk, but had no idea what UHT meant or how bad is was for us! We are now a raw milk family! It sucks we have to play the herd-share game to be able to get it in Va. At $11 a gallon (which includes a delivery fee) so far we are only able to afford one gallon a week. I hope that as public concern for the situation grows it will become more available!
Margaret, I think you’re the best Mom to pay $11/gallon. It’s a small price in the longrun. We pay $5.99/quart without cowshare in CA where I live. But, even at that, it’s worth it, I no longer take asthma meds, or enbrel for psoriasis, no steroids. I’ll take the risk of raw milk over the side effects of those meds anyday at any price. The bottom line is it should be my choice! I don’t want the government to tell me what to eat. Also, isn’t it effectively a government monopoly to try and stifle the raw milk industry in order to promote big agriculture?
I too read his site and came to the same conclusion, Margaret.
The problem I have with him is that he doesn’t encourage any kind of personal responsibility. We take risks all the time, and it is our responsibility to make the best choices possible for ourselves and our families. There is no “risk free” in life and we always need to look critically at information and draw our own conclusions.
His ideas are different: if you regret a choice, sue! It was peer pressure, a religious cult – not your fault! Don’t worry, you do not need to think for yourself, the government will do it for you. The masses can’t be trusted with too many choices. Everyone is the same and should be treated identically.
Of course, encouraging people to think for themselves would just put Bill Marler out of business.
Yet another way government proves they are nothing but an arm of big agriculture. Do we really need to go after small farms for selling milk? Really? When our deficit talks are at a standstill, we as a society ignore wasteful jobs like these hacks going after entreprenuer farmers who are selling a product people wish to buy???
Yes. Milk sanitarily harvested from a clean healthy cow is perfectly SAFE so where’s the justification of illegalizing it?! Huh!? HUH!? Our tax dollars should be used to regulate its sales not to line pockets by restricting our rights!
I don’t see how this is a free country when people can’t go to a farmer and buy some damn milk. Yet, a large company can dump oil whereever the hell and that’s all she wrote.
Firstly, I would like very much for you to site exactly which dairies have been “illegally shut down”, and when.
Secondly, I must point out where you are simply wrong in your assumptions of what the FDA does and does not regulate when it comes to raw milk and raw milk products. Currently sales of raw milk in liquid form is governed by the state, not by the FDA. The following link provides a breakdown of them:
Anything that is not raw milk in liquid form, i.e. cheese or other dairy products, must be aged for 60 days or more in order to be sold in the U.S., regardless of where it is produced. This law is governed by the FDA, and yes it is antiquated and needs serious revision, but this is our current situation.
There is no “war on raw milk”, except that which people like yourself flagrantly write about without any real facts to back it up. I don’t know what the government wants to do with raw milk regulations, but I do know that their first and foremost concern is food safety, not putting raw milk dairies out of business. If you are so convinced that they are in the business of wreaking havoc on small agriculture, then you will no doubt interpret everything you hear and read as such. It takes a lot of energy to hold the stance you and many others like you do, energy that could be redirected towards much more constructive endeavors, like starting petitions for what you want to see happen with raw milk regulation, writing letters to your state representatives expressing your concerns and urging them to support your views, and most importantly, continuing to support your local raw milk producers by buying as much of it as you can.
Morningland Dairy for starters. Illegally shut down last year with no one ever getting sick and been in business for decades without a problem. The farm is now essentially bankrupt.
The FDA has no jurisdication on intrastate sales of raw milk which is exactly my point .. claiming the FDA does have jurisdication in these situations is false and yet government officials are doing just that with illegal cease and desist letters (most recently in Kentucky).
The newly released documentary Farmageddon documents the war on raw milk quite well. I suggest you see it if you can.
In the case of Morningland, their cheeses were tested for Staph and Listeria, yielding positive results for both. I’ve read a lot about that case and the facts surrounding what happened after they issued a voluntary recall are murky at best.
I’m not sure what you are referring to in Kentucky, I would be curious to know. When it comes to raw milk cheese (as opposed to milk in liquid form), it is the FDA’s jurisdiction. Often cease and desist letters are issued when a producer (of any food product, not just dairy), is asked to perform a voluntary recall and/or destruction of contaminated product. If they refuse to do so, then cease and desist letters are issued and product may be seized and/or destroyed forcefully. This process is where things really break down – we need to develop a process for farmers to follow so that they have more options than simply recall or get shut down.
However, saying that no one got sick from eating food that tests positive for harmful pathogens is no argument for the sale of contaminated product. I may not get sick from eating cheese contaminated with Listeria, but I am not representative of the entire population who eats cheese.
There is no evidence that the strains you are referring to are dangerous. No one got sick. The government considers ALL bacteria to be dangerous which is why pasteurization is considered effective when everything including the probiotics are dead. All bacteria are not dangerous and to assume they are is foolhardy and an indication of lapse of judgement. I wrote a blog last week about a new therapy which transplants the feces of a healthy person’s gut into the gut of a person sick with a superbug (C Diff) and the person miraculously recovers within a day. You can be sure that transplant is FULL of bacteria .. but it is the kind that is helpful not harmful.
From the Morningland Dairy blog:
“Despite expert testimony that there was no real indication of any harmful bacteria in our cheese and a lack of evidence for the judgments he made, Judge Dunlap apparently did not want to be confused by the facts. In his judgment he stated, “…the court must therefore disregard the absence of sickness among the consumers of defendant’s cheeses.””
morninglanddairy.webs.com/apps/blog/
@Sarah I commented but it’s not showing up — I think it went into spam.
Frequently, FDA works through state governments. At present, the state of CA has ILLEGALLY issued cease and desist orders to two herdshare operations, one in San Jose, and one further south (the San Jose one is local to me, although I buy raw milk elsewhere). Both are small outfits, which will be bankrupted fast by legal fees and such. Herdshare operations are LEGAL in CA, but the CDFA is choosing to attempt to apply the law meant to cover larger raw milk dairies, which are NOT herdshare operations to herdshares, thus depriving the owners of the animals involved from their constitutional right to contract, as well as performing what amounts to an unlawful taking (without due process–also unconstitutional) of the owners’ dairy animals and the products of same. Other, similar, actions are in progress nationwide, including the DC-area one mentioned elsewhere in these comments. The farmer involved there legally sold the milk at his farm. It is NOT his responsibility where the buyers take the milk afterward–even if they cross state lines with it. He didn’t sell milk across state lines. But the FDA is trying to considerably broaden the definition of selling across state lines, which has traditionally been quite narrowly defined.
Can you site which particular herdshares are involved in this? I’d love to find out more about it.
Check out the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund website (farmtoconsumer.org). Much info on the harassment of small farms can be found here.
You want to talk about harassment. You haven’t lived until you try to tell people your child got sick from raw milk and the people in the WAPF harass you.
Please find a way to see this movie: farmageddonmovie.com/
If nothing else, click the link and watch the trailer.
Also read “The Raw Milk Revolution” by David Gumpert. He tells a lot of the farmers’ stories.
The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid is another fantastic book. Please read it and educate yourself before you condemn any and all raw milk, Mary.
Rainbow Acres a farm in PA has a case in court.
Shari, I’m sorry but — wake up! You honestly believe that the government’s primary concern when it comes to milk regulations is our safety? You really don’t think there are any politics involved in the issue whatsoever?
The dairy industry spends MILLIONS of dollars every year on lobbyists and supporting political candidates. You can see the cold, hard facts at opensecrets.org — it’s public information.
Wonder why this mega-industry would spend so much on the lobbying? Perhaps you should have a look at this site which details the 4.9 BILLION dollars in government subsidies to the dairy industry since 1995: farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=dairy
That’s a lot of free money flooding into one industry. Can we say, “conflict of interest?”
The more small dairy farms producing raw milk that get shut down or forced out of business, the greater the market share is for Big Dairy. It’s an easy conclusion to reach.
Sheri LaVigne,
When’s the last time you visited a small raw milk farm? I suggest you ask the farmer how much he/she has been harrassed with regulations or other such nonsense. Get your head out of the sand!
Outlawing raw milk and legalizing pot…that’s our government!
You must’ve meant illegalizing pot because yea that’s our government!
Been drinking raw milk off and on for 25 yrs now. More on than off. Never have gotten sick from it.MY first cow,good ole #47 fed us, her,hercalf and all the other animals on the place.I was an illegal milk lady.None of my customers EVER got sick.I think it’s a personal choice.If ya wanna drink that “crap”outa the store ,then go ahead.But if you want to buy my milk after you have seen my cow and my kitchen and you know I am the only one that handles the milk,it should be a personal choice,not an illegal purchase.That would be like tellin me I have to buy the high test gas instead of the cheap stuff.
They are taking on raw milk because getting it outlawed will set a precendent for ANY food/drink they want to go after. It’s not about the milk – it’s about getting control of everything we eat. We are their cattle and they are “managing their herd”.
Love reading the comments. So heartening to know there are so many savvy folks in spite of all of the disinformation!! “. . . .then you win!” lol
I’ll change the wording .. I didn’t look at it that way. Thanks.