Food and Freedom

Hi there!

I am sure there will be a way to make this end up in a larger post, but for right now, I just need to burn off a little steam.

I had another conversation with a friend of mine (who is quite learned,) about raw milk. Basically, it came down to this-- "It's poison."

Really.

I mean, honestly, it's poison. How so? People die from it all the time. Again, really?

So... I did a little digging...

Here are the food stats for food related deaths for all reasons, compiled from a number of sources: The CDC, FoodNet (run by the CDC,) MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report,) DBMD (Division of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases,) etc...

*all numbers are estimated, or averaged yearly between 1995-2010

Salmonella - 1,000/year
Campylobacter - 500/year
Cholera - 1/year
Shigellosis - 10/year
Rotavirus - 20-100/year
Non-ulcer dyspepsia - 49 in the 1980s (later stats are hard to find, basically on the level
of cholera in the Western World)
Food poisoning - about 5,000/year
Listeriosis - 500/annually

I'm skipping over the people who get sick from food poisoning, or any of the above diseases, but the CDC website says 1 in 6 Americans, or about 55 million people... every stinking year... get sick from something food-borne.

So look at those numbers for the dead.

Raw milk has contributed 0 deaths since 1980.

ZERO (in bold, for the hard of hearing.)

Most deaths from food are from:

Spinach
Cantaloupe
Undercooked/Raw Poultry
Undercooked/Raw Meat
Raw Vegetables/Fruit

Hm. But no raw milk. Surprise, surprise.

However, all over the CDC website, they have warnings about raw milk, and that it should be pasteurized, no matter what. Even though they cannot back that claim up...

So here is where it all comes together for me.....

I get my raw milk from the Boge family (of Golden Guernsey of Illinois.) They have lovely Guernsey cows that produce just the most amazing milk. Higher fat content, the works. And the spring milk just tastes divine... oh, my oh my... lol. Thomas even knows that it is REAL milk. He loves it (we both have a glass a day, and so far with my triathlon training, I get the best recovery when I have a glass about 30-60 minutes after the hardest workouts.)

However, Illinois law say that raw milk producers cannot advertise, and purchases of their 'product' must use their own containers.

Needless to say, you cannot purchase it in stores (from what I recollect, only 3 states allow that... California being one of them. Go Cali!!)

They are not trying to stop the purchase of sushi... or produce... or Burger King (anyone remember the salmonella outbreak at the BK on 79th street in the 1980s?)

20 states had a recall on cantaloupe after an outbreak of salmonella that hospitalized 140+ people and killed 2 (the headlines all say that over 30 died, but the stats don't back that up.) The cantaloupe were grown in Indiana, and the produce was shipped across the country.

A year ago, it was lettuce. About the same numbers....

Green onions have also been linked, as well as tainted meat, tomatoes, and peanuts.

Every year, all these foods are linked to salmonella, however only raw milk is on the list to get banned if the CDC gets their way.

In Kentucky and Rhode Island, you cannot purchase raw milk under any circumstances except for raw goat milk, and that only with a prescription for it by a licensed physician.

So, as an adult, I cannot enter into a contract, written or verbal, with someone whom I know, to buy raw milk from them under any circumstances.

More to come......