NEW YORK – GOVERNMENT INACTION HURTING RAW MILK PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS

While only a few states have yet to legalize some form of raw milk distribution, there are many among the legal states that need to change their laws to improve access for consumers and give farmers a more viable market for their milk. New York is one state that badly needs to amend its laws.

Under current law in the state, only on-farm sales by permitted producers are legal. The prohibition on the delivery of raw milk by permitted dairies has resulted in millions of dollars in sales every year lost to raw milk farmers in neighboring states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Connecticut. The only other raw dairy product New York farmers can produce and sell is cheese aged 60 days, a further limitation costing producers substantial income.

In 2004 the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (NYDAM) had plans to legalize the sale of other dairy products but never followed through. Until 1994, the unregulated sale and delivery of raw milk was legal in New York State; that year, NYDAM issued regulations limiting transactions to permitted sales on the farm. NYDAM has the power to issue new regulations, allowing both delivery of raw milk and the sale of any raw dairy product without needing further authorization from the legislature. Farmers and consumers have been contacting NYDAM for years about changing the law, but NYDAM has done nothing, ignoring the massive loss of revenue that instead flows to producers in neighboring states.

A veteran dairy farmer with decades of experience in producing raw milk for both pasteurization and direct consumption has set up an online petition asking signers to contact New York State Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball and NYDAM Division Chief Casey McCue requesting that the department issue regulations to allow deliveries of raw milk and sales of raw dairy products other than milk and cheese. The petition can be accessed online at: bit.ly/3HjsLmM.

NYDAM’s intentional inaction is not only hurting raw milk farmers and consumers; it’s ensuring that the consolidation of the state’s dairy farms continues. The family dairy farm in New York is rapidly disappearing. A recent USDA Census of Agriculture report shows how far the dairy industry has fallen off in the state. According to the census from 2017 to 2022, the number of dairies declined by one-third in the state; New York lost almost two thousand dairies during that period. Big increases in input prices over the last few years, along with
a federal pricing system that continually shortchanges farmers, have accelerated the number of farms producing commodity milk that have gone out of business. There was already a steep drop in dairy farms before 2017; over the past twenty-five years, the number of dairies in the state has decreased from nine thousand to around three thousand today.

Dairy farmers trying to get out of the commodity system have three options: (1) bottling and pasteurizing their own milk; (2) processing their own milk into value-added products, such as butter and cheese; and (3) selling their own milk for direct human consumption. By far, the last option is the easiest and least expensive way for the dairy producer to escape the commodity system and remain in business. A change in the raw milk laws by NYDAM would enable many more Grade A dairies to successfully make this conversion.

The post Raw Milk Updates, Spring 2024 appeared first on Real Milk.

2024 Annual IAFP Meeting in Long Beach, California

The International Association for Food Protection (IAFP) held its annual meeting from July 14-17. The IAFP meeting is the largest food safety conference in the world; this year, over 3,000 people from industry, government and academia attended. The meeting is the conference for the industrial food system; this year, as in the past, Merck Animal Health and Cargill were major sponsors. Labor shortages and broken down supply chains over the past few years have made the food safety regulators’ jobs more thankless than ever. The regulators might have to deal with a foodborne illness outbreak that contains ingredients sourced from multiple countries where the traceability is difficult. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which went into effect in 2011, was supposed to reduce the number of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. A high ranking FDA official provides a regulatory update at the meeting each year; until the 2023 conference, that official acknowledged that the number of foodborne illnesses has remained flat. The past two years, the official giving the regulatory update hasn’t covered the matter; with the noticeable deterioration in quality in the conventional food supply, the likelihood is that foodborne illness has not declined.

A solution to the food safety problem would be to decentralized food production and deregulate both food production and distribution at the state and local level—a move attendees at the conference do not consider; their job is to figure out and implement improvements to food safety under the existing industrial paradigm. Nevertheless, the IAFP meeting is an important event to follow; it can serve as an incubator for laws and policies that have an effect on the local food system.

The following is a review of some topics covered at this year’s meeting.

Bird Flu—Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)

With reports on the bird flu “pandemic” being blared in the media daily, a panel consisting of federal government regulators (FDA, USDA, CDC) and individuals from academia and industry convened to discuss what to do about the outbreak of HPAI that had first spread to dairy cattle towards the end of March.¹ The panelists lamented how the public was not listening to their warnings not to consume raw milk; in May, one polling firm estimated that demand for raw milk had risen as high as 65% since the onset of the “pandemic”. The panel members spoke about how social media such as TikTok and Instagram are influencing the public to purchase raw milk. One panel member thought the public was buying raw milk out of fear. Another panelist was closer to the truth when he acknowledged that mistrust of government, academia and industry has led to an increase in the consumption of raw milk. Accurate science was what the panel thought could stop or slow down the increase in raw milk consumption.

Another reason brought up in the discussion about why the consumption of raw milk was going up was a fear of industrial food and not knowing where your food was coming from. One panelist thought the consumer would support locally produced pasteurized milk. A panel member resolved to gather more information on why consumers think raw milk is the right thing. The panel agreed that HPAI was going to be around for a while and that it would be important to harmonize messaging with partners whether they be in the federal government, state government, or in industry.

Reports are that labs are using the notoriously inaccurate PCR test to test for HPAI; numerous labs during COVID were running the test at 40 cycles or more where the chances of a false positive test result were high. Two employees for a lab exhibiting at the IAFP conference tradeshow guessed that their lab was running the PCR test at 45 cycles to test for HPAI. Interestingly, an official with the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources stated, “PCR tests are only viable up to 30 cycles, so these labs would likely run no more than 30 cycles.”² Massachusetts has been the only state so far to require raw milk dairies to test for bird flu; so far, all milk samples tested have been negative for HPAI.

Cronobacter

Another talk impacting raw milk at IAFP was a panel discussion on cronobacter³, a pathogen found mainly in powdered infant formula. A speaker at a past IAFP conference disclosed that there is a 20% mortality rate for infants infected with the pathogen. A panelist at the 2024 conference stated that cronobacter can survive in the powdered formula up to five years. Another panelist said that cronobacter has characteristics of both salmonella and listeria. Takeaways from the panel discussion were that cronobacter is ubiquitous in the environment and that there’s still lots to be learned about the pathogen.

In 2022 an Abbott Laboratory plant in Michigan shut down after infant formula produced in it was linked to deaths and illnesses caused by cronobacter. Shortly after the shutdown, traffic to a page on raw milk infant formula on the Weston A. Price Foundation’s website went up 1,000% as demand for raw milk surged. Much of the panel discussion centered on how difficult and complex the cleaning process is in a plant producing powdered infant formula; profit margins are high so firms in the business have the incentive to stay in even though the risks are considerable compared to most foods. It would not be surprising if future problems with cronobacter occur in infant formula plants, directly leading to further jumps in the demand for raw milk.

Food Fraud

One of the more eye-opening sessions at IAFP was a panel discussion on food fraud⁴—something that affects 10% of the commercial food supply according to a speaker at the session. Food fraud is especially present with honey, oils, spices, fish, and juices. Food fraud is the intentional adulteration and mislabeling (misbranding) of products; one trick of the trade is altering expiration dates on the label, and another is putting a low quality product in the packaging and labeling used by a competitor and passing that product off as the competitor’s. Undeclared allergens on food labels are also a problem.

Protecting against food fraud is a complex and arduous process for a business. Different sectors within a firm work on it from product development to quality assurance to procurement. Tracking supply chains, vulnerability (to fraud) assessments, verifying authenticity (e.g., GMO-free, organic, country of origin), lab testing ingredients or finished food products, and being in compliance with legal requirements are all part of the process. The world of food fraud is great incentive for buying directly from a farmer you know and trust.

Cell Cultured Meat (CCM)

Investors have spent billions on cell cultured meat but so far there is very little product on the market. Pre-market approval from FDA is necessary to sell cell cultured meat; that agency has joint jurisdiction with USDA in regulating that product. In IAFP session on cell cultured meat (CCM)⁵, a speaker said that FDA had only granted approval for two cell cultured poultry products, and no approval for any beef or pork products yet. Another speaker remarked that price and perfection for cell cultured meat are not there. The legal framework to navigate to get approval is difficult. A typical CCM product will have anywhere from 60 to 100 inputs (ingredients); FDA evaluates each to determine whether it is a food additive recognized in the law or, in most cases, whether it is GRAS (generally recognized as safe). One speaker remarked that the infrastructure for the CCM industry is lacking; there is no large-scale commercialization of the product. Another said that pathogens such as Campylobacter, Salmonella, and E. coli in CCM are a problem. There was a comment that, with the expense of manufacturing CCM, there was little product available. One of the speakers disclosed that the U.S. is a test market for CCM and that much of the investment in the product was European. The upshot of the session was that CCM is not having success getting established in the market; the speakers at the session spent little or no time addressing the complete lack of demand for CCM.

Attending the IAFP conference is an affirmation of how important it is to build out a parallel food system; the pace which favorable laws and infrastructure for a prosperous local food system is rounding into place needs to increase.

Footnotes:
1. Anderson N, Detlefsen C, Nichols M, Martin N, Suarez D, & Sinatra J. (2024, July 16). LB – Late Breaking Session – Responding to an Outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI). [Panel discussion]. IAFP 2024 Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA. https://iafp.confex.com/iafp/2024/onlineprogram.cgi/Session/10155

2. Cahill M. (2024, August 28). Government email. MA Dept. of Agricultural Resources Div. of Animal Health.

3. Clifford D, Farber J, Gollinger M, Hanlin J, van der Sanden J, & Warren B. (2024, July 15). RT11 – Cronobacter spp. Control: Bridging Knowledge Gaps and Taking Action. [Panel discussion]. IAFP 2024 Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA. https://iafp.confex.com/iafp/2024/onlineprogram.cgi/Session/9571

4. Burke J, de Leonardis D, Jorgens A, & Winkel, C. (2024, July 15). RT10 – Think Like a Criminal – The Dark World of Food Fraud. [Panel discussion]. IAFP 2024 Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA. https://iafp.confex.com/iafp/2024/onlineprogram.cgi/Session/9766

5. Anandappa A, Overbuy K, Pantano A, Rainer N, & Yang L. (2024, July 17). S64 – Cultivating Meaty Cells – A Perspective Focus on Food Safety, Regulatory, and Experiences. [Conference symposium]. IAFP 2024 Annual Meeting, Long Beach, CA. https://iafp.confex.com/iafp/2024/onlineprogram.cgi/Session/9808

The post Industrial Food Safety: 2024 IAFP Meeting Recap appeared first on Real Milk.

The sale of raw milk for human consumption is legal in Nevada; however, a Nevada dairy cannot produce raw milk to be sold unless there is a county milk commission to regulate production and distribution; even if there is a county commission, the sale of raw milk and raw milk products the farm produces is legal only in that county, nowhere else in the state.[1] Currently, only one of the 16 counties in the state, Nye County, has a milk commission. A bill allowing statewide sales of raw milk, certified by a county milk commission, was vetoed by Governor Brian Sandoval in 2013.

The Nye County Raw Dairy Commission (NCRDC) formed in 2012.[2] Under state law, the commission must “adopt written regulations, which must be approved by the Director [of the Nevada Department of Agriculture] governing the production, distribution and sale in the county of certified raw milk and products made from it,…”[3] It is the commission that certifies the raw milk and raw milk products so they can be sold. The Director, as far as is known, never approved the regulations the Raw Milk Commission drafted and adopted in November 2015 [4] (per agenda and minutes for 11/18/2016) [5,6]. If the director had approved, a Nye County dairy would have had to comply with not only the commission’s regulations but also dozens of regulatory requirements issued by the Nevada Department of Agriculture that are found in the state administrative code, including extensive physical facility requirements—all this to sell milk in a county of around 56,000 people [7]; Nevada’s population is 3.2 million [8].

Herdshare agreements aren’t an option for raw milk producers in Nevada. Anyone selling or dispensing raw milk must have a permit issued by the state and be in compliance with all county and state regulations. Nevada law defines “sold or dispense” to mean “any transaction involving the transfer or dispensing of raw milk by barter or contractual agreement or in exchange for any form of compensation, including, but not limited to, the sale of shares or interest in a cow, goat or other lactating mammal or herd.”[9]

Sales of raw milk for animal consumption are legal but only if there is an “approved denaturant”[10] added to the milk; all the approved denaturants are toxic. There isn’t much opportunity for dairy farmers in Nevada these days, especially small-scale operators. There are around 20 Grade A dairies left in the state, ranging in size from 500 cows to over 25,000 [11]. Nevada dairy farmers have lost millions of dollars in raw milk sales to neighboring California; 2025 should be the year when the booming demand for raw milk moves the legislature to pass a law that actually gives raw milk producers a chance to make a living.

——-
1. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. 584.207 (NRS 584.207), https://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-584.html#NRS584Sec207
2. Commission created in 2012 by “Nye Ordinances Chapter 8.40 Raw Milk Commission”. See archived Notice of Public Hearing on Nye County Bill 2012-15, originally posted July 17, 2012. https://www.nyecountynv.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=212&ARC=485
3. Nevada statute NRS 584.207, clause 3(b) https://www.leg.state.nv.us/division/legal/lawlibrary/NRS/NRS-584.html#NRS584Sec207
4. Regulations of the Nye County Raw Milk Commission. Adopted November 11, 2015 per agenda and minutes for Nov. 18, 2015. https://nv-nyecounty.civicplus.com/DocumentCenter/View/29055/Item8?bidId=
5. Raw Milk Commission Agenda November 18, 2016. (2016, Nov 14) https://www.nyecountynv.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_11182016-2101
6. Draft Meeting Minutes for Nye County Raw Dairy Commission. (2016, Nov 18). https://www.nyecountynv.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_11182016-2101
7. worldpopulationreview.com/states/nevada/counties
8. worldpopulationreview.com/states/nevada-population
9. Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. 584.207 (NRS 584.209), https://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-584.html#NRS584Sec209]
10. Ibid.
11. nevadamilk.com/on-the-farm/nevada-farms

The post Nevada: How the De Facto Ban Works appeared first on Real Milk.

On June 6, the FDA wrote to all state public health and agriculture agencies advising them on the need to “collectively work to address new developments related to the presence of High Pathogenic Avian Influenza A H5N1 (HPAI H5N1) in dairy cattle.”

Although admitting that “. . . we do not know at this time if the HPAI H5N1 virus can be transmitted to humans through consumption of raw milk and products made from raw milk from infected cows,” the agency recommends that health and agriculture departments “Distribute messaging to the public about the health risks of consuming raw milk and raw milk products” and “[i]mplement a surveillance testing program in your state to identify the presence of HPAI H5N1 virus in dairy herds that might be engaged in producing raw milk for intrastate sale.” The FDA and USDA will provide “technical assistance” in sampling and testing.

Their motive is clearly stated: “For states that permit the sale of raw milk within their state, use regulatory authorities or implement other measures, as appropriate, to stop the sale of raw milk that may present a risk to consumers.”

We can assume from this memo that raw milk farmers will be receiving visits from officials wanting to test their milk for a non-existent virus using a bogus testing method, just as they have done for flocks of chickens.
Fortunately, some chicken farmers have avoided this testing and prevented the slaughter of their animals by insisting that inspectors fill out two questionnaires.

1. Inspector Information form to obtain the names and contact information of those visiting their farm (below).
2. Questionnaire for Inspector, which asks for proof of successful isolation of the bird flu virus, proof of contagious nature of the bird flu virus, type of test that will be used and contact information of the lab that will be doing the testing (below).

Obviously, no inspector will be able to provide the information requested on the form, information that is the farmer’s right to have. The hope is that they will leave and never come back–as they have with astute chicken farmers.

ACTION TO TAKE: Please share these forms with your raw milk producer. We hope that these measures will prevent the FDA’s planned shutdown of raw milk farmers.

Sincerely yours,
Sally Fallon Morell, President
The Weston A. Price Foundation

INSPECTOR INFORMATION

Please write legibly

DATE:___________________________________________________________
NAME:__________________________________________________________
TITLE/POSITION:_________________________________________________
BADGE NUMBER:_________________________________________________
AGENCY:________________________________________________________
OFFICE PHONE:__________________________________________________
CELL PHONE:_____________________________________________________
DIRECT EMAIL:__________________________________________________
OFFICE ADDRESS:________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
PURPOSE OF VISIT:________________________________________________
TYPE OF SAMPLE REQUESTED:_____________________________________
WHAT WILL THE SAMPLE BE TESTED FOR?__________________________
NAME OF SUPERIOR:______________________________________________
TITLE:___________________________________________________________
PHONE OF SUPERIOR:_____________________________________________
EMAIL OF SUPERIOR:_____________________________________________

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR INSPECTOR

All items must be answered before the release of any sample

Name:_______________________________________Date:______________

Type of sample requested:

What will sample be tested for?

Regulation that allows the taking of this sample:

If sampling for a virus:
1. Supply peer-reviewed study showing the appropriate isolation, purification, characterization and genetic sequencing of purported virus you will be testing for;
2. Supply valid, rigorous, repeatable scientific evidence showing that (under conditions that actually occur in nature and/or on farms) it is transmissible to other animals;
3. Supply valid, peer-reviewed studies showing that the virus causes the illness/symptoms it is purported to cause, and that the illness/symptoms are contagious.

Type of test to be used:
Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) __________
Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) ___________
If PCR, how many cycles? ____________
Other (please specify): _______________________________________

For each type of test that you propose to administer, cite or supply valid studies showing that it has been validated for detecting the purported virus (not simply a target sequence, protein or antibody) in the same context that you propose to apply the test:

For each type of test that you propose to administer, supply the following:
Sensitivity: ___________________________________________
Specificity: ___________________________________________
Positive predictive value: _______________________________
Negative predictive value:________________________________

Name of Lab doing the testing:_______________________________________
Address of Lab____________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Phone number of Lab:_____________________________________________
Email of Lab:_____________________________________________________

I certify that the information given in this form or attached to this form is accurate and true:

Signed:_______________________________________
Position:_____________________________________
Date:________________________________________

The post ACTION ALERT: PLANNED SHUTDOWN OF RAW MILK FARMERS appeared first on Real Milk.

Reneau’s is limiting government power, not surprising for someone who endured a combined three-year investigation of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) and USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS), all in connection with providing nutrient-dense food to her community through a food buyers club. Reneau was able to turn this adversity into a major legislative success.

In 2016 Reneau along with Nate and Ajnu Wilson started the Weekly Fig, a private membership association that distributed raw milk, meat and other nutrient-dense foods from local farmers to members of the food buyers club. A passage in Weekly Fig’s Articles of Association stated, “We proclaim the freedom to choose and decide for ourselves, the types of products, services and methods that we think best for healthy eating and preventing illness and disease of our minds and bodies, and for achieving and maintaining optimal wellness. We proclaim and reserve the right to healthy food options that include, but are not limited to, cutting-edge discoveries and farming practices used by any types of healers or therapists or practitioners the world over, whether traditional or non-traditional, conventional or non-conventional.” 

Weekly Fig rented out space to handle the storage and distribution of farm-produced food to its members; a short time after it had been in operation, a health department inspector barged in on the facility and conducted an unauthorized, warrantless inspection. The health department subsequently issued the Weekly Fig citations for not having the proper licenses for what they were doing. Soon after, TDA became involved sending its own inspector over to the facility. Reneau refused to let the inspector in, claiming TDA did not have jurisdiction over a private buyers club distributing food only to its members. TDA followed up by sending a warning letter to Weekly Fig stating, among other violations, that it was illegally operating a food establishment without a license and offering raw milk for sale. When TDA and the buyers club couldn’t come to a resolution on the matter, the department sent further correspondence to Weekly Fig putting Reneau and the Wilsons on notice that “future violations of the same or similar sort, i.e., unlicensed operation as a food establishment or sale of raw milk—will be considered grounds for the department to seek actions for injunction and or criminal charges.”

TDA did not take an enforcement action against Weekly Fig, but the threat of one remained over its head; so, when the 2017 Tennessee legislative session rolled around, Reneau contacted State Senator Frank Niceley to see if he could help the food buyers club with legislation.  Niceley introduced Senate Bill 651 (SB 651) which established that there was no regulation or licensing requirement for a “farm to consumer distribution point.“ Reneau testified at a Senate committee hearing for the bill; on May 11, 2017, SB651 was signed into law. A law distinguishing between the public and private distribution of food was now on the books—a major victory for food buyers clubs and farmers in Tennessee.

Unfortunately, Reneau’s problems did not end, even though there was no longer a conflict with TDA. Shortly before SB 651 became law, the Weekly Fig received a visit from two FSIS officials seeking to inspect the facility and the freezers in it. Reneau refused to let them in, telling them this was a private membership association and that, unless they had a warrant, they could not conduct an inspection of the facility.

FSIS Inspectors attempted a second inspection, and Reneau refused them again. When the inspectors provided her with copies of the laws they claimed gave them authority to inspect, she told them those laws apply to the general public, not a private membership association. In battling FSIS, Reneau showed the same courage and tenacity she did in her dispute with TDA—not accepting the government’s general assertions of authority and contesting the regulators point by point, asking for specific citations in the law to back up their claims. She grudgingly gave up ground to regulators, standing on her belief that there is a legal distinction between the public and private distribution of food.

Reneau said, “My whole life I have typically been a law-abider. I very much have a great respect for authority. It became very clear to me though, in my journey over the last 10 years with health and food and medical, that I need to be cautious about any authority exerted from those places because they had already proven themselves wrong in many cases.”

FSIS sent warning letters to Reneau and Weekly Fig after the attempted inspections and subsequently filed a court action to inspect the facility and look at the buyers club’s records. During the standoff, Reneau decided to shut down the Weekly Fig when it lost its lease and a suitable replacement within its budget could not be found; being pregnant with her fifth child made the decision easier to discontinue with the day-to-day operations. Nevertheless, FSIS pressed on with the case seeking records from the Weekly Fig.

In April 2019, Reneau had a court hearing, attending it while 37 weeks pregnant; the judge ordered that she appear for a deposition and bring buyers club records. The deposition took place in July 2019; Reneau brought her two-month-old baby with her—nursing the baby throughout the questioning from DOJ and USDA attorneys. She was worried about protecting the privacy of her club members and farmers; as it turned out, the deposition was more about getting the matter off FSIS’s desk—after two years, the federal investigation of Weekly Fig was over.

Through her experience with the Weekly Fig, Reneau has seen a side of government that most have not. She says, “I would just like to see less of the government making decisions on behalf of people as it affects their private lives. We should be able to make decisions for ourselves as long as it is not impacting other people … I just feel like the government has taken too much of a role in private life and that is where I would like to see things shift.”

Michele Reneau is active in defending faith, family and freedom, and constitutional rights—including the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing, health and education of their children according to their values and beliefs. Acting on the courage of her convictions, she is someone who walks the talk.

The post How One Weston Price Chapter Leader Made an Impact appeared first on Real Milk.

Niceley, an honorary board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), is one of the more productive and liberty-minded legislators in the country and an effective advocate in Nashville (the state capital) not only for his own constituents but also for numerous other Tennessee residents, especially farmers. It’s common for farmers around the state to contact Niceley, a fifth-generation cattle farmer, for help instead of their own legislators if they are having an issue with a regulator or government agency, be it state or federal.

The successful legislation he has sponsored and policies he has helped implement as both a state representative and state senator have made a huge impact on small farmers and local artisan food producers and many others in Tennessee. In his latest term, Niceley sponsored successful bills legalizing the over-the-counter sale of ivermectin (Tennessee was the first state to do so), taking the sales tax off gold and silver coins, legalizing the unlicensed, unregulated sale of cottage foods not only direct from the producer to the consumer but also to third parties such as grocery stores, and establishing a state meat inspection program.

Niceley has done more to deregulate local food production and distribution than anyone in the past 15 years, enabling family farms and local artisans to have a better chance to make a living. His list of accomplishments include:

2009 [HB 720]
Sponsored bill legalizing the distribution of raw milk through herdshare agreements. In 2012 Niceley followed up on that bill by getting an Attorney General’s opinion that it was legal to distribute other raw dairy products through a herdshare agreement as well.

2012
Got an Attorney General’s opinion that farmers didn’t need a permit to sell eggs from their own farm.

2014 [SB 1707]
Sponsored a bill adopting the federal poultry exemption enabling farmers to process up to 20,000 birds a year. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture has since expanded the exemption by policy to include processing rabbit meat on the farm.

Before the bill passed, Tennessee had one of the worst regulatory climates for on-farm poultry processing in the country; during that time, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund (FTCLDF) received a call from a poultry farmer in Bristol, Tennessee, getting ready to move across the state line to Bristol, Virginia, because he was so fed up with the restrictive laws and policies on on-farm poultry processing.

2017 [SB 343]

Sponsored a bill adopting the federal exemption on custom slaughter and the exemption on non-amenable species. The latter exemption allows the sale of meat from animals such as bison and domestically raised deer that are slaughtered and processed at a custom facility.

2017 [SB 651]
When Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) chapter leader, Michele Reneau, was threatened with prosecution because the food buyers club she co-managed did not have a permit, Niceley passed a bill, exempting food buyers clubs from licensing and regulation.

2017
Received Attorney General’s opinion stating that there can be an unlimited number of owners for an animal slaughtered and processed at a custom facility and that entities such as a food buyers club can be an owner of such a custom animal.

2019 [SB 358]
Sponsored bill legalizing sales of raw butter by licensed dairies.

2020 [SB 2049]
Sponsored a bill requiring that any meat labeled as a product of Tennessee must be from an animal that was born and raised in the state.

2020 [SJR 841]
Sponsored a resolution commending the Weston Price Foundation for its 50-50 Campaign urging people to buy at least 50% of their food budget direct from the farm.

2022 [SB 693]
Sponsored the Tennessee Food Freedom Act legalizing the unlicensed unregulated sale from homemade food producers of food that does not require time and temperature control for safety, including fermented foods; these sales can be direct to consumers and also by some third parties such as food buyers clubs and grocery stores.

2023 [SB 123]
Sponsored the bill to establish a State Meat Inspection program in Tennessee; like many states, Tennessee has a shortage of federally, inspected slaughterhouses, especially in the eastern half of the state.

2024 [SB 1914]
Sponsored a bill providing for vending machines with whole milk in the schools, giving children a more nutritious option while still preserving federal funding for Tennessee’s school lunch program. The federal rule that withdraws funding from Washington if whole milk is served in a school lunch has worsened children’s health and the economic condition of the dairy industry.

Niceley‘s work impacts the local food movement around the rest of the U.S. as well. The first thing legislators typically ask when a constituent requests that they introduce a bill is: “Has this been done elsewhere?”

The senator has introduced and helped pass a number of bills that were law in few, if any, states outside Tennessee. In the 2024 session he helped pass a bill defining and regulating as a drug any food that contained “a vaccine or vaccine material.”

Legislation he introduced this past session includes: a constitutional resolution to protect the individuals right to grow and acquire the food of their choice [SJR 902]; a bill that would have barred any prohibition on the growing of produce and the raising of chicken or meat rabbits on a residential lot [SB 1761]; a bill that would have exempted farms from any vaccine mandate for their livestock or poultry, if the farms practice was not to vaccinate their livestock or poultry [SB 2543]; and legislation that would have prohibited cell-cultured meat from being defined as “meat” [SB 2603].

Niceley has been generous with his time in helping legislators, farmers and eaters in other states working on food and agriculture bills. As for Tennessee, there is no one who has done as much for the small farmer and local food producer in that state as Frank Niceley.

[Photo credit: Solari.com “Blast from the Past“]

The post The Farmers’ Legislator appeared first on Real Milk.

Few of us were born when the forces for milk pasteurization launched the first major attack on Nature’s perfect food.  In 1945, a magazine called Coronet published an article, “Raw Milk Can Kill You,” blaming raw milk for an outbreak of brucellosis in a town called Crossroads, U.S.A., killing one-third of the inhabitants.  The Reader’s Digest picked up the story and ran it a year later.

Just one problem with this piece of “reporting.”  There was no town called Crossroads and no outbreak of brucellosis.  The whole story was a fabrication—otherwise known as a lie.  And lies about raw milk have continued ever since. Unfortunately, the fictitious Crossroads story paved the way for laws against selling raw milk, starting with Michigan in 1948.

Here’s another example of lies against raw milk (which I referenced in an earlier post, but it is worth repeating). In 2007, John F. Sheehan, BSc (Dy), JD, US Food & Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition (USFDA/CFSAN), Division of Dairy and Egg Safety, prepared a PowerPoint maligning raw milk; it was presented to the 2005 National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments (NCIMS) by Cindy Leonard, MS.

As shown in the table below, all of the fifteen reports associating outbreaks of foodborne illness with raw milk that Sheehan cites are seriously flawed. For example, in two of the fifteen, the study authors presented no evidence that anyone consumed raw milk products and in one of them, the outbreak did not even exist. Not one of the studies showed that pasteurization would have prevented the outbreak.

Fast forward to the present and the ruckus about bird flu in dairy cows—more lies, very clever lies, but lies nevertheless.

In a press release dated March 25, 2024 , the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as well as state veterinary and public health officials, announced investigation of “an illness among primarily older dairy cows in Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico that is causing decreased lactation, low appetite, and other symptoms.”

The agencies claim that samples of unpasteurized milk from sick cattle in Kansas and Texas have tested positive for “highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).” Officials blame the outbreak on contact with “wild migratory birds” and possibly from transmission between cattle. The press release specifically warns against consumption of raw milk, a warning repeated in numerous publications and Internet postings.

According to the press release, national laboratories have confirmed the presence of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) through testing, but it does not reveal the type of test used to detect this so-called viral illness.

The first lie:   Researchers have found HPAI virus in the milk of sick cows.

Officials have NOT found any viruses in the milk or any other secretions of the sick cows. The CDC has yet to reply to repeated requests for proof of finding the isolated HPAI virus in any fluid of any sick chicken or other animal. Nor have health and agriculture agencies in Canada, Japan, the UK and Europe provided any proof of an isolated avian influenza virus.

As for all the studies you can find in a PubMed search claiming “isolation” of a virus, not one of them shows the true isolation of a virus, any virus, from the fluids (phlegm, blood, urine, lung fluids, etc.) of any animal, bird or human.

The truth is that “viruses” serve as the whipping boy for environmental toxins, and in the confinement animal system, there are lots of them–hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia from excrement, for example. Then there are toxins in the feed, such as arsenic added to chicken feed, and mycotoxins, tropane and β-carboline alkaloids in soybean meal. By blaming nonexistent viruses, agriculture officials can avoid stepping on any big industry toes nor add to the increasing public disgust with the confinement animal system. Way back in 2006, researchers Crowe and Englebrecht published an article entitled, “Avian flu virus H5N1: No proof for existence, pathogenicity, or pandemic potential; non-‘H5N1’z causation omitted.” Nothing has changed since then.

Here’s your homework assignment:  Contact USDA at Aphispress@usda.gov and ask them to provide proof of the isolation of the HPAI virus or any virus in the milk of the sick cattle.

SECOND LIE: National laboratories have confirmed the presence of HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) through testing.

They don’t say anything about the kind of test they used, but it almost certainly was the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test. The PCR test detects genetic material from a pathogen or abnormal cell sample and allows researchers to make many copies of a small section of DNA or RNA. The test was not designed to determine or diagnose disease, it was designed to amplify or increase a certain piece of genetic material.

Each “amplification” is a doubling of the material.  If you amplify thirty times you will get a negative; amplify 36 times or more, and you will get a positive.  At 60 amplifications, everyone will “test positive” for whatever bit of genetic material you believe can cause disease. If you want to show that you have a pandemic brewing, just amplify, amplify, amplify. Folks, this is not a valid test, not good science by any stretch of the imagination—especially as there is no virus to begin with. How many times did our health officials amplify the samples they obtained from the milk of the sick cows?  Be sure to ask them when you email Aphispress@usda.gov for proof of the virus.

THIRD lie: The “virus” is highly pathogenic.

According to the Wall Street Journal, one—just one–person working in the dairies got sick and tested positive for avian influenza after exposure to dairy cattle presumed to be infected with the H5N1 bird flu.  The person reported eye redness, or conjunctivitis, as his only symptom—a symptom that can be explained by exposure to any of the many airborne toxins in confinement dairies, or even to toxic EMF such as 5G.  (How are they treating the illness? With vitamin A and herbal eyedrops?  No, the poor sod is getting treatment with a toxic antiviral drug.)

According to the CDC, the disease in humans ranges from mild infections, which include upper-respiratory and eye-related symptoms, to severe pneumonia.  If the “virus” is so highly pathogenic, we’d expect a lot of workers working around these sick cows to end up in the hospital. . . but we’ve heard of none so far.

FOURTH LIE: You can get avian flu from drinking raw milk, but pasteurized milk is safe

According to medical biologist Peg Coleman, “Recent risk communications from CDC, FDA, and USDA regarding transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus or HPAI (subtype H5N1) to humans via raw milk include no supporting evidence of viral transmission from raw milk to humans in the peer-reviewed literature. . . An extensive body of scientific evidence from the peer-reviewed literature . . . does not support the assumption by these US government agencies that [non-existent] HPAI transmits to humans via milkborne or foodborne routes and causes disease. Nor does the scientific evidence support the recommendation that consumers should avoid raw milk and raw milk products [emphasis in the original].”

Coleman notes the suite of bioactive components in raw milk, including bovine milk, that destroy pathogens and strengthen the gut wall. “Many of these bioactive components of raw milk are . . . sensitive to heat and may be absent, inactive, or present in lower concentrations in pasteurized milks. . . Cross-disciplinary evidence demonstrates that raw milk from healthy cows is not inherently dangerous, consistent with the CDC evidence of trends for 2005-2020 and evidence of benefits and risks. There is no scientific evidence that HPAI in raw milk causes human disease.”

And while USDA, FDA and CDC assure the public that pasteurization will make milk safe, they note that “Milk from infected animals is being diverted or destroyed,” implying that pasteurization alone does not guarantee safety. In any event, sales of industrial pasteurized milk continue their relentless decline.

Fortunately, raw milk drinkers are already skeptical of government pronouncements and are skilled at seeing through lies.  Both large and small raw milk dairy farms report that sales are booming. The current bird flu fracas is just another Crossroads, U.S.A., a bunch of lies fostered by a dishonest dairy industry taking aim at the competition.

The post Raw Milk at the Crossroads…Again appeared first on Real Milk.

On March 9 House Bill 4911 (HB 4911) became law; the bill provides, in part, that “raw milk may be sold by a seller in West Virginia to a consumer in West Virginia.” The new law takes effect June 7th.

The bill legalizes the sales of raw milk in retail stores; there is a labeling requirement that includes the warning statement, “Consuming unpasteurized raw milk may increase your risk of foodborne illness, especially for children, elderly, immunocompromise individuals, and persons with certain medical conditions.”

Under HB 4911, the Commissioner of Agriculture may issue regulations “in compliance with raw milk dairy industry standards.” HB 4911 initially had a clause providing that producers weren’t liable for illness attributed to milk consumption unless they intentionally contaminated the milk, but a Senate amendment to the bill cut out that provision. Courts don’t favor liability waivers for foodborne illness.

A decade ago, West Virginia had the most strict raw milk laws in the country banning sales both for human consumption and for pet consumption as well as prohibiting herdshare agreements. In 2016 the state legislature passed a bill legalizing herdshares, but that new law never took hold with raw milk producers; the law had costly testing requirements and also required farmers to file copies of each herdshare contract they had with the Commissioner of Agriculture.

HP 4911 passed through the House and Senate by big margins and became law when Governor Jim Justice did not take action on the bill (state law requires the governor to veto the bill within 15 days from the time it reaches his desk).

Congratulations to the bill’s lead sponsor, Delegate Michael Hornby (R) and West Virginia raw milk producers and consumers. Soon the Real Milk Legal Map will reflect this change for West Virginia.

Last updated 7/30/24, removed “Retail” from graphic

The post West Virginia: Bill Legalizing Raw Milk Sales Now Law appeared first on Real Milk.

COLORADO – LEGAL RAW MILK SALES ON THE TABLE

2023 was a big year for the expansion and legalization of raw dairy sales in the state legislatures. The 2024 state legislative session could see more of the same; one state where an effort to legalize raw milk sales is underway is Colorado. Currently, only distribution of raw milk through herdshare agreements is legal in the state; Colorado is an outlier in the region—all other states in the Rocky Mountain time zone have legalized raw milk sales.

With Governor Jared Polis indicating he would sign a bill legalizing raw milk sales, the Water Resources and Agriculture Review Committee in the state General Assembly has drafted an interim committee bill to legalize raw milk sales. If the bill is going to get broad support from raw milk producers and consumers, its sponsor is going to have to amend several provisions in the current version.

The interim bill legalizes direct sales from the raw milk producers to consumers at the producer’s place of business, at the consumer’s residence, or at a farmers market or roadside market, if the producer registers with the state department of agriculture. That’s favorable enough, but other provisions in the bill are potentially so onerous that many producers could decide not to make the transition from operating a herdshares program to directly selling raw milk.

For starters, the bill gives the state department of agriculture power to issue rules relating to recordkeeping and the storage, handling, labeling and transportation of raw milk beyond requirements already in the bill. The agriculture department has the power to embargo a producer’s raw milk and to prohibit its sale during an investigation determining whether the producer has violated any requirements either of the bill or of the rules the department has issued. If the department finds the producer has committed violations, it can either (1) request that the attorney general or district attorney bring a criminal or civil action; or (2) “upon notice and an opportunity to be heard, impose a civil penalty in amount not to exceed $1000 per violation. Each container of raw milk sold in violation of this section constitutes a separate violation. If the department determines that a producer has committed two or more separate violations within a twelve-month period, the department may suspend for a period of twelve months, the raw milk producer’s registration….” [emphasis added].

In addition to the draconian penalties the bill prescribes, it also gives the department power to distribute “educational materials regarding the consumption of raw milk, which materials may include language, stating that there are no proven health benefits associated with the consumption of raw milk, but there are known harms associated with its consumption, such as severe infections.”

As it now stands, the punitive measures in the bill could easily be a deterrent to producers changing from a herdshare operation to selling raw milk; there are no penalties contained in the Colorado herdshare law (Colorado Revised Statutes, section 25–5.5–117). There could be little or no increase in access to raw milk for Colorado consumers if the bill’s content remains the same.

NEW MEXICO – RAW MILK SALES NOW LEGAL IN ALBUQUERQUE

On December 5, Mayor Tim Keller signed an ordinance legalizing raw milk sales in Albuquerque by state licensed producers, including at retail stores in the city. Albuquerque stores selling raw milk must hold a raw milk permit issued by the city’s Environmental Health Department.

Retail sales of raw milk have long been legal in the rest of the state, but there has been a total ban on any sales in Albuquerque which has over one quarter of the state’s population.

Activist Lissa Knudsen, with help from the Raw Milk Institute and local raw milk producer Desmet Dairy, was the driving force behind the new ordinance. The ordinance passed out of the Albuquerque city council’s Finance and Government Operations Committee in October 2023 and the City Council the following month en route to the mayor’s desk.

Now that the sale of raw milk in retail stores has expanded to a city with over half a million people, the number of licensed dairies in New Mexico should increase. There are few licensed raw milk dairies in the state at the present time.

This article was published in the Winter 2023 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

The post Raw Milk Updates Winter 2023 appeared first on Real Milk.

During the last few years, bureaucrats and public health officials have been quiet about raw milk, but then Iowa legalized its sale in May. The accompanying publicity—in The New York Times and USA Today,^1,2 plus many other publications—has resulted in a flurry of pro-pasteurization, anti-raw milk Internet posts. One of these appeared on December 8, 2023,³ written by Claire Panosian Dunavan, professor emeritus of medicine and infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Dunavan can’t understand the “risky allure” of raw milk. “Is it buyers’ faith in ‘nature’s perfect food’ or sellers’ pure, naked greed?” she asks.

The main claims in her article:

• In the 1890s, Nathan Straus (co-owner of Macy’s) started a private foundation to dispense pasteurized milk after his son died of typhus during a vacation in Italy—the death blamed on raw milk. (Dunavan then credits Straus with a drop in U.S. infant mortality from 125 per 1,000 to fewer than 16 per 1,000 between 1891 and 1925.)
• Raw milk consumers are 840 times more likely to suffer illness than those who drink pasteurized dairy.
• Recent outbreaks of illness blamed on raw milk have occurred in California, Utah and Idaho.
• Raw milk contains dangerous pathogens like campylobacter and salmonella.
• Raw milk may cause Guillain-Barré syndrome.
• People are avoiding pasteurized milk because of milk allergy “as opposed to a serious, even life-threatening infection.”
• The real villains are the people who sell raw milk “because they believe there’s an audience out there that will buy it,” even though they “know” that raw milk will harm some people.

PURE, NAKED GREED?

Let’s look at these points one by one, starting with the accusation that raw milk farmers are motivated by pure, naked greed. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a dairy farmer who sells raw milk.)

Conventional dairy farmers today receive about the same price as they did during World War II, even while their costs have skyrocketed. Typically, they get $1.45 per gallon, which costs them $2.00 to produce.⁴ This explains why the number of licensed dairy operations in the U.S. has steadily declined by more than 55 percent,⁵ from 70,375 in 2003 to 31,657 in 2020. More than three thousand dairy farms stopped production during 2020 alone—that’s eight per day.

Some of these farmers have avoided going bankrupt by switching to raw milk sales. Typically, consumers are happy to pay from five to ten dollars per half gallon—enough to save the family farm, especially if the farmer reduces his costs by nourishing his cows on grass (the natural food for cows) rather than feeding grain.

Dunavan refers to farmers’ desire to make a decent living as “pure, naked greed,” but let me give you an example of real greed. Dairy company CEOs typically make salaries upwards of three million dollars per year. They do this by keeping milk prices as low as possible—hence the heartbreak of losing the farm inflicted on thousands of dairy farmers. That is what most of us would call pure, naked greed.

TRUE CAUSES OF INFANT MORTALITY

About Nathan Straus losing his son to typhus and blaming it on raw milk, according to that font of conventional knowledge, Wikipedia, typhus is caused by bacteria spread by lice, chiggers or fleas.⁶ Since Dunavan is a public health expert, she should know this. (I have not been able to find any reference to raw milk causing typhus, except for the case of Straus’ son.) Typhus reigns in filthy conditions and it was a real problem, especially in cities, before the advent of modern housing, sewage systems and washing machines. Even today we see outbreaks of typhus, but public health experts typically blame them on rats, never on raw milk!⁷

As for the decline in infant mortality in the U.S. at the turn of the twentieth century, it was during this period that public officials worked to clean up our cities with the installation of sewage systems, rubbish collection and clean water. This was also the period when the car gradually replaced the horse and mule—before the car, our cities were stinking cesspools of manure and grime. Immigrants huddled in crowded housing without running water and refrigeration, and with only rudimentary sanitation (Figure 1). The death rate by the age of five was 50 percent—and this was blamed on raw milk rather than unsanitary conditions—officials called it the “milk problem” (Figure 2).

FIGURE 1. Slum life in New York City’s Golden Age.

FIGURE 2. Manure piled up on a New York City street creating deadly unsanitary conditions—health officials called this the “milk problem.”

Raw milk may indeed have contributed to the high death rate because it came from distillery dairies—inner city confinement dairies of unimaginable filth where cows were fed distillery waste. The milk was so deficient and watery that chalk was often added to make it look white–this was the milk that Straus wanted to pasteurize. However, pasteurization cannot take the credit for the decline in infant mortality as it was around this time that distillery dairies were banned. The real hero was not Nathan Straus, who did nothing for public clean-up efforts, but Dr. Henry Coit, who worked to bring clean raw milk from the countryside to the cities. Public health officials at the time lauded Coit’s certified raw milk with saving children’s lives and noted that children in orphanages brought up on raw milk were healthier than those given pasteurized milk.

QUESTIONING THE REPORTS

About raw milk safety, Dunavan repeats the recent claim that people who drink raw milk are eight hundred forty times more likely to contract food-borne illness than those who don’t.8 But an analysis by epidemiologist Peg Coleman, based on data considered by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), found that on a per annum basis, out of twenty-three foods considered, pasteurized milk ranked second highest and raw milk ranked seventh highest in causing severe illness.9 The real question that one must ask, however, is how accurate are reports of illness and death from raw milk?

The Weston A. Price Foundation analyzed a 2007 PowerPoint presentation by John F. Sheehan, then director of FDA’s Division of Dairy and Egg Safety, who contended that pasteurization is the only way to ensure the safety of milk.¹⁰ Table 1 shows that the fifteen studies Sheehan referenced (through 2005) either were methodologically flawed or that bias or outright fabrication guided the conclusions that he drew; not one of the studies cited by the FDA actually proved that raw milk caused the illness. We need to do the same analysis for reports of raw milk illness from 2005 to the present—one that includes the claims of illness from raw milk in California, Idaho and Utah. It’s safe to assume that many of them are bogus, given the alacrity of public health officials to blame raw milk for any illness without a thorough examination of all the data.

TABLE 1. Unfounded conclusions from raw milk studies

According the late Dr. Ted Beals, who analyzed reports of foodborne illness from 1999 to 2011,11 government data report an average of forty-two illnesses from raw milk per year out of nearly ninety-one thousand (90,771) illnesses from all sources. Using these figures, Dr. Beals concluded that one is thirty-five thousand times more likely to become ill from other foods than from raw milk. Beals also noted that there is no way to quantify whether any one food is safer than another from the data we have, but at the same time, it is clear that there is no basis for singling out raw milk as “inherently dangerous.”

Recently, melons have ranked high in causing illness—including an outbreak from cantaloupe that resulted in over three hundred illnesses, over one hundred hospitalizations and four deaths. Where is Dunavan’s outcry against greedy melon growers? And what about raw oysters, which kill fifteen people per year?¹² Where are the warnings to oyster lovers not to eat these terrible things?

PATHOGEN FACTS

Dunavan implies that raw milk can cause Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS)—a degeneration of the nerve cells that causes muscle weakness and paralysis—because raw milk can carry campylobacter, and campylobacter often gets the blame for GBS. Of course, many, many foods harbor campylobacter. In 2019, there were over 150,000 reported cases of GBS worldwide;¹³ a quick Internet search does not find any of these cases associated with the consumption of raw milk.

By the way, campylobacter and salmonella, the two pathogens most commonly associated with raw milk, do not grow in refrigerated raw milk. In a pilot study sponsored by the Raw Milk Institute, refrigerated raw milk inoculated with high and moderate counts of these pathogens suppressed their growth.¹⁴ Inoculated listeria did grow in raw milk, but an association of this pathogen with raw milk is extremely rare. Moreover, a recent systematic review found that the risks of severe listeriosis infection were greater for pasteurized milk products than for raw milk products.¹⁵

CONSUMERS SHUNNING PASTEURIZED MILK

Dunavan wonders why people would indulge in the risky behavior of drinking raw milk. There are very good reasons for drinking raw milk, but first, let’s consider why fewer and fewer people are drinking pasteurized milk. In both the UK and the U.S., consumption of pasteurized milk has declined by 50 percent since 1974 (Figure 3). (I would love to know whether Dunavan herself drinks pasteurized milk!)

FIGURE 3. UK per capita liquid milk consumption, 1974–2018

To find out why consumption of pasteurized milk is declining, let’s consider a 2019 study out of China, entitled “Processing milk causes the formation of protein oxidation products which impair spatial learning and memory in rats.”¹⁶ The researchers subjected milk to four processing techniques: boiling, microwave heating, spray-drying and freeze-drying. (Boiling takes milk to 212 degrees F; ultra-pasteurization takes milk to 280 degrees F. Most milk sold today is ultra-pasteurized.) All four techniques (even freeze-drying) caused oxidative damage to the milk proteins and resulted in “various degrees of redox state imbalance and oxidative damage in plasma, liver, and brain tissues.” Feeding damaged milk proteins to rats resulted in learning and memory impairment—no wonder IQ levels are falling!

The researchers concluded, “humans should control milk protein oxidation and improve the processing methods applied to food.” But how to improve those processing methods? What types of processing methods would they suggest? How about no processing at all? Why not just treat milk carefully and cleanly and let the many natural antimicrobial compounds in raw milk do their work?¹⁷

Milk proteins are not tough like muscle or collagen proteins; they are extremely fragile and easily damaged by heat and pressure (as in heated drying). No wonder the consumption of industrial pasteurized milk is declining—the body sees processed and damaged milk proteins as foreign proteins and mounts an immune response. This explains why milk protein is the number-one allergy and why studies link consumption of pasteurized milk with digestive disorders, rashes, asthma, diabetes . . . and even sudden death.

Based on statistics provided by the Allergy & Asthma Network,18 one can deduce that pasteurized milk causes approximately twenty deaths from anaphylactic shock per year! The type of milk that is truly dangerous is pasteurized milk. Yes, indeed, a good “reason not to” drink pasteurized milk is allergy—life-threatening allergy. Parents are figuring out that they shouldn’t give this junk to their children. . . or drink it themselves.

Pasteurized milk is the milk that causes health problems, while raw milk is indeed Nature’s Perfect Food—after all, it is the food in Nature that nourishes all mammals, loaded with vitamins and minerals, each one of which has a special enzyme that ensures 100 percent assimilation. When milk is pasteurized, these nutrients are largely destroyed, or rendered very difficult to absorb (Table 2).

TABLE 2. Destruction of nutrients by pasteurization

REASONS TO GO RAW

More reasons to drink raw milk: less asthma and respiratory infections, fewer allergies and rashes. These are the conclusions of a number of European studies, which pasteurization proponents in the U.S. dismiss, but which public health officials in Europe have taken seriously. These include:

• A 2001 study published in The Lancet: Less asthma, fewer allergies;²⁷
• The 2006 PARSIFAL study (Clinical & Experimental Allergy): Less asthma, fewer allergies;²⁸
• The 2011 GABRIELA study (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology): Less asthma, fewer allergies;²⁹
• A 2012 study (Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology): Less asthma, fewer allergies;³⁰
• The 2014 PASTURE study (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology): Less respiratory infection.^31,32

In the U.S., asthma kills nine people per day, many of them children. When parents see that raw milk relieves asthma in their child, they go out of their way to obtain this magical product from greedy farmers.

There’s more: early studies indicate that raw milk given to growing animals confers longer and denser bones compared to pasteurized milk.³³ I’ve heard from several gals diagnosed with osteoporosis who started drinking raw milk daily and passed their bone density test two years later. Raw milk also contributes to strong, healthy teeth.³⁴ And many people who can’t tolerate pasteurized milk can enjoy raw milk without problems.³⁵ I’ve even had parents tell me that their children’s behavior improved after they made just one change in their diet—switching from pasteurized to raw milk.

LOOKING TO THE FUTURE

For these and other reasons—such as the fact that raw milk tastes so good—raw milk sales are booming. Our website realmilk.com gets over 400,000 visits per month, most of them to the Raw Milk Finder page. When we set up realmilk.com in 1999, we had only a handful of listings; today, the website lists over 3,000 places to get raw milk in the U.S., and there are many more not listed. Raw milk farmers tell me that they can’t produce enough raw milk to meet the demand—which means that these greedy farmers aren’t charging enough for it.

The truth is, pasteurization is a Rust Belt technology—a bit like hitting a pile of manure with a sledgehammer. It lets the industry get away with raising cows in filthy, crowded conditions, but it doesn’t make milk any safer and it ruins Nature’s perfect food. We have come a long way since the days of Nathan Straus. We have the technology to produce clean raw milk—stainless steel, rapid cooling, on-farm testing, an efficient nationwide cold chain—and get it to every growing child in the country.

Raw milk is the future. I predict that within twenty years, pasteurized milk will be a thing of the past. Small, grass-based dairy farms will proliferate to meet the demand, and no couple will start a family without making sure there is a supply of raw milk nearby. Health officials like Professor Dunavan can protest all they want, but fewer and fewer people are listening.

This article was first published in the Winter 2023 issue of Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sally Fallon Morell is founder of A Campaign for Real Milk and president of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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