Successful Raw Dairy Gets Bad Press, Perseveres to Serve Supportive Customers
by Guest Blogger Bonnie Koenig, Bonnie Koenig LAc blog
While many states struggle with the legalities of raw milk, Washington State has had legalized raw milk for several years. Grocers can carry raw milk in their stores. Washington is one of four states affected by Whole Foods decision to stop selling raw milk. Shoppers at the local Whole Foods might have been surprised to find that they couldn’t find their favorite raw milk around Thanksgiving last year. With no notice, Whole Food stopped carrying Dungeness Creamery milk. Only by visiting the Creamery’s website, did customers find that the Washington Department of Agriculture had apparently traced three cases of e coli to Dungeness.
The Washington Department of Agriculture said, “The patients all report drinking raw milk produced by the Dungeness Valley Creamery in Sequim. No E. coli has been found in samples from the dairy’s current batch of milk, but during an investigation at the dairy, WSDA found the same bacteria that caused one of the illnesses.”
There were three cases of e coli during the fall of 2009. Dungeness Creamery is one of the larger producers of raw milk in Washington State, producing over 250 gallons of milk a day. They service stores and milk drops throughout Western Washington.
The Peninsula Daily News Dungeness Creamery’s local newspaper asks where the e coli was found and reports that, “Brown [referring to Jeff Brown, the owner of Dungeness Creamery] said investigators detected it in old manure in a field where a group of Jersey cows had been some weeks earlier. They were dry cows, he added, and not part of the milking herd. “
More recently there were raw milk recalls for a strain of e coli from another raw milk producer, Jackie’s Jersey Milk. Statements about this farm indicate that they feel it was a problem with the machinery which they were working to fix.
Food safety advocates, hearing of these out breaks now say that perhaps Washington State should outlaw raw milk. PCC Natural Markets, a local food cooperative, continues to sell raw milk. Food warnings about raw milk have always been prominently posted. If someone misses the warnings, the fact that raw milk is twice as expensive as organic milk means that it’s unlikely someone would purchase raw milk by accident. Milk drops offer lower prices to regular raw milk consumers but require phone calls, connections and knowledge. The people who purchase milk through these milk drop sites are making a conscious choice to purchase their milk raw.
On March 20, 2010 the Seattle Times had another article on raw milk. This article paints a picture of the horrors of raw milk. The Times quotes one former raw milk producer as saying, “First of all, cows shed the E. coli bacteria intermittently. The milk could be fine one day, contaminated the next. Besides, he said, “You cannot clean a cow’s udder off well enough every time” in a commercial operation.” The Times article goes so far as to suggest that bacteria in Dungeness’ raw milk exceeds the legal and “safe” levels.
In an email to its milk drop customers, Dungeness invites anyone with concerns out to the farm to discuss it with them in person. There has been no recall of any milk at Dungeness. Dungeness Creamery continues to offer raw milk through local milk drops in Western Washington. Statements on their website have shown that the Creamery is overwhelmed with supportive followers. Still, it seems that the more raw milk is sold, the closer the state and media are looking at the issue of raw milk.
About the Author: Bonnie Koenig is an acupuncturist in Washington State, a member of the Weston A. Price Association and avid raw milk drinker. Bonnie writes at http://www.bonniekoeniglac.com about how our current culture views ill health.
Note from Kimberly:
The fine reputation of hardworking dairy farmers can really be hurt when government advisories call their products risky or dangerous. Visit the Dungeness Valley Creamery website for more information.
Tomorrow is the 2nd Annual International Raw Milk Symposium being held in Madison, Wisconsin and sponsored by the Farm-to-Consumer Foundation, which helps farmers with charitable relief when they have been hurt by the actions of government regulators.
The regulatory climate in Wisconsin has turned so hostile that a number of farmers in the area can’t attend without financial aid. We are still raising scholarship funds, visit https://www.farmtoconsumer.net/symposium_registration.asp. Your donation is tax deductible.
"Kimberly Hartke is the Guardian Angel of Small Farms and the Fund!"
6 Comments
More people are drinking raw milk every year. and enjoying its many benefits. This threatens the big agricultural companies, whose milk is totally inferior. They are using their control over various government agencies to take away our freedom to choose our food., under the guise of “safety”.
Consider this – it is legal to drive, travel by air, smoke tobacco, eat artificial food, receive dangerous medical procedures, take a myriad of deadly prescription and over the counter drugs. Together these legal activities kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year.Yet the government allows people to do them.
I have not heard of a single death by raw milk in recent years. Not one.
The issue is not safety. The issue is Freedom, and those governments that persecute farmers and consumers are doing so to protect the profits of Big Ag.
.-= Stanley Fishman´s last blog ..Butter Helps Weight Loss =-.
PCC in fact no longer carries raw milk. I for one am rescinding my membership from PCC until they return raw milk. http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/products/grocery/dairy/rawmilk.html
Too bad Washington is not one of the states with the ridiculous food libel laws (Wikipedia link). We could sue those who disparage our wholesome food which is completely legal in that state! It is preposterous and downright malicious to suggest outlawing a life-giving food based on pure speculation that the “outbreak” (three cases out of hundreds served per day?) occurred because of raw milk consumption.
Disparaging raw milk statements that come on the heels of an “outbreak” speciously traced to a particular farm (Dungeness Valley Creamery) only serve to attempt to harm that farm’s business. I wonder if there is recourse for the farm in the form of a libel case? I hope so. It might send a “chilling” message: back off on your wild claims against raw milk or be sued.
As we already know — and the general public is slowly starting to figure out — listening to the advice of public health officials is like playing Russian roulette with your health!
We can thank the use of Antibiotics and GMO screwing arround in labs for ecoli 0157H7. It did not exist until the last 1970′s when CAFO systems and the FDA really started to authorize messing with nature and declaring total war on bacteria. Bacteria change when challenged….they are not stupid or lazy and they work 24-7. They were here before mankind and will eat us when we are dead.
How strategically perfect for the CAFO systems and the FDA to blame organic raw milk for bad bugs when they had nothing to do with them.
We the raw milk dairymen now carry a greater burden than ever. We must be extremely careful and embrace food safety systems and preventative diets for our cows and environments that do not encourage bad bacteria if we want to survive.
To all of my raw milk producing brothers in WA….do not stop production…learn from your challenges, stand up and get better. The American immune system desparately needs probiotic biodiverse whole foods. They need you more than ever.
To win a fight…you must expect to get hit a few times. The secret to winning is taking the hit, hitting back and learning to avoid future hits as you tenaciously persevere.
Mark
Mark Mcafee is right! You do not win a fight by giving up when you are hit.. And we must win this fight. This is not just about milk, as important as milk is.. I t is about whether a group of tyrants can take away the very food we need to sustain life and health.
Today is “meatless monday”, a day when school districts and governments all over the world try to prevent the eating of meat. The San Francisco board of supervisors passed such a resolution just last week. The board cited a World Health Organization claim that farm animals cause 51% of global warming.. ( A claim that cannot be true, as the world had a much larger population of animals during ages when nobody contends there was global warming)
If the tryrants succeed in banning raw milk, that is just the beginning. They will ban saturated animal fat. Then they will ban butter. Then they will ban meat. Eventually they will ban most if not all of the real foods that can sustain health, and we will be left with nothing to eat but the factory foods that Big Ag wants us to buy. GMO soy will dominate our diets.
I know this sounds extreme, and I want to be wrong about this. But if they can ban one healthy food, such as raw milk, then they can ban another. And another.. And so on. And the “diet dictocrats”, as Sally Fallon has so eloquently named them, have called for bans on saturated animal fat, butter, and meat.
We cannot give up. We must win!
I
.-= Stanley Fishman´s last blog ..Butter Helps Weight Loss =-.
I just sent the following letter to PCC:
Hello,
I became a member of PCC because I saw it as a place intentionally interested in creating good. It has its faults but by comparisons to its competition, it has been a stunning example of ethical behavior. However, this past week PCC chose the status quo over the ideal. As a response to a blatantly biased article in the Seattle PI, PCC banned the sale of raw milk. This was not just a choice about raw milk. It was a choice about the freedom to access food. PCC chose the stance of the regulator over that of the individual. Should the consumer be free to decide which products are safe or not? By banning raw milk, PCC claims the consumer is not competent enough to make their own decision. It’s still legal to buy raw milk. But PCC’s actions question that legality encouraging lawmakers to side against food freedoms.
Of course there’s the other fault in PCC’s logic. PCC is a quality grocer. However, it’s aisle are still filled with rubbish. Poptarts are poptarts whether they are organic or not. Chips, Ice cream, cookies, sodas, deserts and sugar galore — PCC has it. And there is no problem with that. There’s demand for it! PCC couldn’t be the thriving entity it is without compromising health and giving in to consumer demand. The sad reality about this delicious, demanded junk food is that it causes problems; especially for children, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems. For them, these are high risk foods. Raw milk was banned from PCC for being a high risk food. PCC says raw milk is dangerous and it can be when farmed incorrectly. There is signage that warns the PCC shopper of this danger. BEWARE! When something goes wrong, raw milk can be dangerous. When everything is working properly, junk food is dangerous. It is.
If PCC wants to make a statement about food safety, it should go after the junk food. I for one think that the consumer should be left to make his own choices, but if PCC had made a move to rid itself of junk food more power too them — that would be a risky move, that would be a costly move, perhaps that would even be an ethical move. Every other store sells junk food. But PCC isn’t every other store. However, PCC chose to ostracize a smaller community, the raw milk community. It’s a move that will cost them minimal losses. It’s a move that marginalizes an already marginalized group. PCC isn’t seeking to make alternative food choices easier. It’s trending toward making this choice impossible. Every grocer is in the business of not selling raw milk. PCC is a part of that every grocer. This isn’t an ethical choice; it’s a compromise, a sign of weakness. Today it’s raw milk; tomorrow is it irradiated salad mix? It’s safer! Due to this negligent decision, I’m now unsatisified with my membership in the Puget Sound Consumer Co-op and would like my membership dues returned.
Regretfully,
Andrew Day
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