It is for your own good. The Fight for the Right to Eat What You Want <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ioN0ehlyyXI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ioN0ehlyyXI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object> This summer armed government agents raided Rawesome Foods, a Venice, California health food co-op. What were the agents after? Unpasteurized milk, it turns out. Raw milk raids are happening all over the United States. The Food and Drug Administration warns that raw milk consumption can cause health problems, but a growing community of raw foods enthusiasts are ignoring government recommendations and claiming that they are getting tastier, more nutritious food by going raw. Reason.tv visited Rawesome to examine the circumstances of the raid and discovered that this particular raw foods case stretches across county lines and involves at least five separate government agencies, despite the fact that not a single member of Rawesome has complained or been harmed by the raw foods. In fact, members have to sign a contract stating that they understand and accept the risks of consuming raw foods before they are allowed to step inside. If members of a private club sign a waiver stating that they want to drink a certain type of milk, why is the government getting involved? As Jarel Winterhawk, a manager at Rawesome, puts it, "This is America. How are you going to tell me what I can and cannot eat?" Though no charges have yet resulted from the raid, Rawesome is threated with shutdown due to the involvement of yet another government agency, Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, and the club's raw goat milk supplier, Healthy Family Farms, has had its dairy license suspended.
If you're stupid enough to drink unpasterurized milk, then please have the common courtesy to pay your own medical bills.
It's legal to drink raw milk. It's not legal to sell it. I do think the laws around pasteurization could use some updating. I think we're more capable now of delivering raw milk without contamination with the tech and infrastructure we have now. When these laws were enacted, I think it made a great deal of sense for public health. As for the raid, they're enforcing the law. Nothing to see here. I'm loving all these police-raid threads, btw.
If that bothers you rtsy, this should really send you over the edge Senate Bill S510 Makes it illegal to Grow, Share, Trade or Sell Homegrown Food
Holy crap. http://laughterandliberty.com/senate-bill-s510-explained-sort-of/ When I heard about Senate Bill s510 I was completely freaked out. The first thing I heard about it was that it makes it illegal to grow your own food. I immediately got on the phone to call my senator about how OUTRAGED I was and why was he planning on putting my grandma in jail for that cute little patch of cucumbers she grows for her canned pickles! What kind of man likes to put grandmas in JAIL HUH? In fact, I think I will just go down there and tell him what an ******* he is in person!! But then I regained some of my brain cells and remembered that MY senator probably didn’t write the bill and took a journey down the rabbit hole to see what I could find out about this bill. The first thing I found out was it doesn’t make growing your own food at home and eating it yourself illegal. PHHHEWWWW!! Grandma’s pickles are SAFE!! Then I started actually reading what WAS in the bill. You will probably think this bill is a good thing. Unless you are one of those tin foil hat wearing weirdos who think you need rights and freedoms. It might even be better than that wonderful piece of existence we call the Patriot Act (Don’t you LOVE that one?) A couple pertinent facts on the bill include: The original bill no longer exists. The new S510 is only one part of an amendment they kept. (Kinda makes you wonder how bad the first one was huh?) It also is only in committee, which means the senate has been asked to consider it. Will they vote on it? Why yes of course, otherwise the senate doesn’t care about the children. Did I mention the bill is sponsored by congressman Dingell? but here is why you should be mad as hell and just aren’t going to take it anymore: If you trade or give your food away, or sell it at farmers markets, you are no longer considered growing for personal consumption which puts you in a category as a Community Supported Agriculture supplier, or so you forget what it actually means CSA’s for short. This is a whole world of difference because now your food has to be “traceable” That means if your neighbor little sally walker has a tummy ache, you need to be held accountable for giving her those bacteria laden zucchinis. What it really means is a drive to the freshly built State Agriculture Office, to talk to the ladies who got promoted from the DMV to fill out a stack of paperwork the size of War and Peace, pay a handy little “CSA Liscensing fee” plus all the taxes and stuff of course, agree to surprise inspections, OH, and don’t forget that dollar to the blabbity blabb fund. By the way would you like to register to vote sir? So in other words you don’t grow it yourself, you probably aren’t going to get to eat it. Which is going to make you a pretty big ball of sad if you get most of your fruits and veggies from farmers markets. Is this going to be the end of organic farming? No probably not directly or in the near future but farmers who can afford to give away 50% of their profits to the government to implement this bill will probably not going to be living in your town. And because of the lack of farmers putting their heirloom seed grown produce out there, we will eventually see a decline in the amount of heirloom seeds available to the public. The worst part though is the bill will directly affect pet and animal feed manufacturers as well, which means higher feed costs for farmers, which means you ain’t makin chicken wings for the backyard barbecue buddy. It’s all hot dogs from here. We will probably still get hamburgers for a while, but eventually hamburgers will be the price of steak, steak will be the price of lobster, lobster will be filled with oil. So the question now is how much do you love freedom? And vegetables. PS there is a counter part in the house of representatives to this bill called H.R. 2749 I haven’t checked it out but it may be cause for a part 2 and s510 could cost Americans $825 billion in 2010 alone. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/michael-pollan-issues-urg_b_784652.html Michael Pollan Issues Urgent Call to Senators on Food Safety Bill Posted: November 17, 2010 12:43 PM A vote is likely today on the Food Safety Bill S510, a bill that will affect food quality, safety and price-- and the rights to health supplements-- for years to come. Yesterday author Michael Pollan added his voice to the group of citizens and organizations urging people to contact their Senators to assure that the bill that passes will not undermine the movement of organic, local sustainable growers and food producers. Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) and Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) as well as the Organic Consumers Organization want concrete assurances that the bill, as written, won't apply the regulations explicitly crafted to regulate large industrial facilities (factory farms and industrial agriculture and manufacturers) to small businesses (family farmers, organic growers, farmer's markets, food artisans and local suppliers). The big concern is that a vote for cloture, proposed by Harry Reid will short circuit needed discussion and refinement of the bill. That's why a variety of citizen groups are urging people to write their Senators to urge them to vote "No" on cloture now. Update: Cloture has just passed. Please use info below to call your Senators and ask for the inclusion of the Tester Amendment in the Manager's Package. Working behind the scenes, knee deep in legislative policy discussions, health activists have sought to achieve flexibility within S510 for the burgeoning consumer-driven industry in healthier, locally grown foods, supplied by small to medium size operations-- as well as for health supplements. As of now, a refinement of the bill, unveiled last summer, states that "raw agricultural commodities that the Secretary has determined are low risk and do not present a risk of serious adverse health consequences or death" may at the discretion of the FDA Secretary be asked to comply to modified regulations only. In addition, this new version omits "any requirements that conflict with or duplicate the requirements of the national organic program established under the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990..." This is a step forward for organic and smaller growers. However, since that protection is discretionary (and since the new FDA Food Czar is a former Monsanto executive) that protection would be enhanced by the Tester Amendment, proposed by Senator Jon Tester. That amendment got support yesterday from Pollan, Schlosser, and 128 national organizations. Its provisions would assure that small businesses (under 500k in sales), and those who sell direct to consumers would be exempted from onerous paper work and compliance provisions, necessary only for large industrial suppliers. The concern has been that the costs of compliance and paperwork would drive small suppliers out of business. If the Tester Amendment is included in the bill, it would help. But a vote for cloture would end that discussion. You can go here to call your Senator, and urge to him vote "Yes" for the Tester Amendment, and also mention the talking points below. With dietary supplements recently outlawed abroad, there was tremendous concern about this bill being a Trojan Horse for a take down of the healthy supplements industry. New language has been added to exempt "...any dietary supplement that is in compliance with the requirements of sections 402(g)(2) and 761 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (21 USC 242(g)(2), 379aa-1)." What's more, S510 would enforce automatic harmonization with CODEX, an international law that would supercede American law. CFH also points out disturbing and unacceptable language in the House version of the bill, which "calls for the effective imposition of martial law through cordoning off potentially affected geographic areas in the case of a perceived food transport safety threat in order to halt the movement of food." This leaves the door open for the abuse of such power, CFH claims.
What nonsense. Here's a summary of the bill from the Library of Congress' Thomas site. I glanced through the text of the bill and the summary is, as one would expect, accurate. http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:SN00510:@@@D&summ2=m& Now, let's take these one at a time... The original bill does exist and it is what it is, namely an amendment to current law. Right up front, it says: Some of the bill's language references portions of that act and makes changes to language and portions of the original legislation. That's normal in the legislative process. That the author can't comprehend this should be the first clue that his analysis of the bill might be a little off. Dingell's in the House, so what he has to do with a Senate bill, I don't know. For the record, the House bill is very similar to the Senate bill. The Senate bill is out of committee, passed a cloture vote, and presumably will be voted on soon. The Senate bill has 30 cosponsors, including a number of Republicans. From the summary: There's nothing I can find in the bill summary or text that mentions farmer's markets or CSA. Furthermore, as far as I can tell, CSA's are not a legal descriptor in any law, but instead is an approach to agriculture that puts the focus on local and organically grown produce... The DMV stuff is just ridiculous. There's nothing in the bill about funding from farm profits. There is stuff in there about collecting fees from violators for follow-up inspections, but that has been struck out in the most recent version. I don't know where he gets the hierloom seed and the chicken wing stuff. The bulk of the bill is giving the Feds a little more authority to inspect records of facilities from which an outbreak emanates and more control over imported foods along with a charge to develop strategies to deal with terrorist attacks on the food supply, identify major food contaminants, and it requires USDA to work with educational institutions on food allergies in the classrooms and cafeterias. There is no way the provisions in this bill will cost anywhere close to a trillion dollars. There is no way the provisions in the bill will cost more than the Stimulus Act. This is idiotic. You mean the food standards supported by the United Nations? The ones designed to protect the health of consumers and ensure fair trade practices? First, I see nothing in the bill about that. I do see this... Now, maybe it's me, but when I read that the Secretary of Ag shall bring forth recommendations on whether and how to harmonize under Codex, I think the meaning is a lot different than would enforce automatic harmonization with CODEX, an international law that would supercede American law. There's nothing that would supercede American law. The bill isn't even sure the US should align food inspection requirements with the rest of the world and instead of decreeing that the US follow the Codex regardless, asks for a recommendation as to whether it even makes sense or not and if so, how would it look. As an aside, following UN protocols in respect to imported food does not mean international law supercedes US law. It merely means that the US would make the determination that the UN guidelines are sufficient and that it would make sense when dealing with other countries that also abide by them.
I think drinking unpasteurized milk is common in France and other developed nations. Supposedly modern technology makes it safe now and the US laws are archaic. The other posts might have stated this, but they were tl;dr.
If it comes from a healthy animal and is properly cared for there is absolutely nothing wrong with unpasteurized dairy. People have been doing it for awhile, ya know? There are probably 100 things in the average grocery store that are more likely to make you sick; people are paranoid about food and germs (and as you move up the production chain, the paranoia shifts to the fear of being sued). If you listened to all the recommendations the FDA throws out you'd never get to enjoy a medium-rare hamburger/pork chop, or a runny fried egg, or carpaccio, or ceviche, or oysters, or steak tartare, or gravlax or sweetbreads or any number of wonderful things. Raw milk is delicious, btw.
Cigarettes can give you lung cancer and stuff and that **** is Legal??? I just give the unpasteurized milk to my stray cats anyways...
Serious question for those knowledgeable: How does the risk of drinking unpasteurized milk compare to eating raw oysters? I've been a heavy milk drinker all my life but can't see myself trying raw milk. On the other hand, as soon as Pappas in Sharpstown fires up their seasonal $3.95/dozen oysters, I will go to town on them every Saturday.
I can't speak about unpasteurized milk but when my pregnant wife was wanting some unpasteurized blue cheese from a local cheesery I did a little bit of research on that. At least with pregnant women the main risk is listeria (I don't know if that's the same problem with raw milk). The consensus of the cheese research I saw was as long as the cheese has been aged for at least 30 days then you can be confident that the cheese would be listeria free (or rather, that if it wasn't listeria free then it would be obvious to the cheese makers). Armed with that knowledge we both shared some wonderful unpasteurized blue cheese.
In France, no. From my experience, they just don't drink much milk at all really. They use a lot of UHT milk when they do, though. Even on the farm (I come from French farmer stock), when they have milk fresh from the cow, they boil it before drinking it. They do have plenty of unpasteurized cheese though.
http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html Despite massive protests, US Senate passes S 510 Food Safety Bill (NaturalNews) The new Food Tyranny Act -- called the "Food Safety Modernization Act" in the U.S. Senate -- has been passed by the senate today. It would give the FDA vast new powers to criminalize and imprison farmers and food producers while doing absolutely nothing to address to real root of the food contamination problem: Factory animal farm operations (which are regulated under the USDA, not the FDA). The bill passed 73 to 25, with Sen Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) emerging as the greatest "voice of reason" in the debate. His last-ditch amendment to reduce the scale of the bill was defeated this morning. Here's the official vote record: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L... Notably, there wasn't a single Democrat who opposed the bill. This bill, as originally written, would have outlawed most nutritional supplements through "harmonization" with European laws. It also would have authorized ten-year prison sentences for farmers selling raw milk to their neighbors. Both of those provisions were eventually stripped out of the bill thanks to some last-minute amendments, but it gives you an idea of the outright police state mentality of the original bill authors who attempted to put in place complete government control over food, gardens, raw milk and more. To give you an idea of how clueless U.S. Senators are about food, the New York Times is reporting that when Senate staff members met to discuss this bill, they would eat Starburst candies and jellybeans. As the NYT reports, "In the midst of negotiations, the negotiators -- nearly all women -- took a field trip to a nearby food market so that a Republican staff member could teach the Democrats how to buy high-quality steaks." So what we have here is a new food tyranny law that was essentially negotiated by a group of women who eat dead foods, animals products and candy. No wonder they still don't get it. The contamination of lettuce and other fresh produce is caused by factory animals farms, not by produce farms. (E.coli can only thrive in the digestive tracts of animals, not plants.) The "small farms" exclusion will soon be meaningless The Tester Amendment of the bill did manage to exclude some smaller farmers from the more tyrannical provisions of the bill. As currently stated, this would exclude small farms that sell less than $500,000 worth of food and which sell most of their food locally. However, Senators failed to consider what's going to happen when the Federal Reserve keeps printing counterfeit money, devaluing the dollar and causing massive food price inflation. A farm that right now produces merely $100,000 worth of food (which could be a small, two-person farm) will soon find itself producing $500,000 worth of food (or more) due to the rapidly falling value of the U.S. dollar. This is how the Federal Reserve's money counterfeiting actions will further destroy America and place small family farms under the tyranny of the FDA. What's next: Defeat the bill in committee The Senate version of the bill must now be reconciled with the House version that was passed last year. This reconciliation committee must hammer out the differences between the two bills. Democrats are urgently rushing to do this during their "lame duck" session in order to avoid more Republicans getting involved who would seek to scale back the power and size of the federal government. Some House Democrats are even suggesting they would support passing the Senate version of the bill as it is written, without requiring any changes whatsoever, just to rush it through before the end of the year. NaturalNews and other health freedom organizations intend to fight this effort, hoping to stall the bill until the new Congress can enter the picture and hopefully interject some common sense into the negotiations. Please don't feed the monster If signed into law by the President (who is sure to sign it), this Food Safety Bill would provide yet more power and funding to one of the most dangerous monsters our nation has ever known: The FDA. This is the agency responsible for the death of more Americans than all the wars our nation has ever been involved with -- combined! (http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_S...) The idea that we're going to save a few lives from food poisoning while subjecting everyone to yet another layer of Big Government tyranny is so abhorrent and downright evil that if our country's founding fathers saw all this going on, they would be stunned into silence that it's happening in "the land of the free." Fresh milk being criminalized? You've got to be kidding... Only they're not kidding. The FDA is the agency that has raided vitamin companies (http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html), arrested nutritional supplement manufacturers and ordered the destruction of books containing stevia recipes. This is the agency that censors the scientific truth about natural foods like cherries and walnuts (http://www.naturalnews.com/029698_c...) while promoting the outright fraud and quackery of the pharmaceutical industry. And now the FDA is to be rewarded for its malfeasance with yet MORE power and authority? This is how Washington works, folks. The government always thinks it's here to save you, and the Democrats want Big Government to be your nanny and "take care of you." (The Republicans, for their part, just want to bail out the wealthy banksters with your money.) And yet, when it all comes down to it, these people are just tyrants who have forgotten American history and abandoned the Constitution and its founding principles. Mark my words: Five years down the road, when the FDA's armed "food police" are running rampant across America, arresting farmers and imprisoning lettuce growers, people will be appalled, and they'll wonder, "How could we have let this happen!?" The answer is right here: You let it happen because you allowed Big Government to rule over the food supply. And if there's one thing we know about Big Government, it's that it always wants to get bigger. It always wants more power. More authority. More funding. And more excuses to function as a dictatorship that rules over the American people. The Food Safety Modernization Act is to the food supply what the Patriot Act is to the Bill of Rights. We must make every effort to prevent this from becoming law, lest we find ourselves living under a food dictatorship where only dead, fumigated or irradiated food will be allowed to be sold to the public. The "food irradiation plot" has been the plan from the very beginning of all this (http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_f...). Of course, once the real food is all criminalized and outlawed, there's always soylent green. That might not be too far off, come to think of it. Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html#ixzz16nIgWszc
