Small farmers in Maine are closely watching a legal case headed for Hancock County Superior Court in Ellsworth. The state is suing a Blue Hill farmer to stop him from selling unpasteurized milk. The case could test the legality of dozens of small farming operations in the county and the scope of local marketing of organic food.
Dan Brown, the defendant, operates Gravelwood Farm in Blue Hill and sells raw milk from one of his five cows to two regular customers and others who stop by his farm stand. He contends that state agriculture officials told him that he could do so legally, as long as he didn’t advertise.
His lawyer, Sandra Collier of Ellsworth, says Brown spent $30,000 building his farm stand and was selling raw milk legally until officials reinterpreted the law and now insist that he must have a license to continue.
She says she hopes for dismissal of the case before it comes to trial on the grounds that Brown obeyed an earlier interpretation of the law. She relies first on “estoppel,” a legal bar that prevents a party’s assertion of a fact or a claim inconsistent with a previous position that other parties relied upon.
If that is insufficient, she may invoke Blue Hill’s Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance enacted last year. It exempts small local farmers from state and federal licensing and inspection laws provided that food is sold directly to consumers and not for resale. Three other Hancock County towns — Sedgwick, Penobscot and Trenton, plus Hope in Knox County and Plymouth in Penobscot County — have enacted similar ordinances, sometimes called “food sovereignty” laws. Collier sees a legal possibility that these local ordinances can pre-empt state and federal laws.
Philip and Heather Retberg operate Quill’s End Farm in Penobscot and helped write that town’s ordinance. They sell raw milk from four cows to more than 100 customers and also raise lambs, pigs, goats and beef cattle. The Retbergs say they rely on state law and the town ordinance. State authorities have complained that they need a license and have referred the matter to the Maine attorney general’s office. They have heard nothing further and say they do not need a lawyer.
Even for those who are no fans of raw milk, honest work and idealism deserve respect. Let’s hope that officialdom, the lawyers and the courts can find ways to help small farms and local food survive, while still safeguarding public health.
so sick of the Government telling people how to live their lives, this is just another ploy to stop people from drinking raw milk, even though studies show it is MUCH healthier than drinking pasteurized milk, as Americans “supposedly” living in a free country we should have the right to decide what we want to eat and drink, especially when it’s actual, real food!
Bacteria is present in Milk as is somatic cells. You really roll the dice when you drink unpasteurized milk. I am not a big fan of government telling people what to do but people should understand that there are dangers involved. You could do your own plate count but by the time you get the result you could be dead. At a minimum you should not drink any milk that has not been tested in a lab first.
Why do you purport to make it YOUR business to offer your thoughts on what I, or anyone else for that matter, should drink or eat?
I am a free person living in a supposed free nation. I am literate enough to study any necessary topics, acquiring what information I need to make informed decisions. I do not need anyone else to think for me.
My cows don’t like me to listen to people who think they have the corner on the market of basic intelligence!
Like I said, do whatever you want. I pulled teets and I understand both sides.
Drink what you want: the question is whether you or anyone can SELL it.
And unfortunately not everyone is intelligent and well read which is why regulations must be put in place to help inform and protect those that aren’t.
Bah!
A few years ago some people were killed by drinking milk from a Worcester, MA dairy. (Listeria was to blame.)
The milk had been pasteurized. Too bad those folks didn’t send the milk they bought off to a lab first.
The issue isn’t about the gov’t telling people how to live, it’s simply a public health concern. While raw milk may be healthier, it is potentially far more dangerous to consume especially those with weakened immune systems and in this case pregnant women. Any raw dairy product should be sold with a public health warning label. It’s great that these small farmers want to sell their products locally but the need for licences and permits is to ensure that safe food handling is practiced and that the farmers are operating in a wholesome manner. Without those policies in place, the first time a lysteria outbreak occurs the gov’t will be the first one blamed for not having any regulations in place.
See my post above. In 2008, 3 people were killed with they drunk listeria-infected milk from a MA dairy – milk that had been pasteurized and that had come from a duly licensed facility.
The only thing government licenses prove is that license fees and taxes have been collected by the government. A government certificate hanging on the dairy’s office wall, in no way, keeps food from becoming contaminated or otherwise unfit to eat.
Once again sheer ignorance. A few instances where isolated incidents of negligence on the part of a few contaminate the industry as a whole. Blows my mind how easily it sucks people in.
Well, show me some reported cases where un-pasteurized milk caused death in the past several years then.
Here you go…
http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html
Government man, eh? The CDC practices are interesting. Take, for instance, their approach to breast diseases and breast cancer. I tell you this: it is better to be a bovine with a problem in this area.
Not necessarily. Why doesn’t it surprise me when I share a resource that has a “.gov” on it that at least one person is there to jump right in and trash it and file it under “more proof they’re out to get us.” The question posed was regarding the number of reported cases of foodborne illness from unpasteurized milk. Now all of a sudden we’re talking about breast cancer?????? It’s hard to debate the truth and those concrete statistics so let’s just change the subject!
You’re pointing to the CDC as a trusted resource. I say that the CDC is hardly the go-to organization. I wasn’t changing the subject, although increases in young-age breast disease and cancer are not coming out of thin air, and may well be due to bovine growth-hormone and antibiotic (estroegenic) milk – so, in the end, it ties in rather well.
It’s not that it’s a .gov website. It’s that particular .gov website.
The bottom line is that anything that increases fear in the populace serves all the wrong interests and it is easier to offer up easy panaceas. I wouldn’t state my concerns about the connection between breast diseases and what cows and cattle are given to increase production to frighten anyone into obedience, or to the point where they accept everything they are told. This is my concern, just as all the FDA-approved additives that appear in personal products and foods are my concern.
..not as “isolated” as health problems associated with small farmgate sales.
Not “isolated”, anecdotal evidence, I assure you. Many, widespread, and VERY serious instances.
I’d agree with your weird idealism if it were accurate and fact based. It is not.
Big industrialized dairies have to pasteurize their milk from unhealthy, antibiotic leaden, improperly cared for cows that are oozing pus; as a matter of fact, a few years back regulators jsut made them heat the milk for longer, just so it would pass.
So you go on and support incompetent government and large scale corrupt industrialized agriculture, but keep your dirty hands off our raw milk that we get from the local farmers that we know personally.
That’s not to say that the case in the article has proven out to be clear, or not, right?
“The issue isn’t about the gov’t telling people how to live, it’s simply a public health concern.”
Actually, the issue isn’t about the gov’t telling people how to live, it’s about the gov’t protecting corporate agricultural business. Can’t have those pesky local farmers cutting into profits!
You are, sadly, spot-on.
Have to say this is about one guy with cows who is selling raw milk in violation of regulations. In this particular case, anyway.
The issue isn’t about the gov’t telling people how to live, it’s simply a public health concern. While raw milk may be healthier, it is potentially far more dangerous to consume especially those with weakened immune systems and in this case pregnant women. Any raw dairy product should be sold with a public health warning label. It’s great that these small farmers want to sell their products locally but the need for licences and permits is to ensure that safe food handling is practiced and that the farmers are operating in a wholesome manner. Without those policies in place, the first time a lysteria outbreak occurs the gov’t will be the first one blamed for not having any regulations in place.
amen!
And what of pesticides and genetically-modified foods? What of recalled beef that originates from an untraceable feedlot? I want to be able to feed myself the way I wan’t to without Big Brother and Big Government telling me what’s good for me or not. After all, the USDA is best friends with Monsanto and other agrichemical corporations.
If you’re for labeling of raw milk, let’s get some labels on GMOs!! Let’s list the pesticides and chemicals in all of our foods!!
Were it not for pesticides and GMO’s, if you think there is a hunger problem in the world today, you couldn’t fathom the severity of the food shortages there would be without them!
One misconception is that just because food gets recalled, it doesn’t mean that all the food recalled is bad or contaminated, it is a proactive step that gets taken to prevent possible further illness from happening.
You are fortunate that we live in a country where you can feed yourself the way you want to. Big brother isn’t bossing anyone around and forcing any food down anyone’s throats. We all have the power to choose which foods we do and don’t eat for what ever reasons each of us has.
The science behind the pathogens found in raw dairy is proven. The labeling is the least that can be done to educate the consumer that there is a certain risk with the consumption of that product. In those regards, yes, Big Brother should be telling us what to do. Simply put, it’s a public health concern. In regards to GMO labeling, there is no science to support that the food is unsafe. The argument against the GMO labeling is based on a highly mis or uninformed, uneducated consumer who doesn’t truly understand GMO’s. It would create a totally unwarranted mass scare amongst the general public which is greatly swayed by a very biased media–who themselves would be driving people further into a frenzy.
You have the choice to eat organic foods that have never seen pesticides and chemicals. That is great we have those options. So many foods though couldn’t exist without the use of them. Once again an instance where the media have done an amazing job at only providing snippets of all the facts creating a panic and outcry that really is unfounded when you have ALL the fact and not just bits and pieces.
No. The GMO seeds and foods are not the way to solve world hunger. Not by a long shot. The negative ramifications have a far reach. I’m not saying this from internet-study.
We don’t all have the power to choose which foods we do and do not eat, as we do not grow everything for our own needs and the government has, indeed, shown itself to support practices which are not good for us. Not everyone can afford to purchase organic food, even if they give up most everything else in order to do so.
It would take sitting down with you and going over the research.
What exactly are those negative ramifications? Seriously?
One negative ramification would be that a farmer has to go back to the seed supplier every year for new seed, since Monsanto has incorporated its “terminator” gene into at least some of its products. This drives up cash requirements for farmers in the undeveloped world – a place where, believe it or not, more than half of the world’s food is still grown.
As well, so far, there has been no demonstrated increase in yields due to the use of GMO seeds. This is because most such seeds have been modified, not for yield increases, but for tolerance to herbicide sprays, Roundup most especially, and such pesticides, in and of themselves, don’t increase yields.
A second ramification is that GMO seeds encourage the use of far fewer seed stocks than previously, when there were many dozens if not hundreds of varieties of seed in use around the world, for any given crop type. Up until now genetic variety is what has given us resilience to varied local weather, climate, soils, and pest pressure. Now such resilience will come at the mercy of a large supplier, demanding to be paid in cash, supplied with a much longer, national, or international seed and supplement supply chain, every growing season. This, in the long run, is just asking for trouble.
I see ‘beltrams’ has answered. But I will add that there is no scientist that is able to foresee the total effect of utilzing these genetically-altered seeds, as they enter the food chain. I could send you links, but I think you can do the search yourself, so you can choose what you will take as speculation or fact. For me, based on plant biology, and, corporate control, I’m not in favor of taking this risk.
What about chemical resistant weeds? They want to start marketing corn that resists 2,4d which is a highly toxic herbicide because weeds are becoming resistant to other chemicals. I think 2,4d should not even be legal to use it is so toxic. How has GMO helped? The seed costs 10x what regular seed costs and the benefits go down every year.
You are ill informed, ignorant on the subject of hunger, and completely without knowledge of the agricultural business.
So is Vandana Shiva “ignorant” of the “agricultural business”? ….on hunger?
World hunger has only worsened, though food, and so-called corporate “food” abounds.
Pointaway is right. Your insults do nothing to prove your position.
Interesting, since I am directly involved in agriculture.
exactly right
You know that America is, or is supposed to be, a free country. You are free to drink whatever milk you like and eat whatever processed foods you like.
Likewise I and others, are free to drink whatever milk we want, and eat whatever food we want. This does YOU no harm at all so why do you think it your sacred mission to stick your nose into what I, or anyone else does, if it does not harm you?
You CAN drink whatever you want without government intervening. The issue is regarding commerce. If there is ANY potential known risk with a product, the public buying that product deserves to have that information provided and the farmers can’t be relied on to do it themselves. It only takes one bad apple. If government isn’t involved, they’ll be the first to get the blame the moment someone gets sick or dies.
freedom is not cheap or easy… sometimes we need to bite the bullet and just say enough is enough.. you have none of those limits apparently.. you like regulations most don’t .. you justify by fear most don’t.. you have a little knowledge and then apply it so the gov’t can control it.. most don ‘t .. tons of folks in Maine grew up on Raw Milk .. knowing full well that there were things they needed to do in order to be safe.. they didn’t need the gov’t to come by and demand a license or a milk test.. get a grip .. we already have way too much gov’t in our lives and enough is certainly enough;. you have no support here …. no matter what you know about foods… or gov’t or control or power or control ugh .. sorry got pissed
Some years ago, back in the late 1990s, The Rodale Institute did a study to learn what fraction of crops farmers lost to insect pests. The answer was about 30 percent.
The Institute then looked back into the mid 1930s, before chemical pesticides where in widespread use, to see what percentage of crops, farmers back then, lost to insects and you know what the answer was? …….Also about 30 percent.
When people say we need pesticides and chemical agriculture or there would be widespread starvation, they ARE LYING!
A perfect example of how an incomplete set of data can skew a report. I’d be curious to know the volume of crops planted in 1930 vs 1990. I’m sure far more in 1990. To make my point, 30% of 100 is 30. 30% of 1000 is 300. You can’t totally rely on just percentages to make a study valid.
Agreed. All they have to do is a little research on the “green revolution” to understand why technology increased world food output tremendously in the 60s. Before that massive famines were a regular occurrence in South Asia.
The Green Revolution was about much more than pesticides. It was more about improved tillage techniques, improved plant breeding, and especially the widespread introduction of imported (to the farm) fertilization, mainly nitrogen fertilization, via natural gas and the Haber-Bosch process.
Only in places that don’t use the advanced processes or are affected by war. India used to be subject to regular famines. No longer.
Starvation has increased since the Bengal famine, during which 80,000 tons of food was exported.
Yes: synthetic fertilizer was the big one. Better living through chemistry!
Those nitrogen fertilizers draw much of the soil’s natural fertility into the crop that year; mining the soil over time, and requiring more and more water.
This fertility is NOT returned to the soil in industrial ag. Dwarf plant varieties yield less organic matter with which to build the soil, leaving the land less able to hold water; more susceptible to drought.
Yields plummetted; farmer suicides on the rise….
“Massive famines” have only gotten worse since the “Green Revolution”.
Not in the areas where the Green Revolution occured, esp. India.
People are very hungry in India; farmers have committed suicide every half hour for 16 years, as they need more and more expensive inputs for lower and lower yields.
Starvation, suffering; politics.
The study surmised that what pesticides *did* do was allow farmers to plant in far larger blocks which in turn, made crops more susceptible to insect and disease pressures by pooling crops in a larger, more pest friendly environment and this largely cancelled the gains from using pesticides in and of themselves.
I again ask who you really represent chefpoulin.
Whomever is being represented by chefpoulin, should demand a refund. ….very shallow depth of understanding of agriculture.
I’m not claiming to know a lot about agriculture. I do know that you can’t look at individual studies and reports and make blanket statements about an entire industry based on them. Everyone that conducts those studies generally has an agenda and they usually can get the results that want to show. It’s not that they are providing false data, its that they are only showing the pieces of data that support their argument.
You’re a chef and you “don’t know a lot about agriculture”?
Science itself doesn’t necessary have an “agenda” beyond the truth, but look what happens when scientific conclusions don’t support the corporate funders’ agenda — it gets suppressed. The incident in Florida was but one example…
well if your going to pick it apart you may as well throw in the demand and the population difference… no matter how you cut it .. it’s still 30% so nothing changed .. plant more lose more .. plane less low less in terms of units . but the % stays the same the affect is the same…… so if I lose 30 units and there are 100 users or if I lose 300 units and there are 3000 users .. same same
A “percent” of a loss, is the portion of the whole crop planted by a farmer…. If a farmer plants 100 plants, he’ll lose 30; if he plants 1000 he will lose 300.
It doesn’t matter how much a farmer plants to begin with, if pesticides cannot reduce the portion of that crop that is lost.
There are reasons for this: insects and disease evolve so rapidly, that they develop resistance to our “inputs”. Over time, we need more and more of these expensive “inputs” to achieve the same result. Meanwhile, these chemicals degrade the productive capacity of the soil, which is, in itself, a living ecosystem — easily disrupted.
So why has famine worsened since the Green Revolution? In our modern age, people starve because of politics, not food shortages. So why have a quarter-million Indian farmers ended their own lives in just 16 years? That’s one suicide every 30 minutes!
GMOs are often less productive outside of the laboratory, and require expensive inputs purchased from, you guessed it, the same company that owns the GMO patents. Their use mines the soil of nutrients, lowering yields and demanding ever more expensive products… …while sustainable methods return fertility and build productive capacity over time. Inputs for soil-building are readily available to poor families, and need not be purchased…
I suggest you look up Vandana Shiva, an Indian physicist and expert on agricultural economy; the history surrounding the Green Revolution.
Those who favor GMO labeling, are also those who understand GMOs the best, the Union of Concerned Scientist; molecular and cell biologists, environmental scientists…. (..though, make no mistake, NO human can begin to understand all of the implications.) I challenge you to find science NOT funded by or tied to vested corporate interests that are in favor of “no labels”. The FDA is a wholely-owned subsidiary of Monsanto….
I have never been in favor of withholding information from the public, ignorant or informed, in order to avoid a “frenzy”. That is the height of “Big Brother” condescencion….
So the green revolution did increase food production; you can’t control the politics of other nations.
With regard to GMO crops, I leave my tinfoil hat at home…
“More than 3.5 million people starved to death in the Bengal famine of 1943. Twenty million were directly affected. Export of food grains continued in spite of the fact that people were going hungry. At the time, India was being used as a supply base for the Britishmilitary. More than one-fifth of India’s national output was appropriated for war supplies. The starving Bengal peasants gave up over two-thirds of the food they produced. ” ~Vandana Shiva, “Stolen Harvest”
In 1943, the same year of the Bengal famine, 80,000 TONS of grain were exported from the very region…
Famine, suffering, farmer suicide has INCREASED since the “Green Revolution”. The dwarf varieties of plants, loss of biodiversity, pest resistance, soil mining, have all left poorer yields and the land MORE vulnerable to drought and other climate changes.
Keep your tinfoil hat — and your simplistic view of the effect of GMOs on the food web, the ecosystem.
Sounds like the Bengal Famine was before the Green Revolution. And during WW II to boot.
It WAS “before the green revolution”.
Men with guns ALWAYS eat — now we just destroy the soil to feed them.
A nation that destroys the soil destroys itself. Have you BEEN to India lately?
that is a bunch of whoooey….
but is it?
Here is what happens when well intentioned farmers make mistakes. This shows that even when you DO know what you’re doing and follow the rules bad things can happen. It is events like this very recent one that continues to prove that food for sale to the public must meet minimum standards that are enforced by government inspection.
/www.cnn.com/2012/05/03/health/listeria-outbreak-investigation/index.html?iref=obnetwork
chefpoulin read this Hysteria-over Listeria, oh yeah I can spell listeria
http://www.mensfitness.com/training/pro-tips/the-hysteria-over-listeria
Aside from a typo I made, not quite sure of the point. All things I already know. However the two greatest culprits known for listeria outbreaks are unpasteurized dairy and expired deli meats.
Half right. Almost all are from deli meat, much of it before it expires. The only dairy related incidents I have heard of were from Mexican style ‘bathtub’ cheese. (quese fresco I believe)
Licenses and permits make sense. Bear in mind, though, that corporate lobbyists have too often used our regulatory process to their own competitive advantage; insisting on provisions that have no effect on safety, but that small farmers cannot possibly afford to fulfill. Make no mistake — they WILL deploy lobbyists to go after even the smallest market share.
Small farmers are perfectly capable of producing safe, healthy products without going bankrupt. Lawmakers will be under tremendous pressure to implement anti-competitive rules at the behest of lobbyists, so will need ever more tremendous pressure from those of us on the side of small farmers and their customers to focus solely on healthy practices.
too much information that means too little… bring it up a notch.. if you want ot live in a safe environment , we all better buy a bubble house.. and move in.. I , for one, would rather have the freedom to choose rather the regulation to make me choose.. gov’t serves folks who like to have it done for them… most Mainers are the opposite of that …
To put it bluntly – that’s a lot of baloney. The writer says that idealism deserves respect. To say that idealism is good, because idealism is good, is faulty and dangerous logic.
No one should be purchasing products of this type until they have seen the conditions in which the animals are sheltered and fed and cared for, and that the farmer uses proper sanitation practices.
LOL….and what of the thcousands of generations of humans before the last 3 or 4 that drank raw milk without the “proper sanitation practices”
You liberals sure do love the hyperbole and revisionist history to tow the big corporation, big government agenda
This is not a “liberal vs. conservative” thing. You’ve entirely missed the point and what the issue is about.
Yup. And people did get sick and die.
Curious what the life expectancy was back then compared to now…
One of the biggest killers worldwide has been untreated waste water contaminating drinking water causing dysentery. Now don’t go crazy here. We don’t have to pasteurize our drinking water. Rather, we just have to stop polluting the water to begin with.
This is one of our greatests myths. Walk around ancient cemeteries. Look at the dates of deaths. The morbidity rate hasn’t gone down. What you do see now, is people in their 90’s and 100’s being more visible. People in their 60s, however, seem to be dropping like flies.
I live next to one of those “ancient cemeteries” and you are absolutely right. Many children; women of childbearing age dead of childbirth complications — and many headstones of people who lived a long life.
“You liberals?” “Hyperbole and revisionist history?” What are you talking about. I drink raw milk. I know as well as anyone can just how that milk is getting made by the cow, how she is milked, and how the milk is handled.
I am a Democratic State Rep, I submitted a bill to reduce regulation of raw milk last session. It failed on a close bipartisan vote with far more Dems voting for my bill than against it. Check the roll call, http://www.mainelegislature.org/LawMakerWeb/summary.asp?ID=280039495
You are correct Pointaway, and to inspect the farm they need to have knowledge to interpret what they have seen. Knowing your neighbor the farmer, or seeing an operation that appears OK to those who have no knowledge, is of no value.
I know. It comes down to a level of trust and taking the – dare I say it – risk of living fully without having everything sterilized and prettified. (Who really would want it otherwise, except for those who benefit financially from it).
My mother worked on TB wards. Although she was an “eat a peck of dirt before you die,” sort, she wouldn’t drink unpasteurized milk. One exception. Friends with a dairy farm, who she knew had the sense to keep things clean.
You run a much higher risk of contracting a life threatening bacteria from factory farmed chicken, beef and eggs than from raw milk. As a consumer, I know the farmer from whom I buy raw milk and I don’t want “uncle” telling me not to.
Fortunately Sardoglady, that higher risk you mention is more myth than fact. It all boils down to safe food handling, storage and cooking. People are quick to pass off the problems on all those “factory farms” when in most cases it’s failure on the consumer’s part to handle the food in a safe manner. And again, this isn’t about “uncle” telling you who you can and can’t do, it’s about them making sure that those who provide the food to you are doing things safely so that others don’t get sick. They put these rules in place to protect you.
Well, I don’t want to be protected. I am doing it myself by raising my own eggs, meat chickens, rabbits and turkeys. I buy only grass fed Maine beef and local if I can so I know its safe and much more ethical. I know my veggies haven’t been fertilized with liquid manure harboring ecoli from CAFOs because I grow them. All the inspections and safety net in our food supply are a farce. Just ask those who contracted ecoli and have kidney failure or those who have lost loved ones because they innocently ate eggs, ground beef, spinach or melons.
I applaud the fact that you are able to raise and harvest your own food to sustain your family. It’s too bad everyone couldn’t do the same. I too support my local farmers and buy local meats and produce as often as I can. Unfortunately the mass media have a very biased approach and have skewed the general public opinion on our nation’s food system as a whole. They take a few isolated incidents of malpractice and make it seem as though that is the norm in the industry. They play off the uninformed or misinformed populace and lead them to believe that our food system is unethical and dangerous and use fear to reel them in. If consumers educated themselves in these regards they would find that on a national level, we have the safest food production system in place from farm to table. The only farce is how the media are able to manipulate the majority of people to buy into their biased overview and don’t even come close to presenting all the facts. While it is unfortunate that a few have contracted these food borne illnesses and have gotten sick or died, aside from some very isolated incidents, it all comes down to two primary factors: failing to cook food to proper temperatures and consumers failing to wash their hands. When food of any kind gets processed and sent to the consumer today the safety protocols that are followed are so numerous that the practices become redundant. This is to ensure that if one level of safety fails, there are several more in place to back it up. When these outbreaks occur and unsafe food gets passed on to the consumer, it is a catastrophic failure on many levels which rarely happens. If you look at the sheer amount of food that is processed on a daily basis in this country and then look at how many of these outbreaks occur annually, you would see that it represents a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of that total amount. You have better odds hitting the Powerball then you do getting unsafe food. In most instances, the point food becomes unsafe is when it gets into the consumers’ hands and they fail to hold it and/or cook it to safe temperatures.
Actually, this country does NOT have the “safest” food production system. France, for example, has about 1/13th the rate of food borne illness that the US has, and that from a country with many more small farms, percentage-wise, than the US does.
I searched on food borne illness in France and came up with data
cited on Wikipedia (yes, I know, Wikipedia?, But the entry seems to have
valid citations.)
“In the United States, using FoodNet data from 2000–2007, the CDCP
estimated there were 47.8 million foodborne illnesses (16,000 cases for
100,000 inhabitants): [39]
127,839 were hospitalized (43 per 100,000 inhabitants);
3,037 people died (1.0 per 100,000 inhabitants.).”
For France:
In France, for 750,000 cases (1,210 per 100,000 inhabitants):
70,000 people consulted in the emergency department of an hospital (113 per 100,000 inhabitants.);
113,000 people were hospitalized (24 per 100,000 inhabitants);
400 people died (0.9 per 100,000 inhabitants).
So, off hand, it seems the US had 16,000 cases of reported food
poisoning per 100K residents, versus France’s 1,210 per 100K
resident…..almost 1/13th the US rate.
Big industry, and a corrupt and incompetent FDA, “working together” to keep the US food supply the most adulterated int he world !
Once again reports based on facts, but not all the facts. Most foodborne illnesses have symptoms that are very flu-like and often misdiagnosed or just passed off because in reality, most cases aren’t that severe. The CDC has done an amazing job in this country of getting to the roots and tracking those illnesses and keeping more accurate and up-to-date records. Medical technology is so advanced now that we are able to properly diagnose these foodborne illnesses rather than letting them get passed off as “the flu.” Thus as it may appear that the number of confirmed cases is rising, it really? Or are we just getting better at proper diagnosis? I’d be willing to bet in the very rural country of France that the actual number of foodborne illnesses that get reported and become part of official statistics is not nearly as accurate as it could be. The technology and advances in medicine and in diagnosing these illnesses accurately can’t come close to the systems in place in America. So while I don’t dispute the facts you presented, I do dispute the means in which that data was collected because it doesn’t paint an accurate picture of what really is happening.
France is quite sophisticated about their food; their meticulous farming traditions — AND about their medical care.
In a country where not only basic health care services but house calls are much more widely available than here I would be “willing to bet” that there are FAR more cases of foodbourne illness going unreported in THIS country. …and NOT from small farms.
Illness from industrial food is not only a matter of scale, but of percentage.
How many uninsured Americans will be reporting a mild case of food poisoning? That alone skews the figures. America’s corporate food system is good for America’s corporations and no one else. Not the farmers, not the consumers and certainly not the animals or the environment.
The US has the most adulterated food supply in the world.
Shilling for huge corporate interests that harm the health of people by pitching over processed and denatured garbage passed off as “food” isn’t really fooling anybody.
yes of course, now it’s the consumers fault…
ayuh
It’s always about “consumers”. We’re good at being “consumers”. We’ve forgotten how to be “citizens”.
Alright chefpoulin, who are you, and what agri-business food conglomerate’s payroll are you on?
Not on anyone’s payroll but I do lean on the conservative side. I don’t necessarily agree with some of the practices by the mega-agri-business companies, and I do try to spend my food dollar as much as possible to support the local farmers. However I also don’t make judgements until I have all the facts. I don’t believe that there is this giant conspiracy between business and government to control everything we do and eat. What I do believe is that as consumers we as a nation have been the ones to bring about all these issues and problems brought forth. We all want things bigger, faster, & cheaper. We are a fast-paced society who for the most part are impatient and lazy in a sense. We have demanded these things from farmers and food processors. They have responded and given to us what we have asked for, and done so effeciently and as cheaply as possible–part of what makes a business successful. We haven’t taken the time to stop and smell the roses along the way and now that a few have done just that and exposed some things that are hard to hear and sorry for the pun but swallow, we are speaking out against what is happening. That is a good thing that we are finally standing up and advocating for ourselves. Bravo. Unfortunately many are pointing the finger and making accusations and claims that are not completely valid because they don’t have all the facts straight. Ultimately I strongly believe that finger pointing should not be towards the big business and government, it should be directed towards each other.
Joel Salatin put it, “bigger, FATTER, faster, cheaper”. …”responding to consumers”, eh?
That is the problem. We have governed ourselves as “consumers” for too long. “Voting with our dollars” is not only undemocratic, it is also dangerous. Food companies have been giving us what we want, and we’ve assumed the FDA et. al. has made sure it is safe.
Time to start acting like “citizens” again, and NOT “consumers”, and govern ourselves like a real sovereign, democratic people.
“I don’t believe that there is this giant conspiracy between business and government to control everything we do and eat. ” Well, I, and well-read, thinking people DO “believe it”.
Bah again I say!
They put these rules in place to save the mega-food-conglomerates from being put out of business via things such as losing overseas export markets……It’s easier to sell beef in Asia or milk products overseas if the products are ultra pasteurized and so on….all the better to sit on a shelf for a month before being eaten.
The rules are also crafted to put smaller producers out of business…..thereby better enabling the survival of the Tysons and Smithfield Foods of this world.
No, it IS about the government telling me what to do.
Several years ago, when the government dreamed up the National Animal Identification System, known as NAIS, they were going to apply that program, with its requirements for premises IDs, and animal identification numbers and tracking, to *every* property in the country that had any domestic farm animals, down to your Aunt Petunia with her 2 hens in a backyard shed.
Only when there was a national cry over this program, did the feds back off.
It didn’t matter one bit whether a person was going to sell any garden or farm product at all or keep it for personal use.
Make no mistake about it, growing some of your own food is one of the most subversive things you can do and is something the government is slowly but surely trying to make harder for a person.
NAIS was all about Big Ag stealing market share — animals in THEIR industrial settings would be exempt; small producers using pasture/fresh air and water etc. would be charged $3 per chicken….
Wendell Berry, who offered to go to jail over NAIS, described biological farmers as small dogs nipping at the heels of Big Ag, who carries a stick. When they start noticing….
Meat goes bad on the surface and the bad stuff is cooked off. Thats why you should cook hamburger well done, the surface meat ends up on the inside. Bacteria in milk doubles every twenty minutes at room temp. The milk you buy at the store is tested for bacteria both before and after it is pasteurized and the testing prior to pasteurization fails quite often. There are two methods, one is a plate count where a sample of product is stored for 24 hours and a technician counts bacteria “colonies” with a microscope. The other method is a laser aligned electron microscope counts the cells in a instrument that dyes the cells and guides the product through a flow cell where the microscope is focused.
That said, I don’t want the gov’t telling you what to do, I would just prefer you are aware.
It is kind of funny that I can leave a bottle of raw milk out of the fridge overnight with no problem. The pasturized milk treated the same way reeks in the morning.
Thank you government but I’ll continue to enjoy the benefits and flavor of raw milk.
It’s not funny, it’s biology. Fortunately for you, your immune system is strong and has built up a strong tolerance to those bacteria. You’re lucky. Unfortunately many folks aren’t as lucky as you. Add to that the general ignorance of the general public (and that is not meant to be derogatory) but most are unaware of the risks associated with raw dairy, it is in the name of public health that the government should demand regulations and labeling of the raw product. The fact that the unrefrigerated pasteurized milk reeks in the morning is a good thing! It’s screaming out–“Don’t drink me, I’ve soured! You might get sick if you consume me!”
No, pasturized milk doesn’t sour it rots. Raw milk sours and is perfectly usable. My point is that the pasturized mild went bad much faster than the raw milk. Guess I shouldn’t say the raw milk went bad. It changed and was useful in another manner. The pasturized is not useful when it rots.
Sours, rots, call it what you want. The fact of the matter is all milk has bacteria, good and bad. No denying the benefits of all those good bacteria and how they can transform foods in developing flavors and complexity. It’s those harmful pathogens that are of concern. Those are what make people really sick–even miscarriages in pregnant women. Unfortunately pasteurization does not discriminate and kills both the pathogens as well as all those beneficial bacteria. That is a price I am willing to pay if it prevents someone from getting ill. Held under proper refrigeration, pasteurized milk can remain “good” for 3 weeks plus. I’d consider that a darn good shelf life for something so perishable in nature. Again, I think it’s great that farmers have the ability to sell and we as consumers have the ability to buy these raw milk products. They have their place, and being a chef I use these products on a fairly regular basis. However, it is completely irresponsible and negligent on the parts of both the farmers and government alike if these products are not labeled as potential health risks and if the farmers are left to process and sell these products without some set of minimum standards that everyone has to abide by to ensure everyone is playing by the same set of rules.
Being a chef, you know that sour milk can be used to bake some lovely cakes. Rotted milk cannot. With the bacteria killed milk rots. I have not had pasturized milk stay “good” for 3 weeks but I’ve had raw milk from the farm down the road stay “good” for 10 days to 2 weeks and then I could use it elsewhere.
Maybe we should stop calling unpasturized milk raw and call it live milk. That does have a nice ring to it.
The bottom line is neither of us is going to convince the other so I guess we should call it quits on the discussion. Regardless, I do not want someone from the government watching out for me. I’ll do a fine job all by myself.
We have a real chef in our family — “chefpoulin” isn’t really one! Can’t be!
Apparently in your eyes I’m not. Please, whatever you do, don’t tell my staff that I’m a fraud!!! LOL
Then you should know quality when you see it, and shouldn’t want the government to put small farmers — the highest quality producers, out of business. Why don’t you trust any food not officially sanctioned by the Corporate State/Monsanto? What on Earth kind of chef ARE you?
We raise pastured French Ranger chickens, and pastured eggs — you’d probably think we’re more likely to cause illness than BigAg. You would be mistaken?
No, you are absolutely, compleatly wrong. Raw milk from properly cared for cows does not harbor pathogenic bacteria. But it DOES have friendly flora and plenty of enzymes and nutritional value that pasteurized milk from poorly raised and monitored cows that have been fed antibiotics under factory farm conditions doesn’t have.
You pretend that you are raising the bar, when the reality is, you merely advocate for keeping it low.
Ahh but therein lies the problem…not all cows are properly cared for, thus it only takes one small farmer raising the cows improperly to ruin it for the rest. Thus there is a need for regulation and standards of some sort to ensure that everyone raising these dairy cows are all on the same page. You can’t rely on all the small farmers to police themselves and trust that everyone is going to do the right thing because at least one of them won’t. Someone else MUST monitor that.
Why are antibiotics so bad? It’s not like milk coming from cows who have been treated with them get put into the system with all the rest. When humans get a bacterial infection how is it treated–with antibiotics. Why should we not afford the same luxury for any one else be them human or beast to make them well again?
The milk coming from these “factory farms” is tested for antibiotics at the farm regularly and then multiple times thereafter before it even sees the holding tanks of a processing/bottling facility. Any positive test and the entire batch gets dumped.
It blows my mind how narrow peoples’ views and perceptions are of our food system and how easily swept up by they are by the negative publicity it receives when in fact that constitutes a mere fraction of the whole and is the exception, when the media portray it to be the norm.
I don’t pretend that the bar is raised, I know it is. It’s the failure to educate oneself and gather ALL the facts before making judgement based on a news clip or documentary where the advocacy for setting the bar low comes from.
Absolutely. I’d be happy to drink raw milk from some producers, but all it takes is one sloppy, dirty seller to make a lot of people sick.
Many people in the medical world agree that the reason we are seeing so many more antibiotic-resistant pathogens (staph in particular) is that antibiotics are being greatly overused in this country, particularly by the livestock industry in the way the latter routinely feeds antibiotics to animals as part of medicated feed. The vast bulk of antibiotics are not given to people, but to animals in large feedlot and poultry operations – animals living in conditions that would cause many, if not most, of the animals to die if they were given feed not laced with antibiotics. It’s a penny-wise and pound-foolish practice
That’s why antibiotics are so bad.
For too long, we have used antibiotics to industrialize nature; to mask unsanitary practices…. (where antibiotics have been curbed without changing the methods, animals, of course fail to thrive. Cue the chortling chemical farm advocates, “I told you so!”
There’s probably no “study” for this – well, probably somewhere – – call this anecdotal – but the increase in female breast diseases — let’s say on the off-chance, even, that antibiotics and bovine growth hormones, and other meat-laced hormones – are, in fact contributing to the increase.
I’m sure there are studies on the effect of bGH on bovines.
There are: the “Lancet”, the University of Illinois — even Monsanto’s own studies linked rBGH to colon and breast cancer…. That’s why it’s illegal in civilized countries!
Guess what happened to two reporters who uncovered this story in Florida? Monsanto suppressed it brutally….
Yes. Thank you. I didn’t want to state there were studies because someone would say they were biased – which many of them are. You do have to wonder – or not — why the U.S. supports the use of so much garbage in our food chain, when other countries, with fewer resources, have banned them, including high fructose corn syrup – which, on the surface …. well you know.
And you know every farmer who wants to sell raw milk cares for his animals, cleans his equipment and washes his hands? No, you don’t. That’s why I like food safety laws.
That’s the point in the case in the article. It is always good to have someone, other than yourself, checking your work, at least from time to time, right? It’s easy to get lost in the work, or just fatigued. It appears here, that the State is not moving to shove regulations down the throat of everyone who is in compliance or make them worse. Besides, I think there is now one inspector for the entire State, now.
LOL…it is always in the name of “public good” that the federal government provides protection for massive corporations through “regulation” and effectively erodes human freedom.
There is more sickness and human suffering at the hand of the government “regulated” agricultural market than there would be of they got out of the way and let humans trade freely amongst themsleves and upheld private property rights.
How are we supposed to “taste” rGBH (linked to colon and breast cancer, banned in Europe and Canada)?
Can you even name any dairy producers these days that even allow the use of those growth hormones any more? Good luck!
Yes, you can easily find milk in stores that most certainly contains
Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH. No dairy brags about it, though.
Our government not only refuses to demand milk produced in such a way, be labeled, but any dairy that chooses to tout the fact that its farmers do NOT use it MUST also label the milk “FDA States: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with artificial growth hormone”! (I guess extra pus is “not significant”. )
Why you would retain any doubt of the power Monsanto wields over our government; the same one you trust to be focused like a laser on food safety. It isn’t.
OK, so you still didn’t answer the question. What milk contains the growth hormones? Look at big three dairies in Maine, Oakhurst, Hood, Garelick and while you’re at it, add in the Hannaford, Shaws and Wal-mart store brands (which are bottled by those same big three). All three tout “no artificial growth hormones.” Who else is left for those “big dairies” in Maine anyway? The fact of the additional FDA statement on the label is simply a result of the settlement between Oakhurst and Monsanto a few years back–really just a formality that Oakhurst agreed to settle on to avoid lengthy litigation. Yeah it sucks that it has to be on the label, but because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s in the milk. I know the Bennett brothers who own Oakhurst and I’ve seen what happens when milk from farms tests positive for these hormones. The milk gets dumped and the contracts with the farms are terminated.
But the question is what exactly does that FDA statement refer to? It doesn’t really say. It’s too vague. Significant difference in the milk, but in what? Nutrients? Contents? Extra Pus? So I’d say that is fairly open to interpretation depending on how you look at it. There’s no doubt about the power that Monsanto wields. But it’s unfair to claim they have power over the government in this regard because that FDA statement on the label really doesn’t say anything.
So again, I ask, how come 3 people were killed in MA, in 2008, drinking pasteurized, “tested” milk?
All that super fancy equipment and testing, along with a govt. license on the wall, and still, people died?!?
Accidents happen and there are breakdowns in the system occasionally. But you make it sound like that is the norm, when it is the exception. Only 3 died in 2008 from drinking that milk? Based on how much milk is consumed on a regular basis by millions of people each day, I’d say that’s a stellar track record. I wonder what the statistics are for those drinking raw milk. I’ll bet no one can come up with any data for that. It’s not glamorous enough to hit the front pages and make top headlines. I guarantee the percentage is far higher!
With all the hoopla around raw milk, I am sure that if and when somebody dies because of it, we’ll all hear about endlessly.
Government licenses guarantee nothing except a revenue stream for the government.
Also, I didn’t say that only 3 people died in 2008 from drinking pasteurized milk. I simply reported the case of one dairy that I happened to see in the news back then. Nationally, there may have well been more than that in 2008. I didn’t search.
Can you back up your assertion with facts or is this just a rant against the government?
If I dug around long enough I could find the stats. Think about it this way. How many times have you heard of someone contracting ecoli from grass fed local beef? or from locally organically grown spinach or cantelope?
I’m not on a rant against the government per se. I do object to some of our gov’t officials being too close to Monsanto and the other agribusiness companies.
Sorry to be so dense but I don’t get the connection to raw milk.
Monsanto controls most of the seed corn. It is genetically modified to be Roundup ready. Most farmers who sell raw milk do not feed their cows corn based grains. Take raw milk out of the marketplace and there is more market for CAFO milk. Monsanto and the other biggies in agribusiness lobby our legislators very heavily to pass laws in their favor.
Remember the lawsuit between Oakhurst and Monsanto about rGBH? The bottom line is follow the money.
Seems a little convoluted to me. What I don’t understand is when something is labelled “organic” (and all foods are technically organic, but you seem to base your arguments on technicalities) that means they don’t do this and they don’t use that…all these wonderful things they don’t do or use yet the product costs more. It just seems to me if you don’t do something, there’s less labor – if you don’t use something, there’s less overhead, therefore less expensive, not more expensive.
How can “all foods technically be ‘organic'”?
There is more to “organic” than “not doing this” and “not doing that”. Often organic farmers substitute their own labor for chemicals (i.e. weeding by hand rather than chemically). …also soil building. Industrial ag doesn’t do this at all, which is why the exhausted soil requires more and more petroleum-based so-called “fertilizers” (they actually mine the soil of its natural fertility, leaving it less productive than before).
Organic farmers do not enjoy the huge subsidies Big Ag does — what you are paying at the supermarket is NOT an honest price, while the prices at the farmers’ market afford the farmer a very narrow margin.
Sometimes. But I have seen gouging. “Organic” or not, people are people. Supermarket spinach is at $4.98 a pound. I doubt that pesticide-free is much, if at all, higher – depending, of course.
I think everything reaches a point, early on, where good practices and integrity are sacrified for any number of reasons.
Small farmers in Maine may be watching, but I’d bet that they’re watching to see that justice is done, and that their efforts to ensure safe practices are not ruined through the actions of one man, or that, because of him, if allegations are true, they all must suffer the (his) consequences.
She doesn’t need to. The factory farm conditions, as you know, increase the chances of opportunistic disease. That is not to say that all small farm operations are pure, but it’s a case of numbers of hands in the mix.
It’s always good to provide facts.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm
oh, such a nice link providing the “facts” to protect the multi-billion dollar agriculture industry….
do you have one that provides the “Fact” that pink slime is nutritous and wholesome?
More proof of ignorance of people and getting caught up in mass media smear campaign. “Pink slime,” I have to laugh, yup without a doubt more wholesome than any untreated ground beef. Most likely it is more nutritious when compared to regular ground beef in terms of fat content because it is lean beef. The fact that it’s treated with ammonia sounds scary to an uneducated person because who in their right mind would consume it. It will kill you, how can it be safe??? Funny how it’s been used as a leavening agent in many commercially produced breads, yet we don’t see any boycott there. What about many types of chocolates and cheeses? Used there too to help control acidity levels.
What about other chemicals such as lye? That will kill you in a heartbeat! But green olives would be inedible if they didn’t take a long bath in them before getting put into a jar. Hominy, pretzels, canned mandarin oranges all get treated with it too but there is a frenzy to stop consumption of those foods.
Check your facts before you go out and jump on a bandwagon and preach about something that you obviously don’t have the truth on.
You know I slaughtered a 1000 lb steer this past January, one we had raised from a calf. We did the slaughtering and we did the cutting, wrapping and freezing, and we are doing all the eating. This animal never went near a USDA “certified safe” food processing place.
I could take a package of my hamburg into any shop and save and place them side by side and even an idiot could see which meat is better quality. The commercially processed burger looks like death warmed over compared to mine. Shop and save had a food poisoning issue with hamburg this winter. The chain of movement of product from USDA licensed processor, through distributors, to the retailers is so convoluted that they never were able to find where the contamination came from. Some safety record for government inspections.
Chefpoulin you can stick to your guns, and you have been blowing your horn often in these pages, which is your right. It is MY right to eat that of my choice, regardless of what you think of it, and I plan to continue to exercise that right to do just that.
When I listen to people such as yourself pontificate on this topic, with such arrogant beliefs in the righteousness of their “professional” argument, while referring to those of us who do not agree with you, and inferring that we are ignorant and unlearned, that makes me sick to my stomach.
Just who made you the pasteurized milk sherrif of the industry? And why does it upset you so that I may consume something that you don’t like? How is that going to bother you in any way, shape or manner? If you don’t like my free choice as to what milk to drink you ought to do the thing and keep quiet about it. Whenver I hear an argument from someone who has to tell me how much HE knows, compared to the average bear, I have to laugh at the audacity of it all, pretendingto know what is best for someone else, just takes the cake in my book.
I’ve been fighting propylene glycol as a food and personal products-approved chemical for years. It’s FDA-approved, of course, and the FDA can approve it because low-amount, chronic, long-term use isn’t studied.
Linking to a government web site only proves that you fail to understand the issue.
And just blindly believing every easily disprovable assertion on that linked page indicates a lack of general cognitive ability.
Sadly, it wouldn’t matter what facts get presented to some of these very narrow-minded people here. Of course any reference that is associated with a government agency is going to get deemed “part of the conspiracy” to these folks. So predictable. The fact of the matter is they can’t handle the cold hard truth when its presented to them square in the face. I suppose they look at these “investigative journalists” like Michael Pollan as preaching the gospel truth and that they have no underlying agendas and bias.
Chef Poulin is foolin himself. Chef poulin says: “If consumers educated themselves in these regards they would find that on a national level, we have the safest food production system in place from farm to table.” I think Chef Poulin is way off base. Watch a film called Food, Inc & then see if you continue to think the same way. “Safest” is a relative term. If one uses a yardstick of how many fatalities occur each year per hundred thousand people perhaps there is some truth to his assertion. But in terms of ethics the American food system is atrocious in regard to how it treats animals on dairy farms & for meat consumption. I worked on a dairy farm for two years & milked 100 head of Guernsey twice each day. I drank the milk from those cows each day as did my family. As long as the dairyman maintained a high level of cleanliness & the equipment was all kept clean then the raw milk was fine. But it only takes one slovenly dairyman to change that picture. On the ethical side dairy cows are kept three years on average & are then sent out to the slaughter houses. Their meat becomes your hamburgers & hot dogs. Dairy cows in agri-business are unable to sustain high milk production for more than a few years. Almost all the male calves are sent to be slaughtered. One could go on and on about the institutional abuses that take place on dairy farms. Most people involved have become inured & after awhile it all seems normal. But “normal” today is far removed from old time dairy farms. Modern dairy farms, some with 500-1000 cows or more, have little similarity to the old time farms with a dozen or so Jerseys or Guernseys on them which were the norm when small mixed farms were the standard in Maine, NH & Vermont.
Hugh, the funny thing is own Food Inc. I think it’s a fantastic movie. I also know that it is extremely lop-sided and biased and doesn’t come close telling the complete truth. While many of the opinions expressed and things shown are good, so many facts are distorted by only providing bits and pieces. Add in some timely ominous background music and on-screen commentary and it paints a very convincing picture. That movie (and others like it) give you half the story (the parts that makes things seem so evil and diabolical) and then fail to follow up and provide all details so that viewers can make a judgement based upon all the facts. It is like a judge handing out a sentance after only hearing the prosecution give testimony.
And I agree with you, it only takes one farmer who is doing things half-assed and not safely to screw things up for everyone else, thus the need for there to be rules in place.
RTFA people. This is about a small local farmer that sells raw milk to people that come to him specifically for it. Sell your big-dairy crappy, inferior, disease ridden over-pasteurized pus-filled milk to someone else, don’t tell me who I can and can’t buy milk from.
Nobody is telling you who you can and can’t buy milk from. Buy it from anyone you want! This is comical how defensive and fired up people are getting here.
Excuse me, ‘chef’ poulin, but there is nothing comical here. If people are becoming defensive, which I do not see at all, then they are perceiving they are under attack, and that seems to be stemming from, among other things, your willingness to deem everyone but yourself, “ignorant.”
On the contrary, there are all kinds of areas that I know I have a great deal of “ignorance” in. When I use this term it’s not in a derogatory sense, I simply mean that there is a lack of education or a very narrow point of view and unwillingness to hear the other side of the story. A lot of very biased opinions that are believed to be the gospel truth. They see a story on the news, read an article in the NY Times or watch a movie like Food Inc and think that that’s it–end of story. Now it’s a massive conspiracy between big business and government and they’re all out to get us and it’s simply about money, money, money, yada, yada, yada. That’s just not true. I hate the likes of the Wal-marts and I totally support my local farmers and small businesses. I grind my own beef. It just floors me how people can get sucked into believing some things and stand behind it with such conviction when it’s based on bits and pieces of information, when if they had all the facts laid out before them they just might do 180 degrees in what they thought they were standing for.
Oh… well… THAT. I often forget how bombarded people are who have television, or go to movies, or play with electronic devices constantly, or listen to radio news as if it’s a religious experience. The internet is bad enough. Very bad.
Running up against systems that are completely linear – I think that’s the correct term — and massive – as in food, other products, and health – does not allow for common sense, or variation from the prevailing rules. “Green” means nothing to me – makes me run away, as I know how much money is involved. The same with “natural.” All the buzz words, including those used in politics. Meaningless.
I believe in hard science. Also in intuitive sense. That everything must be seen as part of the whole. And the value of critical thinking and analysis cannot be underestimated. But we are human. Lots of faults. Bad thinking. Laziness. Wanting to trust experts… eh…
“Now it’s a massive conspiracy between big business and government and they’re all out to get us and it’s simply about money, money, money, yada, yada, yada. That’s just not true.” Wrong. It absolutely IS true.
Big business is “out” for itself — and if the public interest gets in the way, it will purchase the power of government to subjugate it. If you don’t believe me, look at the ties to “big ag.”; the revolving door between Monsanto and the FDA.
“The state is suing a Blue Hill farmer to STOP HIM (read: STOP YOU FROM BUYING MILK FROM WHOM YOU WANT) from selling unpasteurized milk. The case could test the legality of dozens of small farming operations in the county and the scope of local marketing of organic food.”
Did you read this piece at ALL?
We no longer live in a free country, we live in a dictatorship but with more than one dictator, they are called local, State and Federal officials!
Just ad PINK SLIME and u can sell anything.
Isn’t this a perfect example of the negative association of doing business in Maine? The government is focusing its spotlight on an organic farmer?! And how about the costs for this business to defend itself against reinterpretation of policy regarding the sale of raw milk? That kind of reallocation of financial resources in a small business could be the tipping point for its survival!
The background to this story, I believe, involves uncorrected violations, and/or disregard for minimal requirements. It bears looking back to the whole story, except that I’m not sure you can find the whole story anywhere.
Why all these people believe we should even be drinking another animals milk is beyond me. Why do humans feel they have to drink milk beyond the age their mothers stop producing it? It is an unnatural act and the majority of humans bodies stop producing the amount of lactase necessary to avoid lactose intolerance by age 2! That is, age 2, when our bodies tell us we do not need milk anymore, especially another animals. Green leafy vegetables provide more than enough calcium than a human body needs.
Do people understand that most calves are forced from their mothers and sent off to veal cages or some other less than humane death in order for humans to drink the milk their mothers make for them? Talk about selfish arrogance. The dairy industry has you all fooled. Stop drinking milk and other dairy products created without the whole picture in mind, and stop thinking humans are so important that we should disregard the welfare of all other living things that we exploit so often and so horribly. That is the bigger picture, not if a few people should be allowed to do this without government oversight. I would argue, with facts, that no one should even be doing it at all. It is sad though, that these days, facts rarely matter to those who they inconvenience…..
Vegan?
What about people who live in areas of the world with little arable land for crops? The products produced from an animal’s milk provide superior nutrition. It is not selfish at all to consume milk products. Dairy provides a wide range of benefits that cultures with an animal husbandry history have thrived on.
With all due respect to everyone, this is one of the stupidest issues to ever come up. What we currently have is ONE farmer milking ONE cow and selling the milk to people who know what they’re getting.
I say if the government feels they need to get their noses into this (and they DO feel the need to get their noses into everything!) have them require the farmer to label the bottles with a label much like the one on cigarettes. Issue closed.
HOWEVER…. is there anyone here whe doesn’t believe that the driving force behind the gov’t campaign is the lobbyists for the dairy industry?
…not just for the Dairy Industry, but Monsanto and their rBGH. Big Pharma…. You are absolutely right.
Yes, absolutely. I should have included them too. They’re all in the same bed together.
Big Pharma is hiding behind Big Dairy, both of whom are formulating the laws to keep even the littlest guy from getting “their” share of the market. They’re then hiding behind The Government who’s using the usual scare tactics to make the public compliant.
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.”
this is exactly why gov’t must stay small and out of the business of the citizens.. give them a few tasks that are constitutional and leave it at that…………. power has made them nutty… regulated most major business’ right out of the state.. now they want to control healthy foods , as if a license makes it safer.. no it’s all about power and money and most citizens across the nation are feed up with it and are at the end of the line..
The government is being controlled by corporate lobbyists, who want all smallholders out of business.
Lots of truth in that statement.
Who lobbies for the average citizen if it’s not the legislators and senators we vote for??? I used to be naive and think they worked for the people but today I know better.
I saw a documentary yesterday, in which a lobbyist was asked, “Isn’t what you do undemocratic?”. And he said, “No. We represent ‘people’; the people who have the money.” …as if THAT were ‘democratic’? There are those who pressure lawmakers on behalf of the average citizen, but they are so far outspent.
Power follows money in a plutocracy; it follows people in a democracy.
Exactly. And who does the lawmakers represent if not the people? Whoever pays the most money.
In my eyes, that is treason against The United States.
You are absolutely right. Corporate control of the government is also known as fascism.
What’s next, the feds telling mothers they can’t breast feed their babies because it’s not pasteurized and labeled?
I would prefer to have a choice and that big brother step out of the way. If it was about protecting the people then half the drugs and preservatives would not be allowed in our food.
Total waste of taxpayers’ money…
He needs new counsel. The towns of Blue Hill, Penobscot, Hope, Plymouth, Sedgwick, and Trenton are going to preempt State and Federal law?
Any attorney should know that municipalities are incorporated by the State, and that states cannot preempt the Federal government in areas where the Federal government has acted.
In fact, the Maine Legislature could eliminate the six towns, and it would be perfectly lawful if they did so.
I’d hate to be hanging my hat on that peg.
Isn’t it odd that the attorney is going to pusue the ” food soverinty” bit. This case, with this man, is going to be corkscrewed into all manner of things that have nothing to do with whether or not this guy was abiding by reason and law.
You’re right on that. Have you noticed that some posters have made it “the government is telling me that I can’t grow my own food” instead of “the government won’t allow me to sell this food due to non-compliance with a food safety regulation”?
Others have made it a “big farm, small farm” thing. Last but not least are the conspiracy theorists. Pretty soon we will see linkages to the Bilderbergers or to Area 51.
I know. And, frankly, I’d prefer to eliminate paranoia entirely. Common sense has always worked well – then again, people seem to hate that.
The more I think on this the more I am wondering how mankind survived before the federal government started “protecting” us from raw milk. Raw milk was all you could buy back in the day when it was delivered to your door in glass bottles, but who knew how deadly it could be. Makes me glad the fed is there to care for us and take control of our lives. The fed must love us.
The government is not trying to protecting in this case, they are educating. The farmers and producers are the ones who are protecting us through wholesome and sanitary work practices.