Raw Milk Debate Heats Up Across U.S.

Clifford Hatch cares for about 20 cows at his family-run farm, producing fresh raw milk that is at the center of controversy over its sale and safety.

Hatch sells raw, or unpasteurized, milk products from a retail shop at his dairy farm, which state regulations allow him to do because the business is located on the same property where his Ayrshire cattle are milked.

He said he might sell 40 to 50 gallons a day at his Upinngill Farm, which started producing raw milk and cheese years ago when local residents began seeking an alternative to dairy from big, industrialized producers whose use of artificial bovine growth hormones was widespread then.

"The system is pretty sensible and reasonably well-enforced," Hatch said.

But debate is swirling over raw milk in many U.S. states, and the thought of tighter federal rules on its production and sale makes independent producers such as Hatch uneasy.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention both strongly warn the public against drinking raw milk. They see potential health risks from pathogens like E. coli bacteria, which in some instances can get into milk from an animal's manure.

But raw dairy advocates say unpasteurized milk is at least as safe as the "superheated" varieties because of the dedication small-batch farmers have to maintaining hygienic facilities.

Some people prefer raw milk, saying it is sweeter and has more vitamins and minerals, "healthy" bacteria and digestive enzymes. They say pasteurizing milk, or heating it to above 160 degrees Fahrenheit, destroys most of those features.

Part of the debate centers on cheese, which is legal under federal law if it is aged at least 60 days to kill bacteria such as E. coli.

But the FDA is mulling extending the aging requirement past 60 days which could, in effect, outlaw some popular raw milk cheeses as well as pasteurized ripened cheeses.

An FDA spokeswoman said on Wednesday the agency is looking at whether the aging requirements for cheese "are sufficient to minimize pathogens," including salmonella and E. coli.

The FDA's review could take until late in the year, when it would release results of its risk study, she said.

Some raw dairy proponents fear the FDA could outlaw raw milk production altogether.

"Their policy certainly is very anti-raw milk. It's always a concern," said Winton Pitcoff, raw milk network coordinator for the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFAMass).

Some U.S. states are restricting raw milk use already.

Vermont has both deep agricultural roots and a newer local-food renaissance boosting the economy. But the state this month suspended workshops led by an advocacy group teaching people how to turn unpasteurized milk into butter and cheese.

Vermont's agriculture agency says the state's 2009 raw milk law limits farmers to selling it to customers for fluid consumption only. But the agency says it will not interfere with how people use or consume raw milk in their own homes.

In 10 states, including California, Maine, Connecticut and New Hampshire, people can buy raw milk in grocery stores. But sales are banned in many other states, including dairy giant Wisconsin. Federal law also bans interstate sales of raw milk.

A few states are considering legalization or loosening regulations, among them Texas, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Massachusetts does not allow raw milk sales in grocery stores, but it is considering a bill to let farmers deliver to customers and sell at stands away from their farms.

Raw milk producers can sell a gallon of fresh milk for $6 to $12 -- about four times what processors pay dairy farmers for milk they truck to processing plants.

Farmers say the heftier price can make the difference between a farm being profitable or needing to shut down.

The number of dairy farms nationwide has dwindled. In Massachusetts, about 5,000 farms existed in 1950 but today fewer than 180 remain, NOFAMass says.

Copyright Thomson's Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[Conk]

09:25 AM on 03/03/2011

The FDA is a collective of worthless shills, bought and paid by drug companies and giant agri-businesses. They care nothing about our health, only about maximizing profits for their controllers. It's sick and it's criminal!

I WANT MY RAW MILK!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[ANH-USA]

11:28 AM on 03/02/2011

You are only "allowed" to eat or drink what the FDA gives you permission to. There is no inherent right to consume any foods from nature without the FDA's consent. This is not my opinion but the written words of the FDA. See it for yourself (page 25) in FDA court filings in a Ohio raw milk case. http://www.thecompletepatient.com/storage/ds%20mtd%20memo%20in%20support.pdf

[JStading]

10:45 AM on 03/01/2011

Here's the answer to the debate - if you don't want to take the risk, don't drink the milk.  If you do want to, drink it.  Either way, stop telling other people what to do.

[PLDgyrl]

08:29 AM on 03/02/2011

ITA!!!! Regular commercial milk is just a pus filled mess and I do not drink it. Also, here is a news flash - more people get sick from commercial milk than raw milk every year.

[Robert Sidonio Jr]

02:29 PM on 03/03/2011

That is a baseless comment. Raw milk is well known to cause E.coli bacteremia esepcially in the immunosuppresed, i.e young children and those with undiagnosed immunodeficiencies. When a 12 month old dies of E.coli sepsis then the debate will end. I am all for local selling of raw milk but it does not need to make its way to grocery stores and the gov should make them come with clear labels that state the facts. natural is not always better. raw honey is natural but i can cause botulism in infants. Drinking too much milk can cause anemia (>18oz/day). Sensible discussion is warranted.

[don52]

11:25 PM on 02/28/2011

The government seems to be worried about pathogens and bacteria. They'll protect us. They put chlorine and fluoride in our water. They make sure that the cattleman put plenty of antibiotics in cattle to kill infections and of course plenty of growth hormones to make them big. Our doctors are willing to prescribe an antibiotic at any sign of infection. We get flu shots every year. I don't drink tap water. I eat grass fed beef. I don't get flu shots. I drink raw goats milk. They want to heat a natural products to kill all those pathogens. I suppose the question is, are all those germs the cause of mans aliments or a natural phenomenon of life? No matter how many germs we kill we seem to be contracting disease after disease.

[William Hunter Duncan]

07:19 PM on 02/28/2011

Buying raw milk is illegal in many states. Why? To protect commercial producers. That I can't buy milk directly from a farmer I have a relationship with, who cares deeply for the land, for his cows, for his community, IS NOTHING LESS THAN TYRANNY. Government serving Industry, not people.

www.offthegridmpls.blogspot.com

[earlyblue]

05:42 PM on 02/27/2011

Pasteurization and Homogenization are done for two reasons only . . . and both have NOTHING to do with the safety and nutritive qualities of milk. Pasteurization is used purely to extend the shelf life of milk - a benefit to the huge commercial milk producers only. The problem is that the important living nutients, enzymes and good bacteria are killed . . . thereby making the product difficult for many people to digest. Raw milk is easily digested by those with lactose intolerance. Imagine killing all the live cultures in yogurt . . . this is what pasteurization does. Processed milk is unhealthy - raw milk is the way nature intended it - perfect in every way.
Homogenization is done purely for curb appeal . . . to prevent the unsightly separation of cream.
Also a high heat process - effectively making it a 2nd pasteurization process. Both of these processes were created to benefit the manufacturer/seller . . . NOT the consumer. In fact, the consumer ends up with a product that is inferior in every way. 100's of 1000's of people drink raw milk everyday across without a single pathogen incident (food poisoning).

[twwv8]

11:25 AM on 02/28/2011

"raw milk is the way nature intended it"????? You mean for the calf right. Not sure how nature intended man to drink another animals milk.

[Yogaduder]

08:39 AM on 03/01/2011

Farm dogs have gotten milk from cows or pigs. Cats that were adopted by the sow or cow have too. Whether it was b/c mom had died or couldn't give milk. I once saw a colt drink from a cow who was rearing a calf. The farmer said for some reason the colt's mother couldn't provide milk for the colt so she let the colt nurse from the cow. She said this happens once in a while. Always seemed to me raw milk was a universal food.

[SanJoaquinValleyGrower]

01:13 AM on 03/02/2011

The same way nature intended man to take a small seed head of a grass, maize, and turn it into the food staple plant that it is today?

[jaslyn]

12:15 PM on 02/27/2011

Drinking bodily fluids from another species just doesn't make sense. There's so much info out there on how dairy affects our bodies on a cellular level, how it leaches calcium out of our bones; it's all bad, raw, processed whatever. The dairy industry is HUGE and the advertising budget, giant. The whole 'milk does a body good' is not true, and the milk mustash campaign has done a number on Americans.

[earlyblue]

05:02 PM on 02/27/2011

You are soo wrong about everything you write. Raw milk is THE healthiest food that exists - PERIOD! Get your facts straight: http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/

[newtom]

02:19 PM on 02/28/2011

Well, I might not put it exactly in the words jaslyn used, but the ideas are actually correct. No mammal besides human beings drinks the milk of another species. No mammal drinks its mother's milk beyond early development. Drinking milk of another species and beyond early development is certainly not "the way nature intended." Those are the facts.

[odyssey58]

08:20 PM on 02/26/2011

It's all about the money. Farmers get more money and the processors get less. For almost 15 years I bought my milk directly from a local farmer for $1.50 a gallon. They made more by selling it directly to me than they did selling it to the processor. They sold their herd a few years ago when energy prices went through the roof. Now I pay $8 per gallon at a local market. I'd rather see my money go directly to the farmer and the store.

[Oginikwe]

02:10 PM on 02/26/2011

We grow our own--no problems. Keep the manure out of the milk, treat your cow like a pet and do more than just throw food at her and milk her twice a day, and your good to go--milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, etc. Healthy well-tended cows are happy cows.

[eva07]

06:19 AM on 03/01/2011

It is great, but not everybody can do it..

[Oginikwe]

01:16 AM on 03/02/2011

Nope, but there are many things you can do. You can support the people who do; you can support the incremental changes in our food systems. Join a co-op, buy local and in-season, and when it comes to buying pasteurized bgh-free milk at the corporate stores, chose Organic Valley over Horizon. Organic Valley is farmer-owned; Horizon is owned by Dean's.

[Danek Greori]

06:38 AM on 02/26/2011

When did pasteurization become a topic of debate? I understand that many people don't like all the hormones and chemicals that get added to most brands of milk in the US today, but pasteurization is has nothing to do with that. It's not and either or kind of thing folks. You CAN buy organic milk from cows that weren't drugged and fed chemicals that has still been pasteurized. The "Raw milk debate" is just as bad as the "The Anti-vaccine debate." Our future looks bleak if the best defense we can muster against the corporate and scientific bastardization of our necessities is to counter with pure absurdity.

[Yogaduder]

12:18 AM on 02/28/2011

"Organic" doesn't mean it's healthy. Take a look at your food. Find out how it's actually made and where the ingredients come from. Know what is feeding your food. If it's a cow, what is it eating. If its a tomato, where and what is it growing in. Be aware of your food and don't just assume what you buy at the grocery doesn't have an effect on you just b/c you feel it.

[Danek Greori]

02:55 AM on 02/28/2011

First, none of those assumptions were made in my post (did you even read it?). Secondly regardless of what is or isn't being feed to cows (which statistically in the US most are fed a corn meal) pasteurization is a necessity. Milk is naturally full of bacteria and pathogens. While a few of them are not harmful, or even helpful, the majority are harmful and invite disease. Pasteurization does not remove all of these from milk, but it removes a great number. Any kind of defense against such a threat to human health is better than no defense; which is what you're getting when you consume milk that has not been pasteurized.

[yetiwatcher]

06:32 AM on 02/26/2011

seriously?
is it 1880?

[John Byng]

04:30 PM on 02/25/2011

Raw milk from small, hygienic, organic farms is the best you can get. The nutrients and beneficial bacteria have not been destroyed by pasteurisation and the taste is superior too. However there is a need for top class hygiene standards in the milking parlour and so government inspection is advisable.
We have such farms in England and the dairy hygiene inspectors ensure good hygiene.
Those countries and states that still outlaw raw milk are out of date. Such restrictions were necessary when hygiene and disease were less well understood but a more enlightened approach has been possible for many years now.

[BeauRadley]

05:43 PM on 02/25/2011

Yes good points, but the trick here is to find a dairy that is as clean as you say England's are. Until regulation and rigid inspections are done, I won't touch raw milk. It's like playing Russian Roulette.

[John Byng]

10:01 AM on 02/26/2011

I understand your concern and recommend that you campaign for better regulation and hygiene inspection.
Pasteurisation is a second class alternative to decent production standards.
And we have the same problem in England except the small, organic, raw miilk producers are carefully supervised and produce excellent milk and cheese.

[earlyblue]

05:08 PM on 02/27/2011

This is not a trick. The organic raw milk dairies already understand their responsibility and are clinically clean. Here you can read about the dairy where I get my raw milk from. They have 65,000 customers in CA. http://organicpastures.com/

[jetle25]

03:25 PM on 02/25/2011

You watch an episode of Kitchen Nightmare you realize its all about cleanliness and preparation. Just because it's "cooked" doesn't necessarily mean its safe. I rather have Raw milk that is properly packaged then have pasturized milk from cows pumped full of hormones, antibiotics, fortified with nutrients because they don't have any after pasturization and from CAFOs.

[yetiwatcher]

06:35 AM on 02/26/2011

so you have your own cows and then you are fully aware of the conditions under which the milk was acquired, packaged and stored?

I'd rather have milk that was flashed pasteurized to kill nearly all the living organisms in it - then I'll buy and consume it before the date stamped on the carton.

[Amanda Matthews]

12:53 PM on 02/26/2011

Perfect. You do what you want a nd what you think is best and allow everyone else the same courtesy. I was raised (not exclusively but enough) on raw milk and I KNOW it can be safe.

[onionboy]

01:55 PM on 02/25/2011

"Excuse me sir, would you like your milk pasteurized?"

"No. Just up to here."

[VA Jill]

01:02 PM on 02/25/2011

The dairy industry, just like the rest of the food industry, is the property of Big Agra, and Big Agra will do anything to retain control. Together, Big Agra and Big Pharma pretty much control the FDA and get whatever they want. Until that problem is solved, we will continue to have our foods and medicines be whatever those two giants want and decree.