Urania Hunter, of Eureka, loves, loves, loves milk. “It’s the first food for me,” she said, over the phone, one day last week. “I just love milk. It’s my favorite food.”
She loves milk so much, she’s willing to buy it locally on the black market at $16 per gallon. Yes, because the Santa Barbara native/Bay Area expat is hooked on a particular kind of milk — the raw, unpasteurized, non-homogenized, straight-from-the-cow (via quart bottle) kind. The kind that’s illegal to sell for human consumption in Humboldt County. The kind that Hunter, and certain others, swear not only tastes like nirvana but boosts the immune system, alleviates allergies, asthma, ear infections, arthritis and more. They say it produces less phlegm than pasteurized milk. They say lactose-intolerant people can drink it with no problems. (They also say that pasteurized milk actually causes allergies, and is stripped of nutrients beneficial to humans, a claim refuted by some scientists.)
“It’s the most wonderful milk on earth,” Hunter, who drinks a quart of raw milk a day, said. “It’s just absolutely delicious. And there’s something about this area that produces wonderful milk — the fresh air, the green pastures, the type of rain.”
Hunter is among an increasingly adamant group in the county — 2,200 signed a petition recently — that wants the sale of raw milk to be legal in Humboldt. They say it would open up new venues for small dairies, as well as provide standardized guidelines and routine inspections for producers, thereby increasing the safety factor.
This Thursday, at 6 p.m., raw milk advocates are sponsoring a “pep rally” and lecture at the Northwest Institute of Ayurveda, in Arcata. Then, on Aug. 23, there will be yet another rally at the institute; the next day, Aug. 24, they’ll descend on the county Board of Supervisors meeting to push their cause: to convince the board to rescind county code 512.4, which prohibits the sale of unpasteurized liquid “market” milk products for human consumption.
Actually, Hunter convinced her supervisor, Bonnie Neely, to allot the raw-milk drinkers a 9:30 a.m. slot to present their case. Neely, earlier this week, said she would invite others to present different views on the legalization of raw milk, including representatives from the county’s public health department — which remains steadfast against the idea.
“Based on the scientific evidence that’s out there, I fail to see how the benefits outweigh the risks,” said Susan Buckley, director of the county public health branch of Health and Human Services, by phone earlier this week.
Numerous entities oppose consumption of raw milk, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal Food and Drug Administration and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
“Raw milk is inherently dangerous and may contain a whole host of pathogens …,” said John F. Sheehan, with the FDA, in testimony before the House Agriculture Committee in 2009. “Raw milk should not be consumed by anyone, at any time, for any reason.”
Buckley said that before the advent of milk pasteurization, in 1932, 25 percent of foodborne illnesses were attributed to milk products. “And between 1998 and 2008, nationally there were 85 outbreaks of human infections due to raw milk, that were reported to the Centers for Disease Control,” Buckley said. “There were 1,164 illnesses, 187 hospitalizations and two deaths.”
A couple of years ago, several Del Norte County people became sick from bacteria in raw milk; one young woman ended up paralyzed.
This is the sort of scary talk that raw milk believers hate. Hunter, and others, say raw milk from cows that feed only on green grass and don’t stand around all day in manure piles, like conventional dairy cows do, can be safer than pasteurized milk (a claim refuted by non-believer scientists). They also point out that most of the counties in California allow the sale of raw milk (they claim Humboldt’s the only one that doesn’t, but King and Trinity counties also ban its sale, according to Neely).
Hunter, who’s 61, became a raw-milk devotee a few years after she moved to Humboldt County. She went to a potluck at Democracy Unlimited’s “Duck House,” at which the Weston A. Price Foundation offered a presentation on its “Campaign for Real (raw) Milk.” There, Hunter met several people who sell raw milk locally, and got her first taste of the stuff. She started buying raw cow milk from local, small-time producers. Then she bought raw milk from Organic Pastures Dairy in Fresno County, where it’s legal to produce and sell raw milk. It was $10 a gallon, but shipping costs made it about the same price as the local black-market stuff. Plus, Hunter said, she prefers the Humboldt-produced milk better than that from the dry clime of Fresno. So now she buys it from the local folks again, in particular from one producer who owns one cow.
Ironically, that person — we’ll call her Becky so she doesn’t get busted — said last week that she probably would still have to sell her raw milk under the radar because, with just one cow and a kitchen-based operation, the milk inspector would just laugh at her. “I’m too micro,” she said. But, she added, in her production she assiduously follows the cleanliness guidelines that legal producers must abide by.
At the two upcoming rallies, Mark McAfee, founder and owner of Organic Pastures Dairy, will talk about the physiology of raw milk. His company is the only raw milk dairy approved by the State of California to sell to retailers, in counties where that’s allowed. “We have to meet and exceed the pasteurized milk standards,” he said by phone last week.
McAfee also ships raw milk, legally, to individuals who can’t get it in their county; he has about 35 Humboldt customers. He says, overall, his company grew 17 percent last year. “When you have people that lose their medical insurance, that’s when they really start worrying about preventing disease,” he said.
And that’s the kind of talk that scares some health providers.
“I would recommend that folks would consider the risks before drinking raw milk,” Buckley said. “And it’s worth mentioning that our greatest concern is for the more vulnerable populations: children, elderly, the immunocompromised.”
Confusingly, those are the very folks whom many raw-milk believers say can benefit from drinking the stuff. For more fun and enlightenment on this, check out that board meeting in August.
This article appears in A Room Without A View.
Let them drink the stuff… They must pay for their own health care if they get a touch of something though… Heck.. tax it like tobacco… since they will cost a lot to care for when they are reminded of what Louis Pasteur was up to…
Public education has failed again…
I didn’t realize that individual counties could ban the sale of a particular food item in a state where it is legal.
“raw milk advocates are sponsoring a “pep rally” and lecture at the Northwest Institute of Ayurveda, in Arcata.”
Anyone who stops by has a 2 for 1 on completely quackery! Come dip your head in ghee and chug down raw milk. Voila! Instantly, you have no more joint pain, constipation, skin problems, and your affect is bright and sunny!
What was not mentioned were the very strict regulations for raw milk already in place in California.
The state requirements for raw milk are stricter than even pasteurized milk, therefore raw milk might actually be cleaner and safer than pasteurized in California.
Why is Humboldt the only county in the state that does not allow the sales of California legally approved and regulated raw milk?
This local law must be changed.
Mandatory pasteurization is prevention for problems that occurred before dairy inspections, lab tests, etc.
Current legal parameters for the quality of milk legal for human consumption are strict enough to prevent the pathogens that pasteurization kills.
Isn’t it better to have clean milk that doesn’t need to be pasteurized ( cooked) than dirty milk that does need treatment?
Lucerne and co. need to sterilize their McMilk…their cows live in squalor. But not all farmers treat their cattle farms like rat cages. But that’s not the point of the article either. Only in America, land of the free, is “play at your own risk” is a thing of the past, and less processed, less chemically supplemented products cost more. But I guess that’s not the point of the article either.
“They” also say never eat raw eggs, but I’ve been adding them to smoothies forever.
When I was a kid in the 70s my grandparents owned and operated a dairy in Arcata (where Cypres Grove is located now). They sold milk, butter and yogurt to the public on site and, through retailers and had contracts to supply milk to the elementary schools. All of that was pasteurized, of course. But we always drank raw milk, used raw cream and ate butter made from raw milk.
It seems many of the “problems” with raw milk predate modern refrigeration.
As is always the case, prohibition has created a black market, which results in inflated prices and an inability to hold problem producers accountable. Raw milk products need to be decriminalized.
I’m fine with allowing the sale of “raw” milk. People should be allowed to take whatever risk they choose when putting things in their bodies.
However, the idea that “raw” milk has magic powers irritates me.
Apparently the authorities consider it a threat:
Take a look at this footage of the LAPD raiding an organic food store, with guns drawn, on the search for raw foods…What are they so scared of??
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-raw-food-raid-20100725,0,4951907.story
i wish i could buy clean raw milk. i believe it is much better for you than cooked (pasterized) milk. pasterizing seems to be a preservation measure. i’d rather have fresh raw milk, thank you very much!
Relax people. Nobody said raw milk has magical powers. Food as medicine is not a “new-age” concept. Hippocrates said, “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. Many people believe, and scientists confirm, that foods that come straight from the source and eaten in their purest most natural form, are the healthiest. Milk is no exception. Raw milk contains beneficial bacteria and enzymes that actually make it healthier to drink than pasteurized, which kills all of that. Modern refrigeration and health standards make raw milk production cleaner than pre-paseurization days. If people want raw milk, let them buy it.
I can personally attest that many of the “magical” benefits of raw milk mentioned, do in fact, exist. Your doctor may call this kind of personal testimony to the benefits of raw milk “anecdotal” evidence, which is trumped by his superior “scientific” evidence. But, we all know that the scientific evidence goes to the highest bidder these days. Drink it real, my friends.
Help me find raw milk in the county please! It is really crazy paying $40 a box for shipping to get it from Fresno (Organic Pastures ships UPS) when I live in some of the best dairy country in the world. We just moved here, have asked around but have not yet found a source. Yard is not big enough for a cow. Been drinking black market milk since 2000, minus two years of buying Claravale when we first moved to California and could get raw legally. That was right before Whole Foods quit carrying it (sell outs!) but it’s still legal in CA in all but 3 counties- all big dairy counties. Makes you think, CA doesn’t have higher rates of milk related illness than any other state, but the only 3 counties where raw is illegal are big dairy counties. It’s all about getting rid of the little guys, and factory farming. The small farms that didn’t want to pasteurize folded, and the inhumane factory farming practices that spread disease continue, only now they allow marketing dirty milk, as long as it’s cooked it doesn’t matter what the bacterial count is. I’m ready for a 2013 initiative to legalize!
As long is the dairy farm checks EVERY DAY for mastitis I don’t see a problem with it. That is why most store bought milk has been pasteurized at least twice to kill the effects of mastitis and other very dangerous bacteria. Personally I get asthma from the casein in milk so Milk & any kind of Cheese is a no no for me. Another problem with milk of any kind is its packed full of growth hormones.
As long as the milk is ‘clean’ without significant harmful organisms present, raw milk is superior to pasteurized for best body integrity and health, going on my experience with the different milk options. Homogenization is more problematic to body integrity than pasteurization, – pasteurization is ok, homogenization not, due to smaller particles which are more so congestive in the body than if not homogenized, in the case of milk types in which the fats separate. One won’t, per se, die from homogenization, homogenization is relatively benign, but, homogenization causes more gunking/congestion in the body, which leads to various diseases of accretion due to uneliminated non vital foodstuffs which ones body absorbs, which can manifest as slugglish lymph, arthritis, colds, bronchitis, phlegminess, cancer, eye problems, and so forth, diseases commonly due to gunking of non-vital foodstuffs which the body doesn’t adequately process, and hence ‘fester’. Starches are another bigger problem in that regard.