Musings of a "Raw Milk Outlaw"
My son and daughter-in-law gave me a t-shirt last night that reads, "Raw Milk Outlaw". Very cute, especially coming at the end of such an eventful year affecting nutritional freedom.
For me, personally, this past year has been a time of important education, prompted in significant measure by the raw-milk crackdowns, as to the vast power that has accrued to the food and drug establishment. Every industry hates change--if it was up to horse-and-buggy makers, we wouldn't be driving cars--so it shouldn't be surprising that the dairy industry is fighting tooth and nail against even a hint of inroads by raw milk. If raw milk catches on further, it could force huge changes in that industry and, perhaps more signficant, expose shortcomings throughout the food-factory system.
I expect the coming year will be equally interesting in this arena. Raw milk will continue as a symbol of the regulatory and health problems created by the factory system. The pressure on this sytem will likely intensify, as more people become educated as to the problems of the existing system, and the opportunities for better health by going in new directions. And our legal system will be stretched by the challenges that will mount. The legal decision a few days ago in Ohio (described in my previous posting) provides encouragement that our system retains enough flexibility to change and adjust. (By the way, I finally figured out how to upload a copy of the decision and link to it.)
The Complete Patient
in Government policy
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Reader Comments (2)
Your writing on the "food-factory system" is pointed. As a natural food convert daily enjoying its many profound benefits, I offer my wholehearted support to you.
Nevertheless I am compelled to point out that the fundamental devil in the phrase "food-factory system" is "system," not "food-factory." Food production is only one (admittedly very important) system of many dreadful centralized systems. Business, government, healthcare--name your poison--have all been transmogrified over the past hundred or so years from local to regional to national to international systems. All now run on centralized power, to the benefit of few and the detriment of many. The zeitgeist of our time is consolidation--of production, of information, of power, of everything. That is the root cause of the food-factory problem. It can be properly corrected, I believe, only by attacking that root. We do that best by relentlessly exposing not only our food problems, but what is behind them: the appalling realities of system-building.
It’s interesting that despite the omnipresence of today's vast systems (and the screaming speed at which we continue to grow them) I know virtually no one who supports them in principle. Nobody finds comfort and goodness in centralized control. Everybody understands the danger of centralized power. Everybody has felt defeated and miserable as distant power brokers controlled their lives. And while that may sound gloomy, it also exposes a bright and hopeful opening in our collective consciousness: Most people, with a proper understanding of their situation, desire meaningful change.
You have a clear voice, and can help to re-frame the debate. We can all work together to defeat the food-factory system and ALL the systems. We can reinvigorate the American ideal. We can remake America into a strong (and healthy!) nation of individuals endowed by their creator with the right to control their own lives.
Lofty goals, yes, but those are the ones apropos to plain ideas and simple plans.