The Complete Patient

Does it all come down to money? Is that what it is really about? Will that small farmer really make such a dent in the factory farms profits? What is it about the little farmer that causes such fear?

I don't believe it is "public safety" If that were true then all the recalls, especially the increased recent recalls would not have happened, at least not on such a grand scale. So, no, I do not believe the govt is looking out for me and my family.

As someone had asked in another post here; When you have 2 people who own a cow, which one of them is considered "the public"?

I hear they will soon be voting whether to dye raw milk in GA. It would be a shame to go through all the trouble and expense of building a bottling plant and then have to adulterate your milk with dye.

Give me a break....tell me, who is the first one to catch heck when someone does get sick...yes, it is the regulators. Do you know why they don't allow raw milk, because there is a probable risk that someone will get sick. History has shown this. Not everyone, not every time, but there is a risk. If you understand that risk, and are willing to accept that risk, then go ahead and drink raw milk, or eat raw oysters. But in our society, things like this become fashionable and more people join in. Many of these people don't understand the importance of storing the raw milk in the refrigerator, or drinking it quickly. Less knowledgeable suppliers get into the act and don't properly test their herds. And worst of all, parents give raw milk to their kids, who have no say in taking on this risk. And if there are organisms present that those kids (or adults), have not built immunity to, then we have trouble.

Regulators are doing a job to reduce our risks, and to prevent a food poisoning outbreak. And the same group that criticizes them for trying to reduce the risk to society will be the same group that criticizes them when there is an outbreak.

Raw milk is a risk. Do the benefits of raw milk outweigh the risks, I don’t think so. But if you are going to consume raw milk, please understand the risks. Understand why we test milk, what is tested, and the shortcomings associated with testing.

Oh yes, "Regulators are doing a job to reduce our risks, and to prevent a food poisoning outbreak." That is why there have been so many "voluntary" recalls lately. They do a great job.

History has shown that there is a probable risk of illness when milk is not produced with the care and attention that MOST grass-feeding dairy farmers take. BAD farming practices produce BAD product. Pasteurization became necessary because people started feeding cows things they are not designed to eat and confined them to "live" in horrible conditions.

Yes, some people are not "knowledgeable" and don't "understand" the risk. In my opinion, these are the same people who drink alcohol to excess and smoke.These two life style CHOICES are the Number 1 and Number 3 killers of Americans according to the CDC. Raw milk is not even on the radar. And yes, parents give their children raw milk. Parents also SMOKE in homes and cars where children are present and drink and beat their children when they are drunk. These children don't have a say in that risk either.

Raw milk advocates are not advocating that EVERYONE HAS to drink raw milk. What we are advocating is that WE have the RIGHT to drink raw milk, risks and all, if we choose to do so.

If the regulators are really interested in protecting the public, then they need to take a closer look at how "industrial" food, the stuff that is most responsible for food borne illness in this country, is produced. In order to do that, they need to hire many more inspectors. That won't happen because they cannot get funding for more employees. Why? Big Pharma and Big Ag won't let that happen.

Americans need to wake up and take RESPONSIBILITY for their choices. That is what we raw milk supporters DO. WE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. More people need to follow suit.

How many illnesses from pasteurized milk? Can you tell me any? How about from raw milk..according to the CDC...1007 illnesses, 104 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths. And that are cases we know about. Smoking or drinking around your kid is bad, I agree. It can affect them in the long run. But is giving them raw milk any different? Are the benefits you see tangible? To me, it is like Russian roulette. Good chance an illness will never occur. But if it does, you'll know it. And if your kid gets sick, shame on you. And for what? Because you think it provides benefit.

I cook the food I give my kids...I cook the hamburger they eat, I give them pasteurized milk. I minimize the risks to which they are exposed. Do you?

Lets forget about the raw milk for a moment and discuss how well regulators “protect” our children. With childhood diabetes, obesity and asthma problems rising at an alarming rate I think this protection needs to be re-evaluated (this is just the tip of the iceberg). I stopped at a deli at 6:45 am and in front of me was a 8 or 9 year old girl buying fruit punch, 2 bags of chips, bubble gum and “power” water. I don’t recall seeing any signs in the deli or on my rare visits to the grocery store where there are isles upon isles of sodas, chips and refined cakes and cookies warning children that these foods can (and do) cause obesity and diabetes. However, it is her choice to buy them. Empty calories with no nutritional value, this is your food poisoning outbreak in a nut shell. Take a look at the packaging on these products and tell me where the “fashionable” label fits!
As for me and my children thanks but NO thanks. I will educate my kids about wholesome, traditional foods. I will decide when to take a risk of driving them on a highway, taking them in a airplane, swimming in the ocean, and yes, here it comes, drinking raw milk. You see, I don’t believe for one second that your “tests” are non-biased and accurate. Time and time again this blog has suggested labs incubating beyond FDA requirements and farmers independent tests in conflict with states tests.
Please don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting that I am not well informed (educated) about the risks of drinking raw milk. I do believe the benefits far out way the risks and that it is MY choice to consume raw milk based on my findings. My raw milk drinking friends are from very diverse socioeconomic standings. For instance, lawyers, nurses, homemakers, hippies, truck drivers and doctors. We are very well informed by our farmer as well. We know our farmer, his animals, the cleanliness of his barn and his passion for sustainable farming.
I wonder if the FDA would ever consider a study of people who have eaten a traditional wholesome diet versus a conventional diet? Where would the funding come from? Could we trust the results?
I’ll be waiting a long, long time.

Will you please provide links to the CDC data you are quoting? I like to educate myself on the facts.

The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report for the week of March 2, 2007 (MMWR for 03-02-07), provides no such information and no such information is found in any other FDA or CDC document. I'd be interested to see it if you have links.

the largest outbreak of food-borne illness from pasteurized milk occurred in March of 1985 when there were 19,660 confirmed cases of Salmonella typhimurium illness FROM CONSUMING PROPERLY PASTEURIZED MILK.

Yes, I see tangible benefits for my son's health as well as my own. Improving our immune system has been a huge benefit. I do minimize the risks I expose my son to, thank you for asking. I don't feed him processed food products, or meat or dairy from industrial food factories. I have met the pigs, chickens and cattle our meat and milk come from. I know my farmer on a first name basis. THIS minimizes our risk tremendously. We know where our food comes from, what it was fed and how it was treated. For over 10,000 years humans consumed raw milk (NOT today's industrial stuff) and thrived. Our ancestors made some mistakes, but I don't think raw milk is one of them.

You are entitled to the methods of your choice, as I am mine. Your opinion differs from mine, but they are just that, our opinions. We all have them and are entitled to voice them. We still have that freedom left.

I look forward to checking out your sources for the deaths raw milk has caused.

To see the data, just go through all of the outbreaks from raw milk, only 45 (that we know).
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5608a3.htm

Yes, an outbreak did occur due to improperly pasteurized milk. But let’s look at the incidence rate though, the amount of illness per thousand people. Doing the math you can see the risk is much higher for raw milk.

And yes, you can drink as much raw milk as you want....and when you get E.coli O157:H7, your insurance should not have to pay for your trip to the hospital. And if your kid gets it, they should lock you up.

Thanks for the link. I already had that data. What I wanted information on was the DEATHS you quoted as being attributed to raw milk consumption.

So in your opinion then, the parents of the young girl in Florida who got sick recently from E.coli contaminated meat, from a FEDERALLY INSPECTED facility, should be locked up? Or should that be the INSPECTORS who missed finding the contamination who should be locked up?

If you are so dead set against those of us who chose to live the way we do, perhaps you should not read this blog and throw insults around. I am sure many of us would appreciate your departure. If you cannot contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way, why bother? You have your own blog in which to voice your opinion.

Foodsafety guy,

At the root of the health crisis in this country is the blind fear of microbes.Pasteurization and sterilization of our food supply is not getting us the results we are after In fact food poisoning is increasing in direct relationship to the increase in pasteurization ,irradiation and chemical sterilization of the food we eat. The regulators obviously don't recognise this,but it is obvious to an ever increasing number of people.

When an approach to a problem is not working it always helps to step back and look at it from a different point of view.What if there are organisms associated with unsterilized ,living food that actually protect us from those organisms that you fear? What if those protective organisms form a buffer between us and the hostile organisms that you fear? What if that beneficial community of organisms make up our best defence against those hostile organisms? Without them we really are defensless, a prime candidate for food poisoning. Please stop being motivated by fear and get to know the microbes that we share this world with.

foodsafetyguy, if you honestly believe there have been no cases of disease caused by "properly" pasteurized milk, and you're working in the food safety field (as implied by your name and attitude), then you must have your head well and truly buried in the sand.

Here's a report that talks about just a few outbreaks associated with pasteurized dairy (with citations). If this is a topic about which you want to be fully informed, I suggest you expand your horizons. http://www.karlloren.com/aajonus/p15.htm

E. coli 0157:H7 was created by modern, confinement-based, industrial farming practices (the very same practices that result in milk that should be pasteurized in order to make it even marginally safe). It's a totally different picture from pasture-based farming that works with nature instead of against it. Should parents who allow their children to eat raw spinach or ground beef also be locked up "when" their kids get sick, in your opinion? Children eating real foods, the traditional foods that have fed humanity for eons, whole organic foods, including raw dairy from healthy animals, have a much greater chance of escaping disease from encounters with pathogens because they aren't malnourished like children who eat only the processed, nutritionally-vacant foods approved by the food safety bureaucracy.

"...and when you get E.coli O157:H7, your insurance should not have to pay for your trip to the hospital. And if your kid gets it, they should lock you up."

What does this have to do with the validity of any argument about food safety? This is just looking to provoke a fight, not share information to help us make the best informed choice we can in a world that will always be inherently unsafe. It seems most of us here agree that the issue is not which concept of food "safety" is "correct", but our right to choose which one we believe is "correct" for *us*(and our families) and to accept the responsibility for that. Freedom to choose, not knowing what is "right" for everyone. And parents always have, and always will, be making choices for their children that someone else doesn't approve of, and sometimes there may be harm done. C'est la vie.

My views:
Raw milk poses an unnecessary risk.
This should be considered before giving to the young.
I support the science and statistical probability,. The incidence rate of illness attributed to raw milk is much, much higher than that of processed milk.
I back those who do the right things, not necessarily the government, or companies, or individuals.
Those who intentionally do something wrong should be held accountable.

AMEN TO THAT !!!

foodsafetyguy....

I just wrote you an email....I hope you will read it and get back to me.

Thanks

Melissa

I dont think foodsafetyguy is trying to provoke a fight. I think there are two sides to everything and when someone has the opposite opinon than you, you have to view it open-mindedly and not as picking a fight.

In my case, I didnt know my child was being given raw milk. I would have NEVER agreed to that. Even not knowing much about it, when heard it, I couldnt believe what I was hearing. Thats how shocking it was to me and to everyone else that heard. Just the mention of Raw Milk made people cringe.... So, you can bet there are plenty of people that agree with foodsafetyguy.

"Food Safety Guy

Blog dedicated to providing common sense to food safety in order to help others make, buy, and consume safe food. It is written by a food professional with extensive experience in food safety, food microbiology, and food preparation and processing. The opinions offered are those of the author and are supported by common sense and practical experience."

Food microbiology seems to be about "pathogens" and "food spoilage organisms".
It is sadly behind more recent research in microbiology.




http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/pleomorphism-1.html

"Pleomorphism of Microorganisms and
Theories of Infectious Disease


Introduction
Pleomorphism is basically the concept that cells, and especially one-celled microorganisms, can change form under certain conditions to cells of another type. For example an example of pleomorphism in human cells might be the morphing of skin cells to connective tissue cells, or of blood cells to bone tissue. In the field of microbiology, the concept primarily implies that bacteria of one species might change to bactera of another species under certain conditions. For example, this theory might allow that under certain environmental conditions, a typhoid bacillus could morph into a staphylococcus bacteria.

In the alternative healing world, and on the fringes of conventional mainstream science, there are those who feel that pleomorphism of mircoorganisms is widespread, and that such pleomorphism is how nature performs various tasks of toxin cleanup and tissue removal in the human body. In effect, this theory states that bacteria simply change to whatever form is most handily needed in the body, based upon cues from the body itself. Indeed, in the many parallel theories of biological terrain assessment and adjustment, the underlying assumption is that
"infection" by microorganism really indicates nothing more than imbalances in the inner biochemical terrain of the body, and that if the inner terrain of the body is allowed to normalize, then the "infectious organisms" will cese their inflammatory activity, as their presence is no longer needed, as determined by the interior milieu.

In these models, bacteria and other microogranism are not seen as dangerous, invasive or pathogenic, nor infectious, but rather as simply responding to cues from the body that cleanup is needed. In other words, they are seen as performing simply necessary cleanup functions in response to cues from the local body tissues. So, in these models, bacteria are not seen as pathogenic or aggressive, but rather, inner biological terrain, the interior mileiu of the body, is seen as the chief determinant of the presence or absence of certain "infectious" processes. Therefore, in these particular pleomorphic models, the interior milieu, or inner terrain, is seen as having primacy in determining presence or absence of "diseases" due to microorganisms. Thus, it would make sense that one would treat an infectious illness by simply adjusting the inner terrain of the body to allow it to become more healthful, thus eliminating the need for the presence of the "infectious" organisms. Conversely, any attempt to treat an infectious illness with antibiotics (or hydrogen peroxide, ozone or colloidal silver, all of which are favorite armamentaria in the alternative healing world) or other "aggressive" means would be seen in most cases as short-sighted and merely cosmetic, as the practitioner would be attempting to treat a symptom of a deep imbalance, rather than addressing the deep imbalance. Further, these theories would suggest that most, if not all, antibiotics and other aggressive antimicrobial means would actually further imbalance and disrupt the inner terrain, thus eventually leading to further degeneration.

A number of theorists and practitioners in the raw foods world, among many other fields of natural healing as well, seem to also subscribe to theories which dictate the primacy of biological terrain. Thus, in treating illnesses which seem to be of microbiological origin, they would favor simply correcting the inner terrain via dietary modification and other simple means. Many people in the raw foods world, for example, believe that the primary reason for the many health benefits derived from a raw foods diet is simply improvement in inner biological terrain. This improvement in inner terrain is seen as due to the fact that the person has ceased intake of toxic foods and rather increased intake of truly healthful and nurturing foods, thus allowing the body to naturally improve its inner terrain.


Modern Bacteriology and Pleomorphism
Incidentally, since Kendall's time, and the terrible political attacks upon him for his pleo models, pleomorphism has become much more accepted in mainstream microbiology since 1960. Numerous well-known and reptuable scientists have confirmed the basics of pleomorphism, as well as documented specific cases of pleomorphism in a number of different species of bacteria. The related issue of the primacy of bacterial determinism in illness versus primacy of biological terrain is more disupted, because of the tremendous ripple effect which the acceptance of biological terrain as causative would have on the pharmaceutical industry and food industry, as well as the repuation of many leading biochemists.

As an example of modern scientific acceptance of pleo, two French biologists (Sonea and Panisset) published a book in the early 1980's entitled "A New Bacteriology", which contended that bacterial pleo was now proven scientific knowledge, and they cited numerous articles from various fields to support this contention."

<<Raw milk poses an unnecessary risk.>>

Unnecessary risk? Getting in your car is a risk, and could be construed as unnecessary as you can take the bus to work... I drink it and do not feel I am taking any risks.

<<This should be considered before giving to the young.>>

Uh, gee if you read all the warnings about many items, you are either cautioned against and/or warned of potential harm. It is called being INFORMED.

<<I support the science and statistical probability,. The incidence rate of illness attributed to raw milk is much, much higher than that of processed milk.>>

Is there a reason you didn't site your source? Or is this just your opinion? I've been sick from pasturized milk, at this time not by raw milk. I wonder how many pasturized milk/milk product recalls there have been since,@ 1985 and how many raw milk/product recalls since the same time period, in the USA. You could also add all the other food recalls right along side the milk ones, would be interesting to see what prevails as the most recalled of all products.

<<I back those who do the right things, not necessarily the government, or companies, or individuals.>>

I would think this is a given for anything. BUT, What is right for you, may not be right for me. Maybe you eat pork, maybe I don't. Should it be forced on those who don't? Maybe you eat that fake sugar (splenda,etc) I resent having it forced on me, and it is, as it is in many foods unlabled as is msg and other chemicals. As for raw milk, is anyone forcing you to drink it?

<<Those who intentionally do something wrong should be held accountable.>>

Indeed, I would guess that most believe this, at least if it is intential,neglegent, etc.. If Mark doesn't clean the equipment he uses, or any other dairy to include the factory farms, then they should be accountabel, if a doc leaves a sponge in you, then yes, s/he should be held accountable, etc.

For what it's worth .......

I don't consider having a differing opinion, even a completely opposing opinion, as provocational at all, in any way. What seemed provoking was just the section in quotes expresssing the desire that those who might expeience illness as a result of raw milk should suffer through denial of insurance coverage or being "locked up". I guess it's not so much a provocational remark as much as a mean spirited one. Insults and attacks like that one bring nothing of value to this forum. I suppose I'd just like to see the discussions here not sink to that level.

I'd just like to add two comments here.
1.I don't have any problems with foodsafetyguy's view: "If you understand that risk, and are willing to accept that risk, then go ahead and drink raw milk, or eat raw oysters." I think that is what most people here are saying: let me take responsibility for my own food and health. Unfortunately, that's not what's happening in places like NY, NC, OH, VA, MD, and now CA.
2. I posted information on CDC data from 1973 through 2005, and it shows an average 59 annual illnesses from raw milk over (54 if you take out cheese) those 33 years. And no deaths from raw milk.
http://www.thecompletepatient.com/journal/finally-some-hard-data-on-illnesses-from-raw-milkthe-governm.html
David