The Complete Patient

Two items, seemingly unrelated, but that I sense really are related.

First, the Pork Association has gone after, of all things, a proponent of breast feeding.

I tend to assume that large organizations have more important things to worry about than “alternative” milk producers. I guess I should know better, having seen the Michigan and Ohio agriculture departments go after tiny producers of raw milk.

Now I know absolutely for sure that, in terms of agribusiness protecting its turf, anything is possible.

The National Pork Board had its law firm write a breast-feeding blogger objecting to a t-shirt it put out, “The other white milk.” Seems the Board felt the saying was too similar to the Pork Board’s trademarked ditty for pork: “The other white meat.”

Why would the pork board care about something so miniscule? Well, as the blogger points out, it’s not that difficult to monitor web sites and blogs, and email out a form-based warning letter. I think there is more to it, though. These people have become respectful of the Internet’s power to launch trends, and products. So they don’t want to take any chances on any “threat” getting going.

That brings me to my second item. I read a letter to the editor published in a Kentucky newspaper, by a retired professor of nutrition and food science at Penn State University. What’s especially striking is his reference to raw milk proponents as “ a group that consists of anti-government, anti-technology, anti-business radicals who use feelings and testimonials to make their decisions.” Remember, this is coming from someone who spent many years in academia.

Like a number of such raw-milk opponents whose diatribes I have heard or read, he admits that he grew up on raw milk. Good enough for him, but not for the rest of society.

To those who say, “They’re watching us,” you may well be right. And the reason they’re watching is because they view people who aren’t enamored of the agribusiness system as subversives.