Some well meaning opponents of raw milk have argued on this blog that the seemingly endless legal problems swirling around raw milk could be easily resolved if consumers would only switch to other probiotic products that have the same benefits—things like raw and fermented vegetable juices and meats, and coconut oil —and don’t have the same historical and public health baggage.
Well, don’t try telling that to Renee Bentall and John Ainlay. They run Nature’s Juice Co-Op, which sells raw juices, raw meats and fish (ceviche style), and coconut oil to a couple hundred members of an Internet-based co-op from their headquarters in McHenry, IL. “McHenry County Health Department is trying to close us down,” they say in a letter just out to their members.
They say the problems began last spring, when a neighbor complained to the health department that they were shipping raw juice across state lines, apparently for reasons that had nothing to do with the product or its quality. No one had become ill or complained about becoming ill. Within a few weeks, the couple was visited by health inspectors, and refused to let the inspectors into their home, where they prepared and packaged food.
This isn’t the first time neighbor types have sparked the government’s wrath on producers of nutritionally dense foods, and it’s amazing that government enforcers take such complaints to heart when there’s no evidence of health issues; a similar complaint led to the shutdown of a small goat farm project in California recently.
Here’s how Renee and John describe what happened next, via a letter they have sent to local, state, and federal government officials:
“On September 4, 2008 around 12:00 PM, members of McHenry County Health Department Environmental Division, with an administrative Warrant and an officer of McHenry Police Department, conducted a search and seizure of private documents at the Ainlay/Bentall residence. That is our private membership’s headquarters that is out of your jurisdiction…”
Renee told me the officials “went through our entire house, the bedrooms, the basement. When they got to our kitchen, we have a lot of bell jars…They opened a cabinet of bell jars and went, ‘Aahah’ and took all kinds of pictures.” Yes, bell jars can be evidence of serious criminal behavior.
Continuing from the couple’s letter: “Again, on October 9th around 10:00 AM, four representatives of the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) demanded entry to the Ainlay/Bentall private residence and headquarters for our private membership. Government agents claimed they did not need a Search Warrant to conduct a search of the Ainlay/Bentall private residence and our headquarters but we know that they did need a warrant and refused them entry. We hereby advise all government entities that we are private and lawfully out of your jurisdiction, that all future contact be made in writing and supported by Federal and State Constitutional references as well as any State and County codes of law, and that any accusation of illegal activity be properly charged and handled through the courts…”
A spokesperson at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, who checked into the Nature’s Juice episode at my request, sounded genuinely puzzled that the couple could be so upset that they would deny the IDA access to their home. “The case is under investigation,” he said. “We received a referral from the McHenry County Health Department. We sent an officer to the facility and the officer was denied access….was informed he was trespassing. We have taken no action…We’re just trying to follow up on an open investigation.”
He said the health department’s concern was that Nature’s Juice Co-Op was “selling uninspected poultry.” Officials of the McHenry County Health Department and the USDA hadn’t returned my calls by the end of today.
Renee and John say they are devotees of Aajonus Vonderplanitz, a California raw food consultant. Here is how Nature’s Juice describes its chicken ceviche on its web site:
“The chemical process that occurs when the acid of the citrus comes in contact with the chicken is similar to what happens when the chicken is cooked, and the flesh becomes opaque and firm. This no-heat marinating process allows the chicken to retain all of its living proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, making ceviche a nutrient rich, easily assimilable source of raw protein.”
It turns out there is a raw milk connection in all this as well. The couple runs a small herdshare for about a dozen area residents, distributing milk from a farm in Wisconsin. That explains how the USDA became involved, and this has literally become a federal case. If nutritionally dense food is an issue, you know the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ,and maybe even the FBI, can’t be far behind. This is too juicy a case to pass up.
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Related to the previous:
–For those attending this weekend’s Wise Traditions 2008 conference sponsored by the Weston A. Price Foundation, Nature’s Juice Co-Op will have product on display, though Renee and John won’t be there.
–It’s also clear that the use of administrative search warrants is being abused. This is the same type of search warrant used against the herdshare-type arrangeent of raw milk producers Barb and Steve Smith in New York, and I believe against Richard Hebron in the raw milk sting operation in Michigan two years ago. These warrants are approved by judges much more easily than criminal search warrants, yet allow investigators to invade private homes with impunity. (For background, search this blog under the names of the individuals.)
–Thanks to Robert Ozello for letting me know about the problems at Nature’s Juice Co-Op.
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