Dinner at Bunten Farm Kitchen, Orford, NH.I was at a NH restaurant this past weekend when I heard the words in the heading above. This was an unusual restaurant, as you might expect–one operated by a farm family, way out in the country, within sight of the Connecticut River, just across from Vermont.

It looks like a restaurant from the inside, seating 35 or 40 people, except that it’s just steps from both a barn and a farmhouse, and overlooking rolling pastures, where a herd of rare Devon cows graze. Most of its food comes from the premises, or from other farms within a few miles.

As fresh and tasty as the food was, I was taken with how natural those words sounded, when they occurred in real life. Pasteurized or raw milk? Grass-fed meat or grain-fed meat? Sugar or honey? The choices are endless, limited mainly by the demands of the marketplace. Someday in the not-too-distant future they may include : “Irradiated or non-irradiated spinach, cloned beef or non-cloned beef…”

Just listening in on a few of the conversations between the farm serving and cooking staff and restaurant patrons, the market at Bunten Farmhouse Kitchen is very interested in not only knowing where their food comes from, but in having a significant part of that food come from local sources.
Bruce Balch, the owner, went from table to table, telling people how the roasted pork (which was tender and succulent) came from a farm down the road, the fiddleheads (a spring veggie) from a few area farms, and the milk from his herd of 70 Devon cows, “the largest herd of Devons in the country,” he said proudly.

Because his farm is also a milk plant, he’s able to produce both pasteurized and raw milk, and sell it from the farm. I neglected to ask him which type of milk is most popular, but I have to presume the demand for the raw milk is fairly recent, since it’s not listed on older menus posted on the web site.

Beyond the choice over milk, that experience at the Bunten Farmhouse made me realize how much I appreciate it when there’s a relaxed attitude toward food and diet–or, to put it another way, how much I’ve come to resent dogma about nutrition and diet. The most obnoxious example, of course, is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s dogma that raw milk is highly dangerous, and besides, there’s no nutritional difference between raw and pasteurized milk. But it extends ever more widely in our culture.

Here are two recent examples:
1. Dr. Mark Hyman’s anti-dairy rant. I heard him speak a few years ago, when his book, “Ultrametabolism”, came out, and I thought he made a lot of sense with his concerns about carbs and sugar. Now, in a new article on Huffingon Post, he lambastes all forms of dairy, arguing it doesn’t provide much calcium, and besides, it aggravates various chronic conditions like Crohn’s and asthma. At one point he notes, “…many have begun to consider raw milk an alternative. But that isn’t really a healthy form of dairy either …” He concludes: “Try giving up all dairy. That means eliminate milk, cheese, yogurt, and ice cream for two weeks and see if you feel better. You should notice improvements with your sinuses, post-nasal drip, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome, energy, and weight. Then start eating dairy again and see how you feel. If you feel worse, you should try to give it up for life.”

2. On the other side, the Weston A. Price Foundation in its recently published Winter issue of Wise Traditions, presents gobs of research designed to suggest that plant-based diets are potentially dangerous. One article concludes: “…plants bite back! Since they do, it’s a good idea to treat them with respect. Fruits and vegetables add interest, color and taste to our diet, but don’t overconsume.”

Certainly part of what’s going on here is that giving people a rigid approach to diet helps sell books, or magazines, or whatever. And maybe that’s part of what’s behind the growing inclination of the FDA, in particular, to tell us what not to eat–people are afraid, and the government is perfectly equipped to feed their fears.

As I’ve said a number of times, I not only believe we have the right to eat whatever foods we want, but that people’s dietary and nutritional needs vary widely. Trying to dictate a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work, no matter who is doing the dictating.

I’m inclined to go with what Canadian raw dairy farmer Michael Schmidt said at the Raw Milk Symposium in March: “Let them eat their fast foods and kill themselves. That’s their choice.”
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Much as I thanked the FDA for articulating the nature of the struggle over food rights, I should also add a note of thanks to the smart guys and gals in the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources for clarifying the hypocrisy behind the move to restrict raw milk access.

I was discussing the situation  over the weekend with Winton Pitcoff, the raw milk expert at the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, expressing amazement that a state with a minuscule dairy industry and no illnesses since 1999 would take this matter on. He corrected me: “No illnesses of any kind since Massachusetts DAR took over responsibility for regulating raw milk, in 1993.” The illnesses attributed to raw milk in 1999 occurred when some boy scouts visited a conventional dairy farm and drank unpasteurized milk destined for pasteurization–much different than if they had consumed milk destined for the raw-milk market. Those shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as statistics about consumers of raw milk from MDAR-licensed dairies, Winton correctly points out.

So the MA DAR will no doubt talk a lot about safety at the hearing in Boston next Monday over its proposed regulation to ban buying clubs and restrict raw milk access to those who pick it up at permitted dairies. But there is no safety “problem” in Massachusetts, never has been. In any event, whenever there is a safety problem anywhere, it’s over an issue at the farm, not in transport of milk. Of course, the real point here is that this is about private contract rights. Raw milk drinkers who can’t make it to the farm pay individuals who run buying clubs to pick up their milk–a private contractual arrangement. It’s none of MDAR’s business, or of the Big Dairy reps trying to influence MDAR to make this a national issue.

The issues couldn’t be clearer. If you live in Massachusetts, let your legislators know that their pencil pushers are screwing up, big time, making a mountain out of…nothing. And attend the hearing next Monday, May 10, at 10 am at 100 Cambridge St, Conference Room A, 2nd Floor in Boston. Regardless of where you live, you can email the Massachusetts Commissioner of DAR, Scott Soares, scott.soares@state.ma.us.

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There’s more on the Massachusetts situation in an article I wrote for Huffington Post.