In a preliminary event to his current run for office–his appearance in the legal case against his distribution of raw milk–Michael Schmidt faced the Canadian media last January. Michael Schmidt is approaching his run for the Ontario parliament with all the high ideals you would expect. He’s launched a blog to communicate his ideas and, not surprisingly, he is cynical about much of today’s politics, not only in Canada, but in the U.S. and elsewhere.
He points out, “Once in a while when anger boils over, new promises are made to deal with public discontent. Politicians tell you what you want to hear, wannabe politicians do the same if you let them get away with it.”
When I read that, I thought of an observation from Aajonus Vonderplanitz a couple weeks ago, when I spoke with him about the raid on Rawesome Foods in Venice, CA. He’s a founder of Rawesome, and other private club outlets, and has been fighting for food rights since the late 1960s, when the first regulatory assault occurred on Alta Deena, the California producer of raw milk at that time. “Every seven or eight years the authorities would come after them, like clock work,” he said.
Local politicians would make sympathetic noises, but the assaults never stopped, and are continuing today, with ever-greater aggressiveness–witness the guns-drawn raid at Rawesome last month. To Vonderplanitz, the local politician sympathy noises are just that–noises.
He points to the 2008 battle over SB201, to rescind the coliform standard in California. Both branches of the legislature passed the legislation by overwhelming votes, yet when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the legislation, there was no attempt at an override. “This proves (the politicians’) feigned support,” he says.
The same scenario occurred in Wisconsin earlier this year. Both houses of the Wisconsin legislature passed a bill that would have allowed on-farm sales of raw milk, and the governor vetoed the legislation. What happened to the override effort? It just kind of evaporated, didn’t it?
There’s an interesting article in a North Carolina paper about efforts being led by raw milk activist Ruth Foster to repeal a total ban on herdshares in North Carolina, which has occurred as the seeming last steps to entirely eliminate raw milk from the state. Similar scenario: One branch of the legislature passes it and, then, somehow it dies in the other branch.
By voting for an initial piece of pro-food-rights legislation, the politicians can say, when asked, “I have supported consumer access to raw milk.” They can conveniently neglect to point out that, when push came to shove, they opted out of the process and let the food lobby and Big Ag have its way.
It’s important to remember, the federal government has declared a national health goal of reducing the number of states that allow raw milk, with the unstated but obvious intent of eliminating raw milk.
One important exception to the legislative dekes was the refusal of the Connecticut legislature in 2009 to go along with an effort to end retail availability of raw milk in the state. But that’s about the only significant exception I can think of.
Local politicians may feign support for foodies, but in the end, they generally go along with the national agenda because they don’t want to endanger those wonderful Obama bucks pouring forth from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and various other agencies to their respective states. And, as Steven Smith points out following my previous post, these politicians are easy converts to the propaganda against nutritionally dense food pouring out of Washington.
So Michael Schmidt’s run for political office is sybolically important beyond the fact that he would be a voice for food rights. It highlights the need for politicians who understand both the nutritional problems of our current food system and the erosion of our rights in the process of creating the factory system. We need politicians who are both educated and committed to hold the feet of the mass of politicans to the fire over these huge issues.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2010/08/portland_lemonade_stand_runs_i.html
And they wonder why, more and more, folk are looking at them as irrelevant.
Bob Hayles
You can not reverse the foundations of a movement based on the grass roots. The roots of raw milk are deep when planted witht the moms and dollar voting consuming public.
This grass roots movement turns on with the demonstrated truth and education…not media or FDA or big dairy ads or lies.
This is hard work….work that the FDA has no tools to fight or disrupt. In fact when the FDA or Big Ag attacks raw milk sales just go up faster…this is the true beauty of the grass roots and the education of the truth.
Teach some one today. Make the outreach happen…it is an act of unselfish love of your fellow man. Wear your Get Raw Milk tee shirt.
The more I talk to people the more we find out that this passive cloth poster wearing effort works well. It starts conversations with everyone…it also connects people with common problems…everyone has allergies, asthma, IBS, Ulcers…and everyone can learn a natural solution…
Wear the shirt beg the question give the educated answers…this is the grass roots. Someday soon the questions will be asked of the 800 pound gorrilla in the room and the national "come to the raw milk jesus, land of raw milk and honey" moment will happen.
Until then…teach everyday to everyone.
Politicians are social survivors….they play the numbers game to survive….With few exceptions they are not the place to move our movement….Moms, babies and raw breast milk…that is the base.
Mark
We live in a polluted world and even human breast milk passes toxins. Any one breast feeding, shouldnt eat lots of fish, especially tuna. Mercury is not your friend.
I wonder what types of toxins are passed in cows and goats milk?
http://www.nrdc.org/breastmilk/lead.asp
http://www.kellymom.com/health/chemical/mercury.html
cp
Mark what do you think?
"Our dairy products are not made from human milk; human milk can pass toxins, and heavy metals-consumption should be avoided." (I see a regulatory opportunity here…or at least an interesting twist on Know your farmer-know your food…..)
Or a disclaimer:
"Our animals are grass fed. We do not feed fish, fish by products, and specifically do not feed tuna ,to our cows and goats. We are a fish free dairy." (multiple frees–GMO free, herbicide free, insecticide free, fish free……)
and
"WARNING: IF this milk product smells like fish and is a weird color IT MAY have come from dairy animals fed tuna or paint , and could contain harmful levels of mercury, lead or other toxins Call your Health Department and Hazardous Waste Disposal Center Immediately."
finally-
"If this WARNING smells like fish it could have come from (name your agency)."
so much for the detour–now back to the main points of David’s post…….
Locally, we have not had one of those running for office this fall address food issues or regulatory issues in any meaningful way. David’s points are well taken.
Also briefly list various studies along with the results in a nutshell. Briefly point out contamination by both milks causes, suspected illnesses…
Use bullet statements, use facts.
Dr. Bassler is worth watching again….our bacteria are critical to our health.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html
Lets celebrate bacteria in and on ourbodies and the biodiversity of raw milk that nourish these wonderful ecosystems lost in America.
Mark
That being said, I am very skeptical of electoral and legislative politics to affect change. The important work is at the grassroots level. These types of politics tend to become corrupted by the neccessities and limitations of drafting legal langauge to govern human social interactions. Things are never this simple, and generalization are always made… generalizations which, in the long term, always end up benefiting the interests of the powerful over the powerless.
But then again, what else is new?
If I were staying in Wisconsin, I would be putting my weight behind Ben Manski, a Green Party activist, who is now running for the Wisconsin legislature. I wish Michael the best of luck!
MW
I would not expect oral probiotics to show great efficacy, especially in the short term. I think there is a place for such tools (as oral probiotics), yet anything taken out of context is not going to work as well as what nature would give us.
A good question to ask would be how do we, as human beings, naturally inoculate ourselves with the bacteria that we need? As I understand it, a good majority of that bacteria come from the things we ingest. That is the natural path, the path our bodies have adapted to working in. Such a natural path may not show the astounding immediate results from a single or even short-term repeated application such as with fecal transplants, but that does not make the natural approach any less inferior.
Also, just because we know that bacteria A, and maybe even bacteria B, are good for us and can be provided in a pill does not change the fact that we still need bacteria C, D, E, F, G, H … and every other bacteria that we haven’t identified yet. That’s only the bacteria too, what about other things that we don’t know to look for yet. Nature provides us with complete packages, if produced correctly, that increase our overall health. Just because we find one component, extract it and then mass produce it does not mean it is the same thing that nature gives us. I would expect the results to be much less effective.
I think much of what is "effective" depends on the situation too. Are we talking about an acute life crisis that needs immediate resolution or are we talking about a sustaining lifestyle that builds up a commensal community of bacteria so as to naturally support our human bodies? I think there is room in our "toolboxes" for both types. We don’t have to totally throw one tool away because it doesn’t provide immediate results. Unfortunately our culture has become used to immediate gratification. We spend years building up diseases in our bodies and then expect a doctor to hand us a pill that will make all of that crap that we put in our bodies go away. How simplistic of a view. Too bad it just doesn’t work that way.
I really liked the video that Mark linked to on TED. One of the first things I thought of though was if we flood all of the bacteria in these different markers, what will happen to the function of the good bacteria at the same time. We may be able to suppress the work of the bad bacteria, but the same functions will also affect the probiotics as well. Unfortunately, most research is not done on how can we work with nature, but how can we manipulate nature to give us what we want and with something that is patentable (so we can make lots of dough).
Raw milk plays an important role in my life and that of my family’s life. Many other factors play into that role as well such as wheatgrass juice, vegetables, spirulina, chlorella, clean water, sun exposure, and other factors. At times, we even rely on allopathic medicine to help us along.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6721F520100803
US Supplements Often Contaminated:Report
This from a recent NYTimes report: "Scientists are regularly blown away by the complexity, power, and sheer number of microbes that live in our bodies…Theyre finding that the microbiome does a lot to keep us in good health. Ultimately, researchers hope, they will learn enough about the microbiome to enlist it in the fight against diseases."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13micro.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=bacteria&st=cse
What this is saying is that there is more about the role of microbes in maintaining health that we don’t know than what we do know. What I was suggesting in my previous post is that too many scientists who have their own preconceptions and career/business agendas are afraid of the likelihood that raw milk and other "living" foods contribute to and enhance existing microbes, and thus fight additional research in those areas.
David
As a matter of fact, oral probiotics DO show efficacy in treating antibiotic-associated diarrhea. They may have other beneficial effects, such as mitigating hypertension, but that takes controlled, randomized tests and money. The return on such an investment would be considered poor by corporate standards.
Probiotics are not real food, though. Real food is where the "rubber hits the road" in shaping the body’s immunity, as well as its actual shape – obese vs. thin. This is because of the interface between the food and the person’s individualized microbial herd. Sanitation and antibiotic exposure have a direct influence on this herd, whether it be internal or external.
We now have a dandy new strain of drug-resistant E. coli making the rounds. There is little doubt that our penchant for sanitizers and antibiotics had a lot to do with the emergence of this organism.
http://www.idsociety.org/Content.aspx?id=16864
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/western-diet-tied-to-intestinal-.html?rss=1
This is the most effect way to increase feed utilization.
It seems to parralell with Milky ways statement of rear end injection, i would prefer the incasement route myself.
Tim
I believe that MW was referring to the newly re-discovered method of fecal irrigation to treat C. difficile colitis. I know of no other use of this method to treat any other disease. In this case you are applying the remedy quite close to the affected area. Going the oral route would be the long way ’round.
I agree that more is probably better regarding the number of species you’d want in any given probiotic supplement. The fact is, though, these organisms generally do not persist for long in the gut, and so have to be ingested frequently. By-passing the rumen would be crucial, as I doubt without protection a probiotic supplement would make it past that area. The point is, all pills have limitations, and your not going to get corporations to do general science to determine if something that they cannot make into a proprietary product is safe and effective.
The real issue here is the right to maintain a healthy, free-choice diet – one that is devoid of sanitizing chemicals and antibiotics, and one teeming with a "garden of microbial delights". This is what David, Michael, and Mark are fighting for.
As far as the safety of breast milk is concerned….you have pointed out a real tragedy of modern life on earth. Moms are not treated as a sacred place…they are not exposed to just organic clean and green places. Instead they are dumping grounds for GMO, Cloned, pesticide covered, gene spliced, pasteurized, heavy metals, vaccinations, antibiotics, pharma crap, irridiated fake junk in our diets and environments. Our next virginal generations are now being subject to this corporate waste.
You make a case for violent overthrow of all that is in power in the world.
As far as the efficacy of probiotics verses raw milk is concerned….you forget the effect of oligosaccarides and how they feed and protect bacteria as they move from the top down.
Thats what UC Davis breast milk research is all about. Probiotics do not have these specialized sugars…only breast and raw milk do. Raw milk does work better than any probiotics…because of biodiversity and these sugars. You can not beat mother nature and millions of years of evolution. You can try…but you will get a cloned GMO mess.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/science/03milk.html?_r=3&nl=health&emc=healthupdateema7
Mark
Probiotic supplements make sense when we are dealing with antibiotics. When else do we expose ourselves to a mass killing otherwise? It makes sense to do some mass rebuilding and repair work. There are numerous probiotic products designed and / or tested specifically for their ability to survive the acidity of the human stomach.
Don,
Be careful reading the Reuters piece. They are carelessly mixing up issues of product contamination with issues of proper usage of natural medicinals. Yes, contamination can be a problem. But many plants that are harmful when used improperly are actually quite beneficial when handled knowledgeably. There’s a fine line between the importance of processing and using herbal and other natural products properly and regulating them to the point that they’ll be unavailable or controlled via pharmaceutical or other companies. (One of Oriental medicine’s best herbs for asthma (ma huang / ephedra) is no longer available to licensed practitioners because people ignorant of its safe and traditional use decided to use it for weight loss and stimulants.)
Just as paying attention to the details of science is important in the raw milk issue, so is it in the realm of natural medicines. Thousands of years of responsible use needs to be given credence, not just regulated away because of modern / cultural ignorance.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/04/12/433034/babies-tainted-by-many-toxins.html
cp
As a loving parent and as a conscious person on spaceship earth that does not mean that we give up and surrender to toxic trespass of our person or our childrens bodies.
Quite to the contrary…it means we fight like hell is eating us alive and denouce Monsanto, the FDA and pharma chemicals on our foods and in our water and air etc…
It is not to time give up and permit this criminal violation of our bodies and tiny planet. It is time to take it back. ‘
How is this done….
Stop buying toxic products and bankrupt the bastards…vote with your dollars …also…we can try each and every day to stay as far away as possible from these dead foods and toxins. Just because they are all arround us ( at different levels in different environments ) does not mean surrender.
It means fight like there is a violent home invasion intruder in your house with pregnant women and newborn children and family present that are being threatened…and injured!!
Because….that is exactly what has happened. It is worthy of dedicating your life!!
Passive surrender is a pronoucement that you are a brain washed unconscious lemming.
This earth is mine and it is worth everything to defend it.
Mark
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/attorney-vegetables-likely-culprit-in-outbreak-linked-to-taco-bell/19584955?icid=main|main|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fattorney-vegetables-likely-culprit-in-outbreak-linked-to-taco-bell%2F19584955
Bill….when are you going to do something remarkable and right for once.
The article mentions that the immune depressed are the likely consumers to become sickened.
Why don’t you spent some of your next $100 million bounty on a Public Service Announcement campaign that says something like this:
Do not become a victim of food illness….be a strong healthy American and build a strong immune system!!!
International studies show clearly that immunity is related to gut biodiversity.
Bill….what you do is actually immoral and unethical. You pray on the illness and faiilures of the weak in America. The immune weakened children of pharmacudical and food sterilization destroyed immunity…the byproduct of sterilized foods and anti-biotic abuse and FDA corruption and denial and ignorance.
Bill….when you pass away someday…what will your tomb stone say??
Will it say…I raped and petrified insurance companies and further scared industry into more immune depressing technologies ( secret irridiation, more UHT pasteurization, sterilized food processing ) and I made more and more kids get sick as I got filthy rich!!!
Or will it say,….I started out taking money from insurance companies of industry to benefit the weak that were sickened by their immune depressing technologies but then I awoke and fixed the problem. I campaigned hard to rebuild the immune systems of American kids…so they would not get sick to begin with. I campaigned hard for more biodiversity and unprocessed foods in our food supply and our next generations are healthier for it. II partnered with Jamie Oliver and made a real difference and slowed and stopped food illness diabetes, obesity and Asthma and immune depression in America.
Bill…will you leave a better world or one that is tortured by increasing illness and astronomical insurance rates and ever more processed preserved and sterilized foods being made by liability stricken food companies.
You are personally taking America kids and citizens to a very dark and terrible place of worse conditions as your checking account swells to morbidly obese dimensions.
Think about it…
Think about what you are really doing. You are making things worse. Taco Bell will start to secretly irridiate veges next you watch!! The insurance company behind Taco Bell will mandate it!! You will be the cause of it.
Stronger immunity is your huge potential gift to America. It does not pay or doctors or pharma or Monsanto,….but it makes for healthy kids. What greater gift than a healthy child in the next generation.
Bill…measure your Karma points and your heart. You are driving psycho in this horrible accident and rejoicing. This is crazy…really really crazy. Your actions are making things far worse. Not better. These are the actions of a sick crazed person and sick society that is motivated by the inverse of good.
Mark
"Food detectives" have known since April, yet we don’t hear anything until today. And Taco Bell was only identified as "restaurant chain A" while raw dairies with not even one sickened customer are not only blasted from one end of the continent to the other, but forced to close and throw all products out for weeks on end.
And "they" say there’s no double standard…
Bill, have you ever really thought about what the hell you are doing???
These actions do nothing to correct the real problem which is immune depression in America. Bill…measure your heart. When will you do something that prevents this disaster. Taco Bell will probably start irridiating its vegetables because their insurance company will demand it.
You are forcing America further into an immune depression ditch. You are not preventing anything except health. You are part of the problem and not the solution. You give comfort to American children whose parents have done little to improve the immunity of their children. Your actions excuse immune depression and blame it on industry. You reinforce the concept that illness is someone elses fault and not a faliure of your personal immunity. You are shoving and pushing the American food producers to sterilized and even more highly process our common foods. All the while your checking account becomes filthy rich and morbidly obese itself .
You are causing obesity and asthma and ADD and Austism….you are pushing our food chain over a cliff. Why not join Jamie Oliver and make a difference for the good. Your efforts encourage Monsanto, the FDA sterilization police and pharma…is that what you want. It should be…it will bring you even more richness from paper currency. Your Karma currency is bankrupt.
But in the end you will be bankrupt morally and ethically. What will you say when St. Peter asks of you…."and my brother what good did you do in the world??? Did you make it a better place??? Peter is going to say something….I am really pissed at you…cause you helped sterilzed the land of Raw Milk and Raw Honey. The good lord and nature made those foods so that immune systems would work and kids would not get sick….you went and processed our gift of whole biodiverse foods…that took a million years to create. You did it all in your short life time.
Peter will probably go on to say….I am not so sure God wants you anywhere near heaven and from the look of your Karma points you are a little short…Perhaps you should go back and fix the mess you helped make. Here are few suggestions…on the next time arround sue Monsanto and the FDA pro-bono and defend Gods Raw Milk and Honey.
Bill..take the hint….with some of this Taco money…sue Monsanto, sue the FDA for RICO violations, defend raw milk and bring health to kids…God will hug you…moms will hug you. Your Karma points will blast off!! America will be a better place.
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/attorney-vegetables-likely-culprit-in-outbreak-linked-to-taco-bell/19584955?icid=main|main|dl1|link4|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fattorney-vegetables-likely-culprit-in-outbreak-linked-to-taco-bell%2F19584955
Mark
i am really mad that i drank UHT milk ,lactaid ,and then lactose free organic valley milk, thinking i was being healthy, thanks to the fda and big business keeping it a secret that UHT milk doesn’t need to be refrigerated, is only refrigerated so americans will think it’s real milk rather than some weird liquid that can sit on a shelf unrefrigerated for months , and most importantly is unhealthy and unnecessary. i have no trouble at all drinking raw milk and it tastes a million times better too.
i am also really angry that i had been unknowingly eating GMO foods for years because i ,like most americans ,thought GMO S were only in really bad junk food, not in every single item in a regular supermarket .
i’m sure it damaged my immune system and i am so glad to have found raw milk .and i have not eaten a single thing from mcdonalds or even cosi or any other chain restaurant ever since i saw food inc.
‘
maybe if people stop eating at mcdonalds and taco bell and buying processed frozen dinners etc they wont get sick. i wish americans would wake up already!
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,598766,00.html
1 million pounds of beef recalled due to e-coli – 7 people ill.
I wonder if the USDA/FDA will put this beef processor out of business? Bill Marler . . . . are ya gonna sue? 1 million pounds of beef may have very well entered nearly one million homes, I wonder where the meat came from?
This is why supporting and consuming locally sourced food is so important.
Just had a very interesting conversation with an elderly nurse the other day. It seems that she never recalled children being afflicted with allergies, asthma, obesity, diabetes, ADHD, serial ear infections (prior to the 1970’s), autism, cancer, etc. . . . prior to the 1980’s. I am wondering what has changed. Is it due to processed junk/fast food, vaccines, pesticides, hormones in meat and in city water from birth control pills, floridation, daycare, or a combination of all of the above.
Perhaps we should start a class action lawsuit against the "Powers That Be".
Kind regards,
Violet
http://www.kilbyridgefarmmaine.blogspot.com
Mary
You have not seen anything yet,.,,I am just getting started. Bill has a serious cross to bear for making this whole thing so much worse and collecting millions in the trade.
Sick kids lay at the feet of Bill Marker….his actions excuse the American diet and makes industry do even worse things to our diet…
If you think this is unfair to Bill then…well …. I am not sure that there is anything i can say that will change your thoughts.
Mark
The fact that most of his money comes from suing big corporations is relevant. He needs those corporations to stay rich in order for him to stay rich.
Bill Marler is not an advocate for food safety. He would not have made all that cash if our food was safe, wholesome, and nutrient dense. Marler’s very career depends up unhealthy food, depressed immune systems, and ultra-rich food processing and fast food corporations that exploit farmers, workers, and consumers.
Keep up the good work, Bill. Aren’t you proud of all your work on behalf of the corporate food system?
Think about it, Mark: the food injury lawyers (Marler being our favorite, of course) show Taco Bell that they need to clean up their food. They cook/microwave it all. Are we really worse off for that decision? Restaurants microwave parts of a meal for convenience and they don’t tell you. It’s really pretty common.
Let’s take another angle. What about the people "seeing the light" and buying real food and cooking it (or not cooking it as the case may be). What happens when they learn that they were paying $10/gallon for outsourced dairy product that didn’t meet the label claims? That same $5M+ business (which frankly sounds like a lot of money and greed to me) may make consumers think there is simply a lot of bullshit in the movement and they may start eating at Taco Bell again.
I guess I’m just old school here in the Sequoia National Forest figuring that the solution is to grow and prepare my own food. That being my solution, I don’t actually see an issue with what Marler is doing and I have solved the problems associated with "know your farmer" that we have here in central California.
Someone is going to sue the Taco Bells of the world and then the Taco Bells will zap their lettuce. When they do so, I will continue not to eat there.
Amanda
I came to "the land of raw milk and honey… where food is thy medicine" years ago…..I get what nature has created for mankind and biodiversity for the last 4.5 billion years. I also get that Bill Marler, Monsanto, the FDA and pharma has undone it and damaged it severely in the last 70 years. You saying….for me to "Come to Jesus"….is like saying…." Relax Mark….Pray but do not Act". Sorry,….but my prayers go with even stronger efforts to teach and breach the truth. My life is 1% prayer and 99% action and teaching.
Mary…
When a person is consciuos and listens to the truth as it arrives many times each day at OPDC…you act. You act with purpose and you speak truth to power. In this case that means the FDA and Bill Marler….they have the power and money but they have no truth.
Last week two young women ( in their late 20’s, highly educated teachers from LA ) came to my office at OPDC and told me their story. They had Crohns disease. They had been told to take antibiotics for a year and then have surgery if that did not work. Instead they followed Jordan Rubins diet ( speaking of Coming to Jesus ) and drank large amounts of OPDC raw milk Kefir every day along with a wholefood diet….after a year and a half…guess what. No more Crohns.
She still poops on a toilet and does not have a colostomy bag hanging on a belt arround her waist carrying her waste.
Mary if you think this is bullshit….it is not…this is human shit on a belt on a beautiful young women. You would rather that people crap into a bag and smell like harsh perfume to cover the septic tank orders for the rest of their lives, forever dependent on modern medicine and forever dependent on tax payers support. Both you and Bill should be ashamed. Food is medicine!!
This is a war and I treat it like one. The real human American body counts are on your side….the truth and the health is on mine. The CDC has exactly zero deaths from raw milk in their database for the last 35 years…that is zero!!
Today I fly to Elk Grove and give a speach on "where food meets medicine". Wish you all could come.
Bill and Mary I will save seats for you in the front row so you do not miss a word…just in case you can make it.
http://www.organicpastures.com/pdfs/food_is_medicine.pdf
Mary and Bill….get educated and read this scientific article on the critical nature of the biodiversity of human bacteria and the roles they play in our health.
http://www.organicpastures.com/zimmer-article.html
Mark
"but my prayers go with even stronger efforts to teach and *breach* the truth."
~emphasis added~
I think I’ll skip over all the vitriol that follows. I’m not sure why people need to get so nasty when talking about raw milk. I came across these 2 recent posts with positive or at least thoughtful discussion – better reading:
Augie on Raw milk can be dangerous, and How to pick a safe raw dairy
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/augie-on-raw-milk-can-be-dangerous-and-how-to-pick-a-safe-raw-dairy/
http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/lawyer-bill-marler-tells-national-public-radio-raw-milk-not-necessarily-safer/
MW
Throwing my two cents in on a twist of the conversation……Taco bell(pepsico) does not grow its own lettuce, tomatoes ect ect.
It does not even process anyhting, it has everything brought in already cooked shredded diced what ever.
Pepsico contracts for the lowest price to have this stuff delivered in this manner and that contractor puts pressure on the growers which squeezes how much they can spend on the soil to grow the product.
90% or more of Taco bells base products are grown in CA which has a severe manure problem which a large % of is used on leafy greesn and veggies to offset synthetic fertilizer which is higher than when this mass food production model was created.
So take cafo beef cafo manure on your vegies and gee people get sick.
The immune system we should be talking about is the soil and the basic understanding of manures role in crop production and livestocks prefered environment, and or number stress factors and our immune system will follow right along.
I do not think we can get people healthy enough on thier own to with stand insult without the food we eat and the soil it came from being relatively the same level of immunity.
By that I mean biologically active and balanced.
If Mr Marler is going to file a lawsuit against anybody, the whole chain should be held accountable right down to the feed lot company that sells manure to the produce grower.
Pepsico has this lawsuit figured into the profit margin and will not affect it a bit.
File on those farther down the line will bring things in line and put the price of that taco grande in the true neighorhood it should be, so we really have an idea of what cheap food really costs.
FarmerTim
If Bill Marler were really seeking justice he would be going after the CAFOs whose manure contaminated the leafy greens, and the corporate leefy green grower who spreads the toxic manure to begin with.
But Marler even has a hard time acknowledging that CAFO models of animal husbandry are breeding grounds for disease. I would not count on him filing a lawsuit against them anytime soon. He is too dependent on their profits to make his own profits. Like you say, he is just going to sue the fast food chain, which already has this lawsuit built into its price margin.
Way to really challenge things and make our food supply safer, Mr. Marler.
http://www.cdph.ca.gov/pubsforms/Documents/fdb%20eru%20Spnch%20EC%20Dole032007wph.PDF
MW
Mary
On the spinach outbreak of 2006, don’t forget about the feral pigs, as described in Ch. 9 of "The Raw Milk Revolution".
David