I recently re-watched the second half of the documentary Farmaggedon, a film that I had watched a while ago and convinced Adam he should watch, too. I couldn't exactly remember all the details, but I had remembered liking it - and by liking it, I meant "it pissed me off and made me feel bad about our world, but it had some glimmer of hope at the end". We routinely nixed it from our watch list because he said it would be depressing (it kind of was), but he finally watched it. I caught the end of it and was reminded what the main topic was:
raw milk. Well, it was more about government's harmful hand in local food co-ops and small scale farms, but many times people were being "shut down" or raided because of legal issues surrounding raw milk. It blew my mind that raw milk was actually controversial. I also never really considered the milk at the grocery store being "cooked", but that's essentially what pasteurization is.
The documentary included anxiety-inducing recounts of small-time farmers or co-op owners that were raided by the entire town police force, guns drawn. I remember footage of law enforcement officials dumping out gallons of raw milk that had been driven across state borders. I couldn't believe it was actually illegal to bring MILK across state borders - and that it's a
federal fucking crime to sell. A FEDERAL crime! Holy shit! But it is legal in some states, though the restrictions on exactly where you can sell it vary (some states allow retail sales, some require sales on at the farm, etc.). I was intrigued by it, but I knew it had a biased spin, even if it was a bias I bought in to. You can't throw a stone at a farmer's market without hitting some food that has a cult following swearing by its healing properties. So, I felt for the farmers and small business owners getting shit on by the government, but I wasn't convinced I should run out and buy raw milk just yet.
The second viewing of Farmaggedon had me curious if Massachusetts legalized the sales of raw milk, and we found that MA only allows farm sales (my home state of NH allows retail sales). It conveniently listed the few farms selling raw milk, and one happened to be relatively close by. Adam joined me in Sudbury, Framingham, and Marlborough to check out the Bay Circuit Trail in that area - basically, he hiked around with me while I got paid. My job is rough, folks. We stopped by
Eastleigh Farm in Framingham on our way home to buy some raw milk. I contemplated driving it across state lines to really solidify my gangster street cred. Next time.
 |
| Photo Cred: www.eastleighfarm.com/store |
Eastleigh Farm looks like any small scale New England working farm - a smattering of antique trucks, picnic tables, evidence of how busy it can get on weekends, etc. The storefront looks like an old bank or or fallout shelter for nuclear warfare, but the inside is much more inviting. Large glass windows allowed us to watch two men making cheese. I was entertained, but the ice cream counter caught my eye. I assumed the ice cream was made from their raw milk, but I can't find evidence on their website that says so. Either way, I eagerly bought a pint of their pumpkin ice cream. I also picked up homemade strawberry preserves (so good) and sweet pickle chips (so so good). And of course, the -BUM BUM BUM-
raw milk.
I was excited to try it, and Adam kept telling me he thought it would be good for me. "Maybe it'll help your allergies. I think it'll be so good for you because people drank it fore
ver before pasteurization was a thing." I pointed out that people also used to die at, like, 40, but that's another issue. The first thing I noticed was the difference in color, it almost looks like eggnog. It's hard to tell from the picture, but it's a pretty noticeable difference. It had the texture of whole milk, very rich and creamy, and it tasted like vanilla ice cream. The taste, though subtle, was markedly different than the milk I've been drinking for almost my whole life (mainly skim, though I had a soiree with whole milk for a while). As I drank it I Google'd "raw milk" and found pages of support and equally as many horror stories, but one point I took to heart was to not drink too much at first. A website recommended starting off small amounts so your body could get used to the bacteria.
That makes sense, I thought as I sipped my small glass
, I'll just start with this. It's good. I'm going to ignore the CDC website that promises days of diarrhea.
Not ten minutes after finishing my first glass did I dive into "nay-sayer" pages, namely the Center for Disease Control and Federal Drug Administration. I was blown away by the
CDC's Q&A page about raw milk, which essentially said that even if the raw milk came from a reputable farmer that tested the milk, had a small-scale organic operation with healthy, happy, grass-fed cows, I was likely to be sitting on my toilet with a trash can in front of me soon after I drank it. The CDC reports between 1998-2011 there were 2,384 illnesses and 2 deaths from dairy products, and almost 80% of them came from raw milk. That caught my attention. It seemed that if I was going to get sick from dairy products, it would probably be raw milk (or cheese made from raw milk) that did it.
Uh oh.
Well, I survived the night. I woke Adam up in the morning to read him the CDC Q&A fact sheet and muse over how extreme it was. But I let the thoughts bounce around my head the that morning - there obviously is a risk, did I want to take it? Was it worth it? It was then that I realized that the CDC
infiltrated my brain. That's a bit dramatic. But what clicked was a comment I had made to Adam that morning about all the other outbreaks in the past few years; spinach and peanut butter immediately come to mine, and the only thing that's ever made me sick is meat (and that one time I ate half-cooked brownies, but that was my own fault). I did some searching and found that in the same time period of 1998-2011 meat, poultry, vegetables, and fruits were all
bigger offenders of causing health issues, from general illness to death.
 |
| I can use nice stock photos, too, FDA. |
I was curious to see what governmental agencies said about raw vegetables since proven to be biggest source of illness. The
FDA's page gave consumers solid advice (that I can almost guarantee you no one follows to a T), but what stuck out to me most was how much nicer the webpage was. It simply
looked nicer, with beautiful stock photos of berries and lettuce being washed. Not only was it more aesthetically pleasing, but the descriptions of what could "go wrong" were very different. The site on raw vegetables says eating contaminated can lead to food borne illnesses, while the
site on raw milk mention vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, headache, body ache, and other fast-acting symptoms that can be chronic, severe, and life-threatening. The site on raw veggies also says that it is okay to eat packaged veggies labeled as "pre-washed", and this is
after an outbreak of a deadly strain of E.Coli in pre-washed spinach that killed several people back in 2006.
I read
another article written by someone that went through the same process I did - trying and enjoying raw milk and finding horror stories online. She tells stories of young people with serious medical issues including kidney failure and paralysis. It seems reasonable to stop doing something after you see other people dying (or almost dying), but I wondered if she had read
this article by CNN listing the #1 cause of foodborne illness as fruits and vegetables, and the #1 cause of death from foodborne illness as meat and poultry. Vegetables are good for us, so we don't stop eating them just because they sometimes cause illness.
On the same token as vegetables, I am not convinced that I need to stop drinking raw milk because there's a chance I may get sick. I know that comparing raw milk to raw vegetables is
almost comparing apples to oranges since proper storage and washing often eliminate the dangers of illness, whereas you cannot "wash" raw milk. But plenty of people still get very very sick from supposedly "safe" vegetables, from cooked burger patties, etc. I'm not a full fledged raw milk convert yet, but I'm not convinced I need to stop drinking it. What I am convinced of is how ridiculous it is to make raw milk illegal because it
may make you sick, while we legally distribute a bajillion harmful narcotics that absolutely DO make people very sick.
So, do you drink raw milk? Do you love it? Hate it? Did you sit on your toilet with diarrhea for a week? TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT!
