Resistance has a glorified history in this country, beginning with the founding fathers, and extending to the labor and civil rights movements last century. We honor one of the resisters, Dr. Martin Luther King, with a national holiday.

The ranks of food resisters are now expanding rapidly. Driven by increasingly harsh crackdowns by local and federal agencies on small producers and distributors of unpasteurized (raw) milk and other nutrient-dense foods, growing numbers of individuals involved in this part of the food chain are publicly refusing to abide by government edicts and shutdown orders.

But the reality for today’s rebels is far from glorious. Max Kane, the owner of a buying club in Wisconsin that distributes raw milk, is facing jail if his appeal on a contempt of court conviction last December is denied. He had several times refused orders from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection to provide information about the farmers who supply his milk and the names of his raw milk customers.

Stewart, the manager of Rawesome Foods, which was raided June 30 by agents from five federal, state, and local agencies, is facing the possibility that the private food club he helped found five years ago could be demolished and plowed under by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety any day. Rawesome was served with a “Substandard Order” last month after it defied a closure order by public health authorities following the raid.

Brigitte Ruthman, owner of a 32-acre farm in the Massachusetts Berkshires, could lose her dairy after she was served in August with a cease-and-desist order for running a one-cow herd share serving three shareholders with raw milk, and announced her intention to resist. (For more on creative raw-milk arrangements, see my recent post.)