For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Kimberly Hartke
703-860-2711, Kimberly@hartkepr.com
New Book Helps Solve the Raw Milk Puzzle for Health-Conscious Families
March 23, 2015—Needham, MA--Millions of Americans are hearing about raw milk’s growing popularity, but they are uncertain if raw milk is for them. They are confused for good reason.
On the one hand, you have a team of top European researchers in the
Maine Department of Agriculture officials said Thursday they support easing licensing requirements for some dairy farmers who sell raw milk directly to consumers.
The debate about unpasteurized “raw milk” still divides Maine’s agriculture and dairy products community, as was evident from Thursday’s lengthy testimony before the Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee. But after several failed legislative efforts, advocates for allowing farmers to sell raw milk without a license might have found a path to success.
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An entire section of the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) website is devoted to warning Americans about the “dangers” of raw milk. There it states that more than 1,500 people in the US became sick from raw milk from 1993 to 2006.
This is just over 115 people per year, on average… in a country were 9 million people get sick from foodborne illness annually. Is it possible to get sick from drinking raw milk?
Yes! But it’s also possible to get sick from eating a salad, a cheeseburger or a bowl of fruit. In fact, you’re far more likely to be infected with a foodborne illness when eating any number of foods other than high-quality raw milk.
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Around the country, signs are mounting of a growing refusal by law enforcement officials to mount legal actions against small producers of raw milk.
While regulators in Illinois and California have taken the hint, and remained on the sidelines, those in Minnesota have taken the sheriff-farmer pushback like dogs having their food bowls removed in the midst of dinner.
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A Cook County farmer will appear in State District Court in Grand Marais on Monday, defending his refusal to allow a state inspection he doesn't want and contends his farm doesn't need.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is seeking to have the court fine the farmer, David Berglund, $500 per day until he complies with the inspection order for his farm, Lake View Natural Dairy.
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If the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) gets its way, Lake View Natural Dairy Farm, owned and operated by David and Heidi Berglund and their daughter Lyndsay, will be fined $500 per day until they submit to an unconstitutional inspection of their farm.
When the farm briefly explored the possibility of selling milk for processing, this triggered a call to the MDA by the processor, and the MDA realized they had no record or control over this farm.
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The two most important roles that I hold in life are that of a husband and a father of two small girls. My daughters will inherit my legacy, the society we live in and the rules by which it is governed. I want to make that legacy as positive as possible. I wouldn't label myself a raw milk advocate or a farm rights advocate, not that those things aren't important. I am an advocate of rule of law, limits on the authority of our government and ultimately an advocate for my family.
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The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) is one of the corporate front groups suing Vermont in an attempt to block the state’s GMO labeling law. The trade group is also lobbying for H.R. 4432, an anti-consumer, anti-states’ rights bill intended to preempt all state GMO labeling laws.
Why would the IDFA spend millions to defeat GMO labeling laws, including launching a lawsuit against Vermont?
Isn’t the dairy industry the “Got Milk?” people, the ones who wear milk mustaches to get kids to drink what the industry promotes as healthy whole food? Doesn’t the IDFA represent the family farmers whose black-and-white cows graze happily on green grass outside picturesque red barns?
Truth be told, those idyllic images have nothing to do with reality. They’re part of a carefully orchestrated, and very expensive public relations campaign aimed at keeping consumers in the dark about what’s really in the “dairy products” products (can you say GMOs?) on grocery shelves.
The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) joined with the National Milk Producers Federation to send letters opposing efforts in Illinois and New Hampshire
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It's an ongoing debate whether raw milk is safe for human consumption. Even though federal health officials warn against its consumption, grass roots movements are in full support of raw milk. While only about 1 percent of the U.S. population drinks raw milk, outbreaks have rapidly increased in the past few years giving federal health officials reason to update state health departments about the risks, but not without raw milk advocates contending such warnings.
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