Bans on raw milk

[William Wallace]

So the feds are not fans of raw milk or the people who sell it and consume it, and regularly raid farms that produce it.

https://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/08/the-latest-raw-milk-raid-an-attack-on-food-freedom/243635/

Here, I think, is the most interesting bit from the article:

In Venice, California, the Rawesome raw food club was raided by armed federal and county agents who arrested a club volunteer and seized computers, files, cash, and $70,000 worth of perishable produce...That same morning, leaders at the multinational conglomerate Cargill were calculating how best to deal with a deadly outbreak of drug-resistant Salmonella that originated in a Cargill-owned turkey factory.

Thoughts?

[Scheavo]

Like everything, I don't see why the federal government should be able to tell you what and whatnot to consume. I like the idea of an FDA to monitor food quality, and to let you know what you're eating, but if someone wants to drink some rat poison, drink some beer, drink some raw milk, or smoke some weed, that's their prerogative.

I think big-agriculture is afraid of small scale farming, local farming, organic farming, etc. It empowers the consumer, which weakens the control of big-businesses. Monsanto doesn't want you to keep your own damn seeds, for crying out loud.

[William Wallace]

Like everything, I don't see why the federal government should be able to tell you what and whatnot to consume. I like the idea of an FDA to monitor food quality, and to let you know what you're eating, but if someone wants to drink some rat poison, drink some beer, drink some raw milk, or smoke some weed, that's their prerogative.

If that were a possibility, and people were allowed to tell FDA to piss off when they disagreed with its judgments about safety, I would have no problem.

I think big-agriculture is afraid of small scale farming, local farming, organic farming, etc. It empowers the consumer, which weakens the control of big-businesses. Monsanto doesn't want you to keep your own damn seeds, for crying out loud.

That sounds like it was lifted from a Mises institute article on this subject.  Anyway, I agree.

[lordxizor]

While I understand the concerns about raw milk, I don't understand why that increased risks make it bannable. Just require raw milk supplier to put warnings on their containers just like we do for other potentially harmful products. Educate the consumers (who in this case probably already know the benefits and risks) and let them make their won decisions.

[William Wallace]

While I understand the concerns about raw milk, I don't understand why that increased risks make it bannable. Just require raw milk supplier to put warnings on their containers just like we do for other potentially harmful products. Educate the consumers (who in this case probably already know the benefits and risks) and let them make their won decisions.

On that note:

From the perspective of a national public health professional looking at an estimated total of 48 million foodborne illnesses each year; or from the perspective of a healthcare professional looking at a total of 90,771 (data from Healthy People 20204) confirmed bacterial foodborne infections each year (about 0.2 percent), there is no rational justification to focus national attention on raw milk, which may be associated with an average of 42 illnesses maximum among the more than nine million people (about 0.0005 percent) who have chosen to drink milk in its fresh unprocessed form.
Using this average of 42 illnesses per year, we can show, using government figures, that you are about 35,000 times more likely to become ill from other foods than you are from raw milk.

https://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-pathogens.html

[jsem]

I think big-agriculture is afraid of small scale farming, local farming, organic farming, etc. It empowers the consumer, which weakens the control of big-businesses. Monsanto doesn't want you to keep your own damn seeds, for crying out loud.

That sounds like it was lifted from a Mises institute article on this subject.  Anyway, I agree.

This. I thought "hey, is Scheavo coming around to a libertarian standpoint? wut?". 

[emindead]

I think big-agriculture is afraid of small scale farming, local farming, organic farming, etc. It empowers the consumer, which weakens the control of big-businesses. Monsanto doesn't want you to keep your own damn seeds, for crying out loud.

That sounds like it was lifted from a Mises institute article on this subject.  Anyway, I agree.

This. I thought "hey, is Scheavo coming around to a libertarian standpoint? wut?". 

Ditto!

[Scheavo]

Coming around? I've always been extremely libertarian on any political test, more libertarian than most "libertarians," when it comes down to the issues. Ya, there are some area's where I think government (i.e. collective action and agreement) is the best option, but only to increase one's actual liberties.

There are times when working together harms me, there are times when not working together harms me.

[Fuzzboy]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

[hefdaddy42]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

[hefdaddy42]

BTW, for newcomers here, I don't really wish for Fuzzboy's death.  I merely hope he revels in his freedom as freely as he wants.

[Chino]

I love raw milk. Lots of farms in CT sell it.nthis news is crap. I'm sure this boils down to the Feds needing to make more money for the guys who own huge milk corporations

[rumborak]

I find there's a lot of knee-jerking in this thread. I find it hard to believe the FDA cares about some dudes who like to drink raw milk. I expect the real story to boil down to some moron selling substandard food without license or something.

EDIT: Turns out the guy didn't have a permit. It's perfectly legal to sell raw milk in California, you just need to get a permit. Seemingly this wasn't the first time he ran into the FDA, but I guess he continued to try to sell it black-market style, and now they stepped up their response.
Sorry guys, once again not the evil government, but the usual asshole individual who plays the victim card.

rumborak

[William Wallace]

I find there's a lot of knee-jerking in this thread. I find it hard to believe the FDA cares about some dudes who like to drink raw milk. I expect the real story to boil down to some moron selling substandard food without license or something.

EDIT: Turns out the guy didn't have a permit. It's perfectly legal to sell raw milk in California, you just need to get a permit. Seemingly this wasn't the first time he ran into the FDA, but I guess he continued to try to sell it black-market style, and now they stepped up their response.
Sorry guys, once again not the evil government, but the usual asshole individual who plays the victim card.

rumborak

This goes to the heart of the issue. Why should he need a permit to sell raw milk? As the Atlantic article stated, everybody who belonged to the co-op signed a waiver and agreed to purchase the stuff. Does that warrant an armed raid on his farm?

[Perpetual Change]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

Is "raw milk" really that dangerous?

What is raw milk, anyway?

[rumborak]

Yes, I think it's prudent to require people to get a permit when selling an easily contaminated product.

Whether it was "armed" remains to be seen. I read on another page that those accounts are far from the truth, and most likely they referred to the police officer's gun.

And again, he already had a raid in 2010 and still continued to sell without a permit.

rumborak

[73109]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

Is "raw milk" really that dangerous?

What is raw milk, anyway?

Milk that has not been pasteurized. It can be bad for you because all the shit it can contain can get you sick.

Now, on the subject of this, I think he should need a permit to sell the milk, the FDA should make him say what can go wrong, and the customer can have every right to not give a shit.

[Perpetual Change]

So why didn't they just get the permit the first couple times they had run ins with the feds?

[rumborak]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

Is "raw milk" really that dangerous?

What is raw milk, anyway?

Raw milk is straight from the cow. The problem is that it contains multitudes of bacteria, that's why it has a very short shelf -life, and why it usually gets pasteurized, which is a long-term heating that kills the bacteria.

Wikipedia on pasteurization:

"The HTST pasteurization standard was designed to achieve a 5-log reduction, killing 99.999% of the number of viable micro-organisms in milk. This is considered adequate for destroying almost all yeasts, molds, and common spoilage bacteria and also to ensure adequate destruction of common pathogenic heat-resistant organisms (including Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which causes tuberculosis, but not Coxiella burnetii, which causes Q fever). HTST pasteurization processes must be designed so that the milk is heated evenly, and no part of the milk is subject to a shorter time or a lower temperature."

rumborak

[rumborak]

So why didn't they just get the permit the first couple times they had run ins with the feds?

You're asking a question that makes an entrepreneur look bad. It was clearly the government's fault.

rumborak

[Nigerius Rex]

Good info on California raw milk products laws:

https://www.realmilk.com/milk-laws-1.html#ca

https://www.realmilk.com/happening.html#ca

Seems like the raid was questionable at best in terms of confiscation of computers and the destruction of all of their product. Seems way too excessive.

[emindead]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

Is "raw milk" really that dangerous?

What is raw milk, anyway?

Raw milk is straight from the cow. The problem is that it contains multitudes of bacteria, that's why it has a very short shelf -life, and why it usually gets pasteurized, which is a long-term heating that kills the bacteria.

rumborak

Raw-milk is delicious and great for your body. The thing is that it needs to be consumed as soon as possible and the cow needs to be completely healthy for you to drink it. I've read that even people who are lactose intolerant can even drink it. As Rumby pointed out, when you do the Ultra-pasteurized process you kill the bacteria and also some of the great properties that Raw-milk does possess.

[Scheavo]

Permits like this are just stupid. It's like when peace groups like "Food not Bombs," or whatever it is, get in trouble for giving away free food because they don't have a permit. Help monitor quality, maybe have a permitting process for people who want to show some verification of safety, etc.

[Fuzzboy]

by raw milk, I'm assuming they mean milk that hasn't been pasteurized. If so, raw milk tastes better, and therefore it is better. I don't care if it kills me.

Then drink it and die, by all means.

[rumborak]

Permits like this are just stupid. It's like when peace groups like "Food not Bombs," or whatever it is, get in trouble for giving away free food because they don't have a permit. Help monitor quality, maybe have a permitting process for people who want to show some verification of safety, etc.

Wow, one of those few cases where Scheavo and I disagree

I dunno. I just recently visited two countries (India and China) where the restrictions on selling food on the street are essentially non-existent. A free-market heaven, so to speak. With the result that India has the infamous "Delhi belly" (and no, Indians are not immune to it), and China recently had a scandal where they found that 10% of oil used for cooking was dregded up from the sewer system.
Tuberculosis is essentially a non-existent in Western countries, and one of the reasons is that milk gets pasteurized. When weighing the "pain" of the guy getting a permit, and a certain percentage of the population going down with tuberculosis, I go for the permit option.

I'm all for enabling customers to get as fresh and untampered-with food as possible. But before crying foul on every single FDA action, it would behoove quite a few people to look up first why we have certain standards in place.

rumborak

[Perpetual Change]

Yeah. It's pretty easy to take an FDA label for granted in the first world. Then again, local people in China seem to have a much better handle on what's safe and what isn't. It's the laowai who seem to be the ones always getting dysentery.

Probably because unlike the locals who just kinda nibble off the street, they're more likely to go in with the, "what!? these dumplings are only 1 yuan? feed me more!" mentality.

[William Wallace]

Permits like this are just stupid. It's like when peace groups like "Food not Bombs," or whatever it is, get in trouble for giving away free food because they don't have a permit. Help monitor quality, maybe have a permitting process for people who want to show some verification of safety, etc.

Wow, one of those few cases where Scheavo and I disagree

I dunno. I just recently visited two countries (India and China) where the restrictions on selling food on the street are essentially non-existent. A free-market heaven, so to speak. With the result that India has the infamous "Delhi belly" (and no, Indians are not immune to it), and China recently had a scandal where they found that 10% of oil used for cooking was dregded up from the sewer system.
Tuberculosis is essentially a non-existent in Western countries, and one of the reasons is that milk gets pasteurized. When weighing the "pain" of the guy getting a permit, and a certain percentage of the population going down with tuberculosis, I go for the permit option.

I'm all for enabling customers to get as fresh and untampered-with food as possible. But before crying foul on every single FDA action, it would behoove quite a few people to look up first why we have certain standards in place.

rumborak

There's a major factor you're missing. We're still wealthier than China or India. That's the the factor that affords the FDA an existence and generally creates demand for food safety standards, because people have the means to invest in them. The point is that keeping people healthy is not as simple as enacting a permitting process or enforcing ban. Those are a result of an increasing standard of living. Further, people's knowledge of and interest in their health doesn't evaporate when FDA standards aren't enforced. In other words...the lack of a permit  for milk farming probably doesn't equate with a tuberculosis epidemic.

[GuineaPig]

I really don't know enough about raw milk to get into this debate, but I do have something I want to bring up.  The people who are OK with adults assuming the responsibility for risk they take with food consumption, are they also OK with them feeding their kids these potentially risky foods?

It's an interesting question, because it also overlaps with the obesity problem.

[Scheavo]

Permits like this are just stupid. It's like when peace groups like "Food not Bombs," or whatever it is, get in trouble for giving away free food because they don't have a permit. Help monitor quality, maybe have a permitting process for people who want to show some verification of safety, etc.

Wow, one of those few cases where Scheavo and I disagree

I dunno. I just recently visited two countries (India and China) where the restrictions on selling food on the street are essentially non-existent. A free-market heaven, so to speak. With the result that India has the infamous "Delhi belly" (and no, Indians are not immune to it), and China recently had a scandal where they found that 10% of oil used for cooking was dregded up from the sewer system.
Tuberculosis is essentially a non-existent in Western countries, and one of the reasons is that milk gets pasteurized. When weighing the "pain" of the guy getting a permit, and a certain percentage of the population going down with tuberculosis, I go for the permit option.

I'm all for enabling customers to get as fresh and untampered-with food as possible. But before crying foul on every single FDA action, it would behoove quite a few people to look up first why we have certain standards in place.

rumborak

There's a difference between being sold food that contains sewage oil, unbeknownst to you, and knowingly buying raw milk. I'm all for the government monitoring food quality, and helping ensure people are being honest in selling what they sell, but I don't see how the government has any right to say what I can and cannot buy becuase of some potential health problems. It's my health, not yours.

[rumborak]

The problem is a pragmatic one. When someone buys the occasional raw milk, it's still feasible to do the homework and see whether it's safe to consume it.
But, what do you do when a sizable percentage of public food is replaced with non-permit, I.e. non-standard food? When I travel to a different city there's no way for me to establish whether the food can be trusted. But currently I can trust that the vendor had to get a permit and thus abides by FDA standards.

rumborak

[William Wallace]

Permits like this are just stupid. It's like when peace groups like "Food not Bombs," or whatever it is, get in trouble for giving away free food because they don't have a permit. Help monitor quality, maybe have a permitting process for people who want to show some verification of safety, etc.

Wow, one of those few cases where Scheavo and I disagree

I dunno. I just recently visited two countries (India and China) where the restrictions on selling food on the street are essentially non-existent. A free-market heaven, so to speak. With the result that India has the infamous "Delhi belly" (and no, Indians are not immune to it), and China recently had a scandal where they found that 10% of oil used for cooking was dregded up from the sewer system.
Tuberculosis is essentially a non-existent in Western countries, and one of the reasons is that milk gets pasteurized. When weighing the "pain" of the guy getting a permit, and a certain percentage of the population going down with tuberculosis, I go for the permit option.

I'm all for enabling customers to get as fresh and untampered-with food as possible. But before crying foul on every single FDA action, it would behoove quite a few people to look up first why we have certain standards in place.

rumborak

There's a difference between being sold food that contains sewage oil, unbeknownst to you, and knowingly buying raw milk. I'm all for the government monitoring food quality, and helping ensure people are being honest in selling what they sell, but I don't see how the government has any right to say what I can and cannot buy becuase of some potential health problems. It's my health, not yours.

Pure poetry.

The problem is a pragmatic one. When someone buys the occasional raw milk, it's still feasible to do the homework and see whether it's safe to consume it.
But, what do you do when a sizable percentage of public food is replaced with non-permit, I.e. non-standard food? When I travel to a different city there's no way for me to establish whether the food can be trusted. But currently I can trust that the vendor had to get a permit and thus abides by FDA standards.

rumborak

See my above post.

[Scheavo]

The problem is a pragmatic one. When someone buys the occasional raw milk, it's still feasible to do the homework and see whether it's safe to consume it.
But, what do you do when a sizable percentage of public food is replaced with non-permit, I.e. non-standard food? When I travel to a different city there's no way for me to establish whether the food can be trusted. But currently I can trust that the vendor had to get a permit and thus abides by FDA standards.

rumborak

I hardly see how having a piece of paper you paid money for ensures food quality. We have food inspectors despite restaurants having permits and everything else (and again, I'm fine with food inspectors to help keep on eye on the process, inform and help correct problems).

With our system in place, you could still go to a different city and visit a restaurant which is practicing unsafe rules about food safety.

[Rathma]

Klim War

[rumborak]

I hardly see how having a piece of paper you paid money for ensures food quality. We have food inspectors despite restaurants having permits and everything else (and again, I'm fine with food inspectors to help keep on eye on the process, inform and help correct problems).

Well, I've been so far operating under the assumption that that's what the permit really does. I.e. you get the permit after an FDA guy swung by, looked at your setup and oks it. And after that you have regular inspections, just like any other restaurant.
Of course, if the permit existed just for permission's sake, that would be stupid! I'm pretty sure that's not what it is about.

With our system in place, you could still go to a different city and visit a restaurant which is practicing unsafe rules about food safety.

It would have to slip through the inspections though. Sure, it happens, but look at 19th century US or Europe where no inspections happened. Or China. The difference it makes is vast.

rumborak

[XJDenton]

In England raw milk is legal, but it can only be sold directly to the consumer and the dairys that produce it are subject to much higher hygiene standards, which I don't think is unreasonable.