Posted on 07/14/2010 12:49:09 PM PDT by Lorianne
When the 20 agents arrived bearing a search warrant at her Ventura County farmhouse door at 7 a.m. on a Wednesday a couple weeks back, Sharon Palmer didn't know what to say. This was the third time she was being raided in 18 months, and she had thought she was on her way to resolving the problem over labeling of her goat cheese that prompted the other two raids. (In addition to producing goat's milk, she raises cattle, pigs, and chickens, and makes the meat available via a CSA.)
But her 12-year-old daughter, Jasmine, wasn't the least bit tongue-tied. "She started back-talking to them," recalls Palmer. "She said, 'If you take my computer again, I can't do my homework.' This would be the third computer we will have lost. I still haven't gotten the computers back that they took in the previous two raids."
As part of a five-hour-plus search of her barn and home, the agents -- from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Ventura County Sheriff, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture -- took the replacement computer, along with milk she feeds her chickens and pigs.
While no one will say officially what the purpose of this latest raid was, aside from being part of an investigation in progress, what is very clear is that government raids of producers, distributors, and even consumers of nutritionally dense foods appear to be happening ever more frequently. Sometimes they are meant to counter raw dairy production, other times to challenge private food organizations over whether they should be licensed as food retailers.
The same day Sharon Palmer's farm was raided, there was a raid on Rawesome Foods, a Venice, Calif., private food club run by nutritionist and raw-food advocate Aajonus Vonderplanitz. For a membership fee of $25, consumers can purchase unpasteurized dairy products, eggs that are not only organic but unwashed, and a wide assortment of fermented vegetables and other products.
The main difference in the two raids seems to be that Palmer's raiding party was actually much smaller, about half the size of the Venice contingent: Vonderplanitz was also visited by the FBI and the FDA.
In the Rawesome raid, agents made off with several thousand dollars worth of raw honey and raw dairy products. They also shut Rawesome for failure to have a public health permit, though the size and scope of the raid suggests the government officials might have more in mind. Regardless, within hours the outlet reopened in defiance of the shutdown order.
Earlier in June, agents of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, escorted by police and also bearing search warrants, raided and shut down Traditional Foods Warehouse, a popular food club in Minneapolis specializing in locally-produced foods. They also raided two farms suspected of illegally selling raw milk. And in a national first among such raids, agents searched a private home and made off with computers; the family's offense appears to have been that it allowed one of the raw dairy farmers to park in its driveway to distribute raw milk to area residents who had ordered it.
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has declined comment on such raids, saying they are part of an ongoing investigation into raw milk distribution in the state in lieu of eight illnesses in May linked to raw milk.
Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection has launched three raids over the last three months on the dairy farm and farm store of Vernon Hershberger, near Madison. The day after DATCP agents placed seals on his fridges storing raw dairy products in July, Hershberger cut the seals, and announced he was going to challenge the agency's contention he needs a dairy and retail license to sell his products. Obtaining such licenses would be problematic, though, since Wisconsin prohibits sale of raw milk, except "incidental" sales, and defining "incidental" has been a bone of contention for many years. In any event, Hershberger contends he sells only to consumers who contract privately for his food.
What's behind all these raids? They seem to stem from increasing concern at both the state and federal level about the spread of private food groups that have sprung up around the country in recent years -- food clubs and buying groups to provide specialized local products that are generally unavailable in groceries, like grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, fermented foods, and, in some cases, raw dairy products. Because they are private and limited to consumers who sign up for membership, these groups generally avoid obtaining retail and public health licenses required of retailers that sell to the general public.
In late 2008 and early 2009, the representatives of state agriculture agencies in Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois met via phone conferences with representatives of the FDA to map a plan for targeting raw-milk buying clubs in the Midwest. The meetings came to light after Max Kane, the owner of a Wisconsin buying club who was subpoenaed by Wisconsin authorities for the names of his customers and suppliers, obtained email accounts of the sessions via a Freedom of Information request to Wisconsin's Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection department. (Kane has since been prosecuted by Wisconsin authorities for contempt of court for failing to give up the names; his case is under appeal after he was found guilty last December.)
Now, the Midwest program seems to have gone national, and the recent spate of raids suggests a quickening pace and broadened scope. While most raids before the Midwest government meetings had been related to raw-milk distribution, some, like a December 2008 armed raid of Manna Storehouse, an Ohio food club near Cleveland, have been about licensing issues. In that raid, armed law enforcement officers held a mother and eight young children being home-schooled at gunpoint for several hours while they searched the home and food storage areas. A legal challenge to the raid by the family is still tied up in court.
The current uptick has Pete Kennedy of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund concerned, not only about the spreading of the raids, but about the seemingly easy willingness of judges to hand out search warrants. While the U.S. Constitution's fourth amendment suggests judges should exercise tight controls over search warrants ("no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause..."), Kennedy observes, "I haven't seen an agency turned down yet" over the last four years in requests for search warrants connected with raw milk and other food production and distribution.
Given that the targets of search warrants don't get a say in court as to whether they should be issued, legal experts and those who have been raided say the most that food producers can do is take steps to prepare themselves to weather the raids as best they can.
Here are five suggestions they offer:
(excerpted)
LOL!
Minnesota Dairy Farm Likely Source Of E. Coli Outbreak In Raw Milk
In recent days, at least five residents of Minnesota have become ill with the E. coli infection.
Several victims, including a toddler who develop HUS (hemolytic uremic syndrome,) were hospitalized. HUS is a serious complications that may develop from E. coli food poisoning, and can cause life-long kidney damage to patients. This usually occurs in the elderly and the very young.
I guess the toddler didn't drink your raw milk long enough to build up the strong immune system before it got hemolytic uremic syndrome.
Sorry, gotta go. I'm supposed to be dead now and didn't know it.
And you have to look at why it was needed. Large groups of cattle huddled together in large feedlots. This was not so common prior to the turn of the 20th century.
That’s my vision of the currency of the future. Gold, lead and chickens.
When Veggies are Outlawed, only Outlaws will have Veggies!
Is your son looking for a wife? LOL!
You raised yourself a perfect son, IMHO. God Bless You!
Back in the day cows had a lot of diseases that could be transmitted through milk. Modern technology has cleaned them up. No one would add a cow to their milk herd without having her tested. Most states are now considered brucellosis free and I haven’t heard of even one cow with tuberculosis in my lifetime in my area but these diseases used to be common.
Pasteuration was vital when the process was discovered and has saved countless lives but modern technology makes it much safer to drink unpasturized milk than ever before.
You know, my mother and SIL both got Valley Fever from moving to the Southwest. My SIL was never the same, everytime she got sick her lung collapsed but that doesn’t stop people from moving to the SW.
People drive, it isn’t very safe. Some people live safe lives and get hit by lightening. You get to choose your poison and you get to choose the degree of danger that you are comfortable with but rarely is life safe.
Silly me.
I was raised mostly on pateurized milk, anytime my mother found a supply of raw milk we got it but with 6 kids living in town it was a rarity. I had a lot of digestive problems all my life and finally gave up milk and milk products completely and have been great. Just the way I feel makes the lack worth it.
About a year ago a young couple invited us over for homemade ice cream made with fresh milk. I ate it to be polite knowing I was going to pay dearly for it, I had no ill effects. So then I thought that I had overcome my problems and started eating dairy products...not for long.
“...but I feel very strongly about this issue.”
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I doubt that many here would disagree with you.
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List theses diseases and explain, in as much detail as possible, what it is in pasteurized milk that is responsible for the specific disease you cite.
but the dairies that specialize in raw products are considerably cleaner,
I see you've never spent any time on a farm.
The heating of milk destroys all the natural protections, such as the digestive enzymes that raw milk naturally has
Raw milk doesn't kill pathogens. However, the heating of milk does kill pathogens. Pasteurization does not inactivate xanthine oxidase, lactoperoxidase or lysozyme. Or, were you thinking of something else? As an aside, your body produces all the enzymes it requires.
the colostrum, which is a natural disease fighter
Pasteurization may reduce the amount of IgG in colostrum but it certainly doesn't destroy it. Or is there some other functional protein you're overly concerned about?
and converts the lactose to a higher glycemic level.
Huh? Are you laboring under the delusion that pasteurization turns lactose into beta lactose, which causes a higher GI? If so, you are incredibly confused. Regular pasteurization isn't even hot enough to kill all the organisms in milk, (that's why pasteurized milk will sour) much less cause alpha-sugars to convert to beta-sugars.
Even if high temperatures converted lactose to a beta-sugar, the body would treat it like it does cellulose and pass it though the gut without any ill effects. Your body has enzymes that can only digest alpha-sugars so any beta-sugars that might form will just get passed. Since your body can't digest beta-sugars why does the glycemic index matter?
Pasteurized milk has been proven to be a cause of insulin insensitivity through inflammation that is an unavoidable consequence of undigested lactose being converted to lactic acid, and it also is strongly implicated in colon and pancreatic cancer for the same reason.
You need to look for new sources for your information. This is crazy talk.
Ceasing the use of pasteurized dairy products is often all that is required to end type II diabetes, chronic lung congestion, bladder infection, and toenail fungus.
Pasteurization causes toenail fungus? More crazy talk.
There is no legitimate reason to pasteurize anything, and all foods that get pasteurized become unhealthy to eat.
Unfortunately for you, the science doesn't support any of the wild claims you've made here.
One of the very last countries in Europe to pass mandatory pasteurization laws was Scotland. Prior to the enactment of this legislation in 1983, the rate of milk borne Salmonellosis in Scotland was the highest in Europe. A year after pasteurization was made mandatory, Scotland's rate was one of the lowest. A study was then conducted on the remaining incidence of milk borne Salmonellosis over a three-year period following forced pasteurization. During that time there were only 15 outbreaks and all of them were in the rural farming communities and none in the general urban population. This was attributed to the fact that milk consumed in the remote farming districts was exempt from the pasteurization legislation that applied to the rest of the country.
Nope, no good reason to pasteurize. Samonella, listeria, E. coli, brucellosis etc. are all good for you and help you lead a long and healthy life.
Yeah, right. Then I guess you can show us evidence of all the consumers suffering from bacterial infection from consuming pasteurized milk. With all those unsanitary conditions in dairyland it should be easy.
It actually did cause diseases.
As I said in another post pasteurization saved lots of people. I also said that we can now test the cow for tuberculosis and brucellosis and many other diseases and as someone else said we have refrigeration. In its day pasteuration was vital, I would say it should now be a choice.
“You know, my mother and SIL both got Valley Fever from moving to the Southwest.”
Doctors used to say that Valley Fever was hypochondria. A friend became unemployable because doctors at Kaiser Hospital placed comments in his med file that he was delusional because he had Valley Fever.
Your Obama level cognition gives you that kind of bravado.
I bet you liked when they sent you to Self Esteem sessions, huh?
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We are transplanted city folks who drank raw milk and made our own butter with it for over 10 years. It was wonderful and no one was ever ill. You need to inspect the farm and know the dairymen. Most are super clean. They and their children and grandchildren drank it, as well. Selling legally out of the bulk tank was extra money for some farmers back when milk prices were awful, as they are now.
We also still eat farm eggs. They _are_ washed. We eat farm pork, beef and chicken every chance we get and often butcher it ourselves. Ditto with venison.
Most of what we are told is simply scare tactics. Back during the Depression, the Feds killed pigs and dumped milk to make them cost more on the excuse that they were *helping* the farmer get a better price. Then, the city folk were filled with propaganda about how the farmers “at least ate free” in order to stir up a farm/city animosity.
Do you think, in the event of of some sort of disaster or emergency, that the inspectors will be there or anyone will care? People all over the world subsist on their own milk and meat and have for thousands of years. The human race survived. Farmers understand cleanliness in producing the final product.
Frightening.
“Pasteurization causes toenail fungus? More crazy talk.”
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This was the only salvageable line out of your empty-headed post. Your inability to grasp that inflammation that is almost solely caused by consuming pasteurized dairy foods causes the lion’s share of people’s chronic misery makes you look like a simpleton.
Or is it deeper than that? - Is this deliberate deception?
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