Act Now to Defend Food Freedom

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Episode Transcript

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From the Weston A price foundation Welcome to the wise traditions podcast for wise traditions in food, farming and the healing arts. We are your source for scientific knowledge and traditional wisdom to help you achieve optimal health.

Hey, Hilda here, more and more people are discovering and enjoying raw milk. According to our guest today, massive noncompliance is apparently building momentum for raw milk legislation to pass on a federal level. What does the food freedom landscape look like today? What is the prime act about? And how can we, as consumers help ensure that small farmers and ranchers can continue to provide us with regenerative meat? This is a bonus episode focused on food freedom. And our guest today is Congressman Thomas Massie, the US representative for Kentucky’s fourth district since 2012. Thomas offers insights on raw milk, explaining why raw milk is better economically for farmers and for the consumers health. He also covers why he got motivated to back raw milk legislation in the first place. And addition, Thomas explains the prime act, why he’s introduced it and his backing a prime act pilot program as an amendment to the farm bill. This Act helps keep small slaughterhouses, ranchers and consumers from jumping through regulatory hoops unnecessarily. Finally, Thomas explains what we can do to support this x inclusion in the farm bill through three simple phone calls. An important note before we jump into the conversation, Thomas Massie is the keynote speaker at our wise traditions conference this fall in Orlando, October 25. Through the 27th 2024 Find out more and register to attend at wise traditions.org. This is Hilda Labrada Gore and you’re listening to wise traditions.

Welcome to wise traditions, Thomas.

Hey, how you doing good to be here on Joel Salatin’s farm at Polyface.

I know oh my gosh, this is one of my favorite places on earth. What do you think of it?

I’ve had the farm tours like four times in my life, and I don’t need to see it again. But I always take it and I’m here to speak. But I’m also here is just to gawk. And to do some r&d, which for me stands for rip off and duplicate. I want to take some more of Joel’s ideas back to my farm.

That’s awesome. Now, I want to ask you what happened when you introduced a raw milk bill? I guess was it 10 years ago?

Yeah. So I snuck around and got like 20 co-sponsors before I put the bill in the hopper before it went on the website and became public knowledge, because I knew it would be hard to get co sponsors, after people found out that you know, what we were trying to do. So and I was basically just trying to get the Feds out of the raw milk business. And I put this bill in the hopper, it goes on the website and all the the milk lobbyist found out about it. And they started attacking me in media. And my wife was back home in Kentucky. And she her Google alerts were going off on her phone. And these articles, were saying that, you know, I’d be responsible for all the carnage that happened if people started drinking raw milk, and people would die and kidneys would fail, et cetera, et cetera. And my wife texted me and she said, OMG, I didn’t realize the lactose lobby was so intolerant.

But did you expect that either? Did you expect the opponents to come on you so strong?

No, I didn’t expect that. I mean, here you have the milk lobby, right? They’re trying to say that their product is dangerous. Like, Hey, man, this is a new thing for milk lobby like this would be like the gun lobby being against guns or something.

But they make the distinction between the raw product and what’s pasteurized and the supermarket refrigerator section.

Yeah. And they like the system that exists because everybody sort of their serve. And you know, they control low prices for farmers and higher prices for consumers by consolidating all of this. And they’ve driven a lot of the small dairies out of business. The you know, what raw milk provides is, is a business model for small dairies who take care to produce a better product to get a higher return on their labor. Because you could make the best milk in the world. It can be 10 times better than everybody else’s, but they’re eventually just going to stir it all together and cook it and everything brings the same price. So I think that’s why the milk lobby was upset here you are giving small farmers the ability to differentiate their products. out and make an honest living by getting a good price.

I want to be clear here, are you saying that the regular milk that is pasteurized and on supermarket shelves in the refrigerated section? Are you saying that that quality is low? And how do they get away with that?

I mean, they’re acceptable levels of E. Coli in the milk because they plan to cook it. So they their plan is not to, you know, produce the best possible milk to start out with. I mean, they they are graded on quality the farmers are when they sell the milk, but still, it’s just a small difference in price. So yeah, I mean, if you’re selling at all, you have to take a care, better care of your animals, you know, better care of when you milk the animals and, and just pay close attention. But in return, you get a fair price. Because in your because in many cases, you’re selling directly to consumer, and you don’t have some middleman who is funneling all of the product through one sales point and then distributing it.

So if I were a farmer that was selling raw milk, I will get more for the raw milk from the consumers selling directly to them, than I would get if I kind of put all my chips in with the big dairy companies, because they will give me less. In the end financially, it makes sense for me to be a raw milk farmer,

oh, I’m paying $8 A gallon for the raw milk that I buy. And that is a deal. That is a bargain. I mean, there are other people charging 12 or dollars or more a gallon for raw milk, but and go to the grocery store. And I haven’t bought milk in the grocery store in a while not not because I’m aloof or disconnected. But because I’m buying it straight from the farmer. But I know it’s a lot cheaper in the store. And I know from this farmer who used to sell into the industrial milk production system, that he’s actually able to sustain his farm with milk. Now I used to have to grow tobacco, in addition to raising, you know, dairy cattle. And now, because he got into raw milk, he’s able to make enough money from the milk that he doesn’t have to grow tobacco anymore.

Now, Thomas, what made you present that bill in the first place? 10 years ago? Did you know what as much then as you do now about raw milk?

I did not. In fact, I had maybe had three cups of raw milk in my life, okay, when I introduced that bill, and but I introduced it because I believe that people should have the freedom to buy, what they want from who they want, and the freedom to choose what their family is going to eat. And but I myself, I wasn’t a consumer of raw milk in any significant way when I introduced the bill, but after about six years, you know, and hanging out with these folks, like, you know, maybe I should start drinking this. And it was for health purposes. Like, I’ve thought, well, let’s, let’s find out if it really does make you healthier. And so my wife and I started drinking it. And we were mainly pursuing it for her. And I found a lot of benefits from it myself. And I’m hooked now and I’ve been you know, we drive to the farm once a once a week, every week, for the last few years to get our raw milk.

So what does the food freedom and raw milk landscape look like today?

It’s pretty good. There are more people drinking raw milk every year. And it’s sort of like a mass non compliance situation that we saw, we saw the people that wanted to use marijuana, they just ignored the law for long enough. And enough of them got arrested and persecuted. And they just kept plowing forward and growing it and selling it and using it until eventually in a lot of states. And to some degree at the federal level, the laws had to catch up with the people. And I think that’s the case with raw milk. The laws need to catch up with the people. Otherwise you’ve got you know, millions of people breaking the law that are going unpunished. You have technically it’s not illegal to drink raw milk is just illegal to sell it in many cases or to cross state lines with it. And when I say illegal, it’s Congress never passed a law making it illegal. The FDA just took it upon themselves to regulate it as a result of a court settlement in the 80s. So but still you can go you can be arrested for for selling raw milk and I think that’s wrong. So that’s why I’ve introduced my bills.

And how are your bills doing now? Like when are the laws going to catch up with the people?

You know, I think in this instance, it’s mostly The Battlefront is in the state legislatures with milk now with beef and pork. And being able to sell directly to consumers. There are federal impediments to that. The main federal impediment to raw milk is when you try to cross state lines. And new people don’t intentionally get into the dairy business planning to sell across state lines. But some dairies, they’re just near the state line, right? Like you might be selling to somebody’s house that you can see from the farm and you would be breaking the law. So I think things are things are moving forward. At the state level, there have been some initiatives in various states to make it easier. But again, every state is a little bit different. Some states you have to label it as pet food, for instance, in other states, you can have herd shares, which is the the model that I’m ostensibly operating under when I buy my raw milk.

In other words, you own part of the cow, and it’s your right as an owner to be able to consume that milk. Correct.

They haven’t gone so far as to say you can’t consume milk from your own cow, or that you can’t consume beef from your own cow. That’s the other exemption that exists for beef and pork is you technically have to own the animal if you want to consume meat from that animal without going through this industrial regulation process.

Now, how strong is the dairy the industrial dairy lobby now? Because you said 10 years ago, they jumped on you they were all over you? Are they still pushing back kind of against what the people want?

You know, they still are. It’s it’s really an uphill battle in Congress to get anything done with respect to raw milk. We had a vote on this a few years ago as an amendment to the farm bill. And I’m sad to say my amendment went down in flames, like it wasn’t even close to, to try and legalize raw milk at the federal level. So we’re not really moving the ball forward in Congress, although I do get more in terms of, for instance, getting a bill through the House and the Senate and signed by the President. But I am getting more co-sponsors Every year, and the needle is moving, and eventually we’ll be able to capitalize on that.

So, what’s your reputation? What’s your reputation, like, on the Hill? I’m laughing because, I mean, do they think you’re the raw milk weirdo? Or how do they see you?

Um, my reputation on the Hill is that nobody doubts my sincerity. Because I’ve had, there are enough times when I have stood in the face of of everything. There are enough times when the vote has been 434 to one where I lose the vote. But then two or three years later, everybody realizes mine was the right vote. And so for the colleagues that have been there, for as long as I have been there, they’ve seen me time and time again, whether they agree with me or not, they see me stand on principle. So they know that I’m standing on principle, not because I got some kind of paycheck from some lobbyists group, or that I’m trying to feather my own nest. And so that’s, you know, that’s my reputation there. Particularly, for instance, during COVID. I tried to tell them, it was all a mistake, to spend trillions of dollars and to shut down our economy. I said, you’re going to end up with inflation. You’re going to end up with shortages. And I said this when they passed the very first stimulus bill. In fact, I forced them all to come back to Washington DC and vote on it. They were just going to pass it by unanimous consent. And they hated me for breathing air that day. You know, I had the the hate was bipartisan. Nancy Pelosi called me a dangerous nuisance. And President Trump called me a third rate grandstander and insisted I should be thrown out of the party. And, you know, that was a difficult day. Because I had very few friends that day. But I do have congressmen that come to me now and say, we made a mistake that day, and we should have listened to you.

What is it about raw milk that makes you stand by that? Now I see that you’re a person of principle what? What is it about it that you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna keep pushing forward trying to get it legalized fit on the federal level?

Well, I know there personally, there are health benefits to it. But I’m not representing that in my bill. There’s no whereas clause that says, whereas raw milk is good for you, right? That’s not in my bill. It’s just your right to choose what you want to consume and to consume it and then it’s a farmers right to produce that. So that’s, you know, that’s my standpoint. I’ve decided to take another step now, though, this Congress, I’m introducing a constitutional amendment it, which is it’s kind of interesting because instead of going to the Ag Committee, which I’m not on constitutional amendments go to the judiciary committee that I am on. So this is a way to introduce the Ag issue into the Judiciary Committee. And my constitutional amendment is basically, your right to grow food shall not be infringed and your right to buy food shall not be infringed. And I think this is so obvious that it you know, the founding fathers lifted out of the Constitution, but I’m happy to put it in.

I wonder why they said we have the right to bear arms, but not the right to grow our own food and buy our food from whoever..

For the same reason they they didn’t put that you have the right to breathe air? Because it was so obvious to them that they never thought the government would get that larger intrusive.

Okay, so you said the raw milk lobby is strong, do the beef and the pork lobbies are the conventional beef, pork industry, are they also going to push back on the idea that we can eat meat from our own cow is something of a herd share situation,

Whether they are at the FDA trying to eliminate herd shares in that model. They’ve probably floated the idea and PowerPoint presentations that are on their website. So I offered an amendment this summer to a farm bill, a farm appropriations bill to prevent the government from stopping the herd share model. And that actually passed it passed by unanimous vote, nobody objected to it. So that’s good news. The bad news is they they did an omnibus instead of using that appropriations bill. So the vehicle that my amendment was attached to died. But it showed that we have the support in Congress to at least let the hurt share model continue. But I think we need to go further. And so I’ve introduced a bill called the prime act that says if you use a local slaughterhouse, and if the farmer that slaughterhouse and the consumer are all in the same state, if you don’t cross state lines, then you don’t need to go into this industrial regulation regime, you don’t need a full time USDA inspector, I mean, you don’t have full time USDA inspectors at supermarkets, and they’re cutting meat, and you don’t have them at restaurants and they’re cutting meat. Yet, you know, the current regime insists that at a small slaughterhouse that may cut less meat than Kroger’s does in a day that you have to have a full time USDA inspector. So I’m trying to get those small slaughterhouses sort of an exemption from that industrial regulation. And that’s called the prime act. And that would apply to beef, pork and lamb. That would give us more freedom, right now you have to buy like a whole cow or half a cow. If you want to buy beef, this would let you sell it by the cut. So if you just want hamburger, you just want steak, you could buy that individually. And the full prime Act would let you sell that in grocery stores or at restaurants or direct to consumer. But what I’ve, I don’t want to speak too soon. But I’m going to announce here at at Polyface that we got into the base text of the Farm Bill, a pilot program to do my prime act, and so that all 50 states can actually start doing the prime act at a limited number of processors. And they won’t be able to sell at grocery stores or restaurants. But they could sell direct to consumers by the cut without having a full time USDA inspector at the facility, as long as they have the same level of inspection as say a restaurant does in that county.

So it’s a step in the right direction,

A very big step in the right direction. And I think no pun intended, once people get a taste of freedom, they’re not going to want to go back. And hopefully the pilot program is successful and leads to the full prime act.

So I feel like I’ve heard about the prime act for some time. How long does it take for a bill to get past? How long is it like circulating around the the halls of Congress, I’m confused

It can take forever, it might never pass. I mean, that’s why you have to look at legislation, you know is going to pass like the Farm Bill. And you have to try to get, you know, put your cart behind that horse. And that’s, you know, the approach we took with industrial hemp. We got it legalized as an amendment to the farm bill. And so that’s the approach I’m taking with the pilot program for the prime AG. So you kind of tack it on, and hope that it goes in because people are voting for the big thing and they’re not paying attention to the little things tacked on. Well, they’ll pay a lot of attention to this this bill go through committee, it’ll get marked up it’ll get debated. But I think we’ve crafted the base legislation in a way that it will survive scrutiny. I mean, this isn’t something we’re air dropping in at midnight. Nobody knows about and it’s unrelated to the bill. This is right in the you know the wheelhouse of the Farm Bill. It’s where it’s on the bill it should be on and it’ll it’ll get a debate before it comes to a vote.

One reason I think this is so important is because, as you know, my father is from Cuba. And I was visiting my father’s cousin there, and he owns cattle, and he does not have the right in his own country and his own farm to slaughter, and even consume his own animal.

Well, that’s kind of crazy. But there’s a similar regime in this country. Because of Wickard v Filburn. Supreme Court decision, you know, over half a century ago, a guy was trying to grow wheat grain and feed it to his own animals. And it wasn’t engaged in interstate commerce. But the Supreme Court said, because he wasn’t selling his wheat into interstate commerce, he was affecting interstate commerce, and so that the federal government could stop him from growing his own wheat and selling it to his own, or feeding it to his own animals. And so in a way, you know, this is that Supreme Court case is called Wickard v Filburn. Mine is my constitutional amendment that I’ve proposed is almost like a repeal of that Supreme Court decision.

So what do you advise, Thomas, for the listener right now who’s like, oh, my gosh, I feel really strongly I want to see that Primatte go through, I want to help make raw milk and food freedom, a thing across the country? What do you suggest that they do?

Oh, well, right now, at this moment, what you need to do is call your congressman and both of your senators, you only need to make free phone calls and tell them to put the prime act in the Farm Bill, because the farm bill is being debated in the House of Representatives. They’ll probably also debate it in the Senate, they’ll mark it up, it’ll amendments will be voted on. And then the final bill will be voted on in the house. And this is happening in the next few weeks. So make those phone calls. Don’t send an email. Honestly, a phone call is better. I know some people don’t like to engage, personally, but you’ll be talking to somebody pleasant on the other end of the line, as long as you don’t cuss them out. And just tell them support the prime act in the Farm Bill. That’s what we need right now.

One little voice one little call can make a difference?

Oh, yeah, there’s some I represent 750,000 People in Kentucky. Some days, I get less than five phone calls. Some days, I get no phone calls. If I got 10 phone calls from 10 constituents on the same topic in one day, that would be off the charts, that would be like red alert. So because so many people don’t like to pick up the phone and call, you can have an outsized voice if you do.

So one last question I’d love to pose on the podcast. And I know you’re a congressman and not necessarily a doctor or a health professional. But if the listener could do one thing to improve their health, just one thing to take a step in the right direction for taking their health into their own hands. What would you recommend that they do, Thomas?

Buy directly from the farmer, get food that hasn’t had all the nutrition processed out of it.

Perfect. Thank you so much for this time in this conversation. It’s been great.

Thank you. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s get out there and see what’s going on here at Polyface. Love it.

Our guest today was US Representative Thomas Massie from Kentucky’s fourth district. Go to massey.house.gov. For more information on Thomas and his record, and go to wise traditions.org to register to attend our conference where Massey will be speaking, the conference will be held this year in Orlando, Florida, October 25 to the 27th of 2024. And the website to register is wise traditions.org.

I am Hilda Labrada Gore, the host and producer of this podcast for the Weston A price Foundation. You can find me at holistichilda.com. And now for a letter to the editor from a recent wise traditions journal:

I am a young wife and mother of one baby boy, almost 10 months old. Only recently have I come across Dr. Price’s book, and the Weston A Price Foundation. We have been implementing the wise traditions diet for a little over one month. The irony of my journey is that I studied nutrition from my bachelor’s degree. We were completely brainwashed about everything, especially against the principles that the foundation teaches. I even consumed a vegan diet for a year or two until my body could not handle it anymore. I stopped menstruating, my hair was falling out, and my immunity was horrible. After that, I changed to an overall vegetarian diet for about three years and remain so until my husband and I conceived. Then something incredible happened. My body’s cravings were so strong, I finally listened to them. After years of ignoring them and literally starving myself, I finally tuned into what my body was asking for without even realizing. I began adding butter to my oatmeal, salting foods more often purchasing cheese and making whole milk yogurt. Little by little I started incorporating ground beef and whole chicken into our meals. Very rarely due to expense, we would include salmon and high quality cheeses. The amount of dairy I consumed was unthinkable from my previous self. Since I am of Asian descent, I’ve always had a lactose intolerance problem. This completely shifted when I began my pregnancy journey.

I am grateful to my husband for teaching me many wise traditions. From his upbringing in Bolivia. My husband’s teeth are beautiful. He had no orthodontics either. My story regarding teeth is a rather sad one. In brief, I was adopted from China at 13 months old. My only food up to that time was kanji, a rice pudding, which was fed to all the babies in my orphanage because of no funding and lack of staff. To make matters worse, my childhood was filled with standard American diet foods. Of course, it was better than kanji, but only slightly. I was diagnosed with the worst orthodontic case in my town, and I was the youngest client at 10 years old. I write all this to tell you how right Dr. Price and you are. When I ponder the horrors of my childhood nutrition, I began to wonder about the nutrition of my biological parents. That is why I took immediate action after finding WAPF. I’ve connected with a source of raw milk, pastured eggs, chicken, beef, pork, etc. I cook with lard and butter, and save my meat drippings for gravy or sauteed vegetables. And now my baby eats one egg yolk a day, cultured buttermilk, homemade yogurt, butter and various vegetables and fruits. But I mostly emphasize the fats. My previous index pediatrician once ordered me to begin supplementing my baby with formula because he was not gaining weight or not getting sufficient weight. While his weight gain was not ideal. It was only one or two pounds out of range, and she was attempting to scare me into her wishes. I did not give my baby formula. by divine intervention, I found the foundation and all of your wonderful resources.

By God’s grace, my baby has gained a tremendous amount of weight and has surpassed his development in size since being on this diet. Occasionally I feed him a dollop of room temperature grass fed butter when he is playing, just because

Thank you, ah am from St. Louis, Missouri. If you would like to write a letter to the editor on the topic of your choice, maybe you have a testimonial, like this beautiful young woman, please write us at info@westonaprice.org and put a letter to the editor in the subject line. And if you would like to regularly get our quarterly journal become a member. It’s only $30 If you use the code pod10 And I’m talking $30 a year go to westonaprice.org and click on the become a member button. And that’s all it takes. And welcome to the family. And thank you so much for listening my friend. Stay well and remember to keep your feet on the ground and your face to the sun.

About Thomas Massie

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Thomas Massie attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering. During school, he invented a technology that enabled people to interact with computers using their sense of touch and leveraged that technology to found SensAble Technologies, Inc., which raised over $32 million of venture capital, created seventy jobs and obtained twenty-nine patents.

In Congress, Thomas serves on three committees: the House Committee on Rules, the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure, and the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over laws that affect intellectual property, industrial hemp, civil liberties, firearms, and other topics that were among the reasons Thomas ran for Congress! In addition to serving on these committees, Thomas is the chairman of the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, and he serves as a member of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Thomas lives on a cattle farm in Kentucky with his wife and high school sweetheart, Rhonda, and they have four children.

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