Page 97 - Summer 2017 Journal

A Campaign for Real Milk
RAW MILK VENDING MACHINE SALES SOAR ON THE WORLD MARKET—RAW MILK DEVOTEES TAKE NOTE! By Sylvia P. Onusic, PhD, CNS, LDN
The raw milk movement has turned into a revolution. Over the past ten to fifteen years, more and more moms have discovered the nu- tritional and taste value of buying real milk for their families, and more farmers are realizing that real milk adds value to their business. The raw milk renaissance has been supported by the promotion and education efforts of the Weston A. Price Foundation and its Campaign for Real Milk at realmilk.com.
In the mid-1940s, fictional articles appeared in Coronet magazine (May 1945) and Reader’s Digest (August 1946), describing the non-exis- tent town of Crossroads where many individuals supposedly were dying from undulant fever as a result of drinking raw milk.1 Ever since the pub- lication of these and other fabricated stories, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),2 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 3 and other government agencies have continued to beat the same sorry drum, warning consumers that raw dairy products are hazardous. Consum- ers, fueled by these government reports, have feared the dangers of raw milk.
This legacy of fear-mongering, combined with the lowfat lipid hypothesis of heart dis- ease and the growth of industrial dairies, has produced a vast array of highly processed, pasteurized, ultrapasteurized and homogenized versions of milk. Containing varying amounts of fat, these products are tasteless and devoid of the rich nutrients that are the hallmark of milk from pastured animals.
In the U.S., only a few states such as Penn- sylvania and California allow retail sales of raw milk. The sale of raw milk for human consump- tion is completely illegal in sixteen states. In other states, consumers who go to some effort can obtain raw milk on the farm, through herd- shares or cowshares or as pet food.4
The restriction on food freedoms in North
America has been accompanied by increasingly desperate enforcement of government food laws by U.S. and Canadian officials who use police to invade small farms and arrest farmers who produce raw milk. For example, the FDA carried out an early-morning armed raid on the farm of Dan Allgyer, an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania, because he violated the agency’s ban on inter- state raw milk sales. The raid put Allgyer out of business. None of Allgyer’s out-of-state cus- tomers, who had sought out his dairy products with full awareness that they were unpasteur- ized, had ever alleged that the milk had made them sick.5
A NEW SALES MODEL
Europeans have long valued raw milk as
a traditional food that serves as the basis for many cheeses and other related products.6 Most European countries permit the sale of raw milk. Moreover, European officials have done the op- posite of their counterparts in the U.S. by allow- ing expanded distribution of raw milk through self-service consumer vending machines.7,8 The vending machines give consumers easy access to raw milk at convenient locations in shop- ping centers and at farmers markets as well as near schools and playgrounds. The machines also provide added value to farmers, who can increase their market and sell their milk safely, hygienically and with confidence. In these countries, pasteurized forms of milk are also available, including sterilized milk sold in card- board boxes, which do not require refrigeration.
I discovered my first raw milk vending ma- chine (mlekomat) in 2009 at the main farmers market in the capital city of Ljubljana, Slovenia.9 The machine was a marvel—simple and so easy to use that a child could operate it. The design was also flexible, with many built-in features to accommodate the wants of the consumer.
A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation. To obtain some of our informative Real Milk brochures, contact the Foundation at (202) 363-4394. Check out our website, RealMilk.com for additional information and sources of Real Milk products.
SUMMER 2017
Wise Traditions 97