The Raw Truth

[Guest guest]

http://www.doggedblog.com/doggedblog/the_body_politic/index.html

 

05 May 2005

 

 

Two years ago, I used to buy a wonderful goat cheese at my local

cheese market called La Garotin. It was a soft, oozy, flavorful but

mild cheese, and it was just about perfect in an omelette. One day,

the nice cheese lady explained to me that the United States

government, in its endless quest to make me safer, had determined that

this cheese was not safe for me to eat and it was no longer available.

An " improved " pasteurized version hit the market a few months later,

but like most cheeses made with pasteurized milk, it tasted lousy.

 

On the scale of things that really matter, this one doesn't. Whether

one latte-sipping liberal in Northern California can still get raw

oozy goat cheese for her morning omelette doesn't stack up in

importance compared with governmental attacks on social security and

education funding, or our increasingly aggressive foreign policy of

" democracy at gunpoint. "

 

But I do have to ask why, in this era of " small government, " with the

White House, Senate, and House of Representatives all safely in the

hands of those " conservative " Republicans, I am being protected

against a non-threat that I do not care to be protected against in the

first place?

 

Then again, I live in California, where we can buy raw milk from

certified dairies in our grocery stores, and raw cream and butter,

too. Most of the people reading this aren't so lucky, as raw dairy

products either cannot be sold at all in most states and all of

Canada, or can only be sold or shared under the most Byzantine of

legal arrangements. In some states it's actually illegal to drink milk

from your own cow on your own farm. The mind boggles.

 

Some of you might wonder about this. Isn't raw milk dangerous? The

truth is, given the state of modern food processing, you should be

asking that question about all the food you consume. Contamination

with pathogens is a growing problem in pasteurized and cooked foods,

especially with institutional food supplies (school food services,

convalescent hospitals, food concessions, etc.).

 

Do you know how many people have been killed by eating raw aged

cheese? None. Zero. Zip. No one knows why the FDA has decided to crack

down on the importing of aged cheeses made from raw cream, unless it

has something to do with the fact that they are coming from France,

home of those Kerry-loving terrorist huggers.

 

Food safety has been framed in this country as a home kitchen issue -

all the risk and all the responsibility have been passed to the

individual end-consumer, totally absolving regulatory agencies,

government, and industry from any need to produce safe foods. Why

worry about bacterial contamination of meat, milk, and eggs if it's

all going to be pasteurized, irradiated, drenched in bleach water

baths, and, ultimately, cooked to death at home?

 

This means that we don't get to eat real Ceasar salad dressing

anymore, we don't get to eat steak tartare, we can't drink fresh milk

straight from the cow, and our dogs can't eat a nice hunk of meat on

the bone, not because those foods are intrinsically dirty or full of

pathogenic bacteria, but because given the state of modern food

production practices and standards, they have been contaminated with

pathogenic bacteria.

 

My answer has been to find clean, wholesome, properly raised and

slaughtered and processed meats, as well as the eggs and milk of

animals raised on grass and treated humanely. Such foods, grown in

traditional methods and processed with the good parts of modern food

science, such as closed milking systems, result in the best of both

worlds, and a cleaner, healthier food supply. And a much more

expensive one, even here in California.

 

But the raw dairy products I buy are not a hazard to my health. Not

only do they meet or exceed the standards set by the state of

California for raw milk, they exceed the standards set for pasteurized

milk. That's right; my raw milk is cleaner than pasteurized milk.

 

I'm not against testing of foods for safety. I'm not even against the

government doing that testing, because I sure don't trust industry to

do it. But it's a complete joke to protect me against the non-threat

of French goat cheese, and then turn around and actually prohibit

American ranchers from testing their meat cattle for mad cow disease,

because it might hurt the cattle industry. To cut budgets for

inspecting meat processing plants, but make laws against drinking raw

milk from certified dairies.

 

In The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures, Contented Cows, and Raw

Dairy Foods, Ron Schmid, ND, writes:

 

If the forces pushing compulsory pasteurization, food irradiation

and other treatments of farm products - milk, meats, fruits,

vegetables and grains - have their way, the end result will be a kind

of food fascism that insists on the sterilization of the entire food

supply - all in the name of consumer protection, of course - and every

farmer in the thrall of the corporate buyer, offering him a price that

cannot even cover his costs.

 

The San Francisco Chronicle's Janet Fletcher quoted Cathy Goldsmith of

the Cheese Board Collective as saying, " We used to get these little

French goat cheeses that tasted just like the field the goats were

grazing on, and we'll never see those again. I do support food safety,

but is there an issue of food safety? That's my question. "

 

Of course this isn't about food safety, and it's no mystery why the

" small government " Republicans are tightening up on the selling of

cheese made from raw cream. We aren't actually being protected from

ourselves, or even from unsafe food. American corporations are being

protected from having to compete with small dairies, niche food

producers, and French cheese importers. Because if there's one thing

the " small government " folks like, it's big business.