Got controversy? Raw milk will ensure you do

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Got controversy? Raw milk will ensure you do

State shuts down two mini-farmers

By Dan Sorenson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Shelby Brawley's got raw milk, but the state of Arizona says neither you nor any of the growing number of fans of straight-from-the cow dairy products can have any.
Brawley is one of two Northwest Side mini-farmers recently shut down by the state for distributing raw - meaning unpasteurized - milk not produced in a facility meeting Arizona's Grade A dairy standards.
The state says you can drink milk straight from your own cow. To sell raw milk you must have a Grade A dairy certificate.
Brawley says she's doing the former. The state says she's in violation of the latter.
Over the last year she's sold shares of her big-eyed, bony Jersey dairy cow, Buttercup, to about 20 Tucson-area residents who drink her raw milk.
Brawley calls this a "condo cow" arrangement: All 20 shareholders are owners. Arizona and several other states don't recognize the arrangement as ownership.
Standing outside a pen of cavorting goats with Buttercup at her Picture Rocks farm, Brawley explains her plight. She says the Arizona Department of Agriculture slapped her with a cease-and-desist order in mid-December telling her she can no longer distribute Buttercup's milk to her other owners, unless she gets a state Grade A dairy certification.
That's put her in a bind, and Brawley says she doesn't know what to do.
She can't afford the Grade A certification; she said certification would require construction of a new building and many thousands of dollars in special equipment just to milk one cow.
Nor can she afford a lawyer to fight the state order. Quitting isn't a cheap option, either - she owes Buttercup's other owners a share of the output from their cow. She says they each paid $50 for their cow share and pay $40 a month to cover room and board, vet bills and labor costs in return for about four gallons of milk a month.
But if she doesn't quit distributing raw milk, says Katie Decker, a spokeswoman for the department, the case will be turned over to a department attorney.
Raw milk demand
Brawley and Danni Ackerman, another Northwest Side mini-farmer under state order who quit distributing her goats' milk two months ago, were feeling the demand generated by two movements advocating consumption of raw milk.
The first and largest is made up of followers of various "raw food" diets and lifestyles. They promote consuming foods with as little treatment as possible - from uncooked, unprocessed and organically grown fruits and vegetables to non-pasteurized dairy products made from the milk of cows and goats that have not been treated with antibiotics or production-enhancing hormones.
Raw-food diets appear to be an extension of the health-food and organic-foods movements that blossomed in the 1960s, but demographically they sometimes also appeal to physical-fitness enthusiasts.
The other main group advocating consumption of raw milk comes to it from a religious perspective. "The Maker's Diet," which says the Bible instructs followers to eat unprocessed foods, has been gaining followers in the last few years.
Judi Dawn, the co-owner of Creme de la Moo, a fledgling bottling and distribution business for raw milk from an organic dairy-cow herd in Queen Creek, said demand from both groups was sufficient for her to go commercial. She expects to begin distributing raw milk commercially at several Phoenix and Tucson-area locations within the month.
She says she's had inquiries about providing raw milk and raw-milk products from "close to 500 households across the state, and beyond. I average two to three contacts a day.
"I would say there are a few, a number, of things that inspire it. 'The Maker's Diet' is certainly one. More and more nutritional diets advocate" raw-milk consumption. "There's a growing constituency on the Primal Diet. I'm on it. You eat everything raw."
Dawn says she used to collapse after extended periods of stress and sought relief from several traditional and nontraditional treatments. Since she started following Aadjonus Vonderplanitz's Primal Diet, Dawn says her condition has dramatically improved.
She worked at setting up a cow-sharing operation for several months last year before deciding to try a commercial bottling operation. She said investors came forward, unsolicited, to back a commercial operation.
Many of those most interested in the operation are people seeking raw milk and related products they say will help them battle diseases, including arthritis, severe allergies and cancer.
And there are others who just drink it because they think it's good for them.
Chad Poulsen, a Brawley cow-share member for six months, says he's not using raw milk to treat illness. He says it just makes him feel better. He regularly mixes up protein drinks using raw milk and eggs he gets from Brawley, adding cherry or blueberry concentrate, bananas and nutmeg or cinnamon.
"I kid you not, it tastes better than egg nog," says Poulsen.
He says he quit consuming milk products as a youth because his severe allergies seemed to improve when he quit. He started getting raw- milk products from a big certified California firm early in 2004 but found out about Brawley six months ago, bought a Buttercup share and says he's been saving money. He says he'll have to go back to paying $19 shipping for each order of raw milk from the California dairy if Brawley shuts down.
Regulators concerned
But Dawn, Brawley and Ackerman are also feeling the effects of another national movement, this one by federal and state regulators concerned that consumption of raw milk can be extremely unhealthy. Although the federal government prohibits the transportation of raw-milk products for sale to consumers across state lines, it is also concerned that many states still allow the sale of raw milk.
After a 2002 salmonella outbreak traced to raw milk, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a statement saying much about the government's attitude toward raw milk: "Because 27 states still allow the sale of raw milk, and organizations continue their efforts to allow marketing and sale of raw milk to the public directly from the farm, consumer education about the hazards of raw milk and a careful review of existing policies are needed," according to the CDC Web site.
Listeria, in particular, is a concern since it frequently causes pregnant women to spontaneously abort. The FDA reports there were five stillbirths, three premature deliveries and two infected newborns among 10 women who were infected with Listeria traced to Mexican-style white cheese made from raw milk during a 2001 North Carolina outbreak.
Decker, of the Arizona Department of Agriculture, said the concern is that raw milk can carry tuberculosis, salmonella, listeria and other diseases. She says pasteurization - heat treatment - kills those germs, and regular inspection of Grade A-certified dairies and their herds assures that diseases won't be spread by the milk produced there.
Raw-milk advocates say disease outbreaks are rare and can be prevented by proper handling of milk. They say pasteurization kills much of the nutritional value of milk.
When asked how Brawley's operation came to the department's attention, Decker first said there was a complaint from someone who got sick from milk obtained from Brawley's Horns 'n' Hoofs Farm. But when pressed for details, Decker said there were no allegations of illness. She said there had been a call from a Brawley cow-share owner who said he or she was concerned about the sterility of the containers used by Brawley. She declined to release the name of the person who contacted the department.
Brawley said she was unaware of any complaints by her cow-share owners regarding sterility of use of recycled containers. Brawley, a part-time paramedic and full-time farmer, milks Buttercup twice a day. A couple of times a week she loads up milk in gallon containers and delivers it to Buttercup's share owners.
Brawley says she doesn't have any "customers," that she's just doing what is being done many places in the country to get raw milk to people who want it.
But the Grade A certificate is not a guarantee that milk will not be contaminated. The CDC reported that in 2001, 70 people who drank unpasteurized milk from a Wisconsin Grade A organic dairy with a cow-share program contracted Campylobacter jejuni, a bacterial infection that often causes diarrhea, abdominal cramping, fever and nausea.
"I don't even drink milk"
Brawley said selling raw milk was never her idea. "I don't even drink milk," she says. But, like Dawn, she was approached for raw milk regularly after people found out that she had goats and a cow.
Brawley says some of her customers have severe diseases, including cancer and cerebral palsy, and say consuming raw milk has helped them.
Like Brawley, Ackerman says she never saw raw milk and animal sharing as a big moneymaker. In Ackerman's case, it was a way to subsidize maintaining her herd of breeding and show goats. She sold about 20 goat shares for $20 a share per month, giving each share owner four gallons of goat's milk.
"We make cheese," says Ackerman. "We drink the milk. But each goat produces one to two gallons a day. There's only so much milk you can use yourself in the house."
Ackerman says she "dried her goats up" in late November and quit distributing any raw milk weeks before Department of Agriculture agents showed up to close her operation down.
She and Brawley are the only Southern Arizona sources for raw milk listed on www.realmilk.com, a Web site dedicated to the virtues of consuming raw milk. The site says raw milk cures many diseases and carries a reprint of a 1929 article from "Certified Milk Magazine" in which a doctor lauds the results of a "milk cure" - with daily doses of up to 10 quarts of raw milk and enemas given to bed-rest patients. The doctor says consumption of raw milk is effective in curing "tuberculosis, diseases of the nervous system, cardiovascular and renal conditions, hypertension, and in patients who are underweight, run-down …"
Whatever the reason, Brawley and Ackerman say many people want their product and the demand won't go away.
"I think eventually somebody's going to fight this in court and get to the bottom of it," says Ackerman.

http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/northwest/56498.php

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What is needed for Grade A certification?

The State of Arizona's Grade A certificate requires at least two annual inspections of the dairy and milking facility, tests of the animals to assure they are free of brucellosis and tuberculosis, and tests of the milk for undesirable bacteria and contamination.

Source: Arizona Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Raw-milk benefits

Many raw-milk advocates say that by not processing milk it retains more nutritional value, including vitamins and desirable bacteria either killed or removed by pasteurization and homogenization. And some advocates say raw milk and raw-milk byproducts have healing properties. Most also say it tastes better than processed milk.

Raw milk dangers from organisms:

● Listeria
● Campylobacter
● Tuberculosis
● Salmonella
● Escherichia
● Yersinia
● Brucella