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Many American consumers – as many as a half million now – have long fought for the right to purchase raw milk. Demand for the controversial product is growing by leaps and bounds, with more and more dairies filling requests from consumers and grocery stores for raw milk products.
But as demand grows, so does resistance.
Recently, California state agriculture officials temporarily banned sales of raw cream from Fresno-based Organic Pastures after finding high bacteria levels. This action follows a controversial law that took effect on January 1, which spurred political battles over the requirement that raw milk had to meet the same safety standards as pasteurized milk.
The founder and owner of Organic Pastures, which is believed to be the largest raw milk dairy in the nation, has filed a lawsuit to overturn the law. He welcomes the temporary ban on his cream, because now he can cite economic damages resulting from the law (which have grown to a loss of $10,000 per week since the ban).
Raw milk is not pasteurized (heat-treated), and supporters assert that the beneficial properties otherwise destroyed through pasteurization (such as good bacteria and enzymes) help ease lactose intolerance, digestive disorders, and allergies, and can boost the immune system.
Before the new law, raw milk was tested for dangerous bacteria like salmonella, but not for other classes of bacteria.
Opponents still believe that unpasteurized milk is more likely to cause illness, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control cite 39 disease outbreaks that sickened more than 830 people between 1998 and 2005. In fact, Organic Pastures is facing a couple of its own lawsuits for illnesses linked to drinking its raw milk.
While the FDA advises against raw milk consumption and says there's no evidence that it can cure common ailments, such as allergies, a study sponsored by the European Union and published in 2007 found that children who consumed raw milk had lower incidences of asthma and allergies.
Anecdotal evidence alone has helped to catapult the demand for raw milk. There are 28 states in which raw milk can legally be sold, and, in Massachusetts alone, the number of raw milk dairies has gone from 12 to 23 in just two years. Only eight states allow raw milk to be sold in stores.
Sally Fallon of the Weston A. Price Foundation is a leading proponent of raw milk. She says that milk from cows fed on pastures is safer than milk coming from your typical conventional dairy operation, because pastured dairy has its own antimicrobial components that make it safer.
It appears, then, that like any food derived from an animal, the quality of your raw milk source is the most important factor in your product choice.
Sources: Mercury News and The Boston Globe
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