Also this week for Food.Farmer.Earth:
- A Small Scale Integrated Livestock Farmer
- How to Make Homemade Butter from Farm Fresh Milk
- The Raw Milk Debate: Thorny Issues of Food Safety, Food Rights, and Public Health (text post)
Mike Guebert, a local small scale integrated livestock farmer who sells raw milk from his farm direct to the public, shares his perspective on the safety and benefits of raw unpasteurized milk. According to a recent survey from the Center For Disease Control, there are an estimated 9 million people in the U.S. who consume raw milk. To gain a sense of how polarized an issue raw milk is in this country, the following quotes, and information below paint two very different realities.
Raw milk can carry harmful bacteria and other germs that can make you very sick or kill you. While it is possible to get foodborne illnesses from many different foods, raw milk is one of the riskiest of all.
Claims that raw milk is unsafe are based on 40-year-old science and century-old experiences from distillery dairy “factory farms” in rapidly urbanizing nineteenth century America.
Deaths from Food Born Illnesses in the U.S. and Canada since 1999
from the Harvard Food Law Society Debate on Raw Milk video- (an excerpt from a portion of journalist David Gumpert’s Presentation):
- Cantaloupe: 32 (2011-2012)
- Spinach: 5 (2006)
- Luncheon Meat: 14 (Canada,2008; 2011)
- Peanut Butter: 9 (2009)
- Eggs: 30 per year
- Oysters: 15 per year
- Pasteurized Milk: 3 (Massachusetts, 2007)
- Raw Milk: 0 (over roughly the last 15 years)
Harvard Food Law Society sponsors debate on raw milk: (full length video)