WHY DOES THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE WHAT I INGEST MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I'M BREAKING THE LAW?
I feel like such an outlaw!
The lengths that the government will go to sometimes is amazing. In the photo above, you can see that I have both some imported Kerrygold butter and some Raw Milk. Because I live in Arkansas, I am permitted to have such things…
In Wisconsin, though, it would be a different story…
RAW MILK
Technically, the retail sale of Raw Milk is currently illegal in both states, but they do allow for other sale of Raw Milk. In Arkansas, it can be “sold directly from farms producing up to 500 gallons per month, with labelling and state inspection.” Wisconsin “allows incidental sales to consumer at farm where produced,” but WI St 97.24 requires that “milk sold to consumers be Grade A” and requires that “Grade A products be effectively pasteurized.”
Having lived in both states in recent years, I can testify that Raw Milk is Wisconsin is often accompanied with a lot of fear, and I may have only been able to taste it a time or two there. I know that we were looking for a supplier while we still lived up there, but time and time again, the best that we could find was being offered to come over for a drink, but not allowed to leave with any or purchase any.
Effectively, it is basically illegal up there and I cannot verify the “incidental sales to consumer at farm where produced.”
Here is Arkansas though, we have multiple sources for Raw Milk nearby where we live, and although we plan on getting a dairy goat soon -thanks @smailer and @exploretraveler-, we don’t need to buy the cow just to get the milk! You gotta love that non-homogenized milk with the real cream at the top!
Though some claim that homogenization is one of the worse things that you can do to milk, sadly, across the US, SWAT Teams have even resorted to raiding farms from Pennsylvania to California in search of that precious Raw Milk. I understand the potential health risks, but, then again doesn’t every pill on the market that doctors freely offer patients have potential health risks as well?
Also, when you take into consideration the claims of the Weston A. Price Foundation (www.realmilk.com) it almost appears like some sort of conspiracy is afoot. Personally, I think that being allowed to choose whether or not to drink raw milk should be the choice of the people, and not the government.
KERRYGOLD BUTTER
Since butter sold in Wisconsin must be graded for taste, texture and color, Kerrygold butter has been made illegal in Wisconsin. Many people are starting to understand the benefits of having products from grass-fed, pasture raised cows over the more common big-business agriculture methods, and that has led to a recent rise in interest of such products as Kerrygold Butter, which comes from Ireland.
Thankfully, there is at least one lawsuit filed against this law in Wisconsin right now. Like in many other states, we are free to purchase it here in Arkansas, and many citizens of Wisconsin even travel to neighboring states to buy it.
To those who again consider the potential health benefits of having access to grass-fed, pasture raised cows being the source of such butter, it seems strange that the government would take such interest in preventing its citizens from enjoying this wonderful imported butter.
Most likely the dairy industry and its lobbyists in Wisconsin are partially behind these regulations, but that’s just my speculation.
PAPA’S THOUGHTS
It may indeed be a sad day and age when people are being prevented from having access to such food. For us, the benefits of eating less refined and more natural foods is a key component of a healthy life. For all of the wonderful steps forward mankind may have made when it comes to understanding heath and diet, we sure seem to be a bunch of overweight, disease-ridden folks some days, and, most likely, this will only get worse.
We try to “live like our lives depend on it,” and that certainly includes what we put inside our bodies. I just find it strange that after being forbidden to indulge in such things for so long, I almost feel like a guilty outlaw for exercising my freedom now. I’m sure that will wear off, but it goes to show how much control we have really allowed the government to have, and that often money is put ahead of people, which is why we have lobbyists in the first place, right, to make sure that happens?
Anyway, these photos were taken in Arkansas, there is no need to arrest or SWAT Team me!
As always, I’m @papa-pepper and here’s the proof:
proof-of-legal-raw-milk-and-kerrygold-butter
STEEMIT LIKE YOU MEAN IT!
We're going to make an anarcho-capitalist (voluntarist) out of you yet, papa!
Might even end up seeing you at Anarchapulco next year :-)
Great post and info @papa-pepper! Weston A. Price did some amazing "real world" research!
http://www.frot.co.nz/design/wapf/
Indeed he did! Thanks!
What? You're doing something that hasn't been regulated entirely into oblivion? If it ain't criminal yet, give us time.
When my husband and I tried to open a deli in the Adirondacks we had the purest spring water. It tested cleaner than regulated bottled water. CLEANER! But NYS requires chlorine in your water if you want to be open for food service. We refused. Even showed them our water tests. It didn't matter and we were shut down. How's that for sad, pathetic, backwards thinking?
Pathetic and backward yes. Also, they have an agenda, this wasn't by accident.
Of course there's an agenda! When they limit food production and tax farmers out of their farms they begin to control the price of food to line their pockets. Being a necessary staple to LIFE doesn't matter to them.
This is why my husband and I are looking for land with very few (if any) restrictions. We've seriously been looking at Nevada.
Nice to have so many awake people here on Steemit!
Pasteurization kills all the enzymes that help your body break down milk.
Without pasteurization, milk is a perfect food. When pasteurized, it is a dead food that causes lots of problems. Lactose intolerance became a common thing after pasteurization and enough time passed that people never had real milk in their guts.
Homogenization seals off all of the good milk fats into tiny bubbles that your body cannot easily get at, so they mostly pass through your body without any of its wonderful nutrition getting to your body.
Milk is actually very safe. The body has defenses from diseases, and the mammaries have even more defenses to make sure no bad things get passed to the child. So, the cow has to be very sick for you to get sick from milk. However, when you have a ton of cows in a small area (as many industrial farms) and you feed them a bad diet (like corn and antibiotics) and you don't personally go out and look to the health of each cow, well then, just pasteurize it to make sure nothing living gets through.
Healthy animal = healthy milk!
Unless they get into the sour grass. Then it is sour healthy milk. ^_^
I used to tell my kids to look for brown cows 'cause that's where chocolate milk comes from. Just passing down the crap my parents told me. LOL
My dog can tolerate small amounts of raw milk.
On the farms I grew up on For rain water we had 6-1000 gal galvanised tanks on stands usually around the back of the house for looks sake. The corrugated galvanised roofing iron poured the rainwater into a gutter that lead around the house. At the nearest point to the tank the water was piped over to the storage tank .
The take off for the house water was about a foot from the bottom. there were siveses at the intake to keep the leaves and birds out, but any dust settled on the tank floor. hence the dead section for the dirt to settle. The house water was pumped up into the roof/attic area controlled by a float in a header tank. this feed the hot water cylinder, and the taps. Early in our time in Bulls we had been using this system for a couple of years with a concreete tank. We had town suply for the loo and the gardeden, and if ever we ran out of rain warter, We would normally get a dose of trots when we used town water but were very healty on rain water,
I grew up on two cream farms. The cows were machine milked, the milk was put through a hand turned [my job] cream separator and taken to the butter factory daily. On the first farm the factory was just down the road, so the cream can [20 gallons] was put on the back seat of the car and driven to the factory, pick up yesterdays can and return. It was interesting to watch the grader, he put a stick into the cream, tasyted the cream, spat the product out on the floor and declared whether it was AA, A- B, etc , no machines just a tounge that contriolled the amount you got paid on, and The second farm had a pickup system, but it cost money and my father wasn't that happy with the idea.
The skim milk was sent down the hill to the pigs. Our milk couldn't get any rawer, straight from the teat, warm, and tasty.
Excellent! Sounds amazing!
Just think if there was a real free trade agreement, you could be drinking raw milk from NZ and eating our butter too.
They tried bringing in factory farming of dairy cows a little while ago here and there was an uproar nation wide. We like our cows out in the paddocks where they belong, eating good green grass.
I've been drinking raw milk for years. My parents grew up on the stuff. I eat real butter too (when the wife lets me).
There was a review of the laws a little while ago around raw milk and the overwhelming response from the public was to keep the sales of raw milk legal.
So it is very legal to sell raw milk here. it must be labeled with a batch number so it can be traced, but that's about the only real change that was made. (our supplier has yet to label his milk, interestingly)
I also find it astonishing to read about the level of control placed upon people living in America. There is so much talk about 'freedoms' but you can't even get real milk and butter?
That's really unfair.
So good on you @papa-pepper for finding the good stuff for your @little-peppers. They will grow up healthy and strong because of it.
I think we get it from the same cow, but the "legality" is a big can of worms
http://www.frot.co.nz/design/real-milk/milk-alt-energy/
We do our best!
On our organic care-farm in the Netherlands, we all daily drink coffee with raw milk, and I drink 5 liters raw milk a week. You cannot buy raw milk here but there is nothing better than that. In the past, raw milk was related to tuberculosis. Nice post Papi :-)
I couldn't agree more! Raw milk and unpasturized juices are prohibited here in Oregon as well since the whole Odwalla scare in the 1990s. One can still buy raw milk directly from a farm though. The enzymes and nutritional value are destroyed with pasturization and if you are buying fresh and local products pasturization is absolutely not necessary!! The whole Kerrygold and Wisconsin thing is economical and political and from what I've read it has nothing to do with the butter quality or any other claims the Dairy Association is making.