I have a food secret. I’m a kombucha addict. I drink probably half a 16-ounce bottle of the fermented tea every day. I love the energy I feel from it.
Why have I kept it secret? Because I’ve been afraid that if I say anything publicly, I might lose my kombucha. Call it post-traumatic raw milk disorder.
I drink GT Kombucha, the multi-green variety. I know you can make kombucha yourself, but spoiled foodie that I sometimes am, I prefer the convenience of buying it at Whole Foods, so I confess, I pay more than I should, sometimes as much as $3.49 a bottle. I’ve seen it at small health food stores for $4 a bottle.
I’ve been watching the kombucha, especially my favorite multi-green variety, fly off the shelves at Whole Foods for about three years now. It’s so popular, I try to keep at least three or four bottles in my fridge, to allow for the fact that I could go a week without finding any at Whole Foods, it’s that popular.
Of course, the journalist in me has wanted to write about kombucha’s exploding popularity (and sometimes exploding out of bottles—it’s a bear to open, and a mini-bomb if you drop it), but I’ve restrained myself. As much as I love my kombucha, I know that aside from the explosion problem, it’s a dangerous drink in other ways—dangerous as in a potential target of the food-safety police at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It has three important attributes they detest:
–It’s unpasteurized;
–It’s fermented;
–Its makers say it’s healthy.
Think about that combination of attributes. Even states that allow raw milk to be sold won’t, with the exception of California and a couple other places, allow unpasteurized yogurt and kefir. (Question: has raw yogurt or kefir ever been implicated in an illness? I’ve never seen it noted in data from the Centers for Disease Control; yet raw dairies in nearly every state are prohibited from selling it. But I digress.) And for a manufacturer to say its food is healthy is to risk the FDA charging you with selling an untested drug because, in their scheme of things, only “tested” drugs can make health claims. (It does require you to adjust your sense of logic.)
So why am I divulging my secret now? Because Alternet published an article (thanks to Don Wittlinger for the original link) seemingly exposing the health claims some kombucha makers are making, along with “the documented risks” potentially posed by the fermented tea—namely, two cases of illness among kombucha drinkers in 1995, in which one person died. I won’t bore you with the details, but you get the idea of what a crazy reach we’re talking about.
The Alternet piece is a sad attempt at a provocative article designed only to create controversy where none exists, and to bait the FDA food police who probably never heard of kombucha or, if they tried it, figured that because it was fizzy, it was probably made from Coca Cola and thus not a health problem.
I even wrote an angry comment on the Alternet article, joining more than 70 already there, many of which expressed similar feelings, namely, find something more important to spend your time on.
But I decided to write something here, not just to vent about the article, but because I realize I should be able to talk openly about my kombucha habit. I shouldn’t be afraid that the food police are going to deprive me of important food.
All of which brings me back to the world of raw milk (isn’t that where I always wind up?). The backing off by Wisconsin authorities on raw milk has come about because people are objecting to the actions of the food police. Same in South Dakota, Ohio, Michigan, Massachusetts.
We can argue about whether the government should or shouldn’t be licensing, or whether the Wisconsin working group on raw milk is serious or just a delaying action, but when you come down to it, all this protest is as much or more about education as it is about specific legal tactics. When 50 people show up at a Milk Board hearing in Missouri, or 150 people pack a court house in Viroqua, WI on a freezing weekday morning, or more than 100 people crowd into a hearing room in Framingham, MA, it sends a message not only that people demand their rights, but that nutritionally-dense food is important to our health. To the extent more people are educated, more people will understand that because the FDA’s hysteria about raw milk is baseless, other of their enforcement activities must be baseless, and they’ll seek out good food. The more people demand good food, the better it is for small farms, and the better it is for people’s health.
So I’m going to speak up about kombucha and raw milk, and any other serious food that may come into jeopardy from the food police (though I promise, there’s no “Kombucha Revolution” in my writing future).
And my suggestion is this: use all these regulatory and legal events—the new Wisconsin raw milk working group meetings, or Max Kane’s upcoming court hearings—as opportunities to spread the word, to educate. The battle for food rights is as much as a fight for legal rights as it is a propaganda war, and now the authorities are being forced to open up the airwaves to the other side.
I am FED up with BIG government and the FOOD police!
Still skeptical of DATCPs turnaround.
You can bet the FDA and others know all about Kombucha. There have been some adverse events associated with it at times, just as there have been with raw milk (and just about any other food). But, since there is no entrenched corporate lobby with monetary interest in it, it is free to "fly off the shelves" with the government’s blessing.
In fact, since I’ve been drinking these probiotic foods, the problems I used to have with food frequently going right through me after eating at restaurants has ended. I think restaurant foods are much more likely to be contaminated with bad microbes than most other food sources, but taking these probiotics regularly gives me protection against them. Perhaps our food safety fanatics should be more concerned about restaurant food.
Let’s have food freedom for all !
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1317428/
" The genome-probing microarray (GPM) was developed for quantitative, high-throughput monitoring of community dynamics in lactic acid bacteria (LAB) fermentation through the deposit of 149 microbial genomes as probes on a glass slide. Compared to oligonucleotide microarrays, the specificity of GPM was remarkably increased to a species-specific level. GPM possesses about 10- to 100-fold higher sensitivity (2.5 ng of genomic DNA) than the currently used 50-mer oligonucleotide microarrays. ….. In order to assess the applicability of GPMs, LAB community dynamics were monitored during the fermentation of kimchi, a traditional Korean food. In this work, approximately 100 diverse LAB species could be quantitatively analyzed as actively involved in kimchi fermentation."
"Although there are several methods to characterize the contribution of LAB to human health and the dairy industry, no appropriate tool has been developed yet for the estimation of the comprehensive, quantitative dynamics of microbial populations during fermentation processes. In this work, diverse LAB communities (more than 100 species) could be observed to be actively involved in the fermentation of kimchi and its ripening during storage. Several Weissella species were the most dominant microflora in kimchi fermented at 4C. This is a very distinctive observation considering that other LAB fermentation products such as artisanal cheeses (Lactobacillus) (38), malt whisky (Leuconostoc and Lactococcus) (52), Mexican maize dough (Streptococcus) (3), Italian sausages (Lactobacillus) (11), raw milk products (Lactococcus lactis) (32), and traditional sour cassava starch (Bifidobacterium, Lactococcus, Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and Lactobacillus) (1) have not been reported to be associated with the genus Weissella. GPM profiles of kimchi samples evolved significantly after 7 to 9 days of fermentation, showing that some Streptococcus and Lactobacillus species disappeared after the decrease in pH. No known molecular tools are available that can provide this kind of global picture of fermentation processes in a short time."
Unexplained Severe Illness Possibly Associated with Consumption of Kombucha Tea — Iowa, 1995
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00039742.htm
David – I don’t think FDA or others care if this drink is described as "healthy." The problem is when a seller starts claiming it "cures" medical conditions like cancer, ulcers, flu, autism…
Sometimes I think these unsubstantiated health claims should be dealt with through personal responsibility vs. spending regulatory time getting companies to remove the labels. Suckers have been born every minute for ages, and there’s a snake oil salesman waiting for them around every corner. Buyer beware on the health claims, IMHO.
What makes a product healthful?
Multiple choice:
A. It does no harm
B. It improves some aspect of physiology
C. It provides relief from the symptoms of illness
D. It cures illness
E. Some combination of the above
Think about this. Is relativity a factor? Perhaps the healthfulness of a product ought to be described as the degree to which it meets all of the above. Should a product be disqualified because it could cause harm to all who consume it, or even to certain individuals? Is harm to the environment (caused by the product itself or by production methods) a factor? Where does water fit in, or iodine, or echinacea, or corn syrup, or cinnamon, or refined white flour, or raw milk, or pasteurized milk?
Food labeling is, IMO, far more complex than we think. And complexity, as always, is a haven for scoundrels.
http://www.marlerblog.com/2010/01/articles/lawyer-oped/tweet-me-at-bmarler-the-amount-of-your-donation-to-the-red-cross-for-haiti-i-will-match-up-to-10000/
http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=9520&title=Tarpley_Wall_St_Monstrous_Orgy_Of_Greed
As the numbers grow, it can only be successful.
"Buyer beware on the health claims, "
Indeed, beware the side effects of many drugs; statins-instead of changing lifestyles/nutrition, just pop a pill and see what happens to your liver: Got a fever? How about some tylenol? aspirin? The warnings on the bottles of maximum doses aren’t read by consumers, they still have toxic livers from tylenol, ulcers from aspirin… drug recalls.
Dave M. Has excellent questions and points. Will they be answered? Ignored? or responded to like a politician (given a nonanswer/lie)?
http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/81901927.html
"U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials say they are powerless to regulate BPA, although they have declared the chemical to be a safety concern for fetuses, babies and young children."
tptb are unable to regulate a known poison? Must be too much money involved. kombucha is most assuredly small pennies and probably safe David G.
sorry, i should have posted this earlier when david announced that datcp has formed a raw milk group working group.
it appears that most of the proposed members are either government anti-raw milk officials or are large scale agribusiness practitioners.
we can hope, however, that there will be a sincere and honest effort to do it right, as was done in michigan.
But you should try kefir "soda." http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2009/09/how-to-make-homemade-kefir-soda-pop-why-make-kefir-soda-pop-and-how-does-it-taste.html
It’s even more health-supporting and ever so much yummier! (Even my kids and Mountain Dew addicted hubby will drink it!)
I always say that Kombucha is a way to celebrate life but raw milk is life itself.
After we started producing our Bucha we soon had our first FDA DHS inspection. It was very interesting. They tried to approach Kombucha the same way that they approach practically everything else…..that is everything must be sterile or super clean.
We were able to make some friends by starting the entire visit and safety review by making a case that Kombucha was safe because it was not sterile and that sterile was the friend of bad bugs….we explained that Bucha was a living food and contained bacteria and could not be sterile. It would die.
The FDA went away and has not returned. The young FDA guys were completely unprepared to deal with probiotics and living food. After their education about the human immune system and showing them their own NIH DHS probiotics website…they just went quiet and became old friends. It seems to me that the FDA has poorly prepared their inspectors to deal with artisanal and farmstead producers of food. So this task becomes ours. We must take charge of their education. We even explained to them how Bucha and raw milk where very much related in so many ways.
Education is the key….it helps when the education does not have to overturn 150 years of moneyed raw milk dogma. Kombucha does not have the dogma or stigma associated with it.
Yet…Bucha is very much like fermented raw milk Kefir. Bucha is however becoming more and more mainstream and seriuos money is being made on it. We will see how money corrupts it and changes its relationship with the FDA.
Mark
For those that don’t make their own kefir lacto fermented veggies or kombucha tea you don’t know what you are missing. Its all really easy and you know whats in it nothing beats HOMEMADE!!!
I agree….
Every kitchen should have a Bucha batch brewing and also a batch of Raw Milk Kefir fermenting away.
There is nothing like starting your day with a Kefir smoothie ( banana’s, fruiit, raw egg, honey and lots of wow!! ).
These are the elements of the health wisdom of the ages.
Lykke,
What if raw milk cured asthma….how can we ever get the FDA to authorize it as a treatment. It takes years of study at their approved labs costing millions. Not to mention the corruption.
How do we ever get to a point where we can suggest that raw milk is a cure for anything. Please give me an insight into your perspective. Foods are not patentable so raising funds to go through this process is near impossible.
Mark
After years of taking multiple choice tests, I’ll take a stab at your choices.
Multiple choice:
A. It does no harm
B. It improves some aspect of physiology
C. It provides relief from the symptoms of illness
D. It cures illness
E. Some combination of the above
Answer: should probably be a narrative question not MC, or include the placebo effect, which is not trivial. Sometimes changing food habits results in a positive effect that has nothing to do with the food itself, but the motivation factor (and something spiritual – even the feeling of doing something "good" like buying from someone who cares about the way their animals are raised, or how their food is produced – the human factor can be healing even though the food is just food). Do you get where I’m going?
On the labeling, agree it is very complicated. For example, I could care less if something is GMO. I don’t think that is any different than the extensive natural Mendelian breeding we’ve done since leaving the caves. There is nothing "natural" about our current crops, GMO or not. The new technologies are an extension of what we as a species have been doing since we could.
Mark,
You are the King of Marketing.
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/
KNICK KNACK PADDYWHACK…………………
As to the recent kerfuffle with BPA, the FDA has reversed the assertion that it is harmless, but has stopped short of banning it. Now the taxpayers have to spend 30 million USD on "targeted" studies to demonstrate the obvious – BPA is an endocrine disruptor- while the food industry scrambles to find another way to package their noxious products. In this way the "regulators" provide cover to industry while turning a blind to the real environmental and health damages caused by this substance.
Are these the mug shots of America’s food poisoners and their beasts and the petri dish in which they do their dirty work?
The small farmers get shut down while big ag. continues to produce the SAD. But so what as someone said food is just food and lets not care about GMOs and all the other monsters placed on America’s table. Hey the allopaths can patch us up can’t they?
Again I ask please forgive my sarcasm.
I agree with Don that you flunked the test. Of course placebo effects are, as you say, not trivial, but they are also not relevant in this context (except as far as they offer an opportunity to take a cheap swipe at foods effects on health). But the real ringer in your response is about GMOs.
The GMO story is one worthy of a Hollywood thriller, complete with government-business collusion, FDA incompetence, ruined whistle-blowers, wild ignorance and twisting of science, and full exercising of the theory that money makes right. Much of the story would have been hidden from us except for freedom-of-information requests by investigative reporters, and concerned scientists willing to risk their careers to expose corporate and government lies.
On the topic of GMOs, read Seeds Of Deception, by Jeffrey Smith (which itself is as well-reasoned and documented as a good research article) before you make up your mind.
And Lykke, I would dearly like to hear an explanation of how the insertion of animal DNA into plants is consistent with Mendelian "breeding" genetics.
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/pusztai.html
A good rule of thumb: If a company balks at providing labeling information about a process or ingredient, then it absolutely should be labeled.
As an added query to Daves post I would also like to know how the insertion of antibiotic resistant marker (ARM) genes into virtually all genetically engineered plants and microbes is consistent with Mendelian "breeding" genetics.
When glyphosate (Roundup) was licensed and introduced a number of years ago it was touted by agricultural officials and the industry as being biodegradable and not harmful. My gut instinct at that time was to reject the above claim on the basis that if this chemical had the ability to exhibit such a wide spectrum of toxicity, how could it but not be harmful to humans and the environment as well as animals. Past experience in the industry has taught me to be leery of such extravagant claims.
As a result of the above claim and the introduction of Roundup Ready (RR) crops, glyphosate is on the rise and is probably one of the most widely used herbicides in the industry, despite the mounting evidence that it is harmful.
According to an ISIS (Institute of Science in Society) article http://www.i-sis.org.uk;
Glyphosate application is linked to sudden crop death
Roundup resistant superweeds have emerged
Glyphosate is linked to cancers, neuro-defects, spontaneous abortions and is toxic to human placental cells at concentrations below agricultural use.
Roundup is lethal to most species of frogs earthworms and soil bacteria.
Glyphosate application is further linked to acrylamide release from the polyacrylamide added to commercial herbicide mixtures to reduce spray drift.
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Strohman-Safe-Food.htm
Ken Conrad
Some researchers warn that ARM genes could unexpectedly recombine with disease-causing bacteria or microbes in the environment or in the guts of animals or people who eat GE food, contributing to the growing public health danger of antibiotic resistance. New strains of infections such as salmonella, e-coli, campylobacter, etc. would be able to resist traditional antibiotics. Studies from the University of Illinois and University of Newcastle have identified the ability of DNA transfer from GE foods to microbes in the gut. The WHO has issued warnings and the British Medical Association has called for a ban on using antibiotic marker genes.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMMINA.php
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BtCottonKillsSoilandFarmers.php
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BanGMprobiotics.php
Ken Conrad
What other euphemisms have we heard from the FDA?
Labeling irradiated, cloned, rGBH-containing or GMO products is burdensome and onerous to the industries involved and therefore can’t even be considered. We are expected to believe that these products are safe, because the FDA is there to protect us. This is simply a given despite the lack of any long-term trials and mounting evidence to the contrary. That consumers may not want to purchase these products is said to be unscientific and prejudicial behavior. Heaven forbid though, if we leave the stipulation that "raw milk might not be appropriate for infants" off the label.
Quite a breathtaking double standard.
I agree with Shana: "A good rule of thumb: If a company balks at providing labeling information about a process or ingredient, then it absolutely should be labeled."
Economics 101: information is key to consumers. If you have to omit information about your product in order to sell it, you have a crappy product.
The problem was that focusing attention on inserting and expressing a single gene and looking for a single desired result (or even multiple desired results) prejudiced the unintentional interpretation of results. Inintened results are made far worse now with the widespread exposure of all of us to GMOs further compounded by vested interests controlling the flow of data. All assumed to be benign-but without supporting data. There is a profound arrogance (and stupidity) in this sort of technological optimism that masks the ability to critically evaluate potential outcomes, further complicated by vested interests that campaign to avoid evaluating critical questions as to long term effects on all of us and future generations. Arrogance is the opiate that dulls the pain of stupidity.
To not allow us to choose-via labeling-is indeed a crime, and it is arrogance to assume that we lack the intelligence to choose or consumers would be confused This aint just like classical genetics and just the transfer of naked DNA between organisms, this is a huge experiment, and we should have the freedom to opt out.
Now more than ever the public has access to information. Even a cursory internet search will reveal problems associated with drinking raw milk (even if you cant bother to read the warning on the label). People can also learn about studies associating HFCS and trans-fats with diabetes and obesity. They can find out about human studies associating bisphenols with poor genetalia development in male children. They can and will find out about all sorts of things, unless those things are purposely hidden from them. People are curious and smart. They protect themselves from harm by relying on recent and reliable information. In the case of raw milk, kombucha and fermented foods there also exists an ongoing and time-honored record of human use akin to, albeit a non-controlled, long-term clinical trial. Hence, we do not need protection to determine whether or not to consume these products.
It is true that there are too few food inspectors on the ground, however. Unfortunately thats precisely where we do need protection against unscrupulous, greedy, and/or negligent behavior. Thats why its so tragic to see Salmonella-tainted peanut butter remain on the market for years in juxtaposition with a callow sting operation against a small dairy. In the same way, it is abominable to allow companies to conceal information about how their product is produced or what it may contain because the current industry line and it is absolutely a self-serving line says the information is irrelevant. Not to us! Were the ones the FDA is supposed to serve. If we want assurances that a product is Mad Cow- or rBGH-free, we deserve to have that assurance. It matters to us, because bottom line the FDA has been wrong way too many times before. It hasnt kept us safe – even when there was ample evidence to allow it to perform this duty.
I am not simply FDA-bashing. Ive known quite a few people who work for the FDA, and they are good scientists and good people. They are trying to do a good job with too little support from the top. That is where profound change is needed.
If the industry line becomes a regulatory mantra, perspective is lost, and the truth along with it. We dont need protection from our choices. People still work in coal mines, adventurers go hang gliding, novices go mushroom hunting. Although these are all dangerous, nothing has been done to regulate these activities away to keep us safe.
So Lykke, dont delude yourself about keeping us safe by regulating raw milk it, too, is a personal choice. The real reason for the regulation of raw milk is because it poses a threat to an established and entrenched industry period.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100118/ts_nm/us_beef_recall_usa
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/health/article_212278877.shtml
http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/recalls/index.html
I do agree that there is a need to watch carefully for the environmental impacts of GMOs. For example, it seems unwise to allow GMO lines to spread and become the only source of seeds (or animals). There have been risks with natural breeding relating to monoculture and single genetic lines too. Today, almost all commericial poultry are from a narrow genetic pool. There are some dedicated people who maintain heritage lines, but these animals (or plants) could be wiped out with one disease epidemic…I once saw an entire flock of heritage chickens that existed no where else in the world destroyed after a foreign animal disease came into the US and spread uncontrolled for months before USDA got a handle on it through quarantines, etc. All those birds were lost.
All that said, I think the major divide here is that my interpretation of the "health effect" data is polar oppositive from most here. I see theoretical fears of GMOs, as well as irradiation and just about any other "scary" new technology expressed on this and other foodie blogs. Yet, the links to actual illnesses from these technologies are weak at best. As such, it is confusing to me why the videos of people becoming ill from foodborne pathogens are dismissed as, "so what." These illnesses are real in my interpretation, and preventable. Raw milk isn’t the only risky food, but it is high on the list (about 1% of the population drinks raw milk, but 50% of milkborne outbreak in the US are from raw milk). Also, I can think of NO other food where someone can try it for the very first time ever in their life, and end up permanently disabled like most of the recent severe raw milk-related illnesses. That scares me more than anything I’ve seen about GMO’s.
Guess we will just keep shaking our heads at each other not understanding how we can look at the same data and come to such wildly different conclusions about risk. I have no problem with the idea of labeling foods with everything from GMO to organic to country of origin to pathogen risk to whatever consumers want to know.
Any "food" or drug can cause a reaction, peanuts, vaccinations, contamination,etc, They all can kill or maim. Just recently in, I think Va. A dancer is maimed from the H1N1 shot, she’ll never dance again and will be lucky if she obtains some semblance of normal walking, perhaps with a walker or braces. Peanuts can leave you with asthmatic symptoms for life, end stage COPD is an awful way to die. Have all those who were affected by the spinach, green onions, tomatoes, peppers, beef, chicken, etc recovered? How about the ones who died. Just think,those who ate at Gag-in-the-bag (Jack) in 1993 where maimed or killed, just one bite of the grease burger was all it took.
Fools are in control…the minority gets richer….and the human race withers….and some of us can just shake our heads while it happens (and others are driven to take action to stop the deterioration)
Anecdotes are common to both TPTB and to raw milk advocates. The only difference is that lawyers and government agencies, when they look at an individual case, are to be believed, while "anecdotes" from individual humans somehow don’t measure up.
I don’t say "Oh, well" when someone gets seriously ill. On the other hand, a story about impressive positive effects from consuming raw milk, such as we have read many times in this blog, gets an emphatic and explicit "Oh, well" from TPTB, including yourself.
This is blatantly a double standard. Call it like it is. Anecdotes are anecdotes; yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice. That choice is what it’s all about.
The difference in my mind is prevention. You bet this is about food safety. Like it or not, they are driving the bus (agribusiness is along for the ride and scared). With regard to raw milk, agribusiness cares only about 2 things: liability and loss of consumer confidence due to outbreaks. The MI group can present all the benefits they want, but it won’t mitigate the food safety risk. When raw milk dairies have coliform counts in the millions, and refuse to address the problem…not good. Perhaps change will happen when raw milk dairies embrace risk reduction and accept food safety as part of their culture (something the beef industry still can’t do and keeps getting in trouble for it)? At the same time there is a mentality that raw milk is incapable of doing this, and a desire among regulators to give up because y’all are just a bunch of crazy anti-government people not concerned about consumer safety. Wrong too? Wisconsin could be an interesting test case because both sides are pure.
I am curious about whether you correlate our modern epidemics of diabetes and heart disease and cancer (a very incomplete list) with our food supply. And if you do, how does that not figure into the safety equation? Is it safe to eat processed, dead, unnatural foods?
What continually stuns me about our regulatory soldiers is their apparent unwillingness to deal with a stinking dead moose in the living room while they happily and aggressively sweep up a few mouse turds in the basement.
Could it be that the distance between consumers and these illnesses allows the lie of processed food safety to be told without being caught?
My professional organization recently sent a survey to its members. In it was a question about our perception of the biggest problems in our clinics. The multiple choice answers included lifestyle diseases like heart disease and obesity. I thought, lifestyle diseases? That’s what we call them? Can that really be what we are telling all those sick people? That it’s their own fault that they’re sick even though agribusiness and government (including regulators) have teamed up to fix the game and create for them a diet comprised almost entirely of processed junk and told them it’s good for them, and better yet, cheaper than what their grandparents ate, and that the foods their grandparents ate are potentially deadly? (Two generations now have known nothing else!)
FREEDOM IS XXX RATED
FOR RESPONSIBLE ADULTS ONLY
Adults no longer need to be spoon fed by their mothers [the state].
Warn us of the dangers of our actions if you like but in the end it is our choise and we shall all reap what we sow.
The raw milk "industry’ as you call it is not even a pimple on the back side of an elephant compared to all the other dangers we face in our nation today. The GOOD NEWS is there are many "outbreaks" of TRUTH happening nationwide. Perhaps we yet may not fall into the dust bin of historty!!!
We have MedWatch and VAERS to report adverse reactions to drugs and vaccines, respectively. Where is the mechanism for reporting adverse reactions to GMOs? How would you even know you were consuming GMOs since labeling isn’t required? How long do you think these products have been around, anyway? Where’s your long-term safety data?
Actually, Lykke, agribusiness owns the bus company and makes sure the bus only goes where they want it to.
A few years ago a US beef producer wanted to test their cattle for BSE so they could export to the lucrative Japanese market. USDA refused to let them test for this disease on the grounds it might make consumers believe that untested beef might somehow be unsafe. It seems to me that the public-safely point of view would be to at least allow, if not mandate, that BSE be tested for, since this disease in humans is always fatal, following a horrible period of the brain physically deteriorating in a sponge-like manner, and if it were in the food supply it would certainly be a good thing to know.
Also, the GMO non-labeling decision logic, as I recall, was similar: consumers might believe that GMO foods are harmful and so they would not sell as well or at the same price as non-GMO foods. Well, the public-health position would be to, at the very least, require labeling so consumers could make their own choices and so that, as Kirsten pointed out, data could be tracked on the long-term effects on health.
"[R]aw milk dairies [don’t] embrace risk reduction and accept food safety as part of their culture (something the beef industry still can’t do and keeps getting in trouble for it)."
Well, from what I see, the raw dairy farmers get shut down as the first sign of trouble, but the beef processing plants get to continue to crank out ground beef after having to recall literally hundreds of thousands of pounds of potentially contaminated product. Steve correctly points out these systemic double-standards.
Take a refreshing break a watch a 3 minute video of the gorgeous clean pastured beasts that are at the heart of our present discussion.
It is unconscionable that:
substances containing ingredients apropos of laboratory projects are ubiquitously and thoughtlessly considered food.
soil is considered a mere growing medium.
a perceived need to sustain and grow big-business is the primary driver of our grocery store food choices.
a you-can-have-it-now social ethos has blinded us to our responsibilities to those who are not yet alive.
to be viable in our marketplace foods must often tolerate transport over hundreds or even thousands of miles.
age-old, traditional, unprocessed foods are often viewed with suspicion while modern, processed foods are considered normal.
the once common art of preparing meals from unprocessed meats and vegetables is now the realm of cooking experts and the elderly.
our taste for bitter has been supplanted by a virtual addiction to sweet.
corporate logos and government certifications have supplanted indigenous knowledge and local trust.
whey separating from old-fashioned yogurt is thought to be gross.
agribusiness need for product homogeneity has induced a general distaste for, and distrust of, foods with even mildly unfamiliar tastes and textures.
human nutrition is most often calculated as relative proportions of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, and crop nutrition as NPK ratios.
Americas most visible indigenous foods are Coke and McDonalds hamburgers.
fermentation as a method of preserving food is as uncommon as chemical preservatives are common.
a hay bale on a winter morning looks like a Frosted Mini-wheat, rather than the other way around.
Lumping foreign gene expression technologies and the need for attendant control experimentation to confirm a valid safety issue in the same category as a Luddite’s irrational fear of novel technology is irresponsible. I’ve spent my career in molecular biology, I’ve cloned and expressed foreign genes and am now looking at the paucity of data regarding safety issue and the GMO’s and, as a scientist–not a foodie- I am concerned.
when you say "When raw milk dairies have coliform counts in the millions, and refuse to address the problem…not good." which dairies are you talking about? do you have any personal knowledge that this is the case or are you just blowing smoke?
as you may know, mark mcafee and ron garthwaite in california are limited to 10 coliforms in each milliliter of milk that is sampled. i believe they are still in business, even with this stringent standard. other states impose either a 25 coliform or a 50 coliform limit, and the raw milk dairies in those states are also still in business.
also, are you aware that a coliform is not a pathogen? and that there is no correlation between the presence of a pathogen and the presence of a coliform?
so who/what are you referring to?
Absolutely, and we work on that too. The "solutions" are all over the board. You should hear the meetings – everything from more breast feeding to more sidewalks to less fast food restaurants…everyone throwing up a post it note trying to figure it out. My "pet" idea is more community gardens and home ec classes in schools (ride the "food network" craze by getting kids involved with home cooking and the foods they eat).
I can accept what you say, and support your "pet idea" of real home ec classes (including ideas like Alice Waters’ "Edible Schoolyard) and more community gardens. But think paradigmatically for a minute. Why must our solutions always take the form of more programs? The problem is, of course, systemic–bad food from a bad, industrial system–so why not work systemically and break up the monopolies? If we do that, real solutions will simply appear, and they will appear in the way they ought to–emanating from real people with internal motivations, exercising their freedoms. Alas, in the government mind, EVERYTHING must come from Central Control.
Perhaps we have been indoctrinated to believe that our industrial food agri-giants are too big to fail, like auto manufactureres, and big banks, and airlines. Certainly the political classes believe as much. But that attitude does not help the regular Joe in the street or in the farm field.