Can The People save Claravale Dairy as it teeters on the edge of insolvency?
After weeks of silence, Claravale Dairy, one of two substantial producers of raw milk for retail sale in California (Organic Pastures is the other), is reaching out to its large community of supporters by launching a crowd-funding campaign that it says is its only hope to avoid bankruptcy. Here is how Collette Cassidy describes the raw dairys precarious situation on the crowdfunding site:
We are at the nexus of two bad things: a recall, which is a part of doing business in the food industry and which we could handle in the course of things, and an unrelated and predatory legal action consisting of a $500,000 law suit which, in conjunction with the recall, we cannot handle. While we are about to come back on line and start selling again, we have been down for 7 weeks with a near total loss of income during that time.
Theres good news and bad news on the campaign. Initial signs are positive: in three days, its raised more than $5,5000 from more than 30 donors. The bad news is that Claravale has more than $594,000 to go as it seeks to raise the huge sum of $600,000.
While Claravales problems with campylobacter, which led to the dairys shutdown for the last seven weeks, have been widely publicized, Cassidy says that is a manageable problem compared with a legal challenge it faces from lawyers representing two former employees who were managers. Cassidy says the dairy is about ready to resume production, but even at full production from its 60 cows and 150 goats, it cant afford to settle long-standing legal actions by two former employees. It actually credits the California Department of Food and Agriculture with being supportive. In a statement on the dairys web site, Claravale says, The CDFA has been very helpful during this process and will do what they can to get us up and running as soon as possible.
The labor legal challenges are considerable, Cassidy states, based on complex state regulations around how employees are classified, as employees or managers. Here is how Cassidy describes it: Our problem is that predatory lawyers have succeeded in turning our thriving, vibrant business into a pile of garbage. Predatory lawyers, using the pretense of the California labor laws, have filed fraudulent and baseless claims against us in the amount of $500,000, an amount we cannot come anywhere near paying. Not even close, never. We are faced with a number of bad choices. We can try to settle for some lesser amount, we can go into bankruptcy and hope to survive it, or we can liquidate the business. We are trying to settle for some lesser amount but any course of action will generate, from our perspective, large and entirely unmanageable legal fees. None of these options are good, and all of them cost more money than we have, particularly in light of not having any income for the past 7 weeks. The recall we can survive, the lawyers we cant.
The labor legal problems must be pretty serious, because Cassidy doesnt even mention an additional legal problem that has cropped up in recent weeks: a lawsuit filed by product liability lawyer Bill Marler on behalf of an individual allegedly sickened by campylobacter in Claravale milk. Marler indicates he is seeking medical expenses for the individual, who was hospitalized for three days.
Inexplicably, Claravale waited practically until the vultures were circling before seeking public backing from its longstanding community of supporterssupporters served by the dairy since 1927. Claravale has been silent about this campylobacter outbreak practically since it was shut down by the California Department of Food and Agriculture two months ago. It remained silent when the media said, without official confirmation, that six people were made seriously ill by its milk. It was similarly silent when it was shut down three years ago, also in connection with campylobacter illnesses. It was only ten days ago that Claravale finally issued a public statement on its web site, saying we have been reluctant to say anything until we had it all figured out and resolved so as not to give out misinformation.
Im sorry, thats not the way to handle a food safety (and financial-legal crisis). Their bland explanation aside, its not clear why owners Collette Cassidy and Ron Garthwaite refused to communicate with their customers and supporters. The two were actively involved in trying to roll back the CDFAs 2008 effort to enforce a 10-coliform minimum on raw milk producers (which was implemented). But they dropped out of a joint suit with Organic Pastures against the state, and after that, the two seemed to pull back from public engagement of any sort. Years ago, Garthwaite had feuded with Mark McAfee of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. over OPDCs marketing tactics when it entered the raw milk marketplace in 2001 (detailed in my book, The Raw Milk Revolution).
The refusal of the Claravale owners to reach out has certainly not helped their efforts to stay afloat. Lots of people have wanted to provide support, but the two refused to return calls or otherwise share information. My guess is that lots of people will support the crowd-funding effort in spite of the dairys go-it-alone persona. Its just a strange way to do business in this day and age, when farmers of all sorts are interacting ever more with their customers.
It is painful to watch. The most pain is yet to come. After being sued by Marler, insurance companies will refuse to reissue a policy. They will need to find another carrier and prove to the new carrier that they have a management team and a very intensive plan to prevent further issues or claims. There are very few insurance carriers that cover raw milk for retail. When our friends at Family Cow were met with the challenge of renewal ( after campy several years go ) the insurance company relied on RAWMI RAMP, the confidence of Penn State researchers, the team and transparency of the management and test data before a new policy was issued. This is not an uncommon story. Post recall and especially post recall with illnesses ….insurance is the silent but deadly non government regulator!
I support Claravale as an All American brand…established in 1927, Mr. Pete was a household name in the Santa Clara area for decades.
I am very sad about this turn of events. OPDC and RAWMI are here to help…but we do not go where we are not invited or wanted. I wish Ron and Collette the very best as they work through this.
Near cow feed producers and access for delivery
Near advanced lab testing facilities
Near labor sources
Near distribution routes so trucks can pick up and deliver
Easy to visit so consumers can come say hi!
Our subject raw milk dairy is located at a place that has none of these things. It is remote.
It is clearly now very remote in every sense of the definition.
I intend every word to be considered very friendly observation and perhaps advice that can help for the future to avoid another crisis.
That’s a lot of people drinking raw milk and only one got ill? What is wrong with that person that they got sick?
Is there a possibility that the 2 unhappy employees contaminated the milk deliberately? Some things just make you wonder.
Every business person does business the way they see fit. Claravale has been doing just fine until recently, with this last time making me wonder at others agendas. I’d still drink their milk and recommend it to others.
http://claravalefarm.com/wheres_the_milk.html
But #2 I agree! How I wish we had better access to these services! (But, I don’t really want to live in California’s Central Valley either. I’m kind of attached to my mountains.)
According to The Raw Milk Revolution, Ron and Collette acquired Claravale in 1997.
Now is not the time to second-guess their motives. They have asked for financial assistance so I think it would be best if we simply focused on that for the time being.
If I were their customer I would have ignored the recall and continued to drink the milk.
Another group infiltrated by the police without suspicion of any criminal activity was the Chicago Peace Council. An informer became a treasurer of the group and participated in its decision-making process. Police also spied on the group during a weekend camp conference by taking photographs and collaborating with a local reporter who then published a false story that the activists had engaged in a secret revolutionary planning session. The Court also found that the Chicago Police had a policy to neutralize other peaceful and legal activist groups including the Spanish Action Committee of Chicago, the Citizens Action Program, and the National Lawyers Guild…”
taken from: http://cldc.org/2012/01/09/aeta-an-attack-on-your-first-amendment-rights/
Suzanna, my assessment is based more on overall frustration with Claravale’s communication style than whether or not Collette and Ron spoke with me. Until they posted their April 15 letter explaining their current desperation, Collette and Ron hadn’t posted anything on their web site since 2010. That’s a long time between communications. They’ve had two illness outbreaks and, likely more significant financially, a legal shakedown that threatens to bankrupt them. My frustration stems from the fact that there are likely people out there who could help them on the legal shakedown part of the problem. But no one seems to have known about it. I have since provided them with a suggestion for beginning to counter the problem. I’m just one person. When you’re being shaken down, you have to reach out. Otherwise, you are easy fodder for the bullies.
Gee 7 people had poop samples out of @ 6000 drinkers. What is wrong with their guts to get sick? David, I don’t recall reading if those who had the poop were all in the same area or scattered around the state?
Be my guess.
Sorry this is just too weird and there are still way too many unanswered questions. Seven out of 6,000 – boy, the numbers have to get a lot higher than that with other products, as a rule, before anyone sues anyone else, especially with food products. This is not seven deaths, it’s seven people with the scoots and what? Some vomiting? There could have been any number of sources. Vomiting, the hershey squirts and a few other minor symptoms are pretty common for myriad illnesses. It’s such a gray area.
Those who are intent on vilifying raw milk are narrowly focused on one thing alone and they will do whatever it takes in order to achieve that objective, even if it means grasping at straws and reinforcing their position with absurd and distorted facts that defy practical reason.
I find it unfortunate (and unnecessary) that several regulars to your blog will post long tracts of opportunistic blather speculating about what may or may not have gone awry with another person’s operation. As far as I’m concerned, only the folks immediately involved with a particular business operation have any qualifications to talk about that business. Let’s stick to facts.
Ron and Collette have my full confidence (and financial support). When they determined they needed help, they asked for it. I find it disappointing that they are criticized for waiting to ask for help until they had gathered the facts and assessed the situation.
Why would they have to be near feed producers if the cattle are grass fed? Unless by “feed” you’re talking about hay or alfalfa for “winter” rations, even in CA.
And in a State a populated at CA, wouldn’t a dairy using pastured cows NEED to be in a rather remote & isolated area? I mean, you can’t exactly raise milkers in the middle of LA . . . just sayin’
I was thinking the same thing when I was reading what they posted on their crowdfunding site. Sounds awfully suspicious to me, and this current article wasn’t even up yet. I’m just now getting around to commenting about it. Maybe someone is trying to make an example of them because the raw milk movement has gained a lot of traction lately. Sure, they can take out the small producers, but a lot of people will come to their rescue pretty quickly, whereas, something like Claravale being as large as it is, makes it a lot harder to recover from the damage.
Shifting gears here, what I find truly egregious is the easy money earned by Marler and other food safety litigation hawks. All he has to do is fly arround like a vulture looking for any signs of a recall…invite those with diarrhea to give him a free call..write a letter to an insurance company and shazzam…get a check. That is an outrage. Fear of juries and the uncertain vagaries of litigation makes insurance companies want to settle. What a scam.
That is the America that we all have created. That is not the EU, where there are literally no liability lawsuits. It is simply not done. But in America, it fuels our culture. Blame, fear, poor nutrition, weak immune systems, get rich quick schemes, and lack of personal responsibility are at the core of this rampant out if control system.
I do agree that Cow Shares with local support do not need many of the things I listed. However…cows do not exist on grass only. Imported feed of some sort is a real reality. They must receive some additional feed. It is a food safety issue and it is a four season nutritional issue. Cows simply need more than a pasture can provide if the producer intends to have a cow with good body condition, reasonable production…and reduced physiologic stress. A skinny cow is a cow in trouble. A cow that sheds pathogens. I do agree that there are some breeds of cows that do better on just grass….but this is rare. Even the grass fed only Organic Valley producers….feed tons of molasses to their grass fed only cows. There is no faking it or cheating. Nature requires an energy balance for lactating cows. Pastures do not provide enough energy for most breeds of cows. Even in New Zealand, grass fed cows are grazed on heavily fertilized pastures…fertilizer from Chile. Yes..Chilean nitrates are heavily applied to get the growth to support the pastures.
No cheating nature. Energy is energy. Grass fed milk cows that get some grain in the barn ( they are starving for it ) are not grass fed cows. Lets be fair and honest.
By the way…it does not take a conspiracy to figure this out. The regulations are stacked against raw milk and campy testing. 98% of all chicken has campy, yet it is legal to sell. One campy bug in raw milk and you are shut down !! Why didn’t 5994 consumers of Claravale raw milk not get sick? Simple answer: the consumers immunity, the fact that campy dies off quickly under most conditions, it dies off with low ph ( stomach ). Americans have very serious gut problems with poor stomach ph. Anti acid treatments invite campy. Raw milk is a blessing…but also a mismatch for the immune depressed that yearn for better immunity…hence the warning labels. Hence…game on for raw milk producers that really must take this challenge to a higher level if we intend to survive.
All very old history…
There is no question in my mind that the establishment is engaged in a campaign as Tomm suggests, to neutralize raw milk, and what not a better way then to engage in an irrational fear campaign based on a so-called pathogens such as campylobacter in order to achieve that objective.
They are using the exact same tactic with respect to vaccine regulations. Are tptb plotting to do things that are harmful and violate human rights??? You can bet your life on it.
I’m glad to see this blog having a positive effect on Claravale….just since this post went up last evening, the crowd-funding campaign has increased from #5,400 to $6,800. As word spreads, the campaign should continue to grow.
Plotting No…by structural mission yes. The opposition truly believes that raw milk is dangerous and should be eliminated. Is this a conspiracy…no it is not. It is a firmly held belief and no secret. It is their structure and solemn goal.
This is is a war between two well defined sides.There is no conspiracy as to the motives or beliefs of either side. What there is is this: ignorance of knowledge, Ignorance of the human genome and how our bodies and germs work. How health and immunity is built. Thats what we have hear.
Conspiracies are created in secret meetings that design a method to do something. There is nothing secret here. The opposition is open and quite public about their objective to obliterate, suppress and malign raw milk. This is based on their ignorance of risk, ignorance of data, ignorance of immunity and steadfast belief in 100 year old dogma. It is also based on paychecks and support of antiquated systems that modern dairy systems depend upon. If CAFOs were so great….then why has CA lost 50 of them last year, and why did Wiscinsin lose 570 of them in 2014? Kind of like GMOs. It they were so great…why wouldn’t Monsanto and Syngenta want labels bragging about them?
It was interesting to see Marler write that Campy is simply feces in milk. While this may or may not be correct, because campy can be found in zero coliform raw milk and can come from mastitis and not manure….what is truly disgusting is that raw milk for humans is clean….and milk that us pasteurized contains massive amounts of feces in it….it is dead fecal matter but none the less….tons of fecal matter. Pasteurization does not clean anything!!… it just renders living shit dead ( most of the time anyway…Blue Bell ice cream etc )
No wonder that processed milk is dying in the market, and is so allergenic and tastes so bad. Massive loads of dead shit can not be good by any measure or for any purpose.
taken from: https://indyreader.org/content/unanswered-questions-remain-about-widespread-police-spying--john-duda?nopaging=1
Claravale would do well , along with many other real milk dairies, to join with the many groups that have worked with civil liberties lawyers, to try to find out how many of their customers and employees are in fact covert government agents.
Once again, for those of you whose world view is based on watching CNN and Leave it to Beaver reruns, I suggest you come out of the fogbank and start looking at the overwhelming evidence for Big Brother’s invasion into every facet of our lives, to serve the Big Money Gangster interests that control it behind the scenes. I was going to post more last night on them getting caught using dirty tricks to sabotage movements that threaten this Big Money, but came upon all this info on suppressed documents regarding the torture chambers these horrible people have been caught using… it’s beyond human comprehension how the monsters in the secret government really operate.
I’m a bit confused about the Claravale litigation. Under California law, is it possible for the 2 ‘managers’ to be held personally liable under the Marler suit v/v the claim by the person with campylobacter illness? (That the contamination occurred under their ‘watch’ kindathing). Here, I’m pretty sure managers can potentially be held personally responsible for employee health and safety infractions (in addition to the company). Thanks.
John
Sure theyre upfront about their intent how they go about achieving it is another story. To suggest that they do not plot their actions in private is laughable. I have been around long enough to know otherwise. I have actively negotiated with politicians, bureaucrats and industry representatives and I can assure you they have their in camera meetings for a reason. They only divulge information that they deem necessary in order to give the impression that they are being transparent; its called paying lip service.
Cheap food policies are a typical example and the main reason for the erosion of the small family farm including those 50 CAFOs you claim California lost.
The truth isn’t worth a thing if there’s money to be made in lies, I guess.
The bottom line to what ails agriculture and results in unsustainable unhealthy food Cheap food policies.
One CNN viewer is our friend Mark Mcafee, who said in a comment to the David’s last article:
“I heard the doctors that oppose Oz being interviewed today on CNN…”
Mark, btw, is also one of the biggest promoters of the government’s fictional disease model, which claims that raw milk is dangerous and needs to be tested for meaningless microbes like campylobacter (which actually are found everywhere including in the bodies of healthy people…) He’s doing a great job scaring people away from the ancient super food, raw milk, and making it that much easier with his blather for juries to be convinced to rule against small farmers that have done nothing wrong. To him, a fine dairy like Claravale being shut down for 7 weeks and sued by three people including two employees, all at the same time, is another amazing random event.
To once again quote from evidence from the soil scientist Miguel, and other sources, campylobacter infection is typically the result of a screwed up digestive tract, caused by mineral deficiencies, toxic substances such as antibiotics, pesticides, and a maladapted internal terrain due to sanitized living. And it’s easily treated with a couples pennies worth of clay I might add.
Health giving food such as untested raw milk, rich in microbes, actually helps prevent such infections, by keeping our bodies mineral rich and integrated with the microbes that live in our world. Campylobacter is found everywhere. You can run but you can’t hide. Stop running from Nature and learn to embrace it. The time tested way to good health is to eat goods whole foods, and refrain from putting poisons in your body.
There are real threats to our health at every turn today. Did I mention my cousin just died at 52 from being “treated” at a hospital, where he developed C Diff infection? Even the establishment is claiming over 400,000 infections and 15,000 deaths a year in the US from this now, and due to antibiotic use. But do they shut down the hospitals that are killing all these people? Nope. Business is Good! Yippeeee! Let’s keep trusting in Big Brother and attacking small farmers that provide real health giving food. Yippeeee! When’s that next Leave It To Beaver show?
Super über yuck!!
If conditions were so bad, why didn’t they leave within the first year? By staying, that is accepting things as they are. If they felt things were wrong, did they speak to the owners? Doubtful.
I’m still leaning towards nefarious goings on with the milk. Coincidences like this are highly unlikely IMHO.
https://jenis.com/recall/
The FDA did not do this test….it was a state department of agriculture just picking up a random pasteurized product for testing. Wow…Listeria!!
This reminds me of when I attended the 2008 NCIMS conference in Florida. When a processor suggested that perhaps it might be smart to start routine testing of post pasteurized dairy products the FDA staffer said this….” lord, no, we might find something and then what would we do”.
When the FDA has their heads this far in the sand ( or other place )….this is what you get.
The settled science of pasteurization is becoming very unsettled. LISTERIA appears to now be a serious post pasteurization menace and denial does not appear to work anymore. Dr. Nicole Martins Cornell university predictions appear to be gaining some statistical credibility. Listeria has found its way around the five log kill step. Pretty impressive bacterial accomplishment.
That is why it is so critical to have a close knit, well trained, well compensated and trustworthy team.
Ex employees that see red and want blood will ruin a company in so many ways.
Kind of like spite and an ex-wife…no holds are barred. At least that is what I have heard. Kind of like a get rich quick scheme. Pissed off employees could give a damn. So essential to keep employees happy and follow the law like your life depends on it…cause it does.
Hmmmm. Makes one wonder also about some of the recalls of past months/years. We’ll probably never know the truth.
Yep, any time you have employees, you need an iron-clad contract and a series of disclaimers. CYA.
I would guess that Claravale thought they had this.
Has anyone done a background check on the disgruntled employees? On the customers alleged to have gotten the runs? On the raw milk bashers Marler and Mary Martin McGonigle? How about the bizzare Foundation Farm episode in Oregon. Has anyone checked out the background of Jilly B, or the farmer? What about the bizarre Kentucky incident that involved John Moody’s farmer, where four people claimed to get HUS, and it was all coming from one hospital? Has anyone checked these people out? Was the doctor that signed off on these four cases checked out? Was he newer to that hospital? Don’t forget that crazed story in Food Safety News, “Why I Will Never Give My Child Raw Milk Again”, written by one of the mothers. Look at the hypercritical comments that swamp it, chastising someone for having the nerve to feed their child real food. But now the mother has supposedly seen the light. Do those comments look real to you?
The events at Claravale all happening at once tell me this is most likely yet another government sting operation. I smell a best selling book waiting to be born, by an investigator with the skills to take on this case:
RAW MILK REDEMPTION
How One Savvy Detective Foiled The Government’s Dirty Trick Campaign to Discredit Raw Milk
For so many years, the CDC has done the dairy industry a huge favor by simply assigning all bacteria issues with dairy products to raw milk…because certainly pasteurization always works. That paradigm has shifted. The standards used to make raw milk for humans vs….raw milk for the pasteurizer are dramatically different. The FDA, CDC and big dairy can no longer get away with blaming raw milk…now they must blame the standards that are permitted in the cafo system. This devil is of their own making.
Also if you read the lawsuit paperwork you would know that the one person suing had a bit more involved than Hershey squirts and vomiting. You’re a bit naïve on what a more serious foodborne illness entails.
The typical health care practitioner is well intentioned, but does not control his education, the medical journals, the AMA, etc. For a glimpse into the level of power that does control these things, and a glimpse into how much they care about you (they fund all sides in war, for example), a good intro, although watered down, is the youtube video that’s got over a million views, about 55 minutes, punch in Rothschilds puppetmasters trillionaire family, and you should find it.
You can buy any kind of slop you want in the modern supermarket, foods with hydrogenated oils that harden your arteries, pesticide laden fruits and vegetables that aren’t even marked as such, whole aisles dedicated to refined sugars, that strip mineral out of your body, meats from factory farms where animals are doped with hormones steroids and antibiotics, what does that do to your body chemistry, most of the packaged food has gmos in it, and isn’t even marked, and filled with all kinds of chemicals some marked some not, over at the friendly pharmacy you can buy all the toxic pharmaceutical drugs you want… but you can’t even buy real milk? Why not? Again, the biggest reason is because all these toxic foods and dope generate mega billions for the Sickness Industry. Healthy food is a threat to this Industry. It really aint complicated.
Also, I’m only citing CNN, and not combining the rest of the mainstream idiots. I’ve heard plenty of times that they have such a low viewership, it’s a wonder they are still on the air.
As for the “government’s fictional disease model”, try telling that to the rest of the population. They’ve been dumbed down/numbed down (the reason why Mark watches CNN–to see what everyone reacts to) for such a long time, no one knows who to believe any more. They’ve been conditioned this way far too long. Think about all the foods that at one time, was said to be ‘bad’ for us. Those same idiots then said, “Well, guess what? This isn’t so bad for you after all”. Eggs, coffee, coconut oil, dairy products, fat, meat, and the list goes on. Once upon a time they were really bad, now, eh, not so much. I quit listening to these food Nazis years ago. I noticed the hypocrisy, and wanted no part of it.
As for me drinking my milk raw, I can’t say I’ve *never* done it, I just don’t do so on a regular basis–it’s pretty sporadic, and most of the time, it ends up in my coffee. It’s one of those things I’m still trying to come to grips with. I guess the reason I struggle with it is, I am a dairy farmer, so I see what goes on with my own herd, and as careful as I am, I do occasionally find things I don’t want to see.
Yes, I’m naive. My DH is a microbiologist, amongst other things, so I don’t know a thing. You just keep believing that naive thing, Mary.
I once did a 6 month contract at a large doctors office, in a large city, close to half the patients were on some form of psych drug: city officials, cops, teachers, social workers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, the list is long. Not only are the adults and kids doped up, the kids are indoctrinated from a very young age. The kids, just as the adults are all dumbed down. It has been that way since before I was a little kid.
You are a kook if you can think for yourself and heaven forbid should you buck the system.
If you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.
But if you really are “trying to come to grips” with raw milk, try to come to grips with how is it that the Hunzas, Pathans, Sikhs, Armenians, Georgians, and other raw milk drinking cultures lived into their hundreds in good health, and never once, as far as I know, used RAWMI testing procedures. Read the chapter in Price’s Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, about the raw milk drinking Swiss village, that not only had no dentist but no doctor, because they didn’t need one.
I drank tons of milk as a kid, as did my brothers and sisters. And our teeth rotted. Milk is not meant to be cooked. That’s exactly why the government forces pasteurization on us. It creates dead food that fills you up but you don’t absorb it properly. That’s why osteoporosis gets worse the more pasteurized milk you drink, but is healed with raw milk. Try to come to grips with cancer, diabetes, ms, and all the other epidemic diseases today that are caused by severe mineral deficiency and screwed up digestive tracts…
They’ve known about the listeria in Blue bell for at least 5 years and allowed people to become infected with it.
http://www.cdc.gov/listeria/outbreaks/index.html
My uncle, over in Ireland, he also occasionally drinks the raw milk from his cows, as in every day. He’s 88. Are real dairy farmers afraid to drink real milk? If you really are engaged in unsafe farming practices as you suggest (Gordon mentioned the case of farmers letting cows drink out of drainage ditches with water filled with pesticides), maybe you have chosen the wrong profession, if that really is your profession. And if you’re someone who’s afraid of cow manure, I’d say you definitely have chosen the wrong career.
A dairy farmer who’s afraid of milk. Who knew?
We had to drive 25-35 miles in order to see either a doctor or a dentist. At that time, the world had never ever heard of PT, OT, psychiatry, pediatrics or any of the other somewhat useless “specialties” we see today and I can tell you we were better off for it. They aren’t even necessary. We tried not to CREATE problems that didn’t exist. Most things then were handled by the small town country-type doctor who was a GP and knew a little bit of everything, not to mention he knew us all by name, knew where we lived and how we lived. Medicine went wrong for the people when it grew into these over-hyped specialty fields – – where the money is, you see. The trouble is it’s a double whammy. It costs soooo much to go to medical school nowadays, that money HAS to be the main goal, but those guys set themselves up for that; the people didn’t. Medicine isn’t about health these days, it’s about profit, but young people are going broke trying to become a part of the broken system. Why is beyond me. Who would WANT to be a part of that scheme . . .
You must not read everything I post. You should also know I had over eight years in retail meat, so what you are suggesting in regards to microbes, bacteria, etc., would not fly with the health department, nor the customers. I already sent the test results of my milk samples to Mark because I wanted to know if it would pass raw milk standards, at least in his state–it is not legal to sell in mine.
You’ve commented about people falling for the notion of having milk tested, but I think maybe YOU should try to convince the rest of the population. If Mark went around saying, “Hey, it’s just a little bit of e coli, or campylobacter, what are you afraid of?”, do you think he’d still be in business? I hardly think so.
As for you not believing I’m a real person, why don’t you ask Mark or David that question. I have had email exchanges with both of them, and I would even be willing to share photos, or make a personal video just for them, and that includes you.
If I’m afraid of cow manure, then I’d be in serious trouble, considering there has been plenty of times I was covered in it!!! Well, I’m off to milk my cows, and may or may not step in some manure while I’m at it.
I grew up consuming tons of pasteurized milk as did my siblings. As far as I know, we are all ok. My dad grew up drinking raw milk as they worked on a dairy, and that milk went to a pasteurizing place. Their milk cow was separate from the rest of the herd. They did not own the cows, only cared for and milked them, twice a day, 50 head.
As a kid, I was only exposed to raw milk at my dads parents and that was rare as they lived in Okla and we in Ca. I am very picky about where my food comes from and that includes raw milk.
(Reaching back to Sun, 02/20/2011 – 18:01)
A Tale of Two Milks
By Stanley A. Fishman, Author of Tender Grassfed Meat
Raw milk, which I prefer to call real milk, is very controversial today. This is a story of two kinds of milk: the swill milk made from distillery garbage that caused death; and the real milk from grassfed cows, that gave life. These two milks had a tremendous impact in the life of my grandfather, who became the first member of his family to be a dairy farmer.
My Grandfather
My grandfather, Abraham Fishman, was the most competent man I ever met. It seemed he could do anything: from painting a house; to fixing a car; to prospering during the Great Depression; to starting business after business that was always successful; to teaching himself how to speak English without an accent (though he had emigrated from Russia when he was 14, and never went to school).
Grandfather was also the most intimidating man I ever met. As a child, I was terrified of him. He never yelled, and never was violent. He was a small man, whose growth had been stunted by a lack of food in his childhood. But there was a grim intensity about him that everybody noticed. Nobody ever messed with grandfather. He never smiled; I dont think he knew how. But there was a reason for the grimness. Grandfather was the oldest of eleven children born in Russia. He had watched each one of his ten brothers and sisters die in Russia. None of them reached the age of five.
Why the Children Died
When he was a child, my father asked Grandfather why the children died. Grandfather answered with two words; Bad milk.
My grandfather was born in a small town near Odessa, in Tsarist Russia. His family was very poor, and there were many times when there was not enough to eat. His father pickled all kinds of vegetables and sold them to people who were almost as poor as he was. There was a vodka distillery nearby. It made vodka from grain. The garbage left over from making the vodka was used to feed cattle at a nearby dairy. That dairy sold the cheapest milk available, the only milk grandfathers family could afford. My great-grandparents did not know why their children got sick and died; their life was a constant struggle to find food for their family. There was nobody to tell them that unpasteurized swill milk was deadly for children.
It was a bad time to be a Jew in Russia. There were huge problems: food shortages; unrest; strikes; times were bad for everyone. The government blamed the Jews for all the problems. This led to pogroms, riots in which many Jews were killed. One day there was a pogrom in Grandfathers hometown. My great-grandfather was chased by a mob howling for his blood. He turned a corner and was hidden under a stack of hay in a wagon by two of his Christian friends just like in a movie. The mob could not find him, and he lived. But that was enough, he sold everything he had and scraped up enough money to immigrate to Canada.
Grandfather Becomes a Farmer
Grandfather was 14 when they reached Canada. They lived in a small town near Winnipeg, Manitoba. Grandfather did not go to school, but taught himself to speak English by watching Vaudeville shows and listening to people talk. He had no accent. He also learned to read and write English. He spent a lot of time at the library, reading and studying. After a couple of years, his mother became pregnant. Grandfather went to work for a local dairy farmer. By the time his sister was born, Grandfather had his own small dairy farm.
Grandfathers Rules for Safe Milk
When I was ten, Grandfather told me about his dairy farm. He got up at 3:00 am each morning to milk the cows, using a lantern as it was dark. Once the cows were milked, he loaded the milk bottles into a big icebox in his truck, and drove the milk to each of his customers. The milk had to be on their doorstep before breakfast. People drank the milk the same day it came out of the cow. People would leave the empty bottles on their doorstep with payment so grandfather could pick them up as he delivered the days milk. When Grandfather got back, he would take the cows to pasture. Later he would bring them back to the barn, go to bed as early as he could, and get up at 3:00 am the next morning. Grandfather did this every day, seven days a week.
I had learned about pasteurization in school, and I asked Grandfather when the milk got pasteurized. He looked at me and said: That would ruin the milk. I asked him if the milk was safe. Grandfather stared at me with his grim face and said: Nobody ever got sick from my milk. Milk is safe if you follow the rules. Grandfather then explained the rules for safe milk.
The first rule was: Never use milk from a sick cow. I asked Grandfather how he knew if a cow was sick. He said that you had to know each cow, and if you knew the cow, you could tell if it was sick.
The second rule was: Never let anything dirty get into the milk. Grandfather always examined what he called the milking area before he started milking. If there was any dirt anywhere, he cleaned it before milking.
The third rule was: Keep everything clean. Grandfather always boiled the milking pails and bottles before he put any milk in them.
The fourth rule was: Keep it cold. Grandfather would keep the milk in the icebox of his truck until it was delivered to his customers.
The fifth rule was: Keep the cows on the pasture so they could eat the living grass and plants. During the winter, when it was too cold to graze, Grandfather would feed them hay. Grandfather said eating the grass that the Almighty intended them to eat kept the cows healthy.
The Blessings of Good Milk
My Grandfather had three sisters born in Canada. Each of them grew up strong and healthy on Grandfathers milk.
When his last sister was 5, Grandfather sold his dairy farm, and moved on. He started a number of businesses, every one of which was successful. He even prospered during the Great Depression. He became wealthy, and retired at age 40. But money was not everything. He told my father that the best time of his life was when he had the dairy, and was getting up at 3:00 each morning to milk the cows. My father was surprised, and asked why. Grandfather said that making good milk that made children grow up strong and healthy was the best thing he ever did, and he should never have done anything else.
Stanley Fishman, Author Tender Grassfed Meat Cookbook
who: Galina Ch | when: Sun, 02/20/2011 – 18:01 |
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But DD’s words are:
“As for me drinking my milk raw, I can’t say I’ve *never* done it, I just don’t do so on a regular basis–it’s pretty sporadic, and most of the time, it ends up in my coffee. It’s one of those things I’m still trying to come to grips with. I guess the reason I struggle with it is, I am a dairy farmer, so I see what goes on with my own herd, and as careful as I am, I do occasionally find things I don’t want to see.”
Most people would take from this that a dairy farmer is implying that raw milk is dangerous, who knows what might be lurking in it, use with care and sparingly.
This is called fear mongering. Raw milk is not a dangerous food, in fact it’s probably safer than any other food because of its myriad health benefits Yes, you can cut the risk of “food borne illness” to zero, by simple refraining from eating all foods. The only problem is the side effect, death by starvation. If you want to continue on in the land of the living, there is probably no better or safer food.
So does DD mean dairy duchess or disinformation duchess? The evidence from thousands of years, with the healthiest peoples, shows raw dairy is not dangerous. And evidence people can gather today by talking with raw milk drinkers shows it’s not dangerous. So why does the government keep saying and implying it’s dangerous and pulling dirty trick stunts? As I’ve explained before, it’s to push people away from health giving foods, to increase the consumption of less healthy foods, to increase disease, to increase profits for the pharmaceutical cartel and other arms of the disease industry.
Later DD says:
“You should also know I had over eight years in retail meat, so what you are suggesting in regards to microbes, bacteria, etc., would not fly with the health department, nor the customers.”
People who compare raw milk to meat are either deliberately lying or very misinformed. When you leave meat out, it starts to decay and becomes rancid, it accumulates a lot of toxins, it reeks, your senses tell you to stay away, if you eat it you might vomit. If you leave raw milk out, it doesn’t reek, it converts into curds and whey, a very edible substance. Ken, who is a real dairy farmer, has pointed out that raw milk has been used historically to preserve meats and fish.
Then DD says, “I already sent the test results of my milk samples to Mark because I wanted to know if it would pass raw milk standards, at least in his state–it is not legal to sell in mine.
You’ve commented about people falling for the notion of having milk tested, but I think maybe YOU should try to convince the rest of the population.”
Apparently DD doesn’t know that for the thousands of years raw milk has been safely consumed on this planet by the longest lived peoples, no one ever did any microbe testing. So I don’t have to convince anyone that knows history. Sadly, much of history is being lost as the government spin doctors continue to rewrite it.
DD then adds, ” If Mark went around saying, “Hey, it’s just a little bit of e coli, or campylobacter, what are you afraid of?”, do you think he’d still be in business? I hardly think so.”
But why should you be afraid of a little e coli or campylobacter when the real world evidence of the past shows it doesn’t harm you? These are the microbes that live in our world and our bodies are designed to be healthy in a Universe filled with microbes. DD is obviously a true believer in the government’s fictional germaphobic disease model. And Mark’s business plan is based on convincing people that thousands of years of safety for raw milk didn’t happen and we need to reinvent farming and he has the answer so buy from him.
Aajonus used to post in this blog before his untimely “freak accident death”. He and his followers not only didn’t believe in washing their hands after handling meat… they wolfed it down raw. Uncooked. With all those microbes. Pounds of raw meat a day. Holy smokes, they didn’t die. How is this possible? How come the real world evidence doesn’t fit with the germophobic disease model promoted by the government, academia and the media cartel?
I was talking to my friend who manages a health food store and saying I want to figure out how to make liver sausage, and he told me I should visit this place in Eagle, Wisconsin, it’s a museum with over a hundred acres, they preserve and recreate how farming was done by immigrants, it’s called Old World Wisconsin. The people who work there wear the old time garb, they use horses with plows, they grow their own food, and prepare meals. He said you can watch them preparing liver sausage the old time way, flies buzzing around, on the wooden tables, … and the people who work they get to wolf it down, it’s delicious. But they can’t sell it to the public because it violates modern laws…
People need to recover this ancient wisdom that is being lost as the establishment continues to promote fiction about the causes of disease and the quality of life in the past. We are faced with clear and present dangers to our health at every turn today. Let’s stop falling for the establishment disinformation.
Regarding my idea that Claravale hire a detective lawyer to find out how the government pulled off this latest “takedown” of their dairy, keep in mind that the people that work in the secret government, that are involved in these horrible scams, they sometimes have an awakening and leak information when they realize they are working for the bad guys. This has happened quite a bit actually. Making children sick by blocking their access to real food isn’t real good for your karma. Some of these people may be willing to help the cause. What’s needed is a real investigation.
When I grew up, however, it was a time when animals weren’t fed atrocious feeds laced with poisons/toxins, and they were raised with proper husbandry practices not shot full of hormones, steroids, anti-biotics, etc. Everyone who milked knew what they were doing because they’d been doing it since they were old enough to put on their own wellies. No one, to my knowledge, was ever sick from the raw milk they drank. On the other hand, I knew many people even back then who didn’t or wouldn’t drink milk simply because they didn’t like milk, no matter what. I guess everyone has their reasons for why they do or don’t do things.
OPDC now has a Test & Hold program. That means we are able to know ahead of time ( under 24 hours ) if any of our products has Campylobacter or Ecoli pathogens. We do not release any products for sale…unless the tests are negative. We do this every day and have the results before the products are released.
Now…lets say that CDFA comes and tests our milk at the same time that we test our milk…lets say that OPDC comes up positive on that days sample? and CDFA comes back positive as well.
However here is the twist….there is no basis for a recall because OPDC never released that product into the stream of commerce and it was sent to be pasteurized at another plant! Under the current policies, CDFA would recall all the products at 650 stores, mandate a shut down of all production for 8 days at least….when no pathogens were ever a threat because we caught the problem before it was ever a problem.
This has not happened….but because we are smart kind of people…we see the writing on the wall and want to do something today in anticipation of this possibility in the future.
I have sent the request to CDFA for a sit down meeting to address this “advancing technology verses current policy issue”. Any recall of perfectly good pathogen free product under this Test & Hold procedure would be punitive, unfounded and baseless.
I will keep you all abreast of the news as it comes…I am hoping that our friendly regulators can find some way to work through this with us. It is for the betterment of all and prevents problems.
We will see how it goes. If it does not go well….I am meeting with my state assemblymen to write a law to force advancement of policy to match current speed of technology.
Maybe you missed the part where I said I didn’t grow up on raw milk. Try to unlearn something you’ve heard all of your life, and to me, it’s not called fear mongering. I had to learn about dairy farming, and when you are a conventional dairy producer, there are things you’re told that can cause problems, one of which is, manure in the milk, so one needs to be careful about cow prep. If a dairy inspector saw something like that, you’d either be put on warning, or possibly shut down. Tell them that a little e coli isn’t harmful. See where you get with that statement.
I don’t care what people did thousands of years ago, you try telling that to people nowadays, and the ones I know will look at you like you’ve got the plague, especially if I told them you don’t believe in the “government’s fictional germaphobic disease model”. It’s not only them, but inspectors, regulators, and the like won’t agree with you either.
Just so you know, I wasn’t comparing raw milk to meat. I was trying to apply what you say about microbes, etc., and expect the average consumer to be okay with it. I heard customer complaints about all kinds of stuff, and it wasn’t just with meat. One woman complained because there wasn’t anything to use to pick up bean sprouts to place in a bag for weighing. She said it was gross (I worked produce before being transferred to meat). Another customer saw a co-worker of mine drop a piece of meat on the floor, and proceeded to put it back in its tray. When I was still having my milk marketed through a co-op, if the milk hauler saw so much as a fly in the tank, he could reject the load. Believe me, one of my haulers told me he got a load rejected at a plant because of a fly they found on the manhole cover. Say what you want, I can’t stop that kind of stuff from happening.
I personally think we as people are too far gone to jump back in time, and do the things you think didn’t kill them.
“People need to recover this ancient wisdom that is being lost as the establishment continues to promote fiction about the causes of disease and the quality of life in the past. We are faced with clear and present dangers to our health at every turn today. Let’s stop falling for the establishment disinformation.”
Well, maybe you need to get on your soapbox, and tell this to the world, instead of attacking people like me, or Mark, or other producers because we have to follow rules, laws, regulations, and such. It has nothing to do with “convincing people that thousands of years of safety for raw milk didn’t happen”. We aren’t the ones who need to do the convincing. Either we do what we are supposed to, or we don’t get to sell our products. Why don’t you try to get a dairy permit sometime, and I don’t mean just looking up the regs. Actually TALK to someone, then tell them you don’t believe in their fictional germophobic disease model, and see what they have to say about that.
I’d also like to know, if people got to eat real food, did it stop them from getting the Bubonic Plague in the 14th century? Isn’t that a disease? What is your answer on how they could have prevented it?
I agree with your comment about propaganda.
Not long before our heifers freshened, when we were going to start milking, the neighbor across the road brought over some raw milk for me to try. Had I known then what I do know, I would have never drank it. It was awful to say the least, and I thought to myself, if that’s what raw is like, I don’t want it. Well, what I learned about him later on would have caused store milk buyers to think long and hard about making that purchase. He was forever on warning, and got shut down several times while we lived across the road. Most of the problems were quality issues–SCC, SPC, PI, etc. We moved the cows to a different facility less than a year later, so I don’t know what happened after that.
As I said, “Making children sick by blocking their access to real food isn’t real good for your karma.” Good luck.
The chain of events you described makes sense if that were the only scenario. All scenarios considered however, the key will be in convincing CDFA of the validity and reliability of your testing procedure. They know that no test is 100% accurate so whose test are they going to accept in the event that your test comes up negative and theirs comes up positive?
Undoubtedly they are going to initiate a recall and do a retest. And if the second test comes back negative, then your test results will be ignored and their recall will be enforced to the max.
Or, what if an individual(s) happens to become ill and an epidemiological investigation determines that OPDC milk is responsible despite that they, or your private test were/are unable to generate a positive test result from the milk or the farm? Indeed, this is not unheard of and appears to be probably more the norm then the exception. Then what?
You may be able to lessen the effect of a recall with your positive-positive scenario, yet with all the ambiguity surrounding recalls, testing and epidemiological investigations as observed in the past, I would be living on the edge of my seat if I were in your situation.
DD,
I appreciate your honesty. Indeed, cows will be cows; there is no escaping that. If people want to jump through hoops and go to extraordinary measures to pasteurize milk or have it tested before it is sold to the consuming public then so be it. Im not about to do that, I have been drinking raw milk for the last 56 years and will continue to do so, which includes feeding it to family and friends. The human race has managed quite well without all this intervention and still does for the most part in various parts of the world where people cannot afford these so-called conveniences of science. Dont get me wrong, hygiene is important and science has its merits, however, its all for naught if people are nutritionally deprived and continue to be subjected to toxic challenges in food, medicine and the environment.
In fact history has shown that humans can deal with substantial lapses in hygiene if the latter two, i.e. appropriate nutrition is nurtured and invasive toxins are avoided.
The history you were taught is fictional, but, in the 14th century people in Europe lived in feudal police states, the serfs ate slop. Similar to the Third World today. When I lived in Brazil the poor people, all they ate was white rice, that’s all a lot of them could afford, and so they are short, and live only into their 40s, and have all kinds of health problems. That’s how the establishment comes up with the fake story that people used to only live into their 40s and now are living longer than ever… If you look at medieval knights armor, it’s the size of English school boys today, indicating severe stunted growth and mineral deficiencies at that time. Weston Price’s documentation with pictures and other evidence, visiting cultures around the world in the 1930s, that still had access to their rich whole food diets, shows that these people were much healthier than people today, no tooth decay, no chronic disease. Tuberculosis was very common then in cities, but these whole food cultures were immune to it, even Native Americans, unless they switched to establishment slop food.
So the answer to sickness, I’ve already given earlier. Eat good food and avoid putting poisons into your body. The “Bubonic Plague” story is not accurate, I’ve written up the real story in D Smith’s blog actually, but anyway there was a huge plague in recent, recorded history, the “Spanish Flu” epidemic of 1918. It followed the biggest “vaccination” campaign in history. It had nothing to do with Spain or “the flu”, but was caused by all those weird toxins injected into people.
I don’t have a choice in regards to what is done to the milk prior to selling it to the public. IT’S NOT LEGAL IN MY STATE to SELL for human consumption. I’ve already stated that my friends will eventually be making raw milk cheeses. They aren’t to that point just yet. I was told yesterday what had to be done in order for them to get the vat pasteurizer they use. The state wouldn’t accept ANY information from other states, they had to have testing done by a third party, which the manufacturer was responsible for, and it was in the thousands of dollars.
Living conditions during the Middle Ages was extremely far from sanitary. Even the wealthy lived in what would be considered squalor today. Personal hygiene was nonexistent. These conditions allowed the rats along with the fleas to flourish, thus spreading the bacteria. The majority of people also had limited nutrition and probably lacked many essential nutrients, causing early deaths, short statures, etc. Knights were higher up the social ladder and yet they also were short in stature and suffered many ailments and died from the plague.
“”We were shocked and deeply disturbed to discover that one of our members — who had quietly participated in meetings, vigils and demonstrations for several months — turned out to be a government spy,”” said Camille Russell, who was president of Peace Fresno at the time of the infiltration.
How do I find so many stories about government dirty tricks? Because even though normally it never comes to light, they do it so often that the evidence is overwhelming.
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-and-fresno-residents-seek-fbi-records-regarding-infiltration-local-community-group?redirect=national-security/aclu-and-fresno-residents-seek-fbi-records-regarding-infiltration-local-community-
Tell me again, because somehow, I haven’t seen your response. What exactly do you do for a living?
“Making children sick by blocking their access to real food isn’t real good for your karma.” I don’t have any children, so that comment means nothing to me. A guilt trip isn’t gonna work. Nice try.
Nonsensical comments? Some of yours have been absolutely hilarious. Especially the ones where you were interpreting the regulations that your state was attempting to impose on raw milk producers. You made a mountain out of a mole hill. I made a comment about it, but didn’t reference your name (it was my very first post). Of course, you didn’t respond.
“But hey, everyone should be free to do what they want. Yeah, nice try.” Sounds like someone with an over-inflated ego, and you seem content with all the mental gymnastics you engage in with those whose views are different than yours. You don’t believe I’m a real person (accuse me of being something I’m not), you continue to bash those who don’t agree with you, but with all that said and done, you are free to come visit any time. I’m game. I know you won’t take me up on my offer. It’s a lot safer to sit near a keyboard.
ably supported the bodys ability to resist the bubonic plague (my words).
Some wikipedia background on Michael Savage:
Born Michael Alan Weiner in the Bronx, New York. His higher education starts with
Queens College, CUNY, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1963, then two masters degrees (ethnobotany and anthropology) University of Hawaii at Manoa, followed by a Ph.D. in 1978 from U.C. Berkeley in nutritional ethnomedecine (thesis title: Nutritional Ethnomedecine in Fiji).
Cheers to the upright,
Disruption of their wicked plans to those of an evil intent,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
You missed the point, if we had a positive test and so did the state, but the product had never been released to the public…then why would there be a need for a recall. The positive would never have been in the stream of commerce…because it would never have been released under our Test & Hold. Under current policy, we would be subject to a recall…but the basis of the recall would be unjustified.
People that do have children can’t buy raw milk when they go to the supermarket, in Illinois and all kinds of other places. But they can buy all the cantaloupes, for example, they want, and using the government’s own disease numbers and logic, cantaloupe is a much more dangerous food than raw milk. And you come in this forum trying to scare people away from raw milk.
Once again, “Making children sick by blocking their access to real food isn’t real good for you karma.” Your path will catch up with you.
By the way…RAWMI suspected the Claravale recall origin seven weeks ago. When everything is very clean…suspect campy from inside the udder. That’s a discovery by one of our own and Penn State more than two years ago. Now Clarvale reports that they had a hot cow with campy mastitis….all sanitation numbers were super low, but still had campy. The RAWMI Listed community really tries its best to learn from others and really tries to not repeat errors.
Looks like Claravale is back on shelves!!! Huge congrats!!
Just an FYI…being my fathers son, I do not ever doubt that OPDC is completed infiltrated by all sorts of spies and so called peace officers and anti bio- terrorism agents…in fact, I invite and welcome all of them. Nothing would make me happier than to have peace officers, FBI agents and FDA bioterrorism investigators drinking raw milk. We love all..and serve all and teach all….even spies and especially spies!! Why spy when I would opening share every detail of OPDC and our program with agencies seeking information. In fact, I become highly frustrated by agencies of government refusing to accept our data…if it takes expensive spying for those agencies to get the data I am trying so hard to share with them…then so be it. I have nothing to hide and so much to teach. Bring me the spies. They need nourishment more than anyone. No better way to send the educational message deep into enemy lines. Spies should remember this….the Stockholm syndrome will convert them to into raw milk lovers…be ware!!
However, some of the lower level people in the secret government don’t really understand this, and at times have awakenings, and blow the whistle and leak documents, etc. And if a real investigation into Claravale’s unfortunate series of “coincidences” were undertaken, people might be surprised what would come to light.
You come in here calling yourself “Dairy Duchess”, like you’re some expert on dairy, but “struggle” with the idea of drinking the milk naturally. Stop being a jerk. Whether you are getting a government paycheck to do this slandering, or are just another product of academia microbiology bs, we don’t need it. There are epidemic levels of disease all around us. My cousin just died at 52 from antibiotics. My other cousin died at 49 from cancer, my other cousin at 54 from cancer, my mom just had her lymph gland cut out, my dad had a huge heart attack in his 50s, his sister my aunt had a quintuple bypass a few years back, my aunt has had ms for thirty years and still isn’t healed, my uncle just had his prostate removed, his wife has ms, my nieces and nephews have all these weird breathing problems and food allergies from vaccinations, my brother in law has diabetes and they just cut off a huge chunk of his foot…
Stop being a jerk, coming in here trying to scare people away from real food, that heals asthma and other life threatening diseases, the remineralizes people’s bodies so they don’t get cancer or diabetes, or ms… Read real people, like D Smith, who just wrote how no one got sick from raw milk in her town, read Ken, all those years, no one got sick, he said people visit him from around the world and drink the milk. Stop being a jerk. Take your hypochondria somewhere else.
“…getting a government paycheck”? I’m getting almost no paycheck right now. You really don’t pay attention, do you? As for the rest of that comment, it sounds like you are a little paranoid. David, and Mark both have my email address, both of which I’ve shared details I haven’t posted here (not much different, just a little more personal). You continue to accuse me of things, yet won’t take me up on my offer.
I’ve been commenting on her for months now, yet something I posted must have set you off. Sylvia said she is real picky about her food, J. Ingvar re-posted a story about ‘two milks’, and how the author’s grandfather talked about having clean milk, yet you didn’t comment to them. I do things the way I do them, what part of that don’t you understand?
You act like I’m the only dairy farmer who doesn’t drink raw milk. My cheesemaker friends don’t drink theirs raw either, and they have goats. I know of others who have a dairy farm, and some that have only milked a couple of head or less. They pasteurize their milk. We don’t live in the times you so fondly like to talk about, and as for planting seeds of doubt, you’re doing a mighty fine job on your own. You won’t win me over with your tactics, and name calling. You’re no better than the nanny state control freaks, where it is their way, or the highway.
You remind me of my brother, and how he likes to spin things that people say to him. I’m not on speaking terms with him right now, so that should tell you something. You’ve done a pretty good job of twisting my words, and your interpretations of them doesn’t even come remotely close to what I said (I don’t drink my milk raw on a regular basis translates to = why are you afraid of your own milk? Huh?).
I don’t give a rat’s ass how you drink your milk. This isn’t your blog anyway, so why don’t you start one, and preach to your own choir. You can bet your boots that I won’t be among them. And…you tell me to stop be a jerk? Take your own advice on that one pal.
I’ll email it to you.
Your exact words are above for anyone to see:
“As for me drinking my milk raw, I can’t say I’ve *never* done it, I just don’t do so on a regular basis–it’s pretty sporadic, and most of the time, it ends up in my coffee. It’s one of those things I’m still trying to come to grips with. I guess the reason I struggle with it is, I am a dairy farmer, so I see what goes on with my own herd, and as careful as I am, I do occasionally find things I don’t want to see.”
So why are you lying saying I twisted your words? Oh what a tangled web we weave…
taken from: https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/merrick-badger/on-trail-of-britains-undercover-police
Ken…there is no convincing the state about a positive pathogen test. There is however much convincing them on a negative test. If OPDC holds back a positive and the state also has a positive, there is little contention. We both agree. The problem is that the state will then claim that other products out in commercial stream of commerce are also positive when they are not.
I guess that is your point.
Totally agree. Human resource management is key to success. A good, well trained, well equipped, and motivated team can achieve practically anything. A team that is weak….will fail. Raw milk production is a team endeavor. That team includes the consumers as well. I am working hard to recruit the regulatory agencies onto our team. That is happening to a limited degree. When they see our huge investments, dedication, consumer following, brand ranking, dollar voting, use of technology, they can not deny our success and commitment. They want to join a winner.
This is very interesting (and CDFA needs to be on the same page as you v/v the testing; the bigger question I think though will arise if released milk ever comes back with campylobacter issues). I’m wondering about your test definitions. Do you get ‘zeros’ from your rapid test as the ‘negative’ test? PCR-based methods are often very sensitive and require DNA only (risk of false positives, or at least non-zeros). With a lot riding on the test result, I’m wondering about ‘room for judgement’ in the decision to release. I absolutely think ‘test and hold’ might be pivotal in the future of raw milk. I’m just trying to understand your protocols a little better. Thanks.
John
I’m expected to produce excellent quality milk to please MY customers, the cheesemakers. IF I don’t, I’m out, whether that fits your idea of governmental fictitious germophobic disease models or not. I came here sincerely wanting answers with my initial post. This blog is here for discussion, on both sides of the issue, not slanted towards your way of thinking ONLY, so who are you to tell me to take my hypochondria elsewhere? I don’t even have a freakin’ college education, so how can I be in some sort of specialized field like you claim? Did I rain on your raw milk utopian parade? Too bad.
If I had to guess, I’d say you pick on people because of your shortcomings (Here’s a hint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCj9fF0DRHU ).
http://modernfarmer.com/2015/04/could-cheese-be-responsible-for-the-french-paradox/
I think the butter and the amount of red wine they drink doesn’t hurt matters, either. I know I like the idea of the red wine . . . heh! =: ) Pine & Post Sweet Harvest Merlot is good (a tad sweet for me) and also Turning Leaf Merlot aren’t bad, considering I’m not big on wine. DH and I have started to drink a couple of ounces each evening. What can it hurt? And with a good, raw milk cheese to go with it (fontina is my fav) how could we possibly go wrong?!
Dang, I didn’t know we were supposed to think cheese is unhealthy? Oh oh I get it, they are talking about American cheese FOOD, not real cheese!
“combination of a high-fat diet and low rates of heart disease ”
I don’t know about now, but in the 80s, when I was there, the food was fresh made, it was not instantaneous. And the French appeared to take their time eating and it was obvious they enjoyed eating. The only foods I fear are the nasty processed, chemically adulterated, etc, junk, that is pushed on people.
“the typical French diet is much lower in processed foods and, especially, lower in sugar than American foods”
Bingo. French cheese is different than American cheeses.
I know lots of people with various health issues/problems. I can’t stop that freight train, and neither can you. It is what it is. All we can do is take one day at a time, and slowly, but surely, and maybe, just maybe, we can reverse course. It won’t happen overnight.
You really are no different than my brother. He thinks he can literally beat his beliefs into other people’s heads. If you don’t agree with him, he says he will destroy you. Short of him coming over here and killing me, he doesn’t have that power. So I will respond to you the same way I have responded to his lunacy. Thanks for the revelation! You’ve just made things a WHOLE lot easier for me.
Here’s what I conclude: Your life sucks. Your wife has MS, you have family members who have died at a young age, or have some sort of ailment, so you’re looking for someone to blame, and you lash out at anyone you think is even minutely connected, according to your beliefs. You act like I’m somehow guilty because my milk isn’t sold raw for drinking. ARE YOU DENSE? I don’t live in freakin’ Illinois, and can’t legally sell it raw for human consumption.
P.S. I don’t back down from bullies. So…if you think you are going to shut me down with YOUR comments, try again. Not happenin’. David is going to be the ONLY person to make it happen, and if he has a problem with what I post, he’s free to contact me directly.
XOXO, D.D.
To the real people in this blog: Just want to point out that those examples I’ve posted here in this article, of government undercover agents getting caught, that only happened because of flukes. A girlfriend of one found the guy’s passport with a different identity, that Fresno agent died in a motorcycle crash and someone recognized the picture in an obituary…
The point is, when people talk about conspiracy as a “theory”, realize you are dealing with a simpleton. Big Brother spies on everything we do, undercover agents permeate this entire system, they control the boards of the monopoly corporations, they control “the media”, they infest schools, they spy on doctors, they are in all the police departments, … they create incidents as they need them. It’s transnational organized crime.
You cannot understand the raw-milk-is-dangerous hoax without understanding the secret government. Evil is not the only power in this Universe though. I hope Claravale does not just fork over money for legal extortion, but instead undertakes a real investigation into those trying to wreck its business.
I did too in the 12 years we lived there. The food is what I miss the most. The sights to see, were amazing and the people were friendly. It was an amazing experience.
“By the way…RAWMI suspected the Claravale recall origin seven weeks ago. When everything is very clean…suspect campy from inside the udder. That’s a discovery by one of our own and Penn State more than two years ago. Now Clarvale reports that they had a hot cow with campy mastitis….all sanitation numbers were super low, but still had campy. The RAWMI Listed community really tries its best to learn from others and really tries to not repeat errors.
Looks like Claravale is back on shelves!!! Huge congrats!!
who: mark mcafee | when: Tue, 04/28/2015 – 21:26 |”
Also, does EVERYONE else have to sign in every time you want to make a post here lately? I do. It’s becoming annoying, to say the least. If I could sign in once a day and post several times, and then sign in again the next day it wouldn’t be so bad, but why every post?? Weird.
To channel whoever it was that said it here, I’m going to say, well… EXCUUUUUSE me! “his wife has ms”. I was typing my comment to you, but was NOT on TCP at the time. Here is your comment: “You come in here calling yourself “Dairy Duchess”, like you’re some expert on dairy, but “struggle” with the idea of drinking the milk naturally. Stop being a jerk. Whether you are getting a government paycheck to do this slandering, or are just another product of academia microbiology bs, we don’t need it. There are epidemic levels of disease all around us. My cousin just died at 52 from antibiotics. My other cousin died at 49 from cancer, my other cousin at 54 from cancer, my mom just had her lymph gland cut out, my dad had a huge heart attack in his 50s, his sister my aunt had a quintuple bypass a few years back, my aunt has had ms for thirty years and still isn’t healed, my uncle just had his prostate removed, his wife has ms, my nieces and nephews have all these weird breathing problems and food allergies from vaccinations, my brother in law has diabetes and they just cut off a huge chunk of his foot…”
I didn’t even read the rest of your loony comment today. It’s okay for you to twist things around, and claim I said something I didn’t, or imply I’m someone I’m not (like getting a government paycheck, or being a product of academia microbiology), but the moment I turn it back on you, and ‘misquote’ one minor detail, it gets highlighted. Wow. You really do need help. Gee, does all your raw milk, and whatever other foods you eat help with mental illness (paranoia for starters)? If you think it does, then you won’t make a believer out of me.
You never married? I can see why. This one’s for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqUa_G1h3pw
You’re boring me. Good day!
An island
A cow
Teams formed from TCP commenters, past and present
Competing for:
The Aajonus Memorial Balcony Trophy
All the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
“In 1996, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist GARY WEBB (19552004) wrote a shocking series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News exposing the CIAs link to Nicaraguan cocaine smuggled into the US…”
Gary Webb discovered what many others have, that it’s the CIA that’s the real drug cartel. I know he was telling the truth because in the mid 90s I was working as a CPA on Miami Beach, and one day a man came into our office to have some tax work done. He had a military haircut. We started talking and he told me he had just been through the training program to become a Miami Police Officer. So I took the opportunity to ask him some question about it. He told me they teach that it’s really more of a public relations job, that if you have to pull out your gun you probably screwed up, you should be able to handle situations with the power of the badge, and the right approach. He was obviously for real so I asked him flat out, “I always hear how corrupt the city of Miami is. So what’s the deal with drug dealing, corruption?”
His answer was, “Oh they tell you up front in the training, if you can’t look the other way, you won’t be able to do this job.”
I was surprised he admitted this to me, but thankful. By proving that whole city governments are majorly involved in illegal drug dealing, where cops have to agree to be accomplices in this to even work for them, boy that sure debunks a lot of the cranks walking around today, doesn’t it?
Drug dealing is a HUGE FEDERAL FELONY, so when you prove that whole city governments are doing this, you have proven that the federal government is RUN by organized crime. There’s no way around it. Obviously the DEA knows this is going on, yet decade after decade it continues. And obviously the major media, with all their investigative reporters, knows this is going on, yet forgets to tell the public that the federal government is the real drug dealers. And do your school books teach you this?
A few minutes talking with the cops in the big cities really gives you some real world information, doesn’t it. Now Gary Webb didn’t live real long, after he blew the whistle. And major media throughout the country rejected his findings, and his articles in the San Jose Mercury news were retracted, … and he ended up dying then of “suicide”, shot himself twice in the head I believe is the official story. You read that right. He wrote a book also, about this CIA drug dealing, called Dark Alliance, that’s where the earlier quote comes from, see the Amazon reviews.
One of the main DEA agents during the Reagan/Bush Sr era also blew the whistle, with the book, Powderburns. Cele Castillo says how “I thought I was working for the good guys but learned I was working for the bad guys.”
Professor Alfred McCoy has been blowing the whistle on this all since his classic work, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, c1972. He revised it in 2003: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. It just keeps getting bigger. He talks about how during the Vietnam war era, when he was in Southeast Asia, he encountered all these Time-Life reporters’ articles about how the CIA was running the drug business there, having taken over from the French government… but it never makes “the news”…
Frank Serpico was a New York detective who blew the whistle in the early 70s. He’s still around, here’s a very interesting interview with him, he goes into the relationship with all this and the assault on small farmers, and other subjects. Well worth your time to listen:
http://www.infowars.com/retired-nypd-officer-frank-serpico-american-drug-war-is-a-lie-just-like-911/
Isn’t this supposed to be the *COMPLETE* patient, mind, body, and soul? Have a good laugh sometime…I just did. I’ve heard it’s good for the soul.
You called me “Disinformation Duchess”. You act like I’m clueless, when you weren’t even around for a while when I was posting other comments. I was taught things differently than you were when it comes to microbes, bacteria, or whatever. Deal with it.
I had made the decision NOT to regularly drink my milk raw, AFTER I found out what could possibly be in it, whether any of you want to accept that or not. I was taught that some bacteria was bad/harmful. Keep in mind, I got my start in dairy in the pre-internet days (it wasn’t available publicly just yet). I lived in a town with a population of just over 500 people. We only personally knew a handful of people, and raw milk vs. pasteurized milk was not the topic of conversation. Nobody cared how their friends and neighbors drank their milk.
I have friends who are raw milk drinkers, and we get along just fine. They don’t insult or impugn me, and I don’t insult or impugn them. I’ve been pretty tolerable to being insulted, all because of *how* I drink my milk. I’m trying to understand the world I didn’t grow up in, but that just isn’t good enough for the likes of Tom.
That’s how it is in my circle of friends/acquaintances too. I consume what I want and they whatever they choose and we are ok with that. And we at times, tease each other and learn from each other.
There are a lot of people who go to extremes in their beliefs. My daughter had been in a car accident and had physical therapy in a multistory building in Dallas. I would take her and sit in the car reading. One day, the anti abortion extremist were picketing. I told my daughter to just go into the building and ignore them. Those morons called my 15 yr old all kinds of vile names and threats and had the audacity to approach my car slinging their vile words on me. That is when I found out abortions were done in that building. It was none of those idiots business why my daughter was there and I was not going to inform them. I did have a huge “car phone” at the time and called the police on them for harassing us. I won’t forgive those extremists for terrifying my child. Definitely didn’t sway me to their cause.
Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.
Prof. Vallicella at maverickphilosopher discusses the topic of what these two statements represent.
All the best,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
If it isn’t available, it makes it hard to consume.
Back then, just like now, I think most people think the milk goes straight from the cow to the pasteurizer to the bottle. No one has any idea of what really happens to that milk. Probably would have even less sales if the masses knew the truth. I’ve tried to find documentation (proof) of what they do to the milk, to no avail. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places?
That is truly the BEST place for any good farm, because the farm is then part of an actual human-scale organizationfar more congenial to human relationship, trust, and responsibility, and of course far more productive of biological health, which is optimized by inter-specie sharing of unique microbial dynamics contained within clean, local biomes (an arrangement, by the way, in which cows are superstar performers, continually sampling the environment and adjusting their milk accordingly).
Not incidentally, a local farm also diminishes the use of delivery and other transport fuels, and reduces or eliminates the need for third-party certifiers and other experts who inevitably place themselves between people. It is also naturally less affected by grand, far-away economic and political events not directly connected to the local community, so is inherently more stable.
We seem to have no idea what we have given up by centralizing production, service, education, occupation (and apparently, even thought).
This woman posts her garbage on a regular basis, and it’s the same every time. She is against ALL of us. I have a friend who is a raw milk drinker, and she says a good deal of it is because she’s lazy, and doesn’t want to have to do anything to the milk. We don’t tease each other, and share a lot of things in common. The two cows she has came from me. She lost her Jersey shortly after I met her, and wanted a replacement. She feels she’s okay with drinking milk from cows she knows (shhhhh, don’t tell anyone, but she has come over here before when I have leftover milk from the cheesemaker’s pick up, since they can only use a certain amount. Most of the time it’s just the butterfat, because the cow that is lactating, doesn’t have much).
I don’t agree with the double standard either. I think, feel, believe… (gee, what word should I use? I have to be *careful* of that one) that EVERYONE should be free to drink their milk however damn way they want. I know of a state that tried to pass a bill where NO RAW MILK was to be fed to ANY species. It didn’t matter if it was calves, goats, humans, or even chickens. Good thing it didn’t pass.
Ack. No. I think he presents some good information sometimes, or used to, but I haven’t watched any of his vid’s for a long time because he just got a LITTLE too over-the-top for me. When people get as carried away as he does, it tends to take away from the message no matter how good the message, IMO. But that’s just me. I like energy and enthusiasm, don’t get me wrong, but he’s just kinda sorta out there sometimes. I feel the same about several other “activists”, even though some of their messages probably have excellent content. I haven’t had a chance to view the vid you posted yet, but after I get my weekend shopping done, I intend to watch it later today. I agree with you about the DEA, DOJ, and all the rest of the agencies on down the line. Corrupt, I think, is the proper word for their ambitious agenda, mostly with the blessing of their superiors, who are also corrupt.
It reminds me of the time I watched an interview with him and Piers Morgan. It had to do with gun control, and Alex jumped out of his chair. I thought he was going to strangle Piers. While I thought it was funny, I felt the same way you did. Kinda damaged his credibility. Then, I saw basically the same type of interview, only this time, it was Ted Nugent. Piers fired all kinds of shots at Ted, who held his composure, and didn’t give Piers any more ammo. Sharp contrast between Ted and Alex.
I can get a little over the top, too, but then again, I’m not in the public eye. I can get highly animated in front of my friends and family, but they understand me, and where I’m coming from. Key difference is, I’m totally aware of what I’m doing. It’s one of those “Don’t piss me off. You know how I get”.