The whole cantaloupes in the stores are now safe to eat, Food Safety News reassured its readers on September 26, 2011. Its article included standard advice about following proper food handling procedures, and avoiding cantaloupes connected to an outbreak of listeria from cantaloupes in Colorado that was just concluding.
But the industry experts FSN spoke to were all reassuring. Most definitely, cantaloupes are safe, it quoted one California producer as saying.
Yet within a year, in July 2012, a four-year-old Michigan girl would develop painful abdominal cramps one evening, according to a court suit. The next morning, she began to suffer from repeated bouts of severe diarrhea. The abdominal cramps had worsened overnight, and on July 18, (the girl) suffered dozens of bouts of diarrhea. She had been infected by Salmonella typhimurium as a result of consuming cantaloupe :
For days, the girl and her parents were back and forth to a hospital emergency room, as the fever, abdominal cramps and bloody diarrhea continued. While the fever broke July 20, the cramps and diarrhea persisted almost until the end of July.
That same month, two other young Michigan sisters would suffer similar similar symptoms, and be similarly diagnosed, according to another court suit. One of the girls would spend four days in the hospital.
Cantaloupes obviously werent nearly as safe as FSN and its industry sources thought. Indeed, cantaloupes were a scourge on the land, in food safety terms.
In 2011 and 2012 alone, 308 people were sickened and 39 killed ..by tainted cantaloupe. Its not known exactly how many were children, but you can be sure it is more than the three documented here.
Since 1990, there have been 1,428 cantaloupe illnesses, with the trend line seeming to head more sharply upward over the last few years.
The original reassurances about cantaloupes, as I said at the beginning of this article, came from Food Safety News. The information on cantaloupe illnesses and sickened little children? That came from the blog of food safety lawyer, Bill Marler, who owns Food Safety News.
I wouldnt be so cynical as to suggest that Marler encouraged FSN to go easy on cantaloupe so as to possibly create new clients for his law practice, (though he has impugned the motives of raw dairy producers, saying recently I certainly understand the desire of a farmer to sell a highly profitable product ). In fact, I think he genuinely cares about people who get sick from bad food, and wants to do right by them, much as raw dairy producers care about the health and safety of their customers. And he tries to represent divergent views in FSNhe has even allowed several of my opinion pieces to be published.
Where he has gotten himself into trouble is in departing from the mission inferred in the title of his publication, which is supposed to be about food safety. If it was really about food safety, it would have warned readers in that 2011 article I led off with that any food, including cantaloupe, can make you sick at any time, no matter what the producers say. He also wouldnt have labeled another food, raw milk, as inherently unsafe, in part because a farmer who produced some tainted batches of the stuff that made many people very sick said the problem wasnt his fault, but rather the foods fault.
But because the producers in the cantaloupe and raw milk cases fit into FSNs distorted view of the world, they were turned into mouthpieces for ideology rather than food safetyan ideology that plays up to regulators, corporations, the medical community, and others.
Can you imagine an article in Food Safety News substituting raw milk for cantaloupe in that opening article? In other words, with raw milk producers insisting, following an outbreak attributed to raw milk, that all was well and all raw milk being produced was now safe?
Of course not. And the reason is that raw milk is deemed to be inherently unsafe, while cantaloupe is considered redeemable, subject to illnesses as a result of carelessness in harvesting or cleaning, but basically safe.
So you see entirely different kinds of media attention. Despite the fact that illnesses from cantaloupes are trending way up from a sizable earlier base (nearly 1,500 illnesses since 1990).
That FSN article I highlighted in the previous post about raw milk fit all the anti-raw-milk prejudices to a tee, with this topper: the offending farmer had seen the errors of his ways. It wasnt his fault, it was raw milks fault. He screwed up, but FSN allowed him to blame the inherent danger of raw milk and thus come off as someone who made an entirely forgivable error because he was temporarily led astray by the forces of evil.
Once you blow your credibility, you blow a lot.
Opdc sales routes in LA today hit all time highs. Sell outs everywhere.
David, it is sad that farmers are being g blamed for FDA policies that have killed of the American immune systems and at the same created vicious superbugs that capitalize on the new found American immune weakness.
I look forward to a time when TV advertisements describe what an immune system is and also direct the public to build up and also protect the immune system. That will be a great day. Until then…cantaloupe funerals.
Mark, just to follow up on what you said about RAWMI program upcoming, people can register here:
http://rawmilkinstitute.net/what-we-do/education-and-outreach/next_webinar/
Don’t laugh. It has already been done. Almonds are required to be pasteurized but yet …..the USDA allows them to be labeled as raw. It is interesting to note that unlike fluids, the steam heating of the exterior of an almond does not heat the interior of the almond to the same temp as the exterior and there is still some rawness left. Wonder when someone is going to make raw almond milk from pasteurized almonds. Interesting new niche. The resulting almond milk would actually have some enzymatic life because the inside of the almond would not ever have been denatured.
Food law is so convoluted and deceptive. Where is the truth?? I am a bit fascinated with almond milks because it is taking over the dairy case and really ruining pasteurized fluid cow milks day. I am also fascinated because unlike cows milk…the FDA has no control over almond milk and the USDA does. The USDA has allowed pasteurized to be labeled as raw. I wonder if the FDA would allow me to pasteurize milk and the label it as raw milk!!? Would never do it …but some one else might try to do it?
Bastards are deceptive, unabashedly biased & self serving. In fact…they are trying right now by using 60,000 psi high pressure to crush bacteria and still call it raw.
When will it stop? I know that answer. Consumers being educated and dollar voting will stop the food madness.
http://enenews.com/govt-doc-cattle-feed-california-dairy-farm-300-pcikg-radioactive-cesium-after-fukushima-tested-9-months-after-being-harvested-berkeley-study-reveals-3500-pcikg-cesium
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek0SgwWmF9w
and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E
If they lie once they’ll lie again.
If you’ve seen one outbreak of foodborne illness you’ve seen them all.
Outbreaks from Cucumbers, Spinach, Sprouts, Queso Fresco Cheese, Cantaloupes, and Raw Milk, are all the same. They are are all based on the same absurd associations for the same nefarious reasons.
This may be why the FDA picked him out for a site visit. An inspector appeared without warning and told him that his operation would have to change, according to the Los Angeles Times: This is my badge. These are the fines. This is what is hanging over your head, and we want you to know that. It didnt matter that no health problem had ever been associated with Crawfords impeccably run operation.
http://www.anh-usa.org/fda-visits-celebrated-organic-produce-farmer/
Keep the public in the dark, we have no need to know…
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-food-safety-20140223,0,6831660.story
It was an accident looking for a place to happen. Or maybe not.
“… In 1956 the FBI went a step beyond this with its Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which was originally designed to “increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections” … The program quickly came to target many more groups … and by the 1960s was going after:
civil rights groups generally, and Martin Luther King, Jr. specifically; antiwar groups, including many student, church-based, and veterans groups; national liberation organizations, such as the Black Panthers and American Indian Movement.
The intention was to discredit and disrupt these groups and many illegal dirty tricks were used. Methods included infiltration and provocation, misinformation and forgery, planting false stories in the media, intimidation through government investigations such as tax audits and spurious criminal charges, violence through proxy goon squads and local police, as well as continuing black bag break-ins and electronic surveillance.
Additionally, the now huge “national security state” of dozens of federal and military intelligence agencies conducted similar acts, sometimes coordinated with and sometimes competing against COINTELPRO. The names of these operations sound like something from a 1960s spy show, like “The Man From Uncle”: Operation CHAOS, Projects RESISTANCE, MERRIMAC, MINARET, and SHAMROCK.
Through such programs, the government electronically eavesdropped, operated a dozen mail opening programs, monitored and collected all telegram traffic coming into or leaving the U.S., and created “watch lists” of hundreds of thousands of “subversives.” It also acted proactively to “disrupt,” often violently, the legal political activity of U.S. citizens via its arsenal of dirty tricks and blackmail files.
Local police agencies, such as New York City and Los Angeles, compiled their own blackmail files, with LA’s lists ending up in the hands of a private right-wing group in the 1980s. Chicago’s police arguably participated in a planned assassination of a political leader, Black Panther Fred Hampton in 1969, while other police framed leaders on trumped up charges (such as California Black Panther Geronimo Pratt, finally exonerated in 1997 after more than 20 years in prison)…”
Hope you all get the idea. (that’s taken from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Subverting%20_Democracy/US_Surveillance_History.html)
Sylvia said, “Know thy enemy” in the last article. Does yesterday have anything to do with today? Can people in the raw milk community learn from others, instead of constantly walking into punches? I hope you all will take a second look at that Foundation Farm story critiqued in the last article in this blog, and hopefully you will see it has no chance of being a genuine story.
If some one took surface pasteurized almonds and made almond milk with out a secondary pasteurization of the resulting almond milk fluid…that would be mostly raw. I do not think that there is a rule about that yet….
I would not bet against the almond industry connecting with their buddies at the USDA to slip that rule through and do it with out any public comment or etc….
But right now, I am pretty sure that someone could make a legal mostly raw almond milk. The shelf life might be a little short…but it could be done.
Having defective minds makes us especially vulnerable to mental tampering, such as hypnotic tampering. If you’ve ever seen a stage hypnotist give someone a post hypnotic suggestion that they are a chicken, and then watched that person strut around on stage believing they really are a chicken… well now you can begin to understand “the human condition”.
No matter how many times the government and media cartel and textbooks lie to people, they keep lining up for the next sucker punch, as if they were born mentally retarded. There’s no reason to take it personally , it happens because the human mind can be tampered with, and your mind has been tampered with since you arrived here on “plantation earth”. And this explains why, when I tell people these things, their face lights up and they go, “Oh, I suppose its a vaaaaast conspiracy, right?!!!”
Anyone that has made any kind of effort to investigate things directly in the real world, knows the conspiracy question is not in the realm of debate, it’s a no brainer we are dealing with a conspiracy (look up the word if you don’t understand it btw). So the question is, how does it work, who is doing this to us, and why…? But most people never even get on this first rung of the ladder, due to what I have described above.
We are being assaulted on many fronts, not just our food supply and health, and these things all interrelate. So the name of the game is, how do we heal our minds, so that people can think straight, so you don’t have to endlessly explain to the guy strutting on stage that he really isn’t a chicken, or that its ok to eat real food, it’s the modern “food” that is the problem?
If people could think straight, all this tons and tons of writing in this blog, on whether it’s ok to eat real food, and whether the government and media cartel are trustworthy, would be totally unnecessary.
So I’m posting this gift once again here, saying that I have recovered the original ancient musical tunings. Playing music in tune with the Earth and rest of the Universe, offers you a tremendous opportunity to cleanse your mind. Our bodies are built out of music, like the rest of the World of Form. “Modern tuning” is deliberately put out of tune with the Universe. It is yet another assault on us.
Yes yes I know, this would imply there is a conspiracy. This would imply that all the “news” stations all telling the same fake news, day after day, is not a random event, but something actually organizes all this, Yes that’s right, there is organization in this Universe, behind the scenes. For those of you that can grasp this simple fact, if you want to take a look at the musical discoveries I have made, as I said before, let me know and I’ll send them for free.
When you call a virus or bacteria who’s primary means of transmission is through human contact; a foodborne pathogen, you are a liar and can not be trusted.
When you call improperly pasteurized milk or cheese; raw milk, you are a liar and can not be trusted.
When you call cheese; milk, you are a liar and can not be trusted.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/item/17704-un-plotting-to-dramatically-alter-your-views-and-behavior
** The embedded links are his references.
Ken and D,
Alas….I wrote frequently and passionately about all this back in 2010, when it was still legislation (SB510). I unfortunately envisioned just the circumstances beginning to play out with the farmer profiled in the L.A. Times article. And the Food Safety Modernization Act hasn’t even been formally implemented. I guess the FDA inspector who hassled this farmer just couldn’t wait to begin taking down small farms. This is going to be a very bad scene, unimaginable to America’s history-illiterate populace, which has no comprehension of how this was carried out 80 years ago in the old Soviet Union.
http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2010/december/5/was-it-good-cop-bad-cop-routine-enticed-so-many-foodies-sanction-fdas
http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2010/december/2/hidden-agenda-tester-hagan-amendment-hint-it-has-do-nais-remember
In this article in Grist from 2010, you can get a sense of the fear mongering that was going on to pass the FSMA, and which I and a few other lonely souls tried to counter:
http://grist.org/article/food-2010-11-16-tester-amendment-to-s-510-help-small-farms/
IN DEFENSE OF MICHAEL SCHMIDT: http://thebovine.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/why-michael-schmidts-appeal-matters/#more-35797
Be sure to click on the link at the bottom of the article and continue to read. The guy has some fascinating stuff in there. 😉
Ken
This just in: a Michigan judge dismissed Mark Baker’s lawsuit over the state’s Invasive Species Order seeking genetic purity, banning so-called feral or wild pigs. The good news is that the MI Dept of Natural Resources in effect accepted Baker’s practice of raising hybrid pigs including the offending species. So he is off the hook for that $700K fine imposed by the state. The bad news is that the DNR wasn’t forced to clarify its order, and thus can continue to enforce it as it sees fit. Baker had sought the clarification because the order can be interpreted to cover pretty much any breed not bred by corporate producers. Moreover, other states watching this case are presumably free to do as they please in restricting heritage pig breeds.
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/02/judge_dismisses_feral_swine_su.html
This link worked better for me.
http://blogs.naturalnews.com/the-health-benefits-of-raw-milk-and-the-dangers-of-processed-milk/
I think most of us here at TCP would agree that basteurization boiling does not make milk any better or safer, but does freezing make it any worse, or retain the nutritional balance and probiotic values? Anyone else have experience with that? We have never tried it but curious.
Ken, that’s udder nonsense (but believe me I do appreciate your enlightened views on natural farming and germophobes, etc)
If it’s any comfort to anyone, we don’t have to fear a world government taking over, because we already have a world government and have had one for centuries. The “Nation state” is a fictional idea today, all are controlled behind the scenes by the same thing. Keeping people in compartments, constantly pitting one group against another, it’s an ancient ruling technique.
If you do a little digging, you will find that the CIA, NSA, KGB, Mossad, British Intelligence, etc. are all simply arms of the same thing, like Pontiac Buick and Chevrolet are all part of GM.
A good way to begin investigating this hidden history: there was a video on oneradionetwork dot com (seems to have mysteriously disappeared from their archives now), called The Rothschilds: The World’s Only Trillionaire Family. I think you can still find it on youtube, it’s like 55 minutes.
I don’t think anything in this video would even be considered controversial to mainstream historians, it’s just basic history that they forgot to teach you in school. It’s a bit watered down, but overall would give you a lot of leads. The more you look into the global government, the uglier it gets.
We live in a global prison. As Russell Means once said, if you think you own your land, stop paying the taxes, and you will find out real fast that you don’t own it, you are renting it from the government.
I can’t even go to the river and bath naked, they will put me in prison. Don’t kid yourselves, we live in a sophisticated global police state. But it is true they are constantly trying to tighten the screws.
I am not a defeatist or I would have slit my wrists a long time ago. I believe it is our destiny to get out of this prison and take our rightful place in this Universe. So while I am aware of the bad guys’ program, I try not to obsess about it, and try to focus on being a laser beam of Goodness, nourishing myself and others too maybe. So I think I’m gonna make me some more sassafrass tea here and mix in some raw milk and whole sugar cane juice.
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2014/02/27/nutritional-labels-get-a-facelift-media-very-very-impressed/