Raw Milk Renegade Redux: Letter from a Listener

First there was an American Revolution, then there was the Ron Paul Revolution, now it appears that there is a Raw Milk Revolution. What happens if the whole country re-discovers the nutritional goodness of fresh, organic raw milk? Will there be enough Mennonite farmers in Pennsylvania to meet the demand or will they all be in jail?

Despite the fear-mongering of government, nutritional ignorance is giving way to the awareness that when it comes to the care of your body, you can't better nature. As evidence, I give you a delicious and nutritious letter from Scott in Victorville, California (published with his permission):

Dear Robert Scott Bell,

I serendipitously discovered your program 3 months ago (Talk 960 KIXW in CA) and have been an avid listener since. I also subscribed to your blog as well. Well, this note is really about raw organic milk. I listened to your broadcast about the raw milk controversy with great interest. I already knew that homogenization is what made the fat in milk indigestible and/or unusable by my body and that the pasteurization process killed all the bacteria in milk, but I did not know that the fat in raw milk was actually good for me and that the so-called 'bad bacteria' in raw milk was good for me as well. After listening, it removed my fear of drinking raw organic milk.

Well, finally, after visiting my local health food store (BJ's Health Food Store) this past Sunday (7/20) I bought myself a half gallon of raw organic milk. Of course it had the obligatory US Gov't Warning Label on it telling me that raw milk contains bacteria known to cause disease and illness, but I ignored that and brought it home.

Honestly, I did have some trepidations about my raw milk experiment. Would I like the taste and texture? Would my stomach or digestive tract react adversely to it? Would I indeed get sick from the bacteria mentioned on that warning label?

I poured myself an 8 ounce glass and drank it. Hmm, the taste was better than I thought it would be, and actually, it brought back childhood memories of milk I had drank as a kid (I am 52 yrs. old now, so we are talking late 50's early 60's milk). Yes, actually, it tasted good! The texture was not too foreign to me but I forgot about the coating it leaves in your mouth afterwards. I then realized that I had indeed drank raw milk many years ago and how much I loved it back then. I remember having to shake the bottle because of the natural separation that occurs when it sits. I remember my aunt and uncle, who had their own farm, keeping pitchers of their own milk in the 'fridge and drinking it there, as well.

My gastro-intestinal response was minimal but my body did indeed notice the difference and I could feel it. There was a little more 'gurgling' than normal but I knew that my body was just getting reacquainted with the bacteria and enzymes present in raw milk.

I now have at least one cup per day as part of my whey protein drink in the morning and I sometimes actually drink a cold glass later on. I'm finally allowing myself to nourish the milk cravings that I still get even after years of not drinking it. Seems my body remembered the goodness in milk, I just had to find that 'good milk' for my body once again.

I never thought I would ever, for the rest of my life, make milk a part of my diet again, but here I am drinking it daily and loving it.

Now when my grandson asks for milk, I gladly pour him a glass! I no longer fear that I am giving him a biologically dead and unhealthy food.

Yes, I actually feel good about milk again and I owe it to you and your educational program.

Keep getting your self-empowerment messages out to the masses. You are making a difference!

Yours in good health,

W. Scott Pavone Victorville, CA

Thanks Scott. Your letter gives me hope that the message of sane nutrition is getting through despite governmental indoctrination to Louis Pasteur's cult of The Germ Theory. If I could, I would award you the Antoine Béchamp Medal of the Healthy Milieu for having the courage to eat right without asking for government approval or permission. If enough people follow your lead, we may just restore nutritional integrity to a nation filled with millions of people living in fear of the natural world.

Now, who will be first to write in to counter Scott and claim that drinking raw milk is dangerous, irresponsible and should be banned by Barack Obama?

Raw Milk and the Government Food Police Gone Lowfat, Sour & Pasteurized

Headline: “Low-Fat” Milk Makes You Fat – Full Fat Raw Milk Doesn’t "Drinking raw milk produced by grass-fed cows from clean, well-run farms, however, is far LESS dangerous than drinking pasteurized milk."

PR agencies on Madison Avenue get fat off of making us believe things that are not actually true. "Big Milk" has used Taxpayer money to propagandize us all about the wondrous miracles of highly-pasteurized, low fat, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone-containing cow's milk. Where have all the free-grazing raw organic cows gone?

Well, we can be comforted in the knowledge that some states will lock you up for selling such a product. It's as if purveyor's of raw, unpasteurized milk have been designated enemy combatants by the Department of Agriculture. Who knew that the AG Dept would one day fall under the Department of Homeland Insecurity? At the dawn of these united States of America, did the Founding Father's ever consider that the government they created would one day criminalize moo-cow excretions?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and shall not be permitted to sell milk without first destroying its nutritional goodness."

The fact that millions of Americans see nothing wrong with having "federal food police" is all the evidence of an American national nutritional deficiency you'll ever need. You want the troops out of Iraq? How about getting them out of our farms and kitchens? It is a fallacy to think that a bureaucratic oligarchy in Washington, D.C., much less your state capital, could ever regulate safely and effectively what you put into your body better than you could. A healthy people in a vibrant constitutional republic would never tolerate such lawlessness and abuse of power from its servant government.

Maybe we no longer have a republic. If you can't buy, sell or drink raw milk, then how free are you really? I bet the Iraqis are free to drink raw milk. Are they allowed to drink raw goat milk in Afghanistan? Maybe we should be more worried about freedom on our own soil first instead of "making the world safe for democracy" abroad.

Democracy, as a system of government, is not so great when the majority can vote away the rights of the minority, so why should Americans be in favor of it? This is especially puzzling considering that the Declaration of Independence and Constitution never established a democracy to begin with. It is an abject absurdity to fight to establish a form of government abhorred by our Founders. War? I might argue for a war against pasteurized factory farm milk, except that maybe we'd end up with more of it.

The Law of Reversed Effort usually results in more of that which you fight the hardest to suppress. War on Drugs. War on Cancer. War on Poverty. War on AIDS. Is it really necessary to declare war on everything that we do not like? What would Sun Tzu say? If you don't want to drink raw milk, whoop-de-frickin-do. The Mennonites aren't forcing it upon you against your will. So why would you support the government forcing or limiting them to drink only that which has been pasteurized? Should you be allowed into commerce with raw milk?

Is it now the role of the U.S. government to be the enforcer of nutritional ignorance? When did we change the Constitution to allow that? Got freedom?

Raw Milk Renegade from Mennonite Moo-Cows

Headline: The Criminalization of Raw Milk -- A Mennonite Farmer is Hauled Away "...he is not going to stop [selling raw milk] til he is ready to stop. He is the equivalent of that little black lady in Alabama who wouldn't go to the back of the bus. He is doing the same thing, he won't go to the back of bus." I wonder what Rosa Parks would think of the government denying a constitutionally proficient law-abiding citizen the right to enter into contracts with his neighbors and friends?

One of the key rights supposed to be protected by our government is the RIGHT to contract. Or is that now lost in a haze of collectivist protectionism coming from the elitists in BIG GOVERNMENT? Yes, that includes you Hillary Clinton. The brave Mr. Nolt is a threat to no one (except Monsanto and Big Government) and he understands what is at stake in his stance against government encroachment on the freedom to enter into private agreements.

"Mr. Nolt contends that the regulations have not been approved by the legislature and shouldn't apply to him because he is selling directly to consumers, via private contracts that are outside the purview of the state, making a privilege out of a right he believes he has - the right to private contracts."

It is rare to find many Americans which truly understand the difference between a right and a privilege, but I am privileged to know that the number of freedom-lovers is growing.

Often, we do not appreciate something until we have lost it. I feel that this is what is happening as more of our brothers and sisters awaken to an American terrain so overburdened with government regulation that the oxygen necessary for breathing may be available shortly only if you have a permit. Is it really "kooky" to desire freedom over false security? If it is, then consider me major-league-kooky and proud of it. I do not need nor desire a bureaucratic oligarchy on any level keeping me from raw milk just to fulfill their desire for raw power over the populace.

In this scenario, what is the difference between the U.S.A. and the old U.S.S.R.? At least in the Soviet Union, the people KNEW they were not free. You may claim you love liberty, but if you ain't got "raw" milk, it may be because you are not free to buy and sell raw milk without government permission. Then, ipso facto, you are not free.

I wonder if the Iraqis are free to have raw milk without first acquiring permission from government officials? If so, then George Bush should be applauded for making the world safe for raw milk, except for those left in the "homeland" under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture.

Is the Department of Agriculture now a subsidiary of the Department of Homeland Security? Why not go all the way and make the Constitution a sub-department therein as well? Or did they already do that with the passage of the misnamed Patriot Act? Got freedom?

I'd rather have a glass of nice cold raw milk AND freedom.