Raw Milk!!

[Henry]

Have been listening to the news and it got me to thinking about the difficulty that my Dad had in getting used to homogenized milk.  Not sure what year it was that he finally got rid of the last of his cows, but know that from time to time he would get sick and was unable to milk, so I had to go up and milk the cow he had for house milk.  He hadn't shipped milk to the creamery for quite some time as his small farm was unable to afford the bulk tanks that became a requirement.  It took the milk inspector a while before he finally told my father he could no longer sell his milk, so he did the next best thing and that was to get calves from neighboring farms and have them suck the cows and then sell them.  He just loved his cows and calves (Each had their own name) and I do have to say that these calves could be pretty frisky.  I would say that Dad was probably about my age when he finally had to sell off his cows as his mind was failing and health was deteriorating.  Interestingly enough, raising veal was actually much more profitable for him then milking the cows and selling the milk.

Once Mother & Dad started buying their milk at the store, he no longer used pure cream on his oatmeal, which he had done all his life every single morning.  Also he never stopped complaining about how badly this store bought milk tasted.  Don't ever remember any of us ever being sick from drinking raw milk, which we all did for many, many years, but then again, we were always very particular to make sure everything was cleaned thouroughly.

[chelseaclark]

I don't know much about this recent news story about the folks in Orleans, but I thought I would chime in. It seems that the media loves to cover stories about people getting sick, but you don't hear much about the families who are thriving on raw milk. Not to mention what it might do for farms.

My family has been drinking raw milk for the last 5 years because we believe it is more nutritious than pasteurized & homogenized milk.  We have never been sick from drinking it.  Vermont recently changed it's laws around the sale of raw milk - now farmers can sell up to 50 quarts per day. But farmers still are not allowed to transport their milk nor sell it in stores. I would love to see this change so that more people could have access to it!

For more info about raw milk, visit:
http://www.realmilk.org

for more info about raw milk in Vermont, and the law I mentioned, visit:
http://www.ruralvermont.org/food.html