Raw milk video from Australia

We found this on the Natural Moms Talk Radio website. But it’s originally from Nourished Magazine . It’s a great little video with testimony from a mother and children who attest to health benefits. That and the obligatory regulator droning on about the hazards and minimizing the advantages of raw milk. Watch the video and make up your own mind. The title of this little movie is: The Nourisher interviewed on TV about Raw Milk, Asthma, Eczema, tooth decay.

The mother in the video calls herself “The Nourisher” and is editor of “Nourished Magazine. Here’s what she says about herself on her blog: “When we got married the registry wouldn’t let me put Super Hero as my occupation, they put Home Duties on our marriage certificate instead. But I AM a Super Hero and my Super Hero name is…… The Nourisher.”

Comments on Tuesday’s raw milk movie broadcast from viewers at CBC.ca

CBC.ca doesn’t seem to be as “on the ball” in handling comments as do their colleagues at CBCnews.ca . Either that, or they’re deliberately damping down the response by being slow in moderating and posting comments, perhaps in response to adverse reaction from “someone” up there. I was thinking again about how Norman Lofts’ movie won the big prize at Planet in Focus and wondered how much of that was for his excellent filmmaking and how much was because the judges liked the movie’s message. Was it like Michael Moore winning the big prize at Cannes for “Fahrenheit 911” — which commentators at the time thought was motivated more by the judges’ agreement with his political message rather than as testimony to the timeless excellence of his filmmaking? Anyway, CBC Newsworld’s broadcast on Tuesday night was the first showing of Norman Lofts’ movie about raw milk and farmer Michael Schmidt to a mass audience. What was their response? Read all the comments here on the cbc.ca site. Or start with the few samples below:

Chris B: My choice to consume raw milk was more to do with the health concerns related to the pasteurization and homogenization process. It is sad that those in authority that appeared on the show, are totally ignorant of the very real downside of processed milk. It all depends on the farm. If the cattle are living in dirty conditions and being fed unatural food, then yes, the raw milk is not fit for human consumption. If the cattle are living in fields and eating grass, that is a totally different matter. When I told a friend from Poland about the so called dangers of raw milk, she burst out laughing. that is all they ever had and no-one ever got sick from it. A very informative website is http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_safety.html

The DFO and the raw milk “nuts” — seeking common ground for discussion

When MPP Bill Murdoch put forward his private members bill in the Ontario Legislature back in 2006, proposing to study the issue of raw milk, it became clear that the chief opposition to re-opening the question of raw milk at the legislative level, arose from the “The Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO)”, and their two lobbyists, Hill and Knowlton.

The DFO (formerly the Ontario Milk Marketing Board) runs the quota-based supply management system which limits production to ensure predictable market prices for milk and milk products in Ontario.

You might wonder what possible common ground there could be between an organization like the DFO and a bunch of raw milk “nuts”. Well, to start with, we’re all “nuts” about milk. Unlike a lot of people these days, we strongly believe that it’s neither unnatural nor unhealthy for human beings to drink a substantial amount of bovine milk and to eat milk products.

Next, we all believe in the family farm. Ontario’s quota system has had the effect of keeping production units smaller than in say, California, where 5,000 cow farms are not unusual and where increases in scale are necessitated by low prices paid to producers. In order to be confident in the quality of the product, raw milk fans like to know that there’s genuine human responsibility at work in the production process, which is really only feasible in a smaller scale of production — like the family farm.

Food security at Glencolton Farms

grafitti art by Bansky

For our cow share members’ safety, Glencolton Farms has designed a comprehensive surveillance system to ensure the safety of your milk. This includes video surveillance, motion detectors and more.

This has become a more and more pressing issue since it is obvious that the best argument for the opponents of Raw Milk would be for someone to become sick from it. Tampering with food has been a successful tool used on many occasions in the past in order to sway public opinion. I have just read a report about an incident in the U.S. where this method of willful contamination was used.

While it is rather difficult for me to move into the realm of mistrusting the so-called other side, our experience 14 years ago has taught us that , at some point, anything will do to prevent the success of our current struggle to properly regulate and legalize Raw Milk. Since we are battling a powerful industry with lots of money at their disposal, anything can happen.