Raw milk rallies across Canada this Wednesday Nov. 23rd including one in Toronto at Queen’s Park

Here is the list of raw milk rallies planned for November 23rd, all across Canada. Perhaps one of them is in your neck of the woods:

Michael Schmidt had an informal chat with friends about the state of all things raw milk a couple of hours ago at the Toronto Waldorf school Arts and Crafts show in Thornhill.

November 23^rd in BC – Nadine Ijaz and Jan Steinman are doing a rally at the legislature building in Victoria.  They may be milking a cow and a goat.  An update on that should be forthcoming.   They will also be bringing milk across the border to drink at the rally.  You can reach Nadine atnadineijaz@gmail.com and Jan at jan@bytesmiths.com.

November 23rd Vancouver BC – 11 am 12.00pm Olympic Cauldron, 1055 Canada Place Vancouver.  Event Organizer Alice Jongerden invites members of the public to attend, key note speakers, live cooking event with celebrity chefs.  Nearest Skytrain and Canada Line Waterfront, also the Seabus terminal is a 4 minute walk away. Alice can be reached atalice@homeontherangefarms.com.

“People’s milk” under threat from big corporation milk down in Columbia

From 3Wheeled Cheese, translated from Grain.org:

Milk man in Puskar, India. Pic from internet.

Milk is an essential source of health and income for the people. The popular, or people’s, milk chain, independent, counts on local vendors who collect the milk from the small producers, owners of a few milk cows. Such systems of “people’s milk” compete directly with the ambitions and attempts by the big dairy industries, such as Nestlé and others, that want to take over the entire milk chain- from stables to markets.

What is this monster called raw milk?

From Peter Niepel (from New Zealand) on “Milk Me”: 

“Not that long ago nobody did actually know the expression “Raw Milk” because all milk was raw milk. That was before the 1940ies when pasteurisation wasn’t that common. And people survived drinking raw milk.

I was born 1961 and I still remember that we bought milk from a small dairy shop in Germany. We had our glass bottles and the lady behind the counter filled them from a pump. By the time we arrived home we had a thick layer of cream on top. So that must have been beginning 70ies. Still, nobody died from drinking it.

About one year ago, I received a reply from the Minister of Food Safety’s office HON Kate Wilkinson telling me that: “The harm that is produced by tobacco is generated through decades of use, mainly by adults. Whereas, a single ingestion of contaminated milk or cheese could kill, especially as this is a product more likely to be given to infants and children or the immune deficient, often by extremely well-meaning family members.” So raw milk is more dangerous than tobacco? What happened between the early 70s and today?

The astonishing story of raw milk

From Ann Mendelson, on the Mother Earth News:

“Once upon a time, cows supplied us with delicious whole milk, wonderful fresh cream, skim milk fit to drink, refreshing soured skim milk, nutrient-rich curd and whey, truly lovely butter and real buttermilk. A single batch of fresh milk could have yielded still other transformations — yogurt, fresh cheese or clotted cream, for instance.

Like so many of today’s supermarket offerings, modern “milk” and dairy products have lost the rich flavors our ancestors enjoyed. Can we recapture the culinary magic that is ancient dairy chemistry? What’s going on with the small scale artisans who still practice this traditional magic? Could our collective voices move the American dairy industry to bring us real milk, in less manhandled and denatured form? We have reasons to be hopeful.