From David E. Gumpert on The Complete Patient blog:
“In India, and many other parts of the world, the struggle of Schmidt, and other farmers in North America, is incomprehensible. In India, farmers still take their cows or buffalo around to towns and cities, and provide fresh milk on the spot to customers. Customers then decide for themselves if they want to boil the milk or not—self pasteurize.
Indeed, one study indicates that India is the largest dairy producing country in the world, and that something approaching half its milk is distributed raw, by small farms. “Consumers often regard raw milk and traditional products obtained from reliable vendors as of better quality than formally processed dairy products,” says the study.
The notion of people buying their milk and other foods directly from farmers is respected, as it has been for centuries. The milk available in supermarkets is mostly pasteurized.
My favorite part of the Schmidt IndiaLegal story is this quote from him about all that has transpired during the 20 years Ontario has been prosecuting him,:“We have had five premiers in Ontario, ten minsters of agriculture, three popes, three presidents in the U.S., and 260,000 deaths from smoking in Ontario alone. Oh, and zero deaths from raw milk. I have not counted the days in court, the amount of court papers and the money spent on defending our right for food of our choice.”…”
The Bovine 