What are they saying ’bout raw milk?

From Jacob Sullum, on Reason.com:

“Do you hate pot-smoking vegans but love raw milk? Have I got a website for you. On its face, Thoughtful Living is meant to be a refutation of two pernicious cultural trends: the belief that cannabis is harmless fun and the belief that a diet free of animal products is healthy. But it is actually an exercise in distinguishing subtle satire from earnest crankiness. Here are a few reasons why I favor the latter interpretation:

1) The anti-pot propaganda is not as over the top as it could be. Yes, there is the obligatory anecdote about the guy who got hooked on the reefer because he mistakenly thought it was not addictive, the criticism of medical marijuana laws as covers for recreational use, and even a call to boycott Progressive Insurance because of its founder’s support for marijuana reform.

Why McDonalds failed in Bolivia

From Hispanically Speaking News:

“…The failure of McDonald’s in Bolivia had such a deep impact in the company’s Creative and Marketing staff, that they produced a documentary titled “Why did McDonald’s Bolivia go Bankrupt,” trying to explain why did Bolivians never crossed-over from empanadas to Big Macs.

The documentary includes interviews with cooks, sociologists, nutritionists and educators who all seem to agree, Bolivians are not against hamburgers per sé, just against ‘fast food,’ a concept widely unaccepted in the Bolivian community.

It’s burghers eating burgers in America

From Jane Black, writing in The Atlantic:

“For years the conventional wisdom has been that fast food is poor people’s food; that, thanks to government subsidies that ensure cheap calories, the drive-through is where people who can’t afford the “good” stuff — organic, grass-fed, etc. — go to feed their families on a budget. Why else would anyone eat that stuff?

But a new study to be published in the Journal for Population Health Management reveals the dirty little secret of the American middle class: It’s not cash-strapped Americans who are devouring the most Big Macs and Whoppers, it’s us! According to the study, a household earning $60,000 a year eats the most fast food, and one bringing in $80,000 is actually more likely to have it their way than one with $30,000. Suddenly, last year’s news from the Centers for Disease Control makes sense: Nearly half of obese adults in this country are not poor but middle-class, earning at least $77,000 for a family of four.

Handel’s Messiah with the cows in the barn at Michael Schmidt’s Dec. 17th

This just in from Michael Schmidt:

Click image to go to Symphony in the Barn website for more information.

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.

Abkhanasian centenarians’ milk culture

From Hella Delicious:

Map via Hella Delicious

The Abkhasians had a way of life that is out of reach for modern man, or so it seems! One of the arguments that is often used to promote modern medical technology (vaccinations etc) is that we are living to be much older than we used to. I must point out that even with all of our advanced medical technology, we still haven’t managed to extend our lives, with most of our faculties (including sexual vigor!) still intact, as long as the Abkhasians or other long-living peoples (110-130 yrs) managed to do without any of our medical intervention.

This book (Abkhasians The Long-Living People of the Caucasus), by Sula Benet, who was born in Warsaw, Poland and later got her PhD at Columbia, is a very comprehensive anthropological study of the Abkhasians culture. I’ve been curious about centenarians ever since I wrote my first paper in Culinary School years ago.

Virtual grocery shopping in South Korea

Thanks to Cryptogon for the heads up:

Lewis Lapham on America’s diverse and divergent cultures of food and eating

From Lewis Lapham, writing on TomDispatch.com:

“Could there have been a pickier eater in 1950s America than me?  I doubt it.  Among the many things I wouldn’t eat was spaghetti and meatballs.  (Gross!)  Or at least I refused until one summer on return from camp, I told my astonished parents that I loved the stuff, just not the kind they served.  There was only one brand for me: Franco-American Spaghetti.

For those of you who aren’t old enough to remember that Campbell’s brand or the singing ad line that went with it (“Who can? Franco-Ameri-can…”), it was spaghetti that came out of a can, usually with a thwuck and as a single cylindrical lump of Day-Glo reddish-orange goo (thanks undoubtedly to some since-banned red dye or other).  It practically screamed: don’t touch me if you value your life.  And of course I couldn’t get enough of the stuff.

Farmer/Conductor Michael Schmidt conducts today at 2:30 pm in Aurora

Raw milk advocate and farmer Michael Schmidt will be displaying his more cultural side today in a performance at Aurora’s Pandora’s Box Salon series:

Michael Schmidt, a conductor who is outstanding in his field, in more ways than one!

Guest conductor, farmer and Renaissance man Michael Schmidt will lead the Aurora Salon Chamber Orchestra in music from “Forrest Gump” and “The Mission”.  Handel’s Harp Concerto and Mozart’s Oboe Quartet will resonate in the beautiful acoustics of Brevik Hall, and usher in the spring. Newmarket’s own Radley August will dance the role of Forrest, and celebrity author Margaret Webb will read from her book “Apples to Oysters: a food lover’s tour of Canadian Farms”, and sign books too!

15 things pasteurization kills in milk

by Mark McAfee, CEO, Organic Pastures Dairy, from Health Impact News Daily:

There are two raw milks in America: one for “people” and one for the “pasteurizer.” Raw milk meant for people is clean, pure, comes from cows on green pastures, and is regulated on a state-by-state basis. Raw milk for the pasteurizer is regulated by the FDA under the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) and can be filled with pathogenic bacteria. Raw milk intended for pasteurization is commingled from many confinement dairies and is never tested for pathogens. Pasteurization does not create clean milk; it just kills filthy milk.

The FDA sits at the very top of the PMO food chain system and reigns as the military dictator over the rules and regulations of the PMO. Yes, they wear military uniforms, and yes, they are the absolute last word at the NCIMS (National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, the organization that runs the PMO). So I do not exaggerate when I use the term “military dictatorship.” No one moves or breathes or thinks a thought without FDA approval when it comes to pasteurized milk and its regulation.