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.

Dairy farmer fought the system in 1974 over direct-to-consumer raw milk sales

Michael Schmidt: “Joseph Heckman from Rutgers University gave me this article” (from Mother Earth News):

I fought the system and won

There’s an old American proverb (you probably first heard it in grade school) that says: dictum, you shouldn’t try even try to confront the Powers That Be … because “you can’t win”.

“I guess I never learned that proverb,” says John A. Kolezynski of Long Valley, New Jersey,” Because when the creameries — and the Department of Health—in my state conspired to me out of the dairy business, I was ‘dumb’ enough to fight back. And when I did I found out something interesting about the American system of justice: It still works. Sometimes.”

On April 15, 1974, I received a summons to appear in court. I was being sued by the state of New Jersey.