Raw milk podcast with Alice, Jackie, and Randy Shore of the Vancouver Sun

Podcast followup to that raw milk story Randy wrote for the Vancouver Sun recently:

Alice Jongerden, from her time as agister of “Home on the Range”. Photo Paul Henderson.

Host Randy Shore welcomes raw milk activist Jackie Ingram and farmer Alice Jongerden of Home on the Range Dairy. Do the health benefits of raw milk outweigh the potential risks? Are the benefits proven? What about the risks?

Listen to the Vancouver Sun podcast at this link.

Raw milk story in the Vancouver Sun

From R. Shore at the Vancouver Sun:

Raw milk is a rich and nutritious product, but it also provides an excellent medium for the growth of bacteria, both good and bad. Photograph by: Ward Perrin Ward Perrin , PROVINCE. Click image to go to original story.

“The milk we buy in stores is heat pasteurized, a process that destroys some vitamins, enzymes and beneficial bacteria. Raw unpasteurized milk contains all of the above. We don’t need to argue about that. The question you really need to consider is: Do the perceived benefits of drinking raw cow’s milk outweigh the potential dangers?

The raw milk debate is raging in newspapers, on the web and in courtrooms across the land. Raw milk advocates don’t want the government telling them what they can and cannot eat. I totally understand that. They have websites full of testimonials from self-appointed experts and apocryphal tales of raw milk curing everything from scurvy to psoriasis and tuberculosis.

Alice Jongerden speaks out at “Occupy Vancouver” rally, about raw milk laws, Michael Schmidt and food rights

See photos from the demonstration below, as seen in the Vancouver Sun:

Ontario dairy farmer Michael Schmidt vows to fight conviction for selling raw milk — Vancouver Sun

From Linda Nguyen in the Vancouver Sun:

Raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt of "Glencolton Farms" and "Our Cows" cowshares, with Alice Jongerden, former agister of "Home on the Range" cowshare in Chilliwack, B.C. Photograph from the Vancouver Sun. Photo was taken at a raw milk "drink in" outside the offices of Fraser Health.

“TORONTO — The Ontario Court of Justice on Wednesday found rural dairy farmer Michael Schmidt guilty of selling and distributing raw milk and raw-milk products — the latest development in a nearly five-year legal battle with the province about consumers’ rights to the illicit liquid.

In a 77-page decision, Ontario Justice Peter Tetley convicted Schmidt of 15 of the 19 criminal offences charged under the province’s Health Protection and Promotion Act and the Milk Act.

“It’s not really about me,” said Schmidt at his 100-acre farm in Durham, Ont., shortly after receiving the ruling late Wednesday.

“It’s about the principle. Do people in fact, have the right to make the proper decision, to have a cow in order to get their milk? That frustrates me because apparently we don’t have the right here in Canada to do that.”

Vancouver Sun reports: “Court decision delayed [Michael Schmidt] raw milk ruling” [for the fourth time]

From the Postmedia story by Linda Nguyen, in the Vancouver Sun: 

Michael Schmidt talks to media and supporters beside his iconic raw milk blue bus on Tuesday afternoon in Thornhill.

“TORONTO — A landmark decision expected Tuesday by the Ontario Superior Court on whether a rural Ontario dairy farmer broke the law for distributing raw milk has been delayed — again.

The ruling was supposed to decide if a justice of the peace erred when he acquitted Michael Schmidt of 19 charges related to the production, sale and distribution of raw milk and raw-milk products resulting from his cow-share business.

The decision, which is now expected to come out sometime Wednesday, was originally supposed to be released last week. It has been delayed due to computer problems at the Newmarket, Ont., courthouse.

How will we feed ourselves when the global food system begins to falter?

From Randy Shore, in the Vancouver Sun:

Peter Ladner, in his yard that he converted into a food garden, has written a book that details the changes people and policymakers in Canada are making to regain control of our food. Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, PNG, Vancouver Sun

“What would a city approaching food self-sufficiency look like?

Peter Ladner’s soon-to-be released book The Urban Food Revolution offers tantalizing glimpses of urban environments that successfully integrate commercial enterprise, low-impact living spaces and agricultural productivity. Balcony gardens, urban market gardens, rooftop beehives, vertical greenhouses and aquaponics, and acres of lawn converted to high-value herb and vegetable production are all being employed with success somewhere. Why not everywhere?

B.C. dairy farmers want milk tested for radioactivity, Canadian food inspection agency refuses their demands

From Tiffany Crawford, at the Vancouver Sun:

“Canadian health agencies have no immediate plans to measure the amount of radiation in milk following Japan’s nuclear crisis despite the demands of B.C. dairy farmers who want officials to follow the U.S. and test dairy products.

“There will be no testing of milk,” Alice Danjou, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Friday.

The news came as a disappointment to Robin Smith, executive director of the BC Milk Producers Association, which earlier this week called on the agency to test the milk in an effort to prove to the public the levels are low enough to consume.

100 Mile House man grew up drinking raw milk, mom sold milk to neighbours

From Don Branch in the Vancouver Sun:

“I grew up on raw milk and so did everyone who lived before pasteurized milk existed. We never became ill because of the milk. As a matter of fact, we made our own butter and fought siblings over the thick cream on top of the milk for our cereal.

We separated the milk from the cream and mom sold the milk to sawmill workers and with milking three cows twice a day she could have sold even more. So what is wrong with people drinking fresh unpasteurized milk? I am with the dairy folks on this one.”

Public raw milk nursing offends store owner and Vancouver Sun journalist

Green Mama Manda Aufochs Gillespie, on the Vancouver Observer:

And from an earlier Vancouver Observer story also by Manda Aufochs Gillespie:

Michael Schmidt’s raw milk Cow Share College to be offered across Canada in 2011, according to the Vancouver Sun

From Randy Shore, writing for the Vancouver Sun:

A Chilliwack raw milk dairy ordered to stop distributing unpasteurized milk is now calling its products cosmetics. Photograph by: Paul J. Henderson, CHILLIWACK TIMES

“A Chilliwack raw-milk dairy ordered to stop distributing unpasteurized milk is now calling its products cosmetics.

Tearing a page from the history books, Our Cows cow-share cooperative now labels raw milk and raw-milk dairy products as Cleopatra’s bathing milk, raw milk skin care lotion and face cream, according to farmer Michael Schmidt.

“Let’s be clear, these are not dairy products, these are cosmetics,” Schmidt told The Sun.

“The contents of these cosmetic products are unpasteurized dairy products.” Not everyone is convinced.