Last week my name appeared on the homepage of RealMilk.com, a raw milk advocacy site linking to a review of my raw milk white paper “Does raw milk kill pathogens?” The review is written by the Weston A. Price Foundation’s (WAPF) Ted Beals [PDF] in the fall 2009 issue of the WAPF journal. His response to me is listed on the RealMilk website along with a WAPF response to the FDA and to Bill Marler. The FDA is known for its staunch stance against raw milk sales and food choice. Bill Marler is a food injury lawyer who has sued raw milk producers when their milk was associated with illnesses. As a strong supporter of food choice, I am an odd duck in the list of anti-choice sources.
It is a bit amusing that Beals says in his review that I am trying to “scare” consumers about a raw milk safety issue all the while I have been utterly unsuccessful at scaring myself. (Memo to WAPF: I drink raw milk.) I read Beals’ review and wanted to respond, “But Ted, my blog is the home of the Rambling Raw Milk Series, surely that doesn’t make me a bogeyperson.”
Apparently, as Bill Marler “tweeted” on Twitter, I am always stirring the pot. At the time, Marler was on Twitter stirring the pot.
Never mind.
I went to Davis recently and got the love I deserved. We were at the farmers market when I was literally rushed by a crowd of Asian coeds who began wildly snapping pictures as if I were famous. About ten women in the group of thirty snapped pictures while the rest of them gushed in their native language. Their excitement had nothing to do with raw milk or my bogeyperson status. My interpretation of their affection was that they had not seen such a cute baby before. Indeed. Healthy and alert babies are reason for excitement.
I will post a response to Beals in the next week or so.
Technorati Tags: dairy, Davis, WAPF, raw milk, Weston A Price Foundation
@ Amazon.
bogey mistress
LOL. I like it.
Hey, did you ever consider that your initials are “SS”? Hmmmmm. ;0
Amanda, when I read all of these goings ons at The Complete Patient….I was apauled. In NO WAY did I ever think you were trying to scare anyone! You are just making everyone aware of the facts. I think it irresponsible of WAPF for not getting the facts right and not publishing the truth or at least publishing both sides so people can be aware. I tried to share your data with a friend who is a WAPF lover and she poo poo’d the facts and quoted Organic Pastures data. Sometimes it’s good to stir the pot to let all the flavors blend and so it doesn’t burn on the bottom.
People need to ask Mark at Organic Pastures for the lab report and examine it for themselves (or read my paper). I think they would be surprised.
Your response is totally reasonable, Diane: Let’s focus on keeping pathogens out of the milk in the first place.
What I find a bit frustrating in this whole saga is why it has to be all or nothing – you’re either in complete agreement with us or you’re against us kind of attitude. WAPF has done this in other areas and I think it’s incredibly short-sighted (not to mention unproductive). I really appreciate a number of the things that the WAPF has done (including things like realmilk.com and FTCLDF), but this pervasive attitude drives me batty!
And I would agree – let’s keep the focus on keeping pathogens out of milk! We’ve stopped buying raw milk locally because I wasn’t comfortable with the practices of farmers – one wouldn’t ever give us our own containers back, but would use containers that other members had used (he’d give it the “sniff” test to ensure it was clean). There were some members who were notorious for returning dirty containers.