VI. The Minnesota Department of Agriculture violated the consumers constitutional right to contract guaranteed them by the 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and Article 1, sec. 7 of the Constitution of the State of Minnesota.

Dr. Cate Shanahan is a board certified Family Physician. She trained in biochemistry and genetics at Cornell University before attending Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She practiced in Hawaii for ten years where she studied ethnobotany and her healthiest patient’s culinary habits.

 

Dr Cate and Luke enjoy eating 

Dr. Cate writes about the experiences that lead her to write Deep Nutrition and Food Rules:

In high school I competed in cross country and track at an international level and earned myself a four-year college athletic scholarship. But in college, my once-indestructible body started falling apart.

Sports Injuries I Suffered From

• Shin splints
• Achilles tendonitis
• Illeotibial band syndrome
• Patello-femoral pain
• Ankle impingement syndrome
• Pulled muscles

I was almost as intrigued with trying to solve the mystery of why I was the team member who kept getting sidelined by shin splints, tendonitis, and other sports injuries as I was frustrated by the fact of being injured. To learn more, after graduating I enrolled in Cornell University’s Molecular Biology program in hopes of somehow getting to the root of recurring sports injuries and being able to help competitive athletes like myself.

That was in the 1980s, when biotechnology was in it’s adolescence. I soon learned that genes are every bit as dynamic and alive as you and I, responding on a minute to minute basis to the world around them, and it was obvious to me that technology would never evolve to the point where it could keep up with the complexity of our inner biology. So I left graduate school to attend medical school in hopes of getting to the root of illness from the clinical angle.

Medical School Does Not Get to the Root of Illness

I started med school knowing that malnutrition could change human DNA, but by the time I left I’d learned so little about nutrition that I pretty much forgot about my goal of getting to the root of illness. I did learn that the problems I had could all be attributed to weak collagen in my joints and muscles, but had no idea why this problem affected me and not any of my parents or grandparents.

Only when I relocated to Hawaii, the state with the longest lifespan in the US, did I realize that I was immersed in a culture of healthy people who could teach me the secrets of what I’ve come to call “genetic wealth.”

Common External Signs of Genetic Wealth (Men and Women)

• Strong joints
• Fertility
• No grey hair by age 50
• Strong nails
• Limbs proportioned according to the Golden Ratio
• Long nose, high cheekbones, full lips, and strong jaw

Many of my patients were employed at the Hawaiian resorts. These women, in their 50s and 60s, worked all day long lifting, scrubbing, bending, reaching, and then when they got home they kept on going, making dinner for their husbands or chasing after the grandchildren they cared for. These women typically had beautiful skin, supple joints, and few if any grey hairs. Every last one had grown up in a rural area where they were raised as their parents and grandparents had been on home-grown fresh foods prepared according to simple traditional culinary techniques.

Traditional food is not what we think it is.

Everything I learned about diet in medical journals was turned on its head by my experience in Hawaii. Animals are actually easier to raise than vegetables, requiring only pastureland and water, and so many of my patients also raised their own goats, pigs, and chickens, and caught fish. I realized I was seeing firsthand the kinds of practical food-gathering, storing, and cooking solutions that our ancestors used throughout history; I was learning the foods that made us human.

Over the years I spent in Hawaii, I studied culinary traditions practiced by my patients, and found a world of delicious food and incredible sources of nutrients that is hidden from most Americans. I wrote Deep Nutrition to begin to draw the connections I’d discovered between food and beauty and genes and health.

Ironically, some of the poorest people in the world eat the best foods. We call them subsistence farmers and uneducated, but they are masters of self sufficiency and posses skills that few of of us educated in America can even understand.

Today, I work at the Family Health and Wellness Center at Catholic Medical Center in Bedford, NH where I have the privilege of being able to bring the old-fashioned country doctor ideals from rural Kauai to a modern medical practice an hour from Boston. I enjoy teaching people to shop, cook, and eat according to the traditional principles our bodies have evolved to depend on. Every day after work I watch Luke cook up a delicious meal, and sometimes I wash the dishes.

Make an appointment to see Dr. Cate by calling

The Family Health and Wellness Center at Bedford

188 Route 101, Bedford NH 03110

603 935 8494

Now Selling at Amazon.com

Long before government RDAs or diet books, people observed how nourishment affects growth. Though they didn’t know about DNA, they recognized specific foods that influenced their constitutions, and applied this understanding to engineer bodies of extraordinary health and beauty. Today, we owe the length of our limbs, the shape of our eyes, the proper function of our organs—and all that makes us human—to our ancestors’ collective skill.

Deep Nutrition identifies the foods and techniques common to every culture and divides them into four categories, called the Four Pillars of World Cuisine. From the Maasai and ancient Egyptian to the Japanese and the French, you’ll learn how the same Four Pillars form the foundation of all the healthiest diets. Using the latest research in physiology and genetics, the authors explain why your family’s health depends on eating these foods. In a world of competing nutritional ideologies, Deep Nutrition gives us the full picture, empowering us to take control of our destiny in ways we might never have imagined.

Learn How:

• Your genes are always changing
• Traditional food creates beautiful bodies
• Beauty and health are connected
• We instinctively recognize the healthiest mates
• To see beyond calories and learn the language of food
• To loose weight and stay young
• To prevent cancer, heart disease, Alzheimers and more
• To use diet to turn your child’s behavior around
• To prepare the foods that have stood the test of time
• Symmetry and health are connected
• The cholesterol theory of heart disease created a sickness epidemic!

About The Authors

Luke Shanahan, MFA: Has studied enology and the culinary arts during and since graduate school. He has taught, lectured, and worked with chefs around the country and is currently working on a cookbook based on The Four Pillars of World Cuisine

Dr. Cate Shanahan: Trained at Cornell University’s Molecular Biology Program where she learned how nutrients direct physiologic growth. She has continued to study nutrition and alternative medicine since residency training in Tucson, AZ. Dr. Shanahan’s lecture’s have revolutionized how fellow health professionals think about nutrition and health.

Praise for Deep Nutrition:

Jo Robinson, Author ofThe Omega Diet, and Eat Wild.Com says:

“Immediately I was struck by the clarity and simplicity of the writing. I didn’t realize that fat cells could wander around the body and turn into different cell types. Fascinating. I’m going to jump on my stair-stepper and pound away!”

Sally Fallon, Author of Nourishing Traditions says:

“Extremely interesting and insightful; written in a brilliant, engaging, an witty style.”

Marjorie Tietjen, Price Pottenger Nutrition Foundation says:

“Even readers who are very familiar with the works of Weston Price will still discover new and fascinating information within these pages. I enjoyed Deep Nutrition so much that I honestly did not want to finish it.”

JoAnn Deck, Vice President of Ten Speed Press says:

“Dr. Shanahan is the Michael Pollan of medicine, telling us what to eat and why to eat it.”

What about Fresh Milk?

By Sylvia P. Onusic, PhD

I was talking today to my friend, John McCormick, a grass farmer who lives in Wilmore, PA  about the reactions of  some few people who were attending the Lactose Intolerance Conference at NIH this past week and stopped by the Weston Price exhibit, which was manned, or should I way womaned, by Kim Hartke, publicist for the non-profit organization. One lady was angry and demanded that Kim leave because raw milk was illegal in Maryland. Kim had the approval of the National Institutes of Health Conference Management Center to be present there. The woman walked by the table the following day in a huff, and repeated her comments.

John, who started drinking about a quart of raw milk kefir daily, after three bouts of cancer, wondered why it was called raw milk. “Why don’t we just call it “fresh milk?,” he asked me. “People wouldn’t have such a bad reaction. I’m surprised no one has thought of it yet.”

Upon second thought, what he said had a great deal of truth to it.

Raw is a word that does evoke specific mental images, whether it be raw meat, or a wound, dripping blood. It is an edgy word and applying it to such a gentle natural drink bears rethinking. After all, pasteurized milk certainly cannot be termed “fresh,” after being mishandled by heating, then pulverized to break up the fat globules and adulterated with artificial Vitamin D. And the final product stands row upon row on shelves in the dairy case at supermarkets, with a long “expiration date.”

On the other hand, “fresh milk,” straight from the cow, comes to you in its natural state, with no additions or subtractions. It must be bottled immediately and sold within a few short days.

Just something to think about. Government regulators from the FDA recently harassed an Amish farmer, in Pennsylvania, entered his property and demanded an inspection for possibly producing fresh milk because,  “Well, you have cows. You cannot be consuming all the milk you produce.” They then followed a man in a truck, who was an observer to the scene, for 50 miles, after he left the farm. When the man later questioned the agents  as to why they were harassing him and demanding to inspect his  truck,  they responded,  “We have a cause, because you left the farm.”  It makes you wonder.

Why do we call it “raw milk?” The actions of the FDA in this case were definitely “raw.”

Sylvia P. Onusic holds a PhD in Health Education and Nutrition. She has completed all coursework to qualify for Registered Dietician. She is also a certified nutrition teacher in Pennsylvania and has taught nutrition in local high schools and on the university level.  She is a member of the American.Society for Nutrition, PASA- Pennsylvania Sustainable Agriculture, and Weston A Price Foundation.

Sylvia spoke at the 2nd Annual International Raw Milk Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin on Raw Milk Perspectives in Europe.

http://www.farmtoconsumerfoundation.org/rawmilksymposiu/presentations/EuropeanRawMilkPerspectives3.pdf

Untold Story of Milk

In a few recent emails I have seen the advice to re-read The Untold Story of Milk as we exercise our food rights. Apparently the Michigan Raw Milk Workgroup has already done so. For everyone’s benefit a synopsis of the important historical milestones is now available. Here is today’s guest blog by a member of the workgroup, Dr. Ted Beals.

Ted Beals, M.D. was a presenter at the 2nd Annual International Raw Milk Symposium, on April 10, 2010, in Madison Wisconsin.

There is now another comprehensive historical review of raw milk and pasteurization. On the Michigan Workgroup’s website. Visit  http://www.miffs.org/MIfuwmilk, then click on the History topic summary on the upper left of the home page.  Some clarifications and revisions based on examination by the group of historical documents from the critical times at the turn of the century.  Most of the false dogma and historical revisions were kept out of the summary.

Legislation for pasteurization came late because all understood from the beginning the importance of farm, milking and handling management.  All of the original push was for sanitation and cleaning up the outrageous conditions on dairies that didn’t care about the quality of their product and in an industrial model where the only interest was in quantity, efficiency, lower costs and bigger is better principals.  The public’s and official’s concern for sanitation was there then, was incorporated into all dairy oversight, and it should remain the cornerstone for our current position.

Farmers and Consumers Need to Understand Good Practices

But there are a whole list of other good practices that are probably critical to the quality of our fresh milk.  I agree we need to get consumers and farmers to understand which practices make our product so profoundly different.  It certainly isn’t dependant on a “kill step” and it is not just sanitation.  There is the soil, feed, housing, equipment, quality of the herd, management of lactation, care in handling the milk, consumer responsibility, on and on.

Coming to agreement on which are critical, which important, and which are good; will be a challenge.  But we need to start with the understanding that we have a different product, and that product’s quality is not simply starting with existing standards based on producing that other product for over a century.

Teleseminars Offer Farmers Help to Serve this Growing Market

With the huge increase in families that want fresh unprocessed whole milk; and with real economic pressures on existing conventional dairy farmers, there is a real and imminent danger of naïve or ambitious people moving into this market.

Some will do it right if they can understand and use good management practices (such as are available from the Cow-Share College of the Farm to Consumer Foundation).  But recent experience with Organic has taught a hard lesson.  We need to have consumers that can recognize a quality dairy and will not simply obtain milk for their family from someone because they have “raw milk” available.

I’m ready to take this on.  The detractors of raw milk can fight us to the ground if we keep trying to fight the war based on their terms.  And one of their terms is that our product must be guaranteed 100% safe.   There are over a million people out there in North America who do not believe the “Milk is Milk” slogan.  They want and are regularly drinking this distinctly different product.

Ted Beals, M.D., is a Pathologist, Health educator and administrator.  He is the Retired National Director of Pathology  & Laboratory Services, Dept. of Veterans Affairs. He is also a researcher and faculty member of the University of  Michigan.  A lifelong advocate for organic principles and nutrient dense foods, Ted has recently written on bovine TB and milk. Ted is active in promoting the rights of farmers to provide and consumers to obtain milk and other local farm products. He lives with his wife Peggy on 40 acres in rural Michigan.

 David E. Gumpert, author of the newly released Raw Milk Revolution:

Mark McAfee owner of Organic Pastures Dairy is articulate, passionate and wild. He wore a kilt to give a keynote address at the raw milk symposium!

He is definitely a braveheart when it comes to promoting his product, and belief in sustainable dairy farming. I am proud to introduce him to you today if you haven’t met him yet.

Braveheart
He runs the largest raw dairy in the country, in California, a state where raw milk, cream and butter are available on retail shelves and at farmers markets. His business is consumer driven, when he first started farming, consumers approached him, asking for a grass fed, unprocessed milk product.

His huge business today is in response to that need. Families of all religions, politics, socio-economic status, are choosing raw milk to build their bodies strong. They always say, all trends start in California, and what I have noticed especially, is that all health trends seem to start there and then head east.

Check out this video when you have time. It’s illuminating and electrifying!

Meet Mark McAfee, the human light bulb!

He is a Hero of Sustainable Agriculture, for real.

Baby, I Like it Raw from Sickly Cat Network on Vimeo.

Joel Salatin is a self-described environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer, or as the New York Times calls him, “the high priest of the pasture.” You may remember him from The Omnivore’s Dilemma, in which he was profiled at length by Michael Pollan. Salatin’s innovative farming system—where the animals live according to their “ness,” the earth is used for symbiosis, and happiness and health is key—has gained attention from around the country, and he travels in the winter giving lectures and demonstrations. He is the author of a number of books including Holy Cows and Hog Heaven, Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, You Can Farm, Pastured Poultry Profit$, and Family Friendly Farming. I talked to Joel Salatin about how he got started farming, his appearance in the new film Food, Inc., the government’s role in farm politics, and his ideas on the future of food. Suffice it to say, it’s not as simple as conventional vs. organic.

Makenna Goodman: How did you go from being a farmer in Swoope, Virginia, to a public figure in the food movement? You have written many books on this topic, so feel free to give the short version!

Joel Salatin: From my earliest memories, I loved the farm. My grandfather was a charter subscriber to Rodale‘s Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine and had a huge, well kept garden with an octagonal chicken house in the corner. My great uncle raised chickens commercially and some of my fondest childhood memories are of seeing his thousands of chickens out on the field. He began building confinement houses too, and those were stinky. Dad had the same farming bug, but he was an incredible innovator and right when he was poised to be a successful farmer in Venezuela, it was snatched away from him during political upheavals and I don’t think he ever really recovered, since he was 40 at the time. But he and Mom returned to the states with their little children (I was 4) and started over. As an accountant, Dad saw the vicious treadmill farmers were on, even in 1961, with chemicals and practices that encouraged disease. He immediately found grass farming, controlled grazing, composting, portable structures, and all the basic principles that undergird our farm today. I am only an extension of having gone down a very different path than most farmers, and I thank my roots for that. So I don’t have a modern conversion story–I’m as lunatic as Dad was, except he and Mom gave Teresa and I a head start with raw land, good philosophy, and a can-do spirit in a fairly politically stable environment.

I inherited Mom’s verbal skills, and participated in forensics and essay contests in elementary school–and won every essay contest I ever entered. I would write stories for fun and had a theatrical flare–played lead in the high school drama presentations. The point is that combining my dramatic and verbal charisma with completely innovative farming practices (at least innovative to what was practiced at the time) created a highly marketable product surrounded by a warm, fuzzy story. Throughout high school I peddled my eggs, had a vendor stand at the local curb market, precursor to today’s farmers’ markets, and competed in 4-H contests and interscholastic debate. All I wanted to do was farm, but like so many aspiring wanna-be young farmers, I couldn’t see how to make a living on the farm–at least enough to support a family and live more than at a subsistence level. The only real way in, it appeared, was to milk a few cows and sell the milk, but that was illegal. And I don’t think I’ve forgiven the government yet for denying me that early farming entry point.

But as it turned out, Teresa’s frugality and my tenacity (or foolhardiness) created a way to be on the farm full time for one year. I quit the off farm newspaper reporter job and came home Sept. 24, 1982, fully expecting to go back off-farm for another cash accumulation stint, but I never had to. It was tight, but wonderful. My marketing savvy (which is really another name for theatrical skills) paid off as we began selling direct to consumers, bypassing the middleman and getting retail sales prices. The grass-based, portable infrastructure, compost nutrient cycling, and Aha! dining experiences worked. Within four years we knew we could make it. Within seven years, journalists began to discover us. And the rest is history. I have been incredibly blessed to be able to combine this love of calloused hands with dramatic and verbal skills. And that is why I promote direct marketing. Too often parents whose children express an interest in farming squelch it because they envision dirt, dust, poverty, and hermit living. But great stories come out of great farming.

MG: In your opinion, what’s the biggest problem with the food industry in the U.S.?

JS: Wow, where do I start? Number one is that it destroys soil. Absolutely and completely. The soil is the only thread upon which civilization can exist, and it’s such a narrow strip around the globe if a person could ever realize that our existence depends on literally inches of active aerobic microbial life on terra firma, we might begin to appreciate the ecological umbilical to which we are all still attached. The food industry, I’m convinced, actually believes we don’t need soil to live. That we are more clever than that.

And that brings me to the second major problem: hubris. The food industry views everything through the skewed paradigm of faith in human cleverness rather than dependence on nature’s design. the difference is expressed in many ways, from parts to wholes, from manipulative dominion to nurturing, from worshiping techno-glitzy to honoring wise traditions and indigenous knowledge. But this hubris seems to relish the fact that we can irradiate food to sterilize poop, rather than slowing the processing down enough that we can wash the poop off before it gets in the food.

Which opens up the next big problem: safe food. And this runs the gamut from nutrition to outright danger. The food industry actually believes that feeding your children Twinkies, Cocoa Puffs and Mountain Dew is safe, but drinking raw milk and eating compost-grown tomatoes is dangerous. The industrial food system depends on dredging up horror stories from the early 1900s as food was just industrializing and rural electrification, stainless steel, and sanitation understanding were not available to continue demonizing, marginalizing, and criminalizing back-to-heritage foods in the modern day. Using its political clout, industrial food is waging war on local, nutrient dense foods as surely as the U.S. Cavalry hunted down native Americans earlier in our culture’s history. A people, who by the way, only wanted to be left alone and who were routinely labeled barbarians and worse from the earliest days of our country.

Which brings me to the final point: disrespect of the inherent uniqueness of the living world. Industrial food never asks whether the pig is happy. the pig-ness of the pig never enters the conversation. It’s all about fatter, faster, bigger, cheaper. And a culture that views its life from such an arrogant, manipulative, disrespectful hubris, will view its own citizenry the same way–and other cultures. We cannot return to traditional nutrient density until we respect soil microflora and pigs for what they are and do in the system. Bringing this level of respect to the table is the foundation for a moral and ethical society. The industrial food system perhaps more fully than any other aspect of our culture expresses unabashed greedy pride

Minnesota
The Department of Agriculture prohibits the sale of raw dairy with the exception of “milk, cream, skim milk, goat milk, or sheep milk occasionally secured or purchased for personal use by any consumer at the place or farm where the milk is produced.” The farmer cannot advertise and customers must bring their own containers. The state interprets “occasionally secured or purchased for personal use” to mean that farmers cannot sell raw milk to regular customers on a routine basis.

The Minnesota Constitution states that “any person may sell or peddle the products of the farm or garden occupied and cultivated by him without obtaining a license therefore.” The Minnesota statutes also contain this exemption. The state interprets this provision to apply to produce farmers and their right to sell on site and at farmer’s markets without a license. The department does not apply the licensing exemption laws to raw milk farmers with the limited exception of occasional sales to consumers on the farm. Several farmers are contesting the department’s interpretation of the licensing exemption laws.

Update, Fall 2010
The Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) has continued its efforts to limit the sale of raw milk in the state, with the department’s focus centering on the farm of Michael and Diana Hartmann in Gibbon [see Wise Traditions Summer 2010 issue for background]. On June 16, inspectors from MDA along with law enforcement officials executed a second criminal search warrant against the Hartmann farm, embargoing all meat and dairy products that inspectors found on the farm that had not already been embargoed during a prior raid on May 26. The inspectors also issued the Hartmanns an order to cease selling all products of the farm except poultry and eggs.

While the inspectors were at the farm, they took numerous samples for pathogen testing. MDA tested the samples for all the major pathogens except E. coli O157:H7—an interesting decision since MDA had publicly declared that raw milk from the farm allegedly tainted with E. coli O157:H7 had been responsible for making at least eight people ill. MDA had publicized the results showing the strain of E. coli O157:H7 found in manure and environmental samples taken on the Hartmann Farm was indistinguishable from the strain found in stool samples taken from the sick individuals. Why didn’t the state test for a pathogen responsible for the illness claimed to have been caused by the farm? Was this because a negative test for E. coli would overturn their order to the Hartmanns prohibiting the sale of meat and dairy products?

MDA followed up on the embargo orders by petitioning the Sibley County Court for a condemnation order so that the embargoed food could be destroyed. The Hartmanns and their attorney, Zenas Baer, took advantage of the petition by filing a counterclaim that asked for the embargo and the order not to sell any products except poultry and eggs be lifted. From mid-August into the beginning of September, a marathon series of hearings on the condemnation petition took place at the Sibley County Courthouse. The state’s strategy was to persuade the court that the embargoed food should be destroyed due to unsanitary conditions at the farm—not because E. coli O157:H7 was found in samples taken there.

The Hartmanns and MDA were not the only parties to the case. An organization called The Foundation for Consumer Free Choice (FCFC) as well as individuals who were customers of the Hartmanns successfully moved to intervene as third parties. FCFC consisted of many of the Hartmanns’ customers; the individuals were customers whose names were on specific products embargoed by MDA and they wanted those products released by the judge to them. The enforcement actions taken by MDA were not only against the Hartmanns but also their customers. On June 10, MDA and local government officials as well as three plain-clothes policemen executed a criminal search warrant at the private residence of a family whose “crime” was to let the Hartmanns use their residence as a dropsite to distribute products to the farm’s customers. The family neither handled money for the Hartmanns nor distributed any products for the farm, but that didn’t stop the MDA and local government officials from searching their refrigerator. The family later found out that one of the MDA officials present during the search had interviewed four of their neighbors, attempting to get incriminating statements from them about the family.

On June 15, shortly after the raid on the private residence, officials from MDA and Minneapolis Health Department paid a visit to the Traditional Foods Warehouse (TFW); the store features foods made by local small-scale producers and is open only to members of a private buying club. The officials conducted an inspection and wound up embargoing every single food item in the store. The officials left an order with the store owner, prohibiting TFW from reopening until a food establishment permit had been obtained from the Minneapolis Health Department.

There was no need for MDA to treat the warehouse like a criminal enterprise. TFW had made no secret of its existence; the Minneapolis Star-Tribune had run two major stories on it since TFW’s opening in September 2008. There had never been a single complaint filed against the warehouse. MDA could have made its position known without having to embargo every food item in the warehouse.

Despite attempts by TFW’s principal owner to cooperate and get licensed, as of the second week in September, the warehouse had not been issued a permit and remained closed to its members. Some of the embargoed food had been released to its owners and some had been destroyed; yet thousands of dollars of food remained embargoed at TFW.

Update, Summer 2010
On May 26 officials from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), along with the Sibley County Sheriff and eight armed deputies, set foot on the farm of Mike and Diana Hartmann to execute a criminal search warrant. The officials were at the farm for more than six hours and embargoed (i.e., ordered the Hartmanns not to sell existing inventory) thousands of dollars in meat and dairy products as well as ordering the Hartmanns to discontinue the sales of any product whose production, processing or sale was not in compliance with applicable law. The officials also collected samples of various dairy products as well as fecal samples of the farm animals for testing.

The reason MDA and MDH obtained the search warrant was that the agencies suspected raw milk produced at Hartmann’s farm was responsible for three cases of E. coli O157:H7 illness. According to an MDH press release issued the same day the warrant was executed, the department was investigating a cluster of four E. coli O157:H7 illnesses that all have the same DNA fingerprint, with three of the four cases reporting a link to raw milk from the Hartmann farm (including a toddler that had developed HUS and was hospitalized). What evidence in the opinion of MDH constituted a direct link was not clear.

In a public statement issued on behalf of the Hartmann family several days after the MDH press release, the statement disclosed that the Hartmanns had been able to contact two of the four people reportedly diagnosed with E. coli O157:H7; of these two, neither had consumed raw milk products produced at the Hartmann farm. The family had received no information from any of their customers about any illness. In fifteen years of providing healthy food to its customers, there has never been an instance where the farm has been blamed for causing any illness.

The MDH press release triggered a rush to judgment to convict the Hartmanns in the media without any evidence. Neither MDH nor MDA had specified what they had linking the illnesses to the dairy, nor were any test results available from the samples taken at the farm, but that didn’t stop the media from doing the bidding of the agencies. A May 27 Minnestota Star Tribune story blared that “a Minnesota toddler has been threatened with a life-threatening illness and three other people have been sickened by E-coli-tainted raw milk.” An Associated Press wire story from the same date began, “The Minnesota Department of Agriculture will likely crack down on illegal raw milk sales after four people got sick from unpasteurized milk tainted with e-coli.” As the Hartmann’s press release stated, “Regardless of the manner in which this matter is resolved, one has to be concerned about the motivations of state regulators who choose to conduct their prosecution of milk producers through the media.” MDH issued a subsequent press release on June 3 that stated the “strong epidemiological link [to Hartmann Dairy] is now reinforced by the laboratory confirmation that the specific strain of E. coli O157:H7 found in the ill patients has also been found in multiple animals and at multiple sites on the Hartmann Farm.” There was nothing in the press release indicating that the pathogen was found in any milk sample tested by the department. MDH did not pass up an opportunity to attack raw milk in the press release; Minnesota Health Commissioner Sannemagnan was quoted in it as saying, “Raw milk presents a serious health risk. This risk isn’t a matter of personal opinion; it’s an established scientific fact.”

There were other motivations besides protecting the public health, for MDA and MDH to publicize the Hartmann investigation the way they did. The demand for raw milk in Minnesota, like elsewhere in the country, has grown substantially in recent years, with a number of raw milk dairies starting up in the state to meet the demand. The E.coli outbreak presents an excuse for MDA to crack down on raw milk sales. The Hartmann farm is the best known raw milk dairy in the state; strong enforcement action against the Hartmanns could have the desired chilling effect for MDA on the state’s other raw milk dairies. Further, an enforcement action against the Hartmanns would be a measure of revenge against an adversary that has battled MDA numerous times over the past ten years. In 2005, the Hartmanns won a major victory against the department when the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the family could sell the products of the farm including meat products without having to obtain a permit from MDA. In attempting to limit the sale of raw milk in the state, MDA is relying on a statute in the state dairy code providing that raw milk and cream can only be “occasionally secured or purchased for personal use by any consumer at the place or farm where the milk is produced.” In contrast to the statute, the Minnesota Constitution has a section providing that “any person may sell or peddle the products of the farm or garden occupied and cultivated by him without obtaining a license therefor.” The constitutional provision has no limitation on how much can be sold or where the sales must take place. When MDA had finished inspecting the Hartmann farm on May 26, they issued the family an order requiring that the Hartmanns cease delivering raw milk and that they only make occasional on-farm sales to consumers. The order is in violation of the state constitution and should be struck down.

On January 28 Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) introduced HR 778, a bill “to authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption.” Under the bill, the federal government “may not take any action…that would prohibit, interfere with, regulate, or otherwise restrict the interstate traffic of milk, or a milk product, that is unpasteurized and packaged for direct human consumption solely on the basis that the milk or milk product is unpasteurized….” The bill defines “interstate traffic” as “the movement of any conveyance or the transportation of persons or property…from a point of origin in any State or possession to a point of destination in any other State or possession….” [see 21 CFR 1240.3(h)]

Passage of the bill into law would repeal the federal regulation prohibiting raw milk and raw milk products for human consumption in interstate commerce. The regulation 21 CFR 1240.61 provides, in part, that “no person shall cause to be delivered into interstate commerce or shall sell, otherwise distribute, or hold for sale or other distribution after shipment in interstate commerce any milk or milk product in final package form for direct human consumption unless the product has been pasteurized….”

The bill would not force a state to legalize the sale of raw milk by producers within its boundaries nor would it force a state to allow the sale of raw milk from out-of-state producers in its retail stores. The bill would enable consumers to enter into transactions to obtain raw milk and raw milk products from other states without the transactions being in violation of federal law.

The consumption of raw milk is legal in every state, yet its sale is currently illegal in about half the states. HR 778 would enable those living in states where the sale of raw milk is illegal—and those living in states where the sale is legal but sources are not present—to be able to exercise their legal right to consume raw milk. As Congressman Paul stated in introducing the bill, “Americans have the right to consume these products without having the Federal Government second-guess their judgment about what products best promote health. If there are legitimate concerns about the safety of unpasteurized milk, those concerns should be addressed at the state and local level.”

HR 778 has been assigned to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. An action alert will be sent out shortly to FTCLDF members on what can be done to move HR 778 forward. Co-sponsors are needed for the bill. Click here to be added to the mailing list.

You may track the status of the bill by entering “HR 778” in the Search field at www.thomas.gov; be sure to select “Bill Number” instead of “Word/Phrase”