A SWAT raid? Really?

[Jim Bremner]

I find the dancers to be a bigger pain in the ask me no questions.

They're just tryin to be a problem.

Food Nazis are off the chart on these guys.

The KING WANTS HIS CUT!

[dlockhart]

some O yall are coming around a bit

had enough of the evils of the state

fly this flag

[willtel]

People sell raw milk here at farmers markets but it must be sold and labeled as "pet milk", weather or not you feed it to your pet once you buy it is your business.

I have heard of people getting citations at certain markets but no news of any sting ops. Ridiculous.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by slakjaw

Why is it illegal to sell unpasteurized milk and cheese?

Only in certain places. It's completely legal in Texas. In Florida, you have to mark the milk as being for animal consumption only. I'm sure it's a felony second only to murder in Cali.

Raw, unpastuerized, unhomogenized, full cream milk is REALLY yummy.

[Tobra]

high in cholesterol too, lucky it is so good on oatmeal, which will soak up some of that cholesterol, right?

[KFC911]

I think the first lady should mimic Nancy R and start an awareness PR campaign: "Just say moo"

[74-911]

Originally Posted by masraum

Only in certain places. It's completely legal in Texas.

Raw, unpastuerized, unhomogenized, full cream milk is REALLY yummy.

Growing up in N. TX during the 50's, early 60's local dairy farmers delivered raw, unpastuerized, milk right to the front porch in qt. bottles and picked up the empty bottles the next delivery day. The top 2" or so of the bottle was the heavy cream (milk fat). Really good in a bowl of cereal.

And on another note, another big no-no these days is using raw eggs in recipes which are not cooked. Two of my favorite foods use raw eggs (homemade ice cream and a lemon icebox pie made with Eagle Brand milk). Sometimes you just gotta take your chances.

[MRM]

Unpasteurized milk and raw eggs can be very dangerous. A year or so ago guy in Minnesota was caught selling raw milk to a health food related network and a bunch of them caught salmonella. A kid or two died, a bunch went to the hospital with very life threatening illnesses.

Raw milk isn't to be played with. It can and does kill people if you don't keep sanitary to the point that you are cleaner than a hospital. Seriously. It needs to be that clean to be safe. Warm milk is the perfect environment for bugs. If you pay attention, you'll hear about people dying from eating uncooked eggs all the time.

So that's why it's illegal to sell raw milk without a permit that proves you've taken all the proper precautions - you're running the risk of killing your customers.

BUT a SWAT raid is more than just silly. A situation like that would have required precisely three people: An Ag official with a badge to come in and tell people that the stuff was being impounded and the people were being charged, and two assistants to log the stuff into evidence and carry it out.

The militarization of our police is bad policy. It is expensive, it damages the credibility of the cops, it harms the legitimacy of our public institutions, and it creates far more danger to the cops and private citizens than it prevents.

An aging hippy with a raw milk farm probably could have been talked into loading his own stuff onto the inspector's trucks and turning himself in, driving everything to the impound lot, if a reasonably educated cop invested a half hour of conversation with the guy and pointed out the basic tenants of civil disobedience and passive resistance. Shove a gun in his face and even a hippie might not be so laid back anymore.

[pksystems]

Been happening in Canada for years. They sent SWAT in on that guy too..

His loophole is he rents the cows out, but the government doesn't like that either. Next up, he labels it as milk facial cleanser (DO NOT DRINK) or something.... They still don't like that.

If they are openly telling people it's non-pasteurized, this is ridiculous. The Nanny state must protect you.... unless it's Tobacco.

Raw milk crusader slapped with fine, probation | Better Farming

[svandamme]

We've managed to survive for thousands of years drinking unpasteurized milk and cheese and whatnot.. It's not strychnine for crying out loud..

If it's properly labeled as unpasteurized milk, and people want to buy it at their own risk, so be it. It should not require a frigging swat team response.

[Mark Henry]

Originally Posted by aap1966

Pasteurisation has greatly reduced the incidence of milk bourne diseases. After WWII, it was so bad that the milk was famously described as "little more than dilute tubercular pus".

Yes and many people were still using iceboxes at this time.

As long as it is clearly marked unpasteurized there should be no reason for this, it's is the milk (and egg) marketing boards behind this.

We have chickens, we had to register our flock and we can't have more than 120 birds at one time, unless we sell to the marketing board. At that point to make any profit at all means you have to go from 121 to 10K+ chickens.

You wouldn't believe the amount of antibiotics you eat if you use store bought meat and eggs. Also they are raised in a cage about the size of a shoebox, meat birds are only 40 days old when slaughtered. Salmonella is a big problem because these birds are literally covered in feces.
If you actually had to raise and slaughter your animals like we do you would either have a whole lot more respect to what goes on your table....or you would be a vegetarian.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by Mark Henry

If you actually had to raise and slaughter your animals like we do you would either have a whole lot more respect to what goes on your table....or you would be a vegetarian.

Bingo. Although I do eat cooked eggs, eat eggs in bread, etc, drink milk and eat cheese, I won't eat anything that had eyes except a potato. If it could walk crawl or swim, it's not on my plate.

[john70t]

This is really an attack on the "locally grown" movement.
Self-sufficiency is now a crime.

[willtel]

Originally Posted by john70t

This is really an attack on the "locally grown" movement.
Self-sufficiency is now a crime.

Check this story out. CUMMING: Bees vs. Forsyth County government | News | Cumming News

A guy in an Atlanta suburb had honey bee hives in his yard for years until code enforcement tried to tell him he couldn't keep domesticated livestock on his property. He ended up getting the University of Georgia involved who told the county that honey bees are not domesticated animals and they are genetically the same as wild honey bees and can not be regulated.

[sammyg2]

Show of hands, how many mush-heads are willing to latch onto a BS propaganda story and knee-jerk into instant outrage, without getting any real facts? Anyone? oh, apparently all of the above.
Take a look at the source, and then do some research into the REASON we pasteurize dairy products. SO PEOPLE DON'T GET SICK AND DIE!

I bet if one of you mush-heads got really sick from drinking an unlicensed product you'd be RUNNING to the nearest ambulance chaser lawyer to sue them for everything they got, then you'd sue the district attorney for not throwing these criminals in jail!

Now, these hippie-tards got busted but went back to doing it again ignoring the law.
They got sneaky trying to hide their illegal activities.
But apparently some of you don't think it's wrong to get busted for breaking the law. Evidently you want to get away with breaking the law too?

Now, onto that crap about a swat raid. Pure BS.
That stoopid hippie rag (I know, redundant) that published that BS made about half of it up and embellished the other half. But you still took the hook like good little guppies.

3 arrested on raw-milk charges
L.A. County prosecutors allege that unpasteurized dairy products were sold illegally and did not meet health standards.
August 04, 2011|By Stuart Pfeifer and P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times

The owner of a Venice health food market and two other people were arrested on charges related to the allegedly unlawful production and sale of unpasteurized dairy products, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office said.

The arrests of James Cecil Stewart, Sharon Ann Palmer and Eugenie Bloch on Wednesday marked the latest effort in a government crackdown on the sale of so-called raw dairy products.


Prosecutors in Los Angeles alleged that Stewart, 64, operates a Venice market called Rawesome Foods through which he illegally sold dairy products that did not meet health standards because they were unpasteurized or were produced at unlicensed facilities.

Palmer, 51, has operated Healthy Family Farms in Santa Paula since 2007 without the required licensing for milk production, prosecutors allege. She and her company face nine charges related to the production of unpasteurized milk products.

Bloch, a Healthy Family Farms employee, is charged with three counts of conspiracy.

The arrests followed a one-year investigation during which undercover agents purchased unpasteurized dairy products from Healthy Family Farms stands in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, said Matthew Krasnowski, a district attorney spokesman. The products included unpasteurized goat milk, cheese and yogurt.

The arrests came the same week that federal and state health officials warned the public about a food-borne illness outbreak tied to ground turkey contaminated with antibiotic-resistant salmonella, an outbreak in which one Californian has died and 76 others have fallen ill so far.

It also marks the latest salvo in the government's crackdown on unpasteurized dairy products.

In June 2010 investigators raided the Venice grocery store, seizing stacks of unmarked jugs of raw milk, cartons of raw goat and cow milk, and blocks of unpasteurized goat cheese, among other grocery items. Regulators alleged that Rawesome broke the law by failing to have the proper permits to sell food to the public.

Still, no arrests were made and Rawesome reopened the same week. Stewart said at the time that Rawesome didn't need such permits because it wasn't technically a retailer. He contended that the store was a private club whose members paid an annual fee and service charges to obtain products directly from farmers.

While the raid was taking place in Venice, another was occurring at Palmer's Healthy Family Farms in Ventura County. There, California agriculture officials said, the farm owner's milk processing plant had not met standards to obtain a license to sell raw milk or raw milk products. Shortly after the raid, Palmer was back in business.

Demand for all manner of raw foods has been growing, spurred by heightened interest in locally produced, unprocessed products.

L.A. County arrests 3 over raw milk - Los Angeles Times

Raw milk, in particular, has drawn regulatory scrutiny, largely because the politically powerful dairy industry has pressed the government to act. It is legal for licensed dairies to sell raw milk at retail outlets in California, according to research by the National Conference of State Legislatures. But the number of such outlets has dwindled amid retailer concerns over potential litigation.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by svandamme

We've managed to survive for thousands of years drinking unpasteurized milk and cheese and whatnot.. It's not strychnine for crying out loud..

If it's properly labeled as unpasteurized milk, and people want to buy it at their own risk, so be it. It should not require a frigging swat team response.

What was the average lifespan during those thousands of years?

I read recently that in the times of ancient Egypt a man was considered very old if he made it past 35.
Sounds like they had in pretty good!

[afterburn 549]

There R No safety issues. T.B. CAN NOT be passed by milk .Period
The deal is like said ,,BIG MONEY. They want No competition from the Farmer so they passed this Pasteurization law many years ago.
AL $$$$$. Not about health.
This keeps the farmer out of the loop.
Sad sad world

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally Posted by MRM

Raw milk isn't to be played with. It can and does kill people if you don't keep sanitary to the point that you are cleaner than a hospital. Seriously. It needs to be that clean to be safe.

Not hard these days. MRSA anyone?

I suspect hospital visits kill more healthy people than all food-borne illnesses in the US combined.

[john70t]

(just to re-state an earlier post)
S.W.A.T. teams still haven't raided Tyson, Johnson&Johnson, or Abbott Laboratories.
How many confirmed deaths have they had so far?

There have been: no/zero/ziltch/nada previous health complaints regarding any food products distributed by this club.
Not even from infiltrators....

[RWebb]

wow - sammy is having another crazy attack -- it isn't about the health risk (which is obvious if very careful procedures are not followed, altho I have never seen the cleaner than a hospital claim before); it is about differential enforcement and the heavy handedness of the law enforcement response

BTW - many other countries allow raw milk (for certified dairies)

and you can also get milk that is non-homogenized and pasteurized with techniques that don't alter the taste -- it's what we buy here