The Battle Over Raw Milk: Let's Ditch the Hysterics and Give People a Choice

By Jill Richardson, AlterNet. Posted October 29, 2009.

He also particularly objected to the marketing of raw milk as a drug (which is not allowed for any food) and marketing it to mothers with small children. An adult can make an educated decision to take a risk, he and other regulators say, whereas a child cannot. Payne recommends requiring point-of-sale warnings for at-risk populations and making warnings for at-risk populations on product containers more visible and understandable.

He also calls for raw-milk manufacturers to be held to the same standard of review and approval of health-and-safety claims made in promotional materials as applied to other foods, nutritional supplements and pharmaceuticals. That would require that all health claims for raw milk promotional materials be pre-approved by the government.

On the other hand, parents are always in the position of making decisions about their children's diets. And many adults make poor choices for their children: one study found that on any given day, one-third of the nation's children eat fast food and that fast food was the main food source for 29 to 38 percent of all children studied.

Feeding children fast food -- particularly as their main food source -- is more than just a risk. It's 100 percent guaranteed to harm a child's health even though it is perfectly legal. And unlike milk, no one has provided even anecdotal reports of health benefits from fast food. Rather than interfere with family decisions, regulators' best strategy may be to set high standards for farmers producing raw milk so that parents have the option to choose raw milk that is as safe as possible.

Last, Payne calls for several safety standards to ensure that raw milk is as safe as possible. He wants to require recording devices for equipment cleaning of raw dairies, require the development of an HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) plan for each raw dairy (this is a common food-safety strategy, first developed to ensure the safety of food given to astronauts in space) and increase regulatory pathogen testing of raw-milk products.

While raw-milk advocates might not agree with all aspects of Payne's plan, he is coming to the table with reason instead of rhetoric. He provides a starting point from which the raw milk advocates and regulators could begin negotiating. In contrast, regulators in some other states have sought to ban raw milk or to impose extremely burdensome requirements on consumers, such as having to drive out to the farm each and every time they want to buy raw milk.

Food-safety laws are put in place to prevent those who grow, process and sell the food from poisoning their customers, not to limit consumers' choice in foods. Other risky foods are legal, even though they sicken many people. The Center for Science in the Public Interest recently found that oysters are the fourth leading cause of food poisoning of all of the foods regulated by the FDA. Fluid milk -- raw or pasteurized -- did not even rank in the top 10.

If consumers can take their chances eating raw oysters, then why shouldn't they be allowed to drink raw milk?

Both foods should be regulated to ensure that producers sell the safest possible product and that consumers are aware of the risk. In that way, the government could do its job to protect consumers from harm while allowing them to take risks of their choosing.

Whatever the outcome of the raw milk fight may be, ditching the hysterics and working toward compromise is the best path forward.

*Editor's Note: Organic Pastures produces all of the fluid raw milk sold under its label. The outsourcing mentioned in the article refers only to other products such as butter and colostrum.

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Jill Richardson is the founder of the blog La Vida Locavore and is a member of the Organic Consumers Association policy advisory board. She is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.

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