Trafficking in Raw Milk

After illegal drugs, raw milk -- milk that's unpasteurized and unhomogenized,
just as it comes out of the cow -- may be the most briskly traded underground
commodity in America.


It's early Saturday morning, and the Brooklyn street is almost empty. Except at
one half-open store, where about 30 people are lined up in the narrow aisle
clutching empty backpacks, shopping bags and suitcases. At the door, a man
checks each entrant, asking "Are you here for the...pickup?"

Someone shouts "The van's coming!" and the place burst into action. People run
into the street and come back hauling heavy cartons and cooler chests. Then the
store empties as quickly as it filled, as everyone lugs their contraband
purchase home.

And "lug" is the word. What's being distributed at this store -- and in
countless offices, backyards, homes, churches and parking lots across the
country -- is milk. Raw milk.

Apart from illegal drugs, raw milk -- milk that's unpasteurized and
unhomogenized, just as it comes out of the cow -- may be the most briskly traded
underground commodity in the United States. By a conservative estimate, some
500,000 people in the U.S. drink the stuff, says Sally Fallon, president of the
Weston Price Foundation, which is dedicated to spreading the word about raw milk
-- and making it legal. Her guess is that the true total is closer to a million.
Even the Food and Drug Administration, which is doing its best to keep raw milk
out of the mouths of citizens, has acknowledged that about 3 percent of U.S.
milk drinkers drink it raw.

It's not that those Brooklyn milk-buyers were doing anything illegal -- drinking
raw milk is legal in every state. So is buying it. What's not legal, except in
eight states (Arizona, California, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, New Mexico and Washington), is selling it to the general public. The
other 42 states have a variety of bans. In some, it can be sold only on the
farm. In others, it can be sold only as pet food. Some outlaw its sale
altogether. Federal law prohibits transporting it for sale -- even from a state
where it's legally sold -- across state lines.

Skirting the law

That hasn't stopped ingenious raw milk drinkers from finding ways around the
rules. Some buy the milk in states where it is legal and carry it across state
lines themselves. (Milky Way Farm, in Starr, S.C., does a brisk business selling
raw milk in parking lots right on the state line to buyers from neighboring
states where it's illegal). Others form milk-buying clubs, which purchase the
milk from a farm that's allowed to sell it and bring it back to a central
distribution point. In states where selling raw milk isn't allowed at all,
clever lawyers have taken advantage of old-time laws that let a farmer board and
feed a neighbor's cow to set up cow-share programs. Members legally own the
cattle the dairy farmer is raising and milking, and -- as owners -- get the
milk.

These arrangements may fall within the letter of the law, but they clearly skirt
its intent, so raw milk drinkers keep very, very quiet about their sources. A
raw milk club in New York demands a reference from a current member before it
will let you join. Joining one New Jersey club takes weeks because the club
checks out each potential member (to make sure they're not a government agent in
disguise) before letting them in.

The complicated legal arrangements make buying raw milk something of an ordeal.
No running down to the corner for a quick quart: in most cases, buyers must
order their raw milk online, usually by the gallon, several days before the
pickup. (If you miss the deadline, you have to wait for the next one.)
Deliveries are rarely made more than once a week and many are two or more weeks
apart. Some buyers have to drive several hours to get to the pickup site, which
is often in a hard-to find spot. "I've gotten lost so many times," says Valerie
Scott Massimo, a New Jersey raw milk drinker. "The house is un-findable, and
they have a wooden fence six feet tall."

There's good reason for these clubs to be cautious. While state authorities
rarely go after raw milk buyers, distributors have gotten in trouble -- late
last year an Ohio raw milk co-op was raided at gunpoint by sheriffs' deputies.
And state officials regularly try to shut down dairies that sell raw milk. The
Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which defends farmers' right to sell raw
milk, has a dozen cases on its docket right now. "People have the legal right to
drink it," says Pete Kennedy, interim president. "The problem is finding ways to
enable them to exercise their right."

If many state officials get their way, exercising that right will get harder,
not easier. State officials try continually to tighten the laws governing the
sale of raw milk. About a year and a half ago, agriculture authorities in
Georgia, where it can only be sold as pet food, proposed requiring all raw milk
to be dyed charcoal gray, to make it less attractive to drinkers. (Activists
beat that one back). In California, state authorities have tightened the
requirements for raw milk testing, says Mark McAfee, owner of Organic Pastures,
the state's biggest raw milk producer, demanding that the milk be free not just
of harmful bacteria, but of almost any bacteria at all.

A government conspiracy?

Many raw milk enthusiasts see a deep conspiracy behind governmental attempts to
prevent the sale of raw milk. McAfee, who's managed to get into trouble with the
law even in a state where raw milk is legal (by insisting on shipping it across
state lines), blames it on the drug companies. They don't want people
discovering that food can cure what they're selling pills for, he says. "They
don't want any encroachment."

But a quick look at the past makes it clear why so many governmental officials
hold to the need for pasteurization. B.P. (before pasteurization), many dairies,
especially in cities, fed their cattle on -- to put it bluntly -- garbage, and
their milk was rife with dangerous bacteria. Pasteurizing it was the only way to
make it safely drinkable. After many years of pasteurization, just about
everyone simply assumes that raw milk is dangerous stuff. Amy Osborne, a dancer,
got a panicked letter from a relative -- a dietician -- when she heard Osborne
was feeding her baby raw milk. "It made my husband really nervous," she says.
Another mother, reluctant even to have her name used, though raw milk is legal
in her state, worries about whether to let her children's friends drink it. "God
forbid they get sick and blame it on raw milk, "she says.

When a raw milk drinker gets sick, that's generally what happens -- whatever the
evidence. Years ago, Massimo got sick a few months after starting to drink raw
milk from a nearby dairy. Her doctor immediately blamed the milk -- even though
tests showed no harmful bacteria and nobody else who had drunk the milk had
gotten sick. "He was totally convinced," she says, "and he was a doctor and I
wasn't." So she stopped drinking it.

She started again 20 years later when -- after moving to New Jersey -- she
developed diverticulitis and became very weak on the liquid diet that was all
she could digest. Her chiropractor, Steven Lavitan, put her on raw milk, and she
says she immediately began to feel better. Lavitan, who recommends raw dairy
products to many of his clients, says he has even seen cataracts improved by
drinking raw milk. He and others claim that raw milk can cure a host of
ailments, including asthma, allergies, lactose intolerance and other digestive
problems, many of which, they argue, are caused in the first place by drinking
pasteurized milk. "Anything that regular milk can cause, raw milk can cure,"
Lavitan says.

It does a body good

Raw milk lovers advance two basic health arguments. The first (flatly denied by
regulators and most nutritional scientists) is that pasteurization destroys or
damages many of milk's most valuable nutrients. The second is that while it may
kill dangerous bacteria, pasteurization also kills off all the good bacteria in
raw milk -- some of the same ones that big dairy companies are now selling as
"probiotics" in pricey new yogurt and drink concoctions.

In fact, supporters argue, raw milk is just as safe as the dairy it comes from.
If the cows are healthy and the dairy is spotless, they say, raw milk is safer
by far than pasteurized milk, because the beneficial bacteria naturally found in
raw milk make it harder for harmful bacteria to grow.

It's not just health claims that make raw milk drinkers willing to go to so much
trouble to get it. Milk in its natural state simply tastes better, they say --
sweeter, richer and more wholesome. Ellen Whalen, a freelance writer and
home-schooling mother on Cape Cod, says raw milk even goes sour more pleasantly
than pasteurized milk. "Pasteurized milk rots," she says. "Raw milk doesn't go
bad, it just changes."

Help on the way

Some help for raw milk drinkers may be at hand. In late January, Congressman Ron
Paul of Texas, who ran for president in 2008, introduced a bill that would
legalize the shipment and distribution of raw milk and milk products for human
consumption across state lines. It's an issue of constitutional rights, Paul
said in a statement 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. "

One raw milk defender goes even further. Max Kane, the owner of a Chicago raw
milk co-op who recently finished a cross-country bicycle trip, during which he
ate and drank only raw dairy products to publicize the case for raw milk, would
like to see massive civil disobedience. "As long as people keep trying these
little ways to circumvent the law, this bull---- is going to continue," he says.
"I think everyone should come forward and say we're proud to drink raw milk.
Otherwise it's always going to be us running, and them chasing us."

If you want to try raw milk...

Raw milk's hard to find, Kane found out on his trip, even when, as he did,
you've got a crew of about a dozen friends e-mailing and cold-calling farmers to
hunt the stuff down. The difficulty of getting supplies extended the trip by
over a week and forced Kane to cross Mississippi and Louisiana by bus, since the
few dairies he could find were too far apart to sustain him. He made it across
Texas thanks to a farmer who met him regularly on the road with fresh supplies.

To find a source near you, start by asking around, especially at health-food
stores and farmers' markets. Unless you're in one of the eight states where
selling it in stores is legal, you won't be able to buy it at either place. But
you may get some leads from other shoppers.

Keep your eyes out for fundraisers for the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund,
or programs sponsored by the Weston Price Foundation. While neither organization
actually distributes raw milk, both fight for it, and their supporters are
likely to drink it.

Another way to contact raw milk drinkers is to do a Web search for "raw milk"
and your state; there may well be a local organization that fights for it. Start
with a search on LocalHarvest.org. Or you can do what Kane did: hunt for local
farmers. Check out the Campaign for Real Milk, which lists producers of raw milk
and cheese around the country and also provides a useful summary of raw milk's
legal status in each state.

(Warning: if you're not in a state that allows farmers to sell raw milk to the
public, the list will be skimpy. Advertising on a raw milk site is "one of
easier ways to get in hot water," notes Kennedy, who says they're regularly
monitored by federal and local officials.)

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Ann Monroe blogs about the sustainable life at http://www.annmonroe.com/blog/.