Raw Milk Revisited

I am so P.O.'ed at the FDA right now. This is an excerpt from the FDA web site.

• The CDC reports that from 1998 to present there were 39 outbreaks in which unpasteurized milk or cheese made from unpasteurized milk were implicated.
• These outbreaks occurred in 22 states and two of them were multi-state outbreaks. An estimated 831 illnesses, 66 hospitalizations and 1 death were associated with these outbreaks.
• Not all outbreaks are recognized.
• Even when they are, not all are reported to CDC.
• Virtually impossible to capture all of the incidents of individual illness which might occur

This is just so absurd. They are reporting 831 instances of ILLNESS from raw milk over 10 YEARS! More people get food poisoning EVERY YEAR at Thanksgiving from eating improperly prepared stuffing! Good Grief! More people got sick from eating bad salsa last spring. Or even the current peanut butter scare!

Their position can only be a product of big commercial dairies. Anything to keep the little guy from being able to stay in business.

At least the State of Arkansas is considering legislation that will allow the sale of unpasteurized goat milk directly from the farm as long as they do not sell more than 100 gallons a month. It has been voted on in the house and sent to committee. From there it will go to the Senate. At least it is a step forward.

If your personal beliefs worked that way, you could almost say that Big Brother has gotten together with Corporate Farms and the Healthcare industry to legislate the health of the average American. It is bad enough the government funds conflicting studies on the health of different foods, like eggs, and tries to scare people into not eating them. For a while the demon was pork (too much fat), then it was beef (too much cholesterol), then they told us that skinless white meat chicken was the heathiest( thank you Tyson). Fish is really good for you, Oh wait, it could contain mercury and other heavy metals so you had better limit your intake. It is just getting out of hand.

What is wrong with growing healthy, pesticide free, antibiotic free food? Nope, they don't want us doing that either. Because our healthy livestock might contaminate the over-medicated, immune suppressed factory farms. They are even trying to get legislation passed to force the individual to "register" every head of livestock , including chickens, because there might be a disease outbreak. And that means that the government can come in and destroy your entire herd or flock to protect the factory farms. So not only does the individual have to pay a fee to register each animal, it can be destroyed without warning or compensation. All in the name of consumer protection.

If the government would just leave us alone, I would guess that in a few years we would make our own food choices and it would be healthier than if it is regulated.

Oh, the horror...I mean, Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, it is time again for the annual trek to "Grandma's House" for the first of the traditional holiday get-togethers. We are all looking forward to the mostly edible meals, the guilt trips about why we don't come home more often, and the list of illnesses and disasters that have occurred since the last time we made the journey.

I can't wait to get to my mother-in-laws house tonight so she can tell me how sick she is and ask in a not so subtle way if I would cook the dinner for tomorrow. I will say,"sure, no problem," and then while I am trying to get everything ready for 10 to 14 people, she will be standing right behind me telling me how I am doing it wrong. Or, the alternative to all of this is the bringing out of aluminum foil wrapped packages and bowls from the freezer where she froze the rest of the dressing she made a month ago, or last year, or a couple of years ago, that just "needs to be eaten" because it is "perfectly good". "Why, there is nothing wrong with" eating food that has been in a 30 year old freezer that may or may not keep the proper temperature, regardless of power outages.

A little story about all of this. When my husband was growing up, he thought it was normal to be violently ill at least once a year, sometimes twice, with a "stomach flu". He thought it was just something going around and it wasn't any big deal. Until he got married and moved to Texas. It is funny how he never got the stomach flu while he lived down there. After the divorce, he moved back home to go to school. Again with the stomach flu. Then we met and got married. Wow, no more stomach flu. Amazing. I was finally able to convince him that his mother tries to poison everyone with her cooking. So now, it is kind of funny to watch him wandering around with his plate(tiny dinning table so we all just eat wherever we can find a seat) trying to find out of the way trash cans to dump his food.

Now at my Dad's, meals are always a little bit different. It won't make you sick, but it is rather far from traditional. Last year for Christmas, we had pizza. Granted, they were very good, but hardly traditional. Last year for Thanksgiving, he had a fish fry. With the turkey his wife made him cook on the side. Fried, of course.

My mom always does the traditional thing, Turkey, Dressing, 2 or 3 veggies, bread and a couple of pies to finish things off. We are generally so sick of turkey and dressing that we don't want to see it again for at least a year.

And the best part of all three of these meals is the conversation. We get to hear everything there is to speculate about who is sick, in the hospital, going to have surgery, who is in jail, who should be in jail, who is (as my mother in law so delicately puts it) fornicating, babies born, who died, job statuses, the state of various computers in as many various houses, and maybe someone actually gets around to asking us how we are doing.

And we actually drive almost 3 hours to get to enjoy this wonderful holiday season. Twice. After all, Christmas is just around the corner.