Page 85 - Spring2010

jug that’s been sitting in my “to be recycled” bin code to make it illegal for dairy farmers, their family members, their farm
for the past three weeks, the contamination goes workers, and even their farm animals to drink the farm’s raw milk.
away and the milk is now safe. . . but only if I do “Open the door! Police! I said open the door! Okay, guys, kick it in.”
the pouring, and only if I didn’t find the farmer Boom! Crash!
in the Yellow Pages. “Drop the bottle, lady! I said drop it! Starsky, grab the kid; he’s got a
milk moustache!”
KENTUCKY “So, what’re you in for, kid?”
Raw milk sales are illegal with one excep- “Well, I was milking Daisy and I took a sip.”
tion: An individual with a written recommenda-
tion from a physician may purchase raw goat MINNESOTA
milk. The Department of Agriculture prohibits the sale of raw dairy with
“So why do I feel so terrible, doctor?” the exception of “milk, cream, skim milk, goat milk, or sheep milk oc-
“According to your labs, you have a rare casionally secured or purchased for personal use by any consumer at the
intestinal disorder. It’s called place or farm where the
capralactinecessitis.” milk is produced.” The
“Oh my gosh! Can it be farmer cannot advertise
treated?” and customers must bring
“Yes, but only if you their own containers. The
drink milk that would kill a state interprets “occasion-
healthy person. I’ll write a ally secured or purchased
prescription.” for personal use” to mean
that farmers cannot sell raw
MAINE milk to regular customers
Raw milk sales are legal on a routine basis.
on the farm and in retail So you can buy raw
stores. Raw milk and raw milk from a farm as long
milk products must have a you don’t decide you like it
label on the product contain- Novel, and as yet legal, arrangement and go back on a regular ba-
ing the words “not pasteur- for delivering fresh raw milk to children! sis. Great, we’ll have people
ized.” Farmers do not have to showing up at farms wearing
obtain a permit to sell raw milk if their sales are Groucho Marx glasses to avoid detection. See, here’s the thing: if the raw
only on the farm and they do not advertise. milk makes you sick, you won’t be going back. That’s why I only tried
No, that’s not particularly stupid. I listed vegetarian chili once.
Maine because—Stephen King-style horrors!
—raw milk is sold there, both on farms and in NEVADA
stores. If the stuff is as dangerous as the detrac- Raw milk sales are legal but, in practice, there are no raw milk sales
tors say it is (assuming you don’t neutralize the in the state. In order for a farmer to obtain a permit from the state dairy
contaminants by pouring the milk into your own commission to produce and distribute raw milk, the county milk commis-
container), wouldn’t the population of Maine sion must first certify the farm for the production of raw milk or a raw milk
be dwindling by now? Wouldn’t we have heard product. There has never been a county milk commission in existence at
about it on the news? any time, so to this point, there has been a de facto prohibition of raw milk
sales.
MICHIGAN Most of us who saw “Brazil” took it as a warning. Apparently some
Raw milk sales are illegal. Michigan was government folks took it as an inspiration.
the first state to pass mandatory pasteurization
laws—the year was 1948—and has some of the NEW JERSEY
strictest milk laws on the books. Farmers may Raw milk sales are illegal. To obtain other unpasteurized dairy prod-
not even sell raw milk from the farm. In 2002, ucts, residents travel to Pennsylvania and New York, which both allow raw
at hearings on the revision of the Michigan State milk.
Dairy Code, the industry attempted to amend the “Waddaya want me to do with this jamook, boss?”

SPRING 2010 Wise Traditions 85