Bill to allow Sale of Raw Milk in Louisiana Dies in Senate Committee

As you might recall from a blog post back on April 26th that you can re-read by clicking here, proponents of Raw Milk Sales have been testifying before the House and Senate committees of the Louisiana legislature. Louisiana is one of 10 states where it is illegal to sell raw milk.  Tricia and Benjamin were able to attend the House committee hearings and take part in a real-life home school civics lesson up-close and personal.  It passed and now was to go before the Senate Health & Welfare Committee for deliberation.

Well, the vote was taken and it failed.  You can read more about it from this article from the Advocate, a Baton Rouge newspaper: Senate Committee rejects raw milk sale.  The vote was 1 to 4 against passage and therefore the bill died in Senate committee.  From the article:

State Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain predicted people would get sick from drinking raw milk. He said the health risk is 150 times greater than drinking pasteurized milk.  “We are charged, you and I, with public health, protection of public health,” Strain said.

Commissioner Strain is a veterinarian and certainly understands the risks from bad bacteria much more than I do.  However, there are 0 deaths from drinking raw milk in the last decade.  On the other hand, according to this link, there are about 32 cases of people becoming sick each year from eating raw oysters, with half of those cases resulting in death.  Yet the sale of raw oysters is legal.  Hmmm...

Here is a gallon of our delicious raw milk in our refrigerator.  It has a big head of thick cream on top that can be skimmed off to make butter or used in coffee, or whipped and put on top of fresh fruit.  Note the thermometer at the bottom left to ensure the refrigerator stays at the correct temperature.

The Cream always rises to the top!

One only needs to look at the news right now regarding the Ground Beef e coli recall in which they are recalling 2 million pounds (wow!) of ground beef, to see that problems can and do occur in even the 'safest' and most heavily regulated food industries.  If improper food handling techniques are employed and/or the process has sanitation problems, harmful bacteria can be present in raw milk, including Listeria, salmonella, e. coli, brucella, and campylobacter.  These can give you food borne illnesses.

Since we drink the milk, we always want to be at the very top of our game and are constantly looking at our process.  One thing we had never done was have our milk tested.  We went to our local veterinarian whose office is about a mile from our farm. He knows our animals and makes farm calls to our place when needed. He assured us that the "fermentation vat" of the cows will ward off the bad bacteria and a cow that is eating good grass versus grain in a feedlot is going to have healthy rumen activity and good bacteria.  It is the good bacteria that keeps the bad from growing.  It's also important as an extra safeguard to give the cows pro-biotics to ensure the growth of healthy bacteria in the cows' gut.

Delicious Milk from pastured Jersey cows

Being curious, we asked him if we could have the milk of each of our cows tested.  He said it would cost $60.  Unfortunately, Daisy and Rosie aren't covered on our Blue Cross Blue Shield Plan.  He wrote out an order and we took two separate samples of sealed cups containing Daisy's milk in one and Rosie's milk in the other.  We took those samples to our local hospital that has a lab where they grow cultures to see what types of bacteria grow.  We called after 24 hours to get the results and nothing had grown at that time.

A week later the reports came back - one for each cow.  Each test result was identical:

Coagulate negative Staph isolated

Gram Positive Rods isolated

No Pathenogenic organisms noted

Now I probably slept through some of my biology classes so I contacted a good friend whose wife works in the very lab that tested the milk.  I asked him to get a translation from his wife on the test results.

Test results are in

Interpretation of lab results is as follows:  Two kinds of microorganisms were detected.  These are both normal flora found on the skin and neither one would be a cause for concern.  The test did not indicate any type of infection at all.  He also said that she said, "Bottom line is you have nothing to worry about.  I do know that if you leave a agar plate laying around long enough exposed to nothing but the air, eventually something is going to grow on it; bacteria are everywhere.  You know the two most bacteria infested spots in your house?  The counter next to the kitchen sink and the sponge you use to wash dishes; not the toilet seat like most people think."

Very interesting!

Back to the Raw Milk Bill, I think proponents will try again during the next legislative session.  From the Advocate article:
“Good legislation sometimes takes time,” state Sen. Fred Mills, R-St. Martinville, told disappointed raw milk supporters as they gathered their belongings and left the committee room.

It is a little perplexing to me that something that used to be so commonplace is now a health risk.  The reason it is more dangerous now is that after the Industrial Revolution animals began to be raised in 'factories' (feedlots), standing in their feces instead of out on green grass.  These animals, due to confinement, tended to get sick and had to be treated with antibiotics and other medicine.  The milk from all the cows was commingled and the safest thing to do was boil it to kill any pathogens.

But animals raised in green pastures and milked/bottled in a clean environment provide a safe, delicious, and healthy product - one I'm proud to serve to my family. Cheers!