Nourished Magazine has been quoted in the Melbourne Sunday Age!
My mum will be so proud. She’ll probably buy it and keep a copy for posterity. She’ll write under it the clipping in her scrap book, “Jo is part of the beginning of the Raw Milk Revolution in Australia.”
Michelle Griffith rang me on Friday, when she googled raw milk and found us second in Australia’s rankings. Thanks to all you guys raving with each other over raw milk, we’ve attracted the attention of one of the largest papers in Australia.
A link to her article.
She didn’t quite quote me right but got my message very clear, clearer than I did I think but that’s what a good journo does right? Thanks Michelle.
I was surprised to be backed up by Rosemary Stanton. Even though she believes she contracted brucellosis from raw milk as a child, she said “I can’t see why people can’t have the choice, as long as it’s safe.” Thanks Rosemary.
Strike one for David.
And as for Goliath, let’s make friends and get some help with certification hey?
Apparently Kevin Rudd grew up on a farm in Queensland. If he didn’t drink raw milk on a daily basis, I’ll eat my hat. He must have with those perfectly straight teeth. What do you think? Will the new government support raw milk certification in Australia? The dairy industry is huge. Do they have too much power for us to nudge from them even the smallest chunk of their billion dollar industry?
About the Author...
Joanne Hay, Editor of Nourished Magazine, Chief Nourisher and Mother of three is very grateful to live in Byron Bay and be able to share all she has learned about Nourishment. She has trained as an Acupuncturist (unfinished), Kinesiologist (finished) and parent (never finished). She serves the Weston A Price Foundation as a chapter leader. She loves sauerkraut, kangaroo tail stew, home made ice cream, her husband Wes and her kids Isaiah, Brynn and Ronin (in no particular order…well maybe ice cream first).
Nov 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am
Wow, that is so awesome!!! Raw milk going mainstream…. What was that quote?? Something about ‘Truth is at first often ridiculed, then violently opposed, and then accepted naturally as fact’, can’t remember who said it, but I feel we’re up to ‘violently opposed’. Excellent headway. Well done Jo!!
Nov 26th, 2007 at 3:30 am
Well done for helping to get the word out in the mainstream media, Jo!
However towards the end of the article I was most surprised to read that “leading nutritionistâ€, Dr Rosemary Stanton, apparently “dismisses claims that pasteurised milk is less nutritiousâ€. How could such a person, a nutritionist, be unaware of the value of enzymes and beneficial bacteria (probiotics) and their presence in raw milk? How too could she be unaware that pasteurisation kills these health-giving substances stone dead? Surely one must study and pass some sort of exam to become a nutritionist - which makes me wonder if she has been misquoted somehow.
As for the infectious disease Brucellosis, or Undulant Fever, that Dr Stanton apparently caught as a child, this is an important subject and one that raw milk supporters should be clued up on, since scaremongers love to bring it up.
The Australian Commonwealth Department of Health and Aging has an informative 2006 web page on Brucellosis . Here are some salient points from that article:
* The genus Brucella is currently divided into 6 species, B. abortus, B. melitensis, B. suis, B. canis, B. ovis and B. neotomae. Three of these have been present in Australia, B. abortus in cattle, B. suis in pigs and B. ovis in sheep.
* Most cases of infection caused by B. abortus, B. melitensis, B. suis and B. canis arise from occupational or domestic contact with infected animals or with an environment contaminated by their discharges. Farmers and their families, abattoir workers, butchers and veterinarians are particularly at risk.
* In Australia, since eradication of B. abortus from cattle, the highest incidence of infection is in humans who kill and handle the carcasses of feral pigs (especially in Queensland and Northern NSW) among which B. suis infection is endemic. Otherwise most human cases of brucellosis are imported from endemic countries (Mediterranean region, Middle East and Latin American Countries) or occur in laboratory workers handling cultures from infected patients.
Very interesting indeed. The strain of Brucellosis that infects cattle has been ERADICATED in Australia! Now this is not to say that we should cease to be vigilant or concerned about this matter, but it also is reassuring to know that contracting Brucellosis from Australian dairy products is negligible, according to this government web publication.
Another page from the Department of Health and Aging gave some more details about Brucellosis cases in Australia occurring in 1998 :
* In 1998, there were 45 cases of brucellosis, with a rate of 0.2 per 100,000; which is the same rate as the previous 4 years. Ninety-one per cent of notifications were in males, and age-specific rates were highest in the 35-39 years age group; at 1.3 per 100,000. Two reports were in children less than 5 years of age. The majority of brucellosis cases were reported from Queensland (80%), and 5 (11%) were from Victoria. The highest rates of disease were reported in the Central West (24.3 per 100,000) and the South West (11.6 per 100,000) Statistical Divisions of Queensland. The species of Brucella was not indicated in any of these notifications.
So while Brucellosis is a serious disease, the above data would suggest that if you are not a youngish man from country Queensland or northern NSW who regularly goes out to shoot feral pigs, it would probably be inadvisable to worry yourself too much on a daily basis about contracting it. The chance of contracting the cattle variety of it from well cared-for, healthy Australian cows would appear to be virtually non-existent in this country.
Hand-wringers who claim raw milk should be banned due to some sort of risk of someone contracting a strain of a disease that has been eradicated from Australian cows are very likely either (a) uninformed about the current absence of B.abortus in Australia, or (b) trying to mislead people by creating FUD - Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The solution to both of these is not to wallow in worry, but to educate ourselves and others. Raw milk certification is not an impossible thing to set up - it has operated for decades in California and it could and should be set up here too.
We can buy raw vegetables, raw eggs, raw poultry, raw meat, raw fish. Why not raw milk?
Where there’s a Will, there’s a Way.
Nov 26th, 2007 at 3:33 am
The two URLs didn’t come out in the posting above.. trying again here:
The main 2006 article is at
http://www.healthconnect.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-phlncd-brucellosis.htm
The details from 1998 are at
http://www.health.gov.au/internet/wcms/publishing.nsf/Content/cda-pubs-cdi-1999-cdi2311-cdi2311h.htm
Nov 26th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Thanks for the post Peter, I wondered about that same comment from Rosemary Stanton also, there would be a few people who would believe her based on reputation alone. I googled her for more information after I read that comment and saw an ABC page where she weighed into the arguement about the CSIRO diet. The conclusion i drew from that was that she is so firmly entrenched into the “science” she has been indoctrinated with that it is unlikely she will take the time to research further because she “knows all the facts”. I would be more interested in knowing if she will jump the fence once what we know gets out there.
Nov 27th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Fabulous news! In fact I hadn’t even opened my Sunday paper until I saw this post but voila on page 5 there it was. This is very good, especially as there’s a The Raw Milk Debate: Should it be illegal to sell it straight from the cow? question posed at the top of the article.
Obviously hoping for debate so I encourage people to swamp The Age with responses:
letters@theage.com.au
Fax: 61 (0)3 96012414
Snailmail: 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne 3000
All letters and email (no attachments) to The Age must carry the sender’s home address and day and evening phone numbers for verification. Letter writers who would like receipt of their letters acknowledged should send a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Ideally, letters will be a maximum of 200 words.
By submitting your letter for publication, you agree that we may edit the letter for legal, space or other reasonable reasons and may, after publication in the newspaper, republish it on the Internet or in other media.
Nov 27th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
[letter submitted to The Age]
It is strange that compulsory pasteurisation of milk has been in force
nearly 30 years, and the dairy organizations cannot show us any reports
that support their belief that pasteurised milk is no less nutritious.
Vitamin B6 is most definitely affected, all enzymes that assist with
digestion are destroyed and contrary to Rosemary Stanton’s suggestion
that vitamin C in milk is insignificant, raw milk from grass fed dairy
provided sufficient Vitamin C for early twentieth century Alpine Swiss
villagers who had no access to vegetables or fruit for most of the year.
Raw milk has also been found to be a major factor in lower rates of
asthma in children as found by a recent Swiss study. Asthma causes more
deaths than Brucilitis, listeria and camphylolacter!
Raw milk campaigners support high standards for milk, and want to see us
have access to the best product available. With modern technology there
is no reason why Australians and New Zealanders cannot have access to
the high quality product that many farms can produce using good
organic/pastured farming practices, hygiene and regular testing.
Furthermore, food should be our right, and government authorities should
only be concerned with setting and measuring the standard, thus leaving
farmers to do the rest! Raw milk and cheese products have the potential
to revolutionize our farming and food culture, opening up the industry
to small gourmet producers and see better returns for small organic
farmers, as has been the case with olive and wine producers over the
last 15 years.
Nov 28th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
The dairy industry need not be concerned, it’s not as if raw milk isn’t part of ‘their’ industry, albeit below the radar (not for much longer with a few more articles in the main stream press). Raw dairy simply needs to be ’sold’ to the industry on the basis that if it’s regulated, they can have a say in it’s operation and a portion of the profits (through levies etcetera) . Brought into the fold, so to speak (pun intended). Regulated they gain, unregulated they lose.
Surely there’s an arm of the diary industry that deals with niche markets and business opportunities? Raw milk and cheese are just the thing - ripe (another pun!?) for exploitation. Or are they industrial revolution dinosaurs?
Nov 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
This is my letter submitted to The Age. I received a call this morning saying that it is on the ’short list’.
I was delighted to turn to page 5 of The Sunday Age and the article Glass half-full, say raw milk fans. I am so glad to see a major, mainstream paper initiating discussion and debate on the issue of raw milk availability.
That it is currently illegal to sell raw milk in Australia ignores the fact that many, many people (including myself) want to be able to buy and consume unhomogenized, unpasteurised milk from pasture feed cows.
To not be able to sell and buy raw milk legally sounds like a scenario from a sci-fi novel. No wonder people are finding other creative means to get it. We’re talking about milk here! Why treat raw milk with such disdain? Why not give people a choice about the sort of milk they want to consume? Our supermarket shelves are crowded with foods far more dangerous to the public’s health than raw milk.
I recognise that the presence of diseases such as Brucellosis and Tuberculosis led to the pasteurisation of milk. However, it is also highly likely that poor food and handling practices contributed significantly to people getting sick. The practices of today are vastly different from the early 1900’s and Australia has Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Free Status.
I believe that the Dairy Food Safety Authority would do a wonderful job ensuring the appropriate testing of certified herds to ensure raw milk safety. I would much prefer that their staff focused their energies on ensuring a supply of clean raw milk rather than skulking around retail stores waiting to prosecute retailers and threatening suppliers.
I want to have the legal option of buying raw milk from pasture fed cows because unprocessed milk is a wonderful blend of enzymes, vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats and sugars. People will do whatever it takes in relation to their health and wellbeing. Food health authorities need to make it easier and safe for those who chose to consume raw milk as part of their diet and legalise its sale.
Jan 5th, 2008 at 3:41 am
Congratulations on being quoted! But I wonder what raw milk tastes like. It’s not exactly a widely known fact where I come from although I suspect there is something like that in specialty convenience stores. I might have to check that out. I need the calcium.
Jul 22nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Congratulations Jo, shows that hard work pays off.