I Believe in a Promised Land

That is flowing with raw milk and honey. Seriously, that is what God promised the Israelites in their trek through the desert – a land flowing with milk and honey. I highly doubt that He intended them to pasteurize either one. So when the government of BC insists that I must, I get a little testy.

In my ongoing quest for better health I came across several health practitioners' advice to consume only raw dairy products. I was already making an effort to consume organic dairy products, but Dr. Mercola and Dr. Sears both explained the importance of consuming the enzymes that are destroyed by the process of pasteurization. They also identified the value in consuming dairy products (and meat for that matter) from grass-fed rather than grain-fed cows in order to obtain the CLA which occurs naturally in animals fed their natural grass diet.*

So I set out to find where I could buy raw milk. It turned out nowhere in BC. I could increase my carbon footprint and drive to Washington State to buy it. Instead, I joined with like-minded raw milk consumers and invested in a herd of Jersey cows, paying a fee to have a farmer care for and milk the cows. This was a perfect, though expensive solution. It is a herd of Jersey Cows which eat fresh organic grass outside most of the year, coming in to the barn to be milked each day. They get the perfect food, sunlight, fresh air and exercise that God intended and I get their perfect milk. They even have names!

At first, I had my dividends of milk, yogurt, butter and cream delivered along with the rest of my weekly organic order by LadyBug Organics. The powers that be, specifically Fraser Health Authority, intervened and threatened to shut down LadyBug if they continued to deliver my milk. Instead, I had to drive 30 minutes each way to pick it up myself, but then the Government disallowed that. They have now said that our farmer can no longer milk our cows nor provide us with their product. Basically, I can legally buy cigarettes, alcohol, and even shoot up heroin in downtown Vancouver in a taxpayer-provided facility (not that I ever would!), but the government has decreed that it must save me from the evil of consuming milk in its natural state, the way God created it.

This is, of course, hogwash (there is also a cattle-related term for it). There are many foods legally available for sale in Canada which have been known to cause illness. Maple Leaf deli meat pops instantly to mind. When people died of lysteriosis from consuming Maple Leaf deli meat, said meat was briefly taken off the market. No other meat-packing factories were asked to refrain from selling their meat products. In fact, Maple Leaf was allowed to start re-selling the exact product which had poisoned people to death once it cleaned or replaced the equipment which was the source of the contamination. The same goes for raw spinach. The sale of raw spinach was not banned forever and ever after an e coli outbreak was traced to a farm in California. The contamination was eradicated and raw spinach can be purchased universally. There have been myriads of food-borne illnesses caused by the consumption of food items readily for sale in North America. Why is raw milk the only food that has been permanently banned? Something is rotten and it isn't milk.

If I choose to consume milk in its pure state, the way that both of my husband's parents did throughout their childhoods, I have the right to do so. Raw milk can be tested and regulated just as every other food on the market currently is. Furthermore, I know of no other way to obtain non-homogenised milk from humanely raised, organically grass-fed Jersey cows, raw or otherwise, than from the cow-share herd the government is attempting to shut down, ruining a family's entire livelihood in the process. And it is unconscionable that my health-care dollars are going to fund the salaries of these heavy-handed bureaucrats who work for Fraser Health while thousands of British Columbians are waiting in line for medically necessary, often life-saving care, not to mention the waste of my tax dollars going to pay the crown's legal fees in this travesty of justice while real criminals are released due to lack of timely trials. Or how about the squandering of my tax dollars to pay an RCMP officer to accompany Fraser Health authorities to our farm when the public would have been much better served by having said officer fight the gang-related crime that is so prevalent in the lower mainland? I have yet to discover why Fraser Health was so frightened of our sweet Agister, Alice, that they felt the need for protection by an armed guard.

I have written to my MP and MLA about this specific issue, all to no avail and no response. In the meantime, I say the state should be banned from the refrigerators of the nation. Let me have my raw milk and drink it too!

*"Grass-fed raw milk is a good source of important disease fighters like vitamins and minerals, essential fatty acids, amino acids, and good bacteria to strengthen your immune system. When you pasteurize milk, the heat destroys all of the immune-fighting properties.

Grass-fed raw milk also contains the most important health-building ingredient of all: enzymes.

Enzymes are inflammation fighters and immune builders that are destroyed within minutes by heat during pasteurization.

Here is a sample of what's lost:

Amylase: Amylase breaks down carbohydrates in food as it's digested.

Catalase: Catalase is a strong antioxidant that protects cells.

Lactase: This is what's missing when people are lactose intolerant. Lactase makes it easier to absorb other nutrients as well.

Lipase: Lipase breaks down fats like triglycerides and improves the way your body uses them.

Phosphatase: Phosphatase helps your body absorb and use the calcium and phosphorous in milk.

Lactoferrin: Lactoferrin helps protect you from disease. In fact, lactoferrin defends the body against invasion by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.2 Lactoferrin has the same protection-fighting power as mother's breast milk for an infant."