Many consider raw milk better
Reported March 01, 2010
DALLAS Like most any mom with young children, Iliana Cantavella is used to making a run for a gallon of milk.
But she goes to the tiny store at Lavon Farms, the last dairy left in Collin County. There, for $8 a gallon, she buys milk that comes straight from the registered Guernsey and Jersey cows grazing in the fields around.
No pasteurization. No homogenization. And no approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Raw milk, it’s called, and Cantavella is a walking infomercial.
“Since we switched to raw milk, they don’t get sick anymore,” the mother of three said, standing outside the farm store with her latest three gallons. “They used to get ear infections all the time.”
Though the FDA and other health agencies couldn’t be plainer that they consider milk unsafe until it’s gone through bacteria-zapping pasteurization, more and more people have reached their own conclusions and want their milk raw.
Influenced by their experience, and by documentaries and books against processed food, they see raw milk as natural, healthful, better tasting, eco-friendly and supportive of small farms.
The trend has given hope to dairies such as Lavon Farms, which began selling raw milk in September and sold 122 gallons one recent Saturday its best day yet.
“We’re finally getting retail for our product,” said Todd Moore, third-generation owner of Lavon Farms, which earns about $1.60 a gallon for milk sold to a cooperative that in turn sells to big processors for pasteurized, store-bought milk.
States vary in regulating raw milk, with some allowing it in groceries and others forbidding its sale altogether. Texas permits sales only at the dairy, while Ohio does not permit sales directly to consumers.
Just two years ago, Texas had 11 dairies with a Grade A raw milk retail license, and nearly all sold only goat milk. Now, there are 21 selling cow milk, including Lavon Farms.
Though no state agency tracks raw milk production, Gene Wright, milk group program manager for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said it’s clear that the spike in outlets reflects a growing market.
The strength of the raw-milk movement in Texas also can be seen in more than 400 letters sent to the department last year, supporting the expansion of sales to farmers markets.
Then there’s the popping up of cooperatives such as Raw Milk Dallas, whose members take turns driving to the dairy to buy for the group.
“Our biggest order was for 86 gallons, and we average about 40,” said Tiffany Rider, who as co-op leader often makes the 11Ñ2-hour run to Nors Dairy in Hill County.
Lavon Farms is a rolling, 200-acre spread with fields, creeks, barns, silos and farm houses, as well as stone gates inscribed with the year the Moore family took possession 1936. But these days the place is nearly surrounded by development along a six-lane stretch of road that sees an average of 12,600 cars a day.
Few stopped at Lavon Farms until it began selling raw milk. Now, drawn by a plain “Grade A Raw Milk For Sale” sign, or by word of mouth or Internet intelligence, the dairy’s store is often hopping.
Spend a couple of hours inside and you’ll hear everything from nostalgic stories about drinking raw milk on Grandma’s farm to testimonials about such milk’s advantages in homemade yogurt and cheese. Some swear it relieves eczema and arrests kids’ tooth decay and can be drunk with ease by those who thought they were lactose-intolerant.
Mallon Noland, a Plano chiropractor, has become a Lavon Farms regular and said he is delighted to have an outlet 10 minutes from his house.
“I’ve been looking for raw milk for a long time,” he said, adding that his reading had convinced him that it’s nutritionally superior to pasteurized milk.
Ruta Chodavadia grew up drinking raw milk in India and prefers the taste.
“The best part is I see the cows grazing,” the Murphy woman said, standing with a fresh gallon on the other side of a fenced pasture roamed by fawn-and-white Guernseys.
But there’s no fight like a food fight, and the debate about raw milk is conducted across the Internet and beyond. The FDA states on its Web site: “Raw milk is inherently dangerous, and it should not be consumed by anyone at any time,” then lists pathogens that raw milk can contain, including E. coli and Listeria.
Echoing the FDA’s concern is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which links raw-milk consumption to 1,505 illnesses, 185 hospitalizations and two deaths between 1993 and 2006.
Wright said state inspectors visit raw-milk dairies about every six weeks and take samples for lab testing. He contends that pasteurization is one of the great public health success stories and strongly agrees with the FDA that drinking unpasteurized milk is too risky.
Source: Associated Press