By Margo McIntosh
Posted 1 day ago
What you missed is that Schmidt and all his supporters for that matter, do NOT want raw milk legalized across the board. What we want is a way to access it legally from farms where the animals are tested, the milk is monitored and the cows are on pasture where they belong. When a cow is fed grass there is much less likelihood of their milk being tainted. It is obvious that pasteurized milk is not 100% safe and with all foods there is some risk. Those of us who have been drinking raw milk from grass based small farms like Michael Schmidt’s have come to rely on it to help with health issues and to nourish ourselves and our families. It is amazing to me to see the changes in people once they start to drink this live food. The last thing any of us want is for raw milk to be legalized cart blanche across the country. That would indeed be dangerous as the milk produced for the dairy board needs to be pasteurized due to the way the cows are fed and their living conditions. Nobody is arguing that point. The problem is that the only publicity his has gotten in the past is to make Michael Schmidt look like a rebel trying to break the law and none of the health authorities or the government have sat down with him and actually heard him out about what he is actually proposing. Perhaps if our premier would do that and set up a task force to look into this further, this whole mess could be cleared up. Our health units are not wrong in being worried about raw milk distribution BUT what they are missing is that raw milk, like any other unprocessed product, can be provided safely under conditions where the animals are well cared for, fed the food they were designed to eat and the milking equipment and milk house have cleanliness standards that are strictly enforced. Thousands of people in this province are drinking this kind of milk safely and have been for a very long time. Farmers have been drinking the milk from family cows for all their lives, the other G8 countries have rules and regulations that enable grown adults to acquire this food from certified farms SAFELY!
What you need to look at closer is the real story behind milk and the reasons it was pasteurized. I would recommend you read The Untold Story of Milk which is well researched. Our health units are going on old information and ingrained beliefs that could be challenged if they actually took a look at the EU countries that allow raw milk and the various states in the US that allow it and see how that milk is being produced.
Michael Schmidt is not a man to break the law for no good reason. He is also NOT a crusader trying to make a name for himself as your article insinuates. What he is is a man of very high standards and personal beliefs. He is a man who is willing to stand up and say when something doesn’t make sense instead of sitting back like most Canadians do and accepting the loss of our rights to healthy food with a shrug. Just as you indicate that Hoodless was ahead of her time, so as I see it is Schmidt. People need to take back the responsibility to find out what is healthy for their own bodies and go with that. Schmidt is not fighting this battle for himself but for all of us who are becoming awake to the corporate push to have us consuming denatured, sterilized and dead food. Our government is not just battling against one farmer. Thousands of people across this country have had enough of this nonsense and want these laws changed in a way that can satisfy all parties.
So yes laws have been broken and yes people are still drinking raw milk (and not dropping like flies I might add). What is needed, in my opinion, is a three party committee set up by our government to look at all angles of this raw milk controversy, to study the ways it’s being done in other countries and to be open and non biased as they do this. This committee needs to include Michael Schmidt and medical authorities on both side of the debate. If anyone in our government or our dept. of health would sit down and listen to Schmidt and to the doctors and scientists that advocate raw milk done right, perhaps people could have legal access to this product that they will continue to source regardless of the laws. Laws can and have been changed in the past. My question is, it it safer to have people buying from an underground unregulated market or from farmers who have strict rules to follow such as are need to be part of Cow Share Canada.
I suggest you educate yourself a little more on this whole subject and perhaps you will have a different opinion.
Thank you for your time.
Via http://www.brantfordexpositor.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3363723
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