I remember back in the mid-70s, a patrol car stopped my mother for a "California stop," not stopping completely at a stop sign. There were four of us kids in the car, and I guess we all expected her to take out her wallet and the registration and wait for a ticket. Boy, were we surprised when she shouted at the uniform as he walked up: "I'm a mom picking up kids from school. Don't you have something better to do than to stop me for a ticket? Can't you go chase some dope-smoking hippies? Or, better yet, go arrest some thieves and killers?"
Give him some dick, Mom!
So several government agencies, in a country that is in a recession going double dip, with 9+% unemployment, failing infrastructure, devastated schools, looting banksters, and two wars -- have nothing better to do than raid some private club selling raw milk to consenting adults who want to buy it? Are you kidding me?
I'm a regular customer of Rawesome, where I buy my milk, butter, eggs, and cheese every Saturday...
It's a small store, less than 1,000 square feet, just on the Venice side of the Santa Monica/Venice border. It has the feeling of a co-op, only even more rustic than many. If you shop there regularly, the ladies at the desk who check your membership card greet you by name.
People pay $40 a year to join the private club. About three-quarters of the store is the big open area with fruits and vegetables. The last quarter is taken up by cooler rooms at either end of the store. Running along the main room is a 6-foot by 25-foot raised area that has a refrigerated sections and shelves, mostly honey and some exotic imported goods -- Himalayan salt, and a bunch of stuff I've never tried but will someday get around to if they ever let the owner out of jail.
Despite what has been said in another post here, the dairy I buy comes from Amish farms. I see members of this group on the train to San Diego frequently, and making wonderful-tasting dairy products seems like quite a Godly activity to me. I find that I do trust their products, and they taste wonderful. They taste healthy, which is more than I can say for many industrially-created foods, that often have little, if any taste at all.
The butter is the best I have ever had. The produce is excellent -- the lettuce is crisp. The vegetables last a long time. The fruit looks natural -- it's not perfect, but it's ripe and ready to eat. The eggs have straw on them. My husband says the food looks like it did when he grew up on an Illinois farm in the 50s and 60s and had a regular egg and vegetable route.
I am so saddened by what happened.
I will miss the products I love -- I make my own cottage cheese, yogurt, and was getting ready to try making goat cheese too. All these products taste much better to me than anything pasteurized and homogenized. Regular store-bought eggs, butter, and cream simply have no flavor -- corporate America has sucked the life right out of them.
For any of you who have not had the pleasure of real food, I can only say that you are missing a great taste experience that is important to preserve. Can you believe that a country that allows aspartame, which is known to cause brain damage (i.e. forgetfulness), is desperate to quell the last and only source of real, natural dairy from real cows!
I understand the medical and public health arguments people make. I recognize that raw dairy products have and probably will in the future posts risks.
That mother I mentioned when I started writing this post? She's 85 now and suffers from dementia. She lives in her own apartment, and we (her children) have been gradually wrapping more and more services around her. Some members of the extended family believe she should be in a home. Perhaps they are right, and they are certainly entitled to their opinions.
However, we have made the choice for freedom. Our mother was always a free spirit, and we know that something inside of her will die if she is institutionalized. We recognize that there are risks -- she will forget to look for traffic before stepping into the street. She will slip and fall on something she left in the middle of the room and forgot to pick up. She will get lost. She will bounce checks she isn't supposed to have. But we have decided that as long as she knows who she is, where she is, and who we are, we will accept higher levels of risks in order to preserve her quality of life.
Every week, I drive 120 miles from San Diego to get these products from Rawesome. I will go tomorrow and hope there is no lock on the door. I will do what I can to comfort the people I see every week, I will contribute to the defense fund. If there is a lock on the door, I will seek other sources, perhaps by going directly to Amish farms.
9:56 AM PT: I am so surprised by the responses. I find them to be lily-livered, controlling and anti-democratic in every respect, imposing the writer's biases on everyone else in the hope that the government will protect them from the freedom of choice by making everyone else do what they think is right. I never thought to find such a group of fearful, safe-sucking liberal fascists on this list.
As long as consenting adults understand the risks and do not pour their raw milk down the throats of others, I say -- back off! NOYFB.