How Raw Milk Changed Your Children’s Food Security -- Part 4

This 4-part article explores how the 1987 ban came about and what it means to your food security today

A “scientific” ideology banned raw milk and vilified mothers who chose it anyway. Behind this, was a wealthy philanthropist pushing his agenda and setting the stage for the demise of the small farmer and food security in America.

(Read part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here)

Russian Roulette

Today, raw dairy is scarce. It is usually far away from those who seek it, requiring long drives and increased expense. More relevant than that, dairies in general are removed from the communities they serve.

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ideology is that no one should drink raw milk for any reason ever. They’ve said in the past that it is like “playing Russian Roulette with your health.”

This ideology removes vital choice from families and eliminates community food security.

In the 1980s, Ralph Nadar’s organization, Public Citizen, campaigned for the complete elimination of raw milk sales and consumption through a ban on interstate commerce. They eventually won, through a court case in 1986. The FDA implemented the ban in 1987 to the demise of all Americans and the erosion of farming communities.¹ This tiny, obscure regulation in the federal code says that no one can cause to be delivered into interstate commerce raw milk intended for human consumption.²

Food choice and security for our families and our communities is in the hands of bureaucrats. When bureaucrats decide that mothers cannot choose what type of milk they can give their children, our entire food security is atop a slippery slope.

Loyalty to this bureaucratic ideology has the American government criminalizing our farmers and mothers for basic food choices. It is not simply the political or policy decision that removes our access and threatens our food security; it is the overwhelming implication that if we decide differently than the bureaucrats, we are wrong and are damaging or endangering our children.

Do we want to put our food security and future in the hands of a few unelected bureaucrats?

Perhaps this dangerous ideology is the real “Russian Roulette.” As farms become further centralized and removed from where we live, our food security is threatened.

When we understand that the story behind the bureaucratic control is a lie–a profit-seeking farce made up to pit a mother’s instincts against her own children, fueled by propaganda–we are empowered to use discernment and choose wisely.

It is our responsibility as mothers to shift an ideology that doesn’t work. It is our job to nurture our children and our communities, to live freely and to live in health. It is time to dispel harmful ideologies and shake the dust from our shoulders.

We are the mamas. 

We know what’s best for our children.

In the story of Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye–the farmer–was central to his community. His is the story of a horrific ideology that took hold in Russia: totalitarianism. Tevye’s family and village were abused, tortured, and driven from their homes because ordinary people blindly complied with the dangerous, prevailing ideology that destroyed this traditional milkman.

At the same time, far away in America, another dangerous ideology was shifting our communities.

The continued criminalization of raw milk threatens a similar ending to that of Tevye and his family. While seemingly insignificant, this regulatory ban removes the number one basic food choice from the American household. It represents a shift that changed how we relate to our food, to each other, and to the farmers producing our basic needs. We must remove the ideological foothold and bring back our choice to produce, purchase, sell, and consume raw milk–indeed any food–within our own communities. It’s time to bring back the dairy farmer as a central figure. It’s time to trust mamas. It is time to rebuild community food security.

Raw milk mamas unite!

1. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-12-mn-469-story.html

2. Code of Federal Regulations