To Drink or Not to Drink is the Real Question

Yesterday within an hour of the court passing a guilty verdict on Michael Schmidt, he and a number of his supporters were drinking a toast to each other, glasses filled with naught but the culpable white substance – raw milk. Unpasteurized milk is illegal in Canada, although the law makes exception to farmers. Schmidt, a dairy farmer in Durham, fights a “contempt of court” charge for allegedly distributing unpasteurized milk in York region’. The government has been fighting with Schmidt for almost two years now. In December 2006 the Health Department issued an injunction against the farmer. May 2007 the Ontario Superior Court of Justice served him with another order to enforce the previous injunction. Schmidt claims that he will pay any cost, even jail time to continue his operation, because the government has no right to tell people what they can or cannot eat, or as in this case, drink. He further declares that he is not “selling” the illegal milk, rather he is paid by the participants in his “cow-share program” to take care of their cows. The prosecution questions Shirley Ann Wood, one such “cow shareholder” on the witness stand. Romance evident in her voice, she said, “I visit Anna (the cow of which she is part owner) pet her, make her bed and take some of her milk, if I want.” The Schmidt operation currently has about one hundred and fifty share holders with three hundred cows between them. About thirty of whom showed up at courthouse donned in t-shirts emblazoned with the message: “Freedom of Choice”. They claim that the “real” milk has health benefits over its supermarket bought, water-down, nutrient-deficient counterpart; and besides, it’s their personal right to drink whatever milk they see fit. On the other hand, Dan Kuzmyk, lawyer for the region “warns that raw milk can contain dangerous pathogens such as Salmonella, E-coli, and Listeria monocytogenes”. Needless to say, the health department considers unpasteurized milk a serious health hazard.

Megan Ogilvie – Staff Health Reporter of the Toronto Star – reports on September 10th and 11th , and tries to give an unbiased story. In the September 11th account she describes Schmidt business as an “organic farm”. Organic products are getting good reviews these days, so that is favorable to the farmer. However, she points out that Kuzmyk presented evidence of numerous bacterial outbreaks, including Listeriosis in Quebec, which killed one person from cheese made with raw milk. She duly represents both the cow shareholders and the government, without passing judgment. On September 12th, the Canadian Press reports that Schmidt who operates his farm in Owen Sound, was confident that the charges were unfounded, so he dismissed his scheduled witnesses. He said, “no test has been conducted to verify that the milk in question is raw”. However, we now know that with all his self-assurance, he was found guilty, at least for contempt of court. He has not yet being tried for the actual farm operation.

I found this milk story somewhat amusing, because the government has seen it fit to spend tax-payers money on trying to stop folks from drinking milk from personally owned cows. I remember as a child my family got our milk directly from the farmer, who came around every morning with a fresh supply of natural milk. We heated and enjoyed the good a healthy “whites”. The current underground name for the illegal liquid. Imagine! Milk is being treated as street drugs. According to my ancestors, if fully boiled, milk loses its health value. Times have changed drastically though, and maybe with all the pesticides and chemical fertilizers being used today, the health officials do have a point, thanks to Louis Pasteur, the scientist credited with the pasteurizing process. However, there is an inherent contradiction: If farmers are exempted from the milk laws, then surely the cow shareholders are a type of farmer, of sorts. In the very least, they are cow owners. How can you stop a man from drinking milk from his own cow? Modern science have proven that my fore-parents were right, the overheating (pasteurizing) of milk destroys vital nutrients (such as cysteine) that’s the reason for the (re) adding of vitamins. In all consumable foods, I realize that there is a necessity to ensure safety. However, upholding the Milk Board, with its current laws, has more to do with the government making its cut from milk production, than maintaining citizens’ health. I agree that the health department has a responsibility to ensure that commercialized foods are fit for human consumption. Therefore, as long as Michael Schmidt and his cow-share holders do not commercialize their (real) products, let them drink their milk to their hearts’ content. As they have duly established, it is their right. What if they get sick? Then we do the same thing as with people who contract HIV/AIDS from depraved practices – we do our best to treat them with what medicine is available, regardless of the cost – because we are still human beings. And if someone dies, as in the Quebec case? I am certain that it will force officials, farmers and cow owners alike, to take the necessary precaution to make certain their milk is safe. Nobody ever died from unpasteurized milk when I was child in Jamaica.