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Got Milk?

A Washington Post Staff Writer

The fresh cow milk that Mark Nolt sells at his farm in Newville, 37 miles from

the land state line in south-central Pennsylvania, is ivory in color, with

an exceedingly creamy texture and pronounced buttery flavor.

His regular customers, most from as far away as the Washington area and New

York, drive for two or more hours each way, every week, for a gallon of Nature's

Sunlight -- certified organic, unprocessed raw milk from grass-fed cows. Nolt

and his wife, Ann, parents of eight children, sell this rich milk at the

farmhouse door for $4.75 per gallon.

Milk designated as " raw " has not been pasteurized (heated to no less than 161

degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds to kill bacteria) or homogenized (pumped under

pressure to give the fat particles a uniform size, preventing separation).

Nearly all milk sold in the United States is pasteurized and homogenized.

Proponents of raw milk believe that such processing destroys important

enzymes, vitamins and beneficial bacteria. They link pasteurized milk to

allergies, tooth decay, arthritis and cancer. They like their milk raw and will

go to great lengths to get it.

In Pennsylvania, 38 farms, including the Nolts', hold permits for raw milk

sales. In more than 20 states raw cow milk can be sold at farms or in stores.

But in the District of Columbia, Virginia and land, District and state

laws prohibit the sale of raw milk for human consumption. land health

officials call raw milk " unfit as food for human beings. " In addition, the

transportation of raw milk across state lines by individuals for retail sale is

illegal under federal law.

" If people want it, they ought to be able to get it, " says Nolt, who sells

approximately 100 gallons of raw milk per week. " In today's world, with the kind

of inspections we have, there's no reason to be afraid of raw milk. "

Pennsylvania health officials say that raw milk from farms with permits " meets

the bacterial standards of state and federal guidelines for pasteurized milk. "

The milk is tested twice a month for harmful bacteria by the state bureau of

food safety. (The most common diseases linked to raw milk are salmonella and

listeria.) Cows are tested yearly for tuberculosis and the bacterial disease

brucellosis.

According to Nolt, the majority of his customers found information about his

farm on the Web at www.realmilk.com, a site sponsored by the Washington-based

Weston A. Price Foundation, a group that promotes raw milk and helps consumers

find farms that sell it. land health officials say that same site helped

them last fall to halt the sale of raw milk at a yoga school in Bethesda.

On the trail of an anonymous complaint, two investigators from the land

Division of Milk Control entered a garage attached to the School of Life, a yoga

ashram on East West Highway in Bethesda. They purchased a one-gallon container

of milk for $4.80.

According to Ted Elkin, chief of the division, the label on the milk container

identified the contents as: " raw milk " from " Camphill Village Farm in Kimberton,

Pa. " Subsequently, a State of land laboratory performed tests that confirmed

the product had not been pasteurized.

In early January, Victor Landa, the spiritual leader and owner of the School

of Life, received a certified letter from milk control chief Elkin.

" Raw milk is unfit as food for humans because of the abundance of health

hazards associated with the ingestion of raw milk, " Elkin wrote.

" We put him on notice, " Elkin says. " We have no choice but to enforce the law

with so many food-borne illnesses linked to raw milk. "

On a recent afternoon, there was raw honey and raw tahini for sale in the

student store at the School of Life. There were free-range eggs from a farm in

Pennsylvania. There was no raw milk.

" Everybody has been scared to death by horror stories, " says guru Landa, a

native of Peru. He opened his yoga school 15 years ago. For four years, he says,

he sold 70 gallons of raw milk per week.

" This [raw milk] is an important, living food in the yoga diet, full of

natural antibodies and beneficial vitamins. It's our main source of protein, "

says Landa. " It's ridiculous that we have to go to these lengths to get it. "

Still, Landa has a plan to put raw milk back on his dining table. He plans to

purchase his own cow, or at least, part of one, he says. Cow owners are free to

drink raw milk from their own herd.

In some states where raw milk is illegal, advocates have banned together and

started " cow-sharing " programs that do not violate that state's laws regarding

the sale of raw milk. In both land and Virginia there are no regulations at

present pertaining to cow-share programs.

Farmers charge a one-time fee of, say, $80 for the purchase of " one share " of

the herd. The number of shares available, per cow, is based on the number of

gallons of milk that the cow produces each week.

Each share entitles the buyer to one gallon of milk per week. The buyer also

pays a monthly boarding fee of about $20 per month to the farmer to cover the

cost of feed and care. Veterinary bills are extra. Cow-share owners pool the

milk supply to offset periods when a particular cow is not producing milk.

Herndon resident Litidjah , a nutrition consultant and mother with two

of six children still at home, joined a cow-share co-op two years ago.

" We bought four shares of a cow, that gives us four gallons of milk a week, "

says , who picks up the family's allotment at a farm in Winchester, Va.

" The dairy farmer milks the cow. We get the milk. Simple as that, " she says.

Nevertheless, the issue of raw milk safety is far more complicated.

At Lewes Dairy, a family-run milk processing plant that overlooks the Delaware

Bay in the town of Lewes, Del., raw milk -- about 26,000 gallons of it -- moves

through a maze of stainless-steel pipes and kettles each week as it goes through

the pasteurization process. Chip Brittingham is the president and co-owner.

" I wouldn't drink it raw. [Pasteurization] doesn't hurt the milk. It's just

heating and cooling, " he says. (Sales of raw milk for human consumption are

illegal in Delaware.) " You leave yourself open to a lot of possible problems, "

he says. " I'm not going to risk it. "

That is why Brittingham sets the heating controls in his milk plant to 170

degrees Fahrenheit for 17 seconds, more than is required by law. " We make sure

it's fully pasteurized, " says Brittingham.

Pasteurization kills most of the disease-producing organisms that potentially

can be found in raw milk.

In a 1998 published report, the federal Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention identified 46 disease outbreaks reported by states from 1973 to 1992

that were associated with raw milk. According to the report, 1,733 people got

sick.

CDC researchers found that raw milk accounted for less than 1 percent of the

total milk sold in states that permit the sale of raw milk. They reported that

" outbreaks were far higher for states in which the sale of this product was

legal. "

Last year the Los Angeles County board of supervisors voted to allow the sale

of raw milk in stores. Still, a health warning on the milk container is required

by California state regulations: " Raw, unpasteurized milk and raw milk dairy

products may contain disease-causing micro-organisms. "

States are free to enact their own raw milk regulations. But federal agencies

and many people in the dairy industry wish that was not the case.

" Our recommendation to states that sell raw milk has always been to repeal

laws and stop selling raw milk because of the pathogens and the public health

concerns, " says a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration.

According to research by the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, raw milk drinkers

are 158 times more likely to contract salmonella. " The bottom line, " says

spokeswoman Isabel Maples, " pasteurized milk offers all the nutrition and health

benefits of raw milk without the risks of illness and death. "

Rankin, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin and a

scientist who specializes in dairy food processing, agrees. Says Rankin: " There

is no arguing. There are tons of studies that denote the prevalence of pathogens

in raw milk supplies. And, as far as health claims are concerned, I haven't seen

a sound study out that pasteurization reduces or influences the health-imparting

factors in milk. "

There are so many studies and experts in favor of pasteurization that, for one

area woman, promoting raw milk is a battle with few and small victories.

Raw milk's most vocal advocate is Washington resident Sally Fallon, founder of

the Westin A. Price Foundation -- an organization " dedicated to education,

research and activism in the field of nutrition and food production. " Fallon's

676-page book, " Nourishing Traditions -- the Cookbook That Challenges

Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats " (New Trends Publishing,

1999) is self-published.

" These people [who think raw milk is not safe] are speaking for a monopolized

dairy industry that doesn't want any competition, " says Fallon, who raised her

four children on raw milk. " They have taken the sacred cow, put it in a barn

under horrific conditions and turned it into a milk machine. Then, they denature

the milk with all kinds of inappropriate processing. But the irony is this same

technology could be used to get safe, clean, raw milk to all consumers. "

Her " Campaign for Real Milk " project and her Realmilk.com Web site praise the

benefits of milk right from the cow. The site includes a state-by-state

directory of raw milk availability (Victor Landa's ashram has been deleted) and

information on cow-share programs.

" Cow-share is the wave of the future, " says Fallon. " It's a brilliant idea, a

legal way for consumers to get raw milk as well as a boon to small farms that

just can't make it under the big dairy system. "