Dear Chef,
This is the second RAWMI Ripple newsletter, written by RAWMI director Catharina Berge. This November I had the pleasure to spend a couple of days with the Family Cow, Ed Shank and his family. It was a fantastic experience, and as I audited the farm, the system was a showcase of a RAWMI dairy. Naturally, there are always areas of improvement, and one of the advantages of being RAWMI listed is to have external audits and support to optimize our whole dairy systems.
|
|
|
RAWMI Listed Dairies Continue to have Outstanding Results
|
|
|
I have been bragging about RAWMI listed dairies’ ability to produce super-clean healthy raw milk at a conference for artisanal production in Northern Sweden in October (Särimmer, Åre, Sweden). My country of origin has a more than healthy respect for bacteria and believes that God ‘saved the world through Louis Pasteur’. I am trying to show that although that what Pasteur discovered and invented was very good in many ways in the previous century to reduce foodborne hazards, we do not have to use post-harvest sterilization techniques if we to begin with produce clean food. This is a concept that is endorsed in most vegetable production and meat production, but for some reason regulators and food safety scientists do not believe that can apply to milk (note that I wrote believe!).
At the conference I showed some pictures and some diagrams that say more than many words to the Swedish producers, regulators and scientists. These are the overall results from our RAWMI listed dairies from 2012 to 2017. Raw milk safety and hygiene is not about having the most professional looking dairy and creamery, it can be achieved even in old barn structures with good management and hygienic techniques. This can be achieved by a local herd share member that has been taught the hygienic measures for food safety. The professionalism in RAWMI listed dairies is reflected in the questions and discussions that take place in our team. RAWMI listed dairies have a high awareness of risks and take the right mitigation measures to reduce risk through a high level of competence and care. The Swedish National Food Administration regulators were more positive to having some controlled form of raw milk production this year compared to previous years, and they wanted to speak more to me about RAWMI.
|
|
Next year, I have a huge opportunity to teach the Veterinary College of Public Health in Europe about the safe production of raw milk. I will be a key note speaker at their annual meeting and I will tell them about how safe we can make raw milk.
Of course, it will never be 100% safe, but nothing in life is 100% safe. There will always be food borne disease associated with raw milk, just as every other food commodity that we consume. There is a large body of peer-reviewed papers showing that raw milk consumption is one of the few available tools that we have to reduce allergies in our population and therefore we need to assure that consumers can find good sources of clean raw milk.
RAWMI has a huge task at hand and we need you all to do your part in ‘spreading the news’ regarding RAWMI, ‘sharing hygienic production knowledge’ with raw milk producers, and financially supporting RAWMI.
|
|
|
Another Great Resource for Raw Milk has just been Published!
|
|
|
We have recently a new great resource for all of you interested in raw milk. The article, written by Dr Joseph. R. Heckman, Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA can be found here.
This interesting review article is worth reading. It contains a lot of information that can be digested over several ‘reads’. The title of the article is ‘Securing fresh food from fertile soil, challenges to the organic and raw milk movement.’
A PDF version can also be found here.
|
|
Please share this information and let’s create a
“Ripple effect”
for health education.
|
|
|
Take care all of you RAWMI producers, consumers and all of you interested in raw milk!
Cat- Board Member, RAWMI
|
|
|
|
The Raw Milk Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. All donations to the Raw Milk Institute are tax-deductible to the full extent allowable by law.
|
|
|
|
