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The raw milk debate is brought to Harvard
In what should prove to be an interesting and important debate, the foremost spokespeople from opposite sides of the campaign to legalize raw milk meet at Harvard.
Fri, Feb 03 2012 at 2:45 PM
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Photo: kthread/flickr
The fight to legalize raw milk has been fought on many fronts. This month, a debate will take place at Harvard between some of the most prominent voices from both sides of this issue. Sally Fallon Morrell wrote the “politically incorrect” cookbook, "Nourishing Traditions," and founded the nonprofit organization, The Weston A Price Foundation. Both her cookbook, and the foundation have sought to bring the benefits of raw milk to light, and to help make it possible to buy legally. Alongside her will be Dave Grumpert, author of "The Raw Milk Revolution."
The opposition includes Fred Pritzker, a food safety lawyer. In recent years he has been actively opposed to regulations allowing the legalization of raw milk. He has represented cases of those sickened by the consumption of raw milk.
One side would argue that raw milk is inherently safe, if proper procedure is followed. In fact, they would argue that raw milk is safer to consume than conventional milk. The other side argues that raw milk is inherently unsafe to consume and should be banned. It will be a very interesting debate, to say the least, as both sides have strong opinions on the topic.
This is what the Harvard website had to say about the debate:
At one time, everyone drank raw milk. But with the invention of pasteurization and its alleged safety benefits, consumption of raw milk in this country almost completely disappeared. In fact, in some states it is illegal to sell raw milk. But a growing segment of the population is clamoring for increased access to raw milk, citing its nutritional benefits and recently discovered inbuilt safety mechanisms. Opponents are skeptical of such nutritional claims and believe the safety risks of unpasteurized milk are simply too high.
This debate is open to the public, so if you live nearby, I’d encourage you to go. But, you can also watch the debate via livestream or watch the videos posted afterwards on YouTube. All of the information is below.
When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, 7:15 p.m. – 8:45 p.m.
Where: Harvard Law School, Langdell South Classroom.
Harvard Law School’s street address is 1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
For those who can’t attend in person and are interested in watching the livestream, information will be posted on the Harvard Food Law Society’s website.
The video will also be archived on this YouTube page.
For more information, go here.
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I drank raw milk as a child, made butter from the cream (and real ice cream!) It tastes much better than pasteurized, too. But the fact is, it's a numbers game. There's a reason that Pasteur became so famous from figuring out how to keep milk from killing people. And I think I would rather drink pasteurized milk from antibiotic-free cows than raw milk laced with antibiotics that will probably be fed to the animals to try and keep the milk "safe".
FatBear,
Just to clarify, Sally Fallon Morrell would never recommend that you drink milk from a cow given antibiotics or raised in a conventional manner. She only recommends drinking "real milk"-from grassfed cows. :-)