Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

From promoting dangerous raw milk to lobbying schools to ban safe and affordable food (mainly conventional milk) there is a cabal of cranks, crackpots and thieves gaining influence on the Web and elsewhere. Mainstream media appears to be ignoring the conflicts-of-interest and basic craziness of these special interest activists as they inject their propaganda into news reports about important food and health issues. The dairy producers who are disparaged and the general public deserve a closer inspection of these wactivists by journalists and others writing on these issues. Let’s take a look at a few who are in the news lately:

Weston A. Price Foundation — The Weston A. Price Foundation claims the future economic success of the dairy industry hinges on promoting the consumption of only organic, grass-fed raw (un-pasteurized) milk while simultaneously promoting law suits against food and agriculture interests which disagree with their luddite philosophy. These raw milk promoters have cult-like chapters around the country and are teaming up with groups like Physicians for Social Responsibility (not to be confused with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine a PETA front which is neither responsible nor physicians and whose goal is to end all forms of animal agriculture - including milk production) to promote their alternative diet schemes. They are holding “health and nutrition” seminars at libraries, senior centers and other venues in our local communities.

With religious-like zeal, they promote a range of bizarre and irresponsible half-baked ideas such as their claim that kids who consume regular skim milk (recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics) are at higher risk of obesity and will gain weight while those consuming whole-fat organic raw milk will lose weight. Never mind that the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Nutrition warns that raw milk is dangerous. The WA Pricers promote other raw, unprocessed foods and claim that everything from soy to aspartame causes cancer, in direct conflict with the assessment of responsible and legitimate health experts like the American Cancer Society. These food wackos scare new parents away from safe soy-based infant formula while promoting dangerously unsafe raw milk alternatives.

Their philosophy is based on the findings of Weston Price, a dentist in Cleveland who in the 1930s observed that a large number of his patients were suffering poor dental health. Dentist Price then traveled the distant corners of the world and found that remote native cultures had healthier teeth than his urban Ohio patients. Because these developing world people did not have access to processed foods or modern medicines, Price decided ipso facto that this must be the cause for their good dental health! Unfortunately if you check the literature, Dentist Price’s findings and conclusions fail the reality test. According to a World Health Organization sponsored report, Africans (who lack access to modern health care, have no fluoridated water, and who consume mostly organic foods because they cannot afford modern food production inputs) have disproportionately bad oral and dental health. WHO reports that dental and oral health is a bigger (not smaller) problem for people in these poor remote corners of the world than for people living in the wealthy west.

Despite these inarguable facts, today’s Price-onians still oppose all processed foods like pasteurized milk, and modern medical treatments like fluoride use in dentistry. Ask your dentist how he’d feel about your kids’ dental health future if we followed the advice of this group and banned the drinking of safe, calcium-rich milk and removed fluoride from toothpaste and water. To review what some medical professionals think about the Weston A. Price approach to dentistry, read the article in Quackwatch by the respected Dr. Steven Barrett and William Jarvis, Ph.D who say the Price approach is based on misguided pseudoscientific claims.

But the Price-onians don’t stop with promoting their irresponsible dental health advice; they’ve extended their reach into all areas of health.

The Weston A. Price Web site (realmilk.com) states that “people with high cholesterol live the longest” and that it is a myth that “for good health, serum cholesterol should be less than 180 mg/dl;” adding, “There is no greater risk for heart disease, even at levels as high as 1,000 mg/dl.” Oddly, this doesn’t jive with the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association and virtually every respected medical authority on the face of the planet. But when reporters quote Weston A. Price President Sally Fallon, “chief nutritionist” Mary Enig, board member Joe Mercola, general counsel Jim Turner or any of the dozens of other of Weston A. Price’s “diet and nutrition experts,” these quackery-exposing tidbits are rarely mentioned. It’s time they were included in mainstream media reports.

Since we’ve mentioned Weston A. Price’s general counsel Jim Turner, let’s turn our attention to Mr. Turner and one of his other organizations, Citizens for Health.

Citizens for Health is a project of alternative health and dietary supplement industry lawyer and lobbyist Jim Turner. These are the same dietary supplement industries that have viciously opposed any safety regulation of their products, even after they clearly contributed to the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds, of people, including rising Major League Baseball star Steve Bechler. Turner’s groups are also affiliated with the Natural Law Party and Maharishi cult. They attack traditional agriculture and food products which compete with Turner’s alternative product industry clients. Based in Colorado, Citizens for Health is now raising money and lobbying to help a campaign which seeks to ban conventional milk from our children’s school lunches. (This appears to be part of a wider black marketing campaign fueled by the multi-billion dollar organic industry, on which I’ve previously written.)

The Citizen’s for Health-sponsored campaign is called “GMO-Free Schools” and is led by self-published author Jeffrey Smith. Smith, author of the error-riddled anti-biotech screed “Seeds of Deception” and other anti-technology publications, is a swing dance teacher in Fairfield, Iowa - home to the Maharishi Cult and Natural Law Party. Smith is a former congressional candidate on the Maharishi’s Natural Law Party ticket who once led a lobbying delegation to the Illinois State House where he bounced around the press room on a mattress demonstrating yogic flying. Funny how none of the news reports of Mr. Smith’s campaign (or any of the reviews of his flawed anti-biotech book) mention his dance instructor credentials or that he believes he can fly.

Smith’s GM-FreeSchools.com campaign openly promotes their funding support from Citizens for Health and a group calling itself “The Coordinating Council.” The Coordinating Council is a coalition formed by one of the founders of Citizens for Health Craig Winters, who like Turner is also a lobbyist for the alternative health and natural products industries. The Coordinating Council, a recently formed (2003) non-profit organization, has yet to publicly report any income or funding sources. Want to guess where their money comes from?

On another note, Turner and his organic-industry-funded Citizens for Health co-sponsored the “Save Organic” campaign in the late 90s with a group called Sustain. “Save Organic” was battling the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plans to regulate the organic industry. At the time, Sustain was also running the Genetic Engineering Action Network (GEAN) campaign which had shared the same mailing address as the eco-terrorist-linked group Earth First! Citizen’s for Health is also listed as a formal affiliate of GEAN. If your mail is coming to the same PO box as a group promoting “ecotage” (Earth First! lingo for blowing up SUVs, burning buildings and other general acts of terrorism), then perhaps you’ve got some skeletons in your closet worth exposing.

The list of folks with odd positions supporting Weston A. Price and Citizens for Health goes on and on. Weston A. Price board member and alternative health guru Joe Mercola claims pasteurized milk causes autism (a claim not supported by any of the respected medical or autism groups). The fact that Joe was recently advised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to stop making fraudulent health claims about his “alternative” products is rarely reported by the natural products industry rags like the august-sounding “Letter for Doctors and Patients,” which frequently quotes “Doctor Mercola” on such matters. You’d think that the mainstream media could spend a mere 10 seconds on a Google search before quoting Doctor Joe’s misguided and dubious health and diet claims.

Joe Mercola is a “doctor of osteopathy” (DO, not MD) and a purveyor of “natural medicine” who sells and promotes alternative health products and organic food on his website Mercola.com. As for MDs, well, Joe Mercola believes MD’s (not DO’s of course) are the third leading cause of death in America. Mercola claims traditional medicine is “responsible for killing and permanently injuring millions of Americans every year…” Doctors of Osteopathy follow the peculiar teachings of a 19th century physician and the academic rigor of the 20 schools of osteopathic medicine in the U.S. is apparently lower than that of the 147 mainstream medical schools.

Like Weston A. Price and Citizens for Health, Mercola also promotes raw organic milk and attacks the use of fluoride as unhealthy and damaging the environment and claims it may lead to thyroid problems. For such thyroid problems, by the way, Mercola prescribes organic, non-commercially harvested seaweed (don’t ask me what that actually means) that he sells on his Web site. And what other brilliant health tips are promoted by Joe Mercola? Avoid immunizations, avoid dangerous “electro magnetic fields,” avoid electric razors, all watches (with batteries), automatic car door openers in your pockets… oh, and alarm clocks near your bed. Avoid microwaved food because “natural medicine states that the introduction into the human body of molecules and energies, to which it is not accustomed, is much more likely to cause harm than good…” Yeah, right “Dr.” Mercola. We wouldn’t want any unaccustomed “molecules” and “energies” to cause me harm.

O.K, so behind the scenes of these counter-culture, anti-technology dairy groups are some pretty misguided people with some very extreme views. Why should you care? Because they are pressuring local school districts to ban safe, affordable conventionally-produced milk and other perfectly healthy food products and replace them with less-safe, higher-priced organic foods conveniently sold by the groups which fund them. In my book that’s just plain extortion - from kids no less. Yet, none of this important background and context on these wacky groups appears in the stories published about them by mainstream news outlets such as the Associated Press, Boston Globe, New York Times or Washington Post. All of these news outlets treat these groups as legitimate, non-financially-interested, mainstream health groups rather than the wacky kooks that they are.

Would we be as alarmed by their scary quotes about our children’s health and safety linked to regular food if we knew they also thought they could fly and were paranoid of “molecules” and “energies” from microwaved foods? I doubt it. But then it wouldn’t make for very good headlines. Adding that these folks have ties to radical eco-terrorist groups would probably be too much to ask for as well.

Next time somebody tells you the milk in your kids school lunch needs to cost twice as much and shouldn’t be pasteurized to “protect their health” send them a copy of my blog. Milk is milk (unless of course it’s raw).

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

Virtually every survey I’ve ever seen studying dairy consumer buying habits suggests that “freshness” is a key factor influencing purchasing decisions for dairy products. 74 percent claim “freshness” and 94 percent say “date label” are extremely important in the purchase decisions for milk. Price, brand loyalty and simple availability are other factors frequently cited, but freshness as defined by “expiration date” is almost always noted as a key factor influencing a purchase decision. It makes sense. We all do it - dig through the back of the dairy case for that carton with a few extra days before the milk “expires.” But do we really know what that date means and how it compares from one carton to the next?

Unfortunately for consumers the main indication we have of freshness is the sell by or expiration date imprinted on cartons. We would expect that comparing different brands would inform us about how fresh that milk may actually be, but in many situations we would be wrong because of practices called “ultra-pasteurization” or UHT (ultra-high temperature) milk. It’s easy to understand why we might be misled when you see how certain companies market their use of these practices.

For example, I was reading the Web site for $140 million mega-dairy Stonyfield Farms and seeing how they promote their new line of organic milk. Most people know Stonyfield (now a subsidiary of $18 billion French dairy giant Danone) for the aggressive marketing of their self-proclaimed socially responsible yogurt with lids proclaiming “No Yucky Stuff” and advertisements which scare new mothers away from less-expensive competing dairy products.

However, Stonyfield recently launched a line of fluid milk products which are making their way into supermarkets across the country. In addition to a slew of false and misleading production claims about hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, their Web site proclaimed that Stonyfield “milk is also ultra-pasteurized to help it stay fresh longer…”

I thought, this seems like a bit of an oxymoronic statement - how can something be “fresh longer” given that freshness by most definitions means “recently made” or “not old.” Ergo, by simple definition “fresher longer” is a somewhat incompatible combination, but I guess “fresh-like” longer isn’t as compelling a marketing claim. Like other organic claims such as “no toxic pesticides,” “antibiotic-free” or “no hormones added” the claims don’t actually match the truth and are slick marketing-oriented misrepresentations of the facts. (If you’re a regular reader of my blog you already know how these production oriented claims are misleading or simply false.)

You see, ultra-pasteurization is used to give milk longer shelf life - 30 to 60 days or longer shelf life. Some UHT products, appropriately packaged, boast shelf-stability of 6 months. UHT and Ultra-pasteurized dairy products’ sell by or expiration dates reflect this extended shelf-life. Thus comparing dates for normally pasteurized milk with competing ultra-pasteurized or UHT milk is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Most consumers don’t know this. In fact, if consumers believed Stonyfield and others making “freshness” claims linked to ultra-pasteurization they could come away thinking older milk was actually fresher based on these misleading claims and corresponding “expiration dates.”

“Sell by” or expiration dates for milk are regulated at the state level, but the truthful and non-misleading in any particular marketing claims are covered (but largely un-enforced) by both state and federal laws. A review of most state regulations show that they require normally-pasteurized milk to print sell-by dates of 12 days to three weeks after the product was pasteurized in the plant. This same review also reveals that most states have no similar guidelines for ultra-pasteurized or UHT milk or they simply exempt them from these timelines. A carton of ultra-pasteurized milk with the same expiration date as a normally pasteurized carton could be weeks or months older.

Once the milk is opened after leaving the store (something consumers actually care about) both normally pasteurized and the UHT or ultra-pasteurized milk should last anywhere from 2-7 days refrigerated. At this point, the point that matters most for consumers, there is relatively little difference. So when dairy packagers like Stonyfield, Organic Valley or Horizon say “ultra-pasteurized for your convenience” that’s a bunch of malarkey - it’s purely for their convenience. Their convenience means longer shelf life in the warehouse, more days on the truck or longer periods of time in the back of the dairy case - it has little if nothing to do with any real average dairy consumer benefit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to ultra-pasteurization - if you read this blog you know how I feel about raw or un-pasteurized milk. By most accounts ultra-pasteurization and UHT have limited affect on the milk and the main complaints are reports of slightly chemical taste. In one study children ranked UHT and ultra-pasteurized milk as slightly “below good” as compared with normally pasteurized milk. This suggests kids might be less inclined to choose milk if mom is purchasing an ultra-pasteurized or UHT brand. That aside, it’s basically the same milk - it’s just not “fresher” and in fact, it is likely to be less fresh.

Locally produced milk is shipped daily to local dairy plants, which quickly process (pasteurize, homogenize, add Vitamin A and the hormone Vitamin D3 and then package) that milk. Depending on where you live it’s possible to buy milk that is only a few days away from the cow and can last (under proper refrigeration) for as long as two to three weeks. UHT or ultra-pasteurized milk may have come from thousands of miles away and have sat in the back of a dairy case for weeks before even reaching the store shelves. Compared with the local, conventionally pasteurized milk (which often sells for $2 to $3 less per gallon), the ultra-pasteurized or UHT milk may have been months since this milk left the cow. As such, these products simply shouldn’t unfairly compete on “freshness” claims with brands not making these claims.

Who uses ultra-pasteurization or UHT and why? Well, virtually every national organic brand. Horizon , Organic Valley and Stonyfield are all ultra-pasteurized. According to a New York Times report, this is because the majority of this milk (Horizon for example dominates nearly 70 percent of the U.S. organic milk market) comes from cows raised thousands of miles away on a few mega-dairy farms run by these giant companies. The Times report suggests this milk is “arguably less nutritious” as a result.

Since organic brands still only constitute 5% of the dairy market and are priced 50 to 200 percent higher than conventional brands, they don’t sell as quickly and thus require longer shelf life to remain profitable. This is true for restaurants and retail outlets as well as supermarkets. Our review of Starbuck’s failed policy to offer organic milk options for their costumers showed that even with the several month extended shelf life (they purchased UHT organic milk) they reported they threw more of this milk away than they actually sold. Despite claims by the organic marketing interests and the activists they help fund, Starbuck’s consumers simply weren’t interested in their products.

Oddly, consumer surveys which show people purchase milk based on freshness also show that consumers who purchase organic or other niche-marketed milk because they believe it to be fresher and have other qualities which are not true. Consumers who want longer-shelf stable milk should be able to buy it; however, the rest of us shouldn’t be misled into buying these products because we think they are fresher or of higher quality.

* To the companies making these freshness claims along side of other false or misleading production-related marketing tricks I say shame on you and watch out - we’re on to your game and consumers aren’t as dumb as you think.

* To the retailers carrying these brands: beware, many states extend the criminal and civil litigation risk exposure for false or misleading marketing of products to the stores which carry such products. Adopt a simple, consumer-friendly policy of carrying only dairy products which comply with state and federal laws and guidelines for truthful and non-misleading in any particular marketing.

* To the regulators: Respond to the growing number of complaints filed and enforce existing laws about truthful, non-misleading marketing to protect consumers and already struggling local dairy producers.

* To the legislators who care about dairy producers and consumers: Consider enacting regulations to protect consumers and local dairies by requiring a “born-on” date for ultra-pasteurized or UHT milk to appear prominently along side of sell by or expiration dates.

Consumers should remember that milk is milk; buy local, pasteurized and affordable milk, period!

Big-money special interests lobbying government to increase restrictions on dairy producers

Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery

The latest soap opera inside the USDA National Organic Program is a battle royal between mega-organic dairy processors like Organic Valley and Horizon Organic - some of who object to feedlot-style dairies being allowed to call themselves “organic.”

When the USDA finalized its rules back in 2001, it stated that “The producer of an organic livestock operation must establish and maintain livestock living conditions for the animals under his or her care which accommodate the health and natural behavior of the livestock…This requirement includes access to pasture for ruminant animals.”

The “access to pasture” wording has become a massive point of contention among organic dairy farmers, depending mostly on where they are located and the style of dairy operation they run. What does “access” mean and to how much pasture? What type of “pasture” is required? These aren’t simple questions because dairy cows are never fed completely on pasture.

Even in areas with lush, green summer pastures, cows must be given feed during the winter months when the pastures are dormant. In many areas, this is more than six months of the year. As well, cows are often given supplemental feed even in the summer to fill out their diet. A happy cow’s health and productivity is largely dependent upon sound feeding practices.

For producers in dry areas, such as Idaho, Colorado, and the Southwest, “pasture” is a relative term even during the warm summer months. In such places, cows out in the “pasture” are fed mostly supplemental feed - often grown using irrigation - because the pasture doesn’t provide enough forage.

The cows really don’t care either way, as long as they have plenty of food and water. I’ve visited many dairies of both types, in dry and moist areas of North America as well as Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. No matter where you go you’ll see the same basic pattern. In the summer, when out on pasture, cows will split their time between grazing, chewing their cud under the shade of a tree, and making their way to and from the milking parlor two or three times per day. In feed-lot style dairies, the cows happily split their time between eating their forage and feed ration, chewing their cud on a comfy mat in the shade of the barn, and making their way to and from the milking parlor. During the winter, you couldn’t tell either type of operation apart as the animals are kept indoors most of the time.

The internecine organic dairy war is really about resentment from mid-Western organic dairy farmers over their lower-cost Western competitors - a dynamic that occurs outside of the organic realm as well. Western feed-lot dairies relying on irrigated forage are able to produce large amounts of milk at lower cost. But organic mid-Western dairies saw in the pasture argument an opportunity to neutralize their Western competition and the battle was joined.

The $200 plus million Organic Valley, one of the larger mid-western organic dairies, has funded the Cornucopia Institute to lead the attack against their Western, feed-lot-style competitors, principally the $250 plus million Horizon Organic dairy, which has roughly 70 percent of the U.S. organic dairy market. Cornucopia has successfully pushed the issue onto the agenda of the National Organic Standards Board, which this spring adopted new “guidance” language that they would like the USDA to adopt. The proposed amendment to the organic standards says:

“Ruminant livestock shall graze pasture during the months of the year when pasture can provide edible forage. The Organic System Plan shall have the goal of providing grazed feed greater than 30% dry matter intake on a daily basis during the growing season but not less than 120 days. The Organic System Plan shall include a timeline showing how the producer will satisfy the goal to maximize the pasture component of total feed used in the farm system.”

Get that? They would require that the cows graze pasture at least one-third of the year. The other 265 days of the year the cows could be kept indoors. Moreover, the wording only states that a farm’s plant have a “goal” of providing grazed feed “on a daily basis,” not how much of the cow’s nutritional requirements must come from the grazed feed.

So in the end the cows couldn’t really care either way, the milk is the same, and the only difference for consumers is the cost. Mark Twain once said in reference to the dry West that “whiskey was for drinking, water was for fighting over.” Now he could add organic milk to the list of fightin’ words.

As always, milk is milk, and don’t forget it.