I am the owner of a percentage of a cow. The farmer cares for the cow, milks and organises delivery of my share of the milk she produces. I have made an informed decision to consume this milk as i am unable to adequately care for a cow in the city but a member of the SA parliament is attempting to take the farmer to court for selling raw milk. He doesn't do this.
Surely there are more important issues to spend taxpayers dollars on than trying to stop informed consumers consuming their own raw milk!
If anybody has information regarding the beneficial microorganisms in raw milk and their ability to contribute to the colonisation of the gastrointestinal tract to assist with digestion it may be useful to help stop this restriction in our food choices.

Wong, what happens if you become il from consuming what you call raw milk?

My tip is you will be off to the doctor, somewhat at the tax payers expense.

Unfortunately there are many chances whereby raw milk can become contaminated, especially if not collected, stored or handled correctly.

These possibilities are amplified when the raw milk is transported to, and consumed anywhere other than where the milk was produced and collected.

While I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with consuming raw milk, it is simply the fact that it is not being consumed where it is produced that causes the concern.

There is also a law against consuming meats that have not been processed in an approved facility.

While there is no law against home kills, in the right zones, it is illegal to allow any of that meat to be consumed anywhere other than where it was processed.

This is all for health reasons, and I assume the raw milk situation laws are along the same grounds.

Laws against mass production of UN pasteurized milk is another issue and one that also protects/effects industry rights.

Now having said that, there would be no law against you turning up each morning with your corn flakes and pouring your raw milk on them, so long as you consume it where it was collected.

In small cases, the law is there to protect people's health, nothing else

rehctub

A person can purchase 'raw' milk quite easily, whether direct from a farm or as 'bath milk' from the health food shops which carry it. I'm fully aware of the claims ostensibly based on 'scientific' evidence that anyone consuming such a dangerous substance will almost certainly die an unimaginably horrible death within hours of its consumption, however its interesting to note that human beings have been drinking 'raw' milk since time immemorial and since at least some of us are still on the topside of the earth, there appears to be reasonable grounds to suspect it isn't the LD90 poison the 'experts' would have us believe.

>>A person can purchase 'raw' milk quite easily, whether direct from a farm or as 'bath milk'<<

Raw milk isn't legal to sell as a food product (except maybe directly from the farm) for the reasons outlined by rechtub. As long as it's not being sold as a food product - as a beauty product for example - then a different set of rules apply. Your farmer just needs to tell the court he isn't selling the milk for human consumption.

Cheers,

Tony

Tony Lavis - Raw milk isn't legal to sell as a food product

Whats 'legal' got to do with it ?? Tell me if you can what percentage of motorists religiously observe speed limits ?? Its quite obvious that the average sheeple believes a 100k sign represents the absolute MINIMUM speed as which one must travel. Likewise, what percentage of taxpayers NEVER fiddle their tax return ?? What percentage of internet users NEVER download something illegal ??

Laws are meant to be broken, thats why our moronic elected officials write the $#&T$%)&()#$ things :) :) :)

My father had dairies in Bellingen in the 1940s and 1950s; later in Richmond in the 1960s.

We had the town milk run in Bellingen NSW where we had two horse drawn milk carts which delivered early morning milk fresh from the cows less than one hour. We never had a complaint. Dad would start milking at five am and by six the first cart would be on the road and by seven am the next cart would be on the road; each equipt with two ten gallon cans and with pint and quart dippers. Later we had a utility to do the job. We lived adjacent to the local milk factory but no milk went to the factory.

In the 1960s we lived beside the town of Richmond and supplied the Milk Board with all our milk. Locals came to get fresh milk but when it was discovered that we were supplying direct to the locals action was taken to stop this. We had to comply or loose our registration.

Testing of milking herds for contagious diseses found that terbuculoses and brusolosus were found in milking herds so it was risky to supply unpasturised milk. Any animal found with the disease were slaughtered so as not to affect other animals in the herd.

As a family we always drank fresh milk from the dairy, but later brought the milk to boiling point before using it.