Government Health Warning

Anyone who knows us will probably know by now that Tuesday is Milk Day, when we go to a local farm to collect raw unpasteurised milk for a growing band of people around our area.  We are impressed by the increasing level of interest in this precious whole food.  Gone are the days when we would go to collect about 20 pints a week – today we picked up the equivalent of 142 pints!

The other thing that is growing is the incidence of positive feedback from those who are now drinking this milk, not just in our area but all over the UK.  We hear about, for instance, improved sleep patterns, greater resistance to winter colds and the disappearance of eczema, none of which comes as a surprise to us.  All such results and more are well documented in books and on websites, notably that of the Weston A Price Foundation.

Yet all drinkers of raw milk in this country have to put up with the totally specious Government Health Warning on each container, despite the fact that the dairymen involved (well, all the ones I know of anyway) produce top quality milk to the highest standards of organic animal husbandry.  Here’s what it says on the bottles of milk produced by Hook & Son from their small herd in West Sussex: “Health Warning: This organically produced raw milk has not been heat treated and may therefore contain organisms harmful to health.”

Since the Government is so keen to protect us from potentially harmful foods, and since I am ever the helpful citizen willing to do what I can to assist our hard-pressed overworked ministers in their efforts, I have come up with some other health warnings they could use on all that dead white liquid currently masquerading as milk in every supermarket, corner shop and eating establishment in the land.

1. “This organic whole milk has been heat treated and therefore will no longer contain the enzyme necessary for the body to absorb calcium.”
2. “This non-organic, non-specific milk has been produced by cows fed an unnatural protein diet and will almost certainly contain organisms harmful to health, despite being heat treated.”
3. “This skimmed milk has had all of its potentially beneficial components removed, leaving only the milk sugars, and thus is recommended for those who wish to gain weight.”
4. “This standardised, homogenised semi-skimmed milk will, as a result of the homogenisation process, be difficult to digest and may cause discomfort or actual harm to the digestive tract.”
5. “This standardised, homogenised filtered milk is virtually inert and has no beneficial components in it whatsoever.”

That should be enough to be going on with.  Anyone who wants more information on why these warnings must be put in place with immediate effect, or who wishes to challenge my wording or indeed to enter into a dialogue on the more general subject of industrialised food, please feel free to email me.