"If raw milk is a health hazard, why does Virginia law allow farmers to consume raw milk from their own animals and even give it away? Does selling it somehow make it dangerous? By this logic, if cigarettes were given away rather than sold, would they suddenly become healthy? How about cocaine?"

Not long ago, I bundled my family into our aging car on a dreary morning and drove 80 miles over rain-slicked roads to Richmond Virginia. We began our journey in the dark, shortly after 5:00am to beat the traffic and to ensure a good parking space close to our destination. The reason for this unusual exodus was to show support for House Bill 2903 which was being heard by the Virginia Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources committee.

In summary, this bill would have allowed Virginia farmers to: " &sell products or commodities legally grown or processed on their farms if they meet certain conditions. " The conditions included product labeling requirements, a restriction on sales outside the Virginia Commonwealth, a prohibition against the resell of goods, production facility inspection guidelines, etc. The products might include anything from fruit preserves to cheese to non-edible items like sheep's wool. Meat products were specifically excluded.

This bill would have reduced the impact of the damage wrought on the family farm in Virginia by an onerous set of regulations that went into effect January 29, 2005. These regulations governed the manufacture, transport and sale of milk and seemed designed to put the small independent dairyman out of business. They required that small farmers make renovations to their existing operations that could total as much as $50,000.00. They required that business must be conducted daily, which is difficult to do if the products you produce are seasonal. Finally as an added disincentive, small family farmers would now be required to maintain a burdensome set of records that would likely do little more than occupy space in a bureaucratic basement.

My family and I went to Richmond to support our local farmers in their efforts to achieve some measure of self determination free of the boot heel of industry special interests who shudder at the prospect of the family farmer earning an honest dollar. The grey skies that followed us as we journeyed to the capital city were an omen of sorts, foretelling the outcome of this latest effort to wrest control of the nation's food supply from Big Industry.

Two years ago, I would not have cared about such things. As a consumer, I would have happily purchased my eggs and cheese, milk and butter from grocery outlets supplied by factory farms, those gross monstrosities of 'efficiency' that seem modeled more closely after wartime prison camps than the traditional American farm. Back then, I knew little about the partially hydrogenated oils, emulsifiers and extenders found in commercial dairy products. I knew even less about the plight of the family farmer. In those days, I was blissfully ignorant about most issues that pertained to my personal health. I had little time to ponder such irrelevancies as I was caught up in my own "perfect storm" of ill health then. Weighing in excess of 400 pounds, I never imagined that my life would see sunny days again. Fortunately for me, ignorance is a curable disorder. Now, slimmer, stronger healthier and wiser, I only wish I knew then what I have come to know now:

We need the family farm now, more than we ever have.

When we arrived at the General Assembly building, the chambers where the hearing would take place were empty. In time, the room filled until nearly every seat was taken. There were many more people standing along the walls. The eclectic mix of attendants was evident as men in suits sat beside men in jeans. A baby squealed from somewhere in the room and my own daughters, textbooks in tow, poured over their school work for the day. HB2903 wasn't the only bill on the docket that day and so as these other bills were heard and voted on. People came and went as their bill of interest came up and was decided on. Our bill, HB2903, was saved for last because of it's 'controversial' nature. The room grew nearly silent with anticipation as the chairman and senators turned their attention to it.

Although as a practical matter, HB2903 covered a number of products that could be manufactured or grown on a farm, the eye of this legislative storm settled over the singular issue of the safety of raw milk. A chorus of experts who opposed the bill took turns in unintended parodies of Chicken Little, in their denouncement of raw milk. They championed the cause of pasteurization, a heat treatment process that kills the enzymes and healthful bacteria found in milk, while stating over and over again their concern for the safety of consumers. My wife and I watched this parade of the blind leading the blind and shook our heads in disbelief.

If raw milk is as dangerous as some experts say, how is it humankind has managed to persist as a viable species for as long as we have, given that we've been drinking raw milk for thousands of years? We wondered, how is it possible that we and many others consume raw milk today without any adverse effects. In fact, our health has improved remarkably since we started drinking raw milk? If raw milk is a health hazard, why does Virginia law allow farmers to consume raw milk from their own animals and even give it away? Does selling it somehow make it dangerous? By this logic, if cigarettes were given away rather than sold, would they suddenly become healthy? How about cocaine?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, food borne illnesses account for "approximately 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths in the United States each year." Given how difficult it is to lay one's hands on a gallon of raw milk these days, it's safe to say that raw milk accounts for a miniscule number of these events. It is misleading, then, for raw milk oppositionists to pretend that our food supply is safe and that it is anything more than the risky game of Russian roulette that millions of Americans discover it to be every year. Considered in this light, there is little, and I believe a lot less risk in drinking safely processed raw milk from healthy cows then there is in eating grocery store fruits and vegetables, meat, seafood, and the Pandora's pantry of processed foods festering with a witche's brew of additives foreign to the human body.

One of the experts in attendance recounted how, as a young boy, he grew up on the farm drinking raw milk, but after studying microbiology in college, he determined that raw milk was unsafe for consumption. How is it that one can deny the truth of one's own experience in favor of the dogma promulgated by industry special interests? The reason is simple. Milk cows raised on factory farms, forced to stand for long periods on concrete flooring, fed a substandard diet of pesticide laden grains and soybean meal, kept shackled to milking machines and stoked on rBGH (a growth hormone) to make them give more milk than nature, in her wildest imaginings ever intended, typically become sick cows. Sick cows bloated on hormones are more likely to develop mastitis, an inflammation of the breast tissue that leads to infected pus in the cow's milk. Antibiotics are required to stave off the effects of mastitis leading to a vicious cycle of hormone/antibiotic injections to keep the cow productive until her health deteriorates to a point where she can no longer keep up or she dies. In processing, this festering contaminated milk is mixed with the milk from a number of other cows. To avoid having to label commercial milk with a skull and crossbones, pasteurization is necessary to destroy all the harmful bacteria, diseased pus and whatever else winds up in the milk. Unfortunately, the enzymes and bacteria that synergistically work with the human system are destroyed as well. The result is a dead product, artificially fortified, yet bereft of its life sustaining properties. As you can see, the necessity for pasteurization is not based on a matter of safety, but of economics; the economics of greed and profit.

Pasteurization isn't what it used to be either. As the safety and quality of commercial milk has declined due to the industry's race for profits and a parallel decline in humane treatment of milk producing animals, standard pasteurization is proving to be inadequate in nullifying the dangers of factory farm milk. Ultra-pasteurization, which cooks the milk at a higher temperature, has come to the rescue. The result is a product that is even more dead than regular pasteurized milk. Considering what comes out of a factory farmed cow, it comes as no surprise that many experts support pasteurization. They know all too well just how dangerous this milk really is. These experts would benefit from a visit to a family farm where the life of a cow can be remarkably different.

A grass fed cow that is allowed to roam at her leisure, who isn't forced to give more milk than her natural physiology was designed to give, who feels the warmth of the sun on her back, who is allowed to engage in the social behavior common to cows and can take a load off her feet and lie down when the notion takes her, this, is a far healthier cow. Healthy cows have little need for the strenuous course of antibiotics factory cows are subjected to. Healthy cows give clean, sweet milk that can be ladled straight from the pail if desired. This milk is alive with the healthful bacteria and enzymes that have developed a symbiotic relationship with human intestinal flora over thousands of years. This is the milk that has nourished humanity from her birth in the cradle of civilization until today. This is the raw milk of which I speak, the milk that ill-informed bureaucrats and checkbook scientists would seek to deny me, and you, the right to consume.

In the end, F.U.D. (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) won the day in the Richmond General Assembly. After impassioned pleas from the supporters of family farms, the opposition prevailed and was rewarded with a vote of nine to six to defeat the bill. This was not an unexpected outcome. On the drive home, we talked about the hearing and what, if anything, could have been said to change the outcome. We wanted our daughters to witness this event because we believe it is important for them and for all of us to really see how the legislative process works. However, in witnessing the experts denounce raw milk, while being fully aware of our own positive experiences with it, they learned a valuable lesson that I could never teach them on my own, namely this: just because someone is an expert, doesn't make them right. I wish more Americans could learn this lesson. I suspect there wouldn't be an obesity epidemic or five year olds with Type-2 diabetes if more people did.

I thought back to the person I was two years ago, the stereotypical consumer. What is a consumer anyway, I wondered? What does it mean to consume? According to the Encarta dictionary, the word consume comes from the Latin, 'consumere' and means:

• to take up completely, devour.
• to eat or drink something, especially in large amounts.
• to use something in such a way that it cannot be reused or recovered afterward

When we returned home, I reached past the raw cheese, cream and butter in my refrigerator and retrieved a gallon of raw milk. I poured myself a tall glass and gazed out the kitchen window at a patch of blue sky that had somehow shouldered its way past the billowy grey clouds. Ignorance really is a curable disorder, I reminded myself. I downed the last of my cool sweet drink and eventually turned my attention to other matters.

What can you do? Don't take my word for it. Learn for yourself, the truth about milk and why we need the small family farmer. Visit the Real Milk web site. Get active in your community. Support your local farmers and try some raw dairy. Start with artesian cheese if you can't quite work up the nerve to try the milk. You may be surprised.

We all need to read, think and learn so that we may live better, healthier and freer lives.

For a frightening account of my encounter with ultra-pasteurized milk, read The Milk Paradox.