Dammit. In what is surely going to be another crippling blow to the organic/alternative food industry, the USDA is saying it has traced four cases of E. coli sickness in children to Fresno-based Organic Pastures. No milk has actually tested positive for E. coli, but the state has issued a recall and quarantine order (!) on not just Organic Pastures’ raw dairy and colostrum products, but its raw butter, raw buttermilk, and raw whey — everything except its aged cheese. One news report says the company’s owner strongly disagrees with the recall and has threatened to sue.
This time, if the evidence in fact materializes, I don’t think we’re going to be able to invoke the Big Ag, Bad Factory Farms oppositional defense. Organic Pastures is a paragon of good practices, and Miss Steak and I love their raw milk. While I fervently hope the E. coli came from somewhere else, I fear that parents who gave their kids this delicious, $8-per-gallon stuff were unlikely to have fed them, oh, Happy Meals for lunch.
[What? You’ve never taken a walk on the raw side? Read Man of La Muncha’s “Raw Milk for Lactards,” or Nina Planck’s “The Virtues of Raw Milk.”]
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