{"id":4157,"date":"2012-12-12T12:37:07","date_gmt":"2012-12-12T18:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/realfoodhouston.com\/?p=4157"},"modified":"2012-12-12T12:43:07","modified_gmt":"2012-12-12T18:43:07","slug":"say-yes-to-food-freedom-lets-improve-access-to-raw-milk-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/2012\/12\/12\/say-yes-to-food-freedom-lets-improve-access-to-raw-milk-in-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Say yes to food freedom! Let’s improve access to raw milk in Texas!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Glass<\/a>During the 2011 session of the Texas legislature, a bill to allow delivery of raw milk by the farmer to the customer was defeated–it never even got out of committee!\u00a0 Why was it defeated?\u00a0 There are probably many reasons, including the fact that the committee members were unfamiliar with what raw milk actually was; however, the principle reason the bill never made it to the floor of the legislature was the concerted effort of the Harris County Health Department and the Texas Medical Association who claimed safety issues.\u00a0 If you live in Harris County, Texas, your tax money was used<\/a> to help defeat the bill.<\/p>\n

Although eating any food has some risk of illness, drinking raw milk is actually much safer<\/a> than eating many other foods, such as strawberries, lettuce, and deli meats.\u00a0 Is anyone demanding that we ban the sale of bags of salad or packages of ham?\u00a0 Of course not! The real issue is not safety–it’s control of the food supply, especially control of a product that threatens the profits of Big Dairy.\u00a0 Milk consumption has dropped<\/a> almost 30% since 1975; however, raw milk consumption is on the rise.\u00a0 That must have Big Dairy really scared!\u00a0 Their farming methods are so bad that there is no practical, i.e., cheap, way for them to convert from producing conventionally farmed, unhealthy milk to producing healthy raw milk.\u00a0 Big Dairy depends on pasteurization to kill all the bad bacteria that result from unhealthy farming methods. (By the way, pasteurization just kills those bad bacteria; it doesn’t remove them.\u00a0 Those dead bugs are still in the milk when you drink it.)<\/p>\n

Now we have another chance to get better, more convenient, access to raw milk in Texas!<\/p>\n

The Texas legislature meets again in 2013, and HB 46 has already been introduced by Representative Dan Flynn.\u00a0 HB 46 would allow Texas licensed dairy farmers to sell raw milk at farmers markets and at other prearranged delivery locations.\u00a0 This bill has nothing to do with safety!\u00a0 It\u2019s already legal to buy the exact same raw milk from the farmer on his farm.\u00a0 Allowing the farmer to deliver milk to his customers would improve safety of raw milk by transporting milk under safer conditions.\u00a0 The real reason behind the requirement for buying the milk only on the farm is most likely an attempt to reduce sales by making access to the milk so difficult that many people will not be able to get it.\u00a0 Not everyone is able to drive hours to get milk.\u00a0 The delivery by the farmer to centralized, more convenient locations would also reduce the number of trips necessary and thus reduce traffic, pollution, and fuel use.\u00a0 Allowing delivery of milk by the dairy farmer would also help small dairy farms have a reasonable income and be able to stay in business.<\/p>\n

Let’s help our local farmers and work for more food freedom!<\/p>\n

For more information about HB 46, see the post on the Houston-Galveston Chapter, WAPF, website, Support Raw Milk Access in Texas!<\/a> and Texas Real Milk post, HB 46 Filed – Support Raw Milk Access in Texas!<\/a><\/p>\n

Sources of more information about raw milk:<\/em><\/p>\n

Defending Raw Milk Against the CDC<\/a>
\nSupport Raw Milk Freedom Now!<\/a>
\nA Campaign for Real Milk<\/a>
\nTexas Real Milk<\/a><\/p>\n

Other Real Food Houston posts about raw milk you might want to read:<\/em><\/p>\n

Lawsuit Helped Defeat HB 75 to Allow Raw Milk Delivery<\/a>
\nMilk \u2013 Why Homogenized, Pasteurized? Follow the Profit!<\/a>
\nThe Right to Choose Our Own Food?<\/a>
\nDrinking Raw Milk Is Safe \u2013 Based on Government Data<\/a>
\nI Want to Drink Raw Milk<\/a><\/p>\n

This post is shared on Real Food Wednesday<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the 2011 session of the Texas legislature, a bill to allow delivery of raw milk by the farmer to the customer was defeated–it never even got out of committee!\u00a0 Why was it defeated?\u00a0 There are probably many reasons, including …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,14,268,20,16,11,63,80,17,276,6,119,19],"tags":[48,39,26,25,64,38,24,127,31],"class_list":["post-4157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-good-food","category-access-to-real-food","category-dairy","category-farmers-markets","category-food-freedom","category-food-rights","category-food-safety","category-health","category-local-farming","category-raw-food","category-raw-milk","category-raw-milk-safety","category-real-food","tag-farfa","tag-farmers-market","tag-food-freedom-2","tag-food-rights-2","tag-food-safety-2","tag-local-food","tag-raw-milk-2","tag-real-food-2","tag-sustainable-farming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p70SEj-153","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4157"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4168,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4157\/revisions\/4168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realfoodhouston.com\/wp-files\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}