To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Got Milk OFF TOPIC
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:22:07 -0700 (PDT)
The hormone I'm told that is used on milk cows is RGBH. I also know that many substances, especially pesticides, are actually more dangerous at low levels than high ones. This is presumed to be because the body doesn't recognize the chemical as foreign at low enough levels, while at higher levels the immune system will act to fight it. I don't know. The actual mechanism is still under investigation. P.S. I don't think much of any organic farmer who isn't capable of controlling pests such as flies, without chemical pesticides. I suspect they are running some sort of feedlot operation that is unsuitable for the organic production of livestock. A flock of chickens coming along behind pastured cows should be more than enough to keep the flies under control.
From: Mark Angermayer <hangermayer@isp.com> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 3:03:54 PM Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Got Milk OFF TOPIC
Yes, it's more precise to say they don't dump milk just because antibiotics can be detected. The whole issue of detecting possible toxins may be best summed up by a conversation I had with a researcher at Bayer Crop Science. He told me some problems of some outdated regulations. Apparently many regs. for pesticides were written with phrases like "no residue". When the regs. were originally written the best detection equipment was in ppm. Now with advances in science, they can now detect parts per billion, which, according to the researcher, leads to a lot of pointless and uneccesary expense in licensing pesticides. At some point the miniscule residue level is essentially zero, even though it may be detectable.
I don't know what the allowable levels for various antibiotics are in milk. I do know they dump milk though. My wife, more precisely, works as an accountant for a dairy
regulatory agency. The accounting for the dumped milk loads comes across her desk. In terms of hormones in milk, BST (the only hormone used for dairy cows) is naturally produced in the cow anyway. Cows supplemented with extra BST do not pass extra BST through their milk. The FDA maintains there is no health risk of milk from BST cows.
In saying that, most non-organic milk is produced from non-BST cows, so it's becoming a mute point anyway. For many years, the dairy industry has voluntarily moved away from using BST because of public opinion. Some states will not allow the marketing of BST milk. The move away from BST is not from concerns about health issues of BST treated cows, but because of negative consumer opinions. Perception is reality.
As an interesting aside, some people in my wife's office will not drink organic milk. They've been on too many organic farms
where the fly problems were horrendous. Indeed organic bulk milk tests many times higher in bacteria count than non-organic milk. True, pasturization kills nearly all the bacteria anyway, but they still won't drink organic. Again perception is reality.
Mark KS
----- Original Message ----- From: Kevin Moore To: North American Fruit Explorers Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 11:38 AM Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Jam too sweet?
Food processors do a lot of things that would make most people avoid their products if they knew about them. The USDA has been steadily diluting the requirements for the National Organic Program to allow them to do the same things and still call the food "organic." As far as milk goes, any milk from a "standard" dairy will have not only antibiotic residues, but hormone residues as well. They will not dump a load of milk for antibiotic residues, because all
non-organic milk contains them. Most likely, if they dump milk it is because it has higher than ALLOWABLE LEVELS in it. In any case I find the hormones to be more disturbing than the antibiotics.
From: Mark Angermayer <> To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org> Sent: Monday, March 9, 2009 9:29:30 PM Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Jam too sweet?
Michael,
That's astounding. Why would jam companies go to the trouble of bleaching the berries first, then recoloring them? If they want darker jam, why don't they just add food coloring?
It sounds strangely like urban legends I've heard in the ag industry. Like the one, milk is full of antibiotics (My wife (who works in the dairy industry) tells me they test each load before it's unloaded. If they
find antibiotics, the whole semi-load is dumped.) Bleaching strawberries and recoloring them is so weird, if I hadn't heard of it from you, I'd never believed it.
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