Babe lives a quiet life on a hillside farm in southern Iowa, where she grazes on grass with a small herd of fellow goats. Her owner, Stacy Wistock, milks her twice a day.
Iowa’s new law, which took effect July 1, allows only direct sales from small producers to consumers. The law is stricter than thosePasteurization, developed in the 1800s, involves heating milk to kill bacteria. The practice was widespread by 1950, helping rein in deadly diseases, including tuberculosis, typhoid, and scarlet fever, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He has heard proponents argue that humans got along fine for thousands of years while drinking unpasteurized milk and going without vaccinations. “Then again, the lifespan 2,000 years ago was a lot less than it is today,” he said, and many more children used to die as infants or toddlers. “Raw milk increases chances of infection by 150 times,” Srinivas told her colleagues. Infected people can then pass on germs, including hepatitis A, shigella, and E. coli, when handling other people’s food, she said. “These outbreaks have public health implications that we cannot ignore.”, advises activists who lobby for raw milk legalization in statehouses across the country.
McGonigle-Martin said in a recent interview that she bought the milk at a health food store because she hoped a natural diet would help her son, who had attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. But Chris, who was 7, became severely ill less than three weeks after starting to drink it. Raw milk distribution isn’t totally new in Iowa. Before the law went into effect, several Iowa producers posted online that they offered it via “herd shares.” Under such arrangements, customers purchase a share of a herd, then receive a portion of its milk from the farmer. Proponents contend it’s legal because people are allowed to drink raw milk from their own animals.
Jha has driven monthly to Missouri to buy unpasteurized cow milk for her toddler. The round trip is nearly 200 miles. She plans to buy goat milk from Wistock’s Iowa farm now that it’s legal.