Raw milk use increases, but debate churns over its benefits, dangers

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Raw milk use increases, but debate churns over its benefits, dangers

Just a year after Mike Hardler started selling raw milk, 44 retail locations carry his product.

“Raw milk has been one of the best things I ever did,” Mr. Hardler, 42, said as small herds of goats and sheep and a few miniature horses grazed in a field on his 100-acre farm about nine miles north of Honesdale. “It sells itself.”

Raw milk is gaining popularity with the expansion of the local-food movement.

But it also is steeped in food-safety controversy.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control concluded a 13-year study and reported raw-milk products are 150 times more likely to cause foodborne illnesses than pasteurized dairy foods.

In January, 81 people in four states developed intestinal infections from raw milk traced to a Franklin County dairy farm, according to the state Department of Health. They were sickened by campylobater bacteria, which causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and headaches. At least nine people were hospitalized.

“The health issues are considerable,” said James Dunn, Ph.D., an agricultural economist at Penn State University. “It doesn’t have to be a big mistake to have a big implication. When you pasteurize milk, it kills the germs.”

Conventional milk is pasteurized in a process that typically heats milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds to kill bacteria.

Advocates of raw milk, though, say it can cure illnesses and protect against diseases.

“Pasteurization is the greatest destruction of nutrients of anything we have in this country,” said Sally Fallon Morrell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. “Raw milk is an extremely nutrient-dense food.”

Unpasteurized milk helps protect against asthma, allergies and skin problems and builds strong teeth and bones, Ms. Morrell said.

“These things need to be looked at more,” she said.

Mr. Hardler came to raw milk by way of beef. Customers purchasing Hardler Farm’s grass-fed meat products started requesting unpasteurized milk a few years ago. After a year of clearing regulatory and inspection requirements to obtain a retail sales license and investing $15,000 to start, Mr. Hardler began selling raw milk through retailers.

“It’s taken a lot of work,” Mr. Hardler said, standing in a bleach-scented area outside his 8-foot-by-7-foot bottling room. “We didn’t just sit on the farm and say, ‘Gee, we hope somebody will buy this.’â??”

Mr. Hardler, his wife, Tami, and family members took the product directly to grocers and health-food store owners, gave them samples and asked them to stock it.

“It was like drinking ice cream. It was fantastic,” said Rocco Riccardo, whose family owns Riccardo’s Market in Dunmore. His store began selling Hardler Farm’s raw milk late last year.

“The people who buy it love it,” Mr. Riccardo said. “It warrants a spot in my dairy case.”

Customers pay a premium for Hardler Farm’s raw milk, which typically retails for about $5.50 a gallon. A gallon of conventional whole milk sells for about $3.50.

“The jug, the label and the cap cost me 98 cents for that gallon,” Mr. Hardler said. Transportation costs about 60 cents a gallon, he said.

It also takes him about 3Â½ hours to bottle 100 gallons of milk. A standard dairy plant bottles about 800 gallons of milk an hour, he said.

Gerrity’s Supermarket began selling Hardler Farm’s raw milk early this year at its stores on Keyser Avenue and Meadow Avenue in Scranton, and in Clarks Summit.

“I love to see local farmers and local businesses prosper,” co-owner Joe Fasula said.

He and Mr. Riccardo brush off the health controversy associated with raw milk.

“It’s no more dangerous than eating anything else,” Mr. Riccardo said.

“It’s like eating medium-rare ground beef,” Mr. Fasula said. “You have to have a very good immune system.”

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based health-policy organization, says the risks from consuming raw milk are serious and the health benefits are overblown.

“Raw milk is perhaps the most dangerous food product that people are consuming today,” said Sarah Klein, a food safety lawyer at the center. “The benefits of raw milk are so overstated. I would liken it to snake oil.”

Raw milk sales are illegal in some states, including New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. Ten states, including Pennsylvania, allow retail sales of raw milk.

Although the state and federal governments do not track consumption or sales of raw milk, the CDC estimated in 2007 that 3 percent of the U.S. population – approximately 9 million people – consume unpasteurized milk products.

Since 2006, at least seven disease outbreaks linked to raw milk consumption have affected almost 200 people in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Health.

Nevertheless, raw milk’s popularity is increasing, Dr. Dunn said. There are 153 raw-milk sales permits in Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Agriculture, more than double the 75 licenses in 2007.

“It’s easy to get caught up in the local food movement,” Dr. Dunn said. “The true believers are intensely loyal. The idea is that the mainline food system is sucking all the good stuff out of the things that are coming out of the fields.”

Mr. Hardler’s 23-head milking herd spends much of a typical day in the fields at his farm. The herd feeds almost exclusively on grass and hay and includes normande, Dutch belted, brown Swiss, jersey and lineback cows.

He distributes about 500 gallons of raw milk weekly to retailers and ships about 1,500 pounds of milk three times a week to a commercial dairy. About 20 gallons of unsold raw milk return weekly to the farm, he said.

Unpasteurized milk is chilled to 34 degrees before bottling, undergoes regular independent lab tests for bacteria and is transported to retailers in cooler boxes packed with ice, Mr. Hardler said.

“I’ve always been looking for something to enhance the business,” he said. “We are changing with the customers’ requests.”

Contact the writer: [email protected]

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