CDC tries to scare us all about (gasp) raw milk with skewed data

“What?” you say, in shock and amazement that any government agency might try to fudge the numbers to support a foregone conclusion. “Surely not! Surely, in its wisdom and scientific approach to all things related to our health and safety, surely they have our very best interests at heart.”

Dear and gentle reader, I hate to break it to you, but while there are well-meaning people in regulatory agencies, there are also those who would – shall I say it delicately – attempt to persuade us of something less than true by demonstrating something known as “bias”.

On Tuesday of this week, 21 February, the taxpayer-funded agency, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), released a report with the plain-vanilla title, “Nonpasteurized Dairy Products, Disease Outbreaks, and State Laws—United States, 1993–2006.” How it’s being trumpeted all over the news media is much sexier; a typical title (like this one from The Washington Times) reads “Feds: Fresh milk 150 times more dangerous than pasteurized dairy.” Continue reading

The food police are trying to help you – really!

So there I was this morning, mixing up a smoothie for breakfast. (Homemade kefir from Organic Pastures raw milk, nutritional yeast, a couple of egg yolks from pastured chickens, maca, fair-trade organic cocoa powder, and coconut oil. My husband walked into the kitchen, having finished his breakfast (steel-cut oats, butter, and crispy walnuts), and handed me the Health section from the Los Angeles Times. The featured article was titled “What’s Good for You,” and it’s all about the proposed changes to the nutrition information that’s thoughtfully been provided on every single food package since 1994.

The timing couldn’t have been better. I just finished listening to an excellent lecture about sugar by Robert Lustig, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology at UCSF.

And while the primary topic was sugar, he also discusses that ubiquitous nutritional panel – and the ways it obscures the actual nutritional content in various ways. Not to mention the politics that influenced the way the panel was created, leading to a significant amount of, well, let’s be nice and call it obfuscation.
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