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Getting raw milk is a little bit like trying to get marijuana in this country: it’s legal in some states, and a lot of people will give you wary looks if you talk about it too much in public. In the states where it is illegal, most authorities don’t go to too much trouble to stop you using it, but every now and then a reliable supplier will suddenly go out of business for no good reason. You need weird excuses and reasons to purchase it legally. In Florida, for example, raw milk is only sold for consumption by pets, and I know there are a lot of real food enthusiasts down there whose dogs and cats are apparently living well on rich, unpasteurized milk.

So you can imagine how difficult it was for me, a law-abiding (read, uptight) real foodie to get my hands on some of that sweet ambrosia that is raw milk. Ever since reading Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions, I had been trying to get a hold of real raw milk. I gave up regular milk when I learned about how it is produced, but it was probably the thing I missed most.

A Friend in Need

My first experience with raw milk was thanks to a friend at my summer camp who kept a couple of goats in the back. In exchange for a bit of my camp counselor pay, he’d treat me to two liters of raw goats milk a week. The initial arrangements had all the traits of a back alley deal. After letting me sample a small amount, he asked if I wanted more. I was hooked, of course.

“Okay okay, I’ll get you the stuff. Just leave $20 on the mini-fridge in the back of the barn at the end of the week.”

“And you said two liters, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Just so you know, this is technically illegal. I just want you to be aware, you know, in case someone comes asking around.”

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

And so I had my raw milk. I would drop off my $20, and waiting for me in the mini-fridge in the back of the barn were two liters of fresh, creamy goat milk. I made yogurt and drank it after workouts. It was refreshing and energizing. I even learned how to milk goats, which was another form of payment that we worked out. I was pretty much in heaven.

The Crackdown

After I left camp, however, I was back to square one. The real world, with its stringent health and food safety laws, was a very hard place to find a reliable source of raw milk. Luckily, I live in a state where raw milk is technically legal, and I knew of a grocer that sold raw cow’s milk from a nearby farm. It was a long ways, though, but I was willing to go to extreme lengths for my milk fix now that I’d had a taste of how good it was.

Unfortunately, the FDA had shut the farm down. I was notified by the store manager that their supplier of raw milk was no longer in business. The details were a bit shady; nobody knew if there just hadn’t been enough demand or if the feds were involved. Supposedly there was a health violation, but even the manager said that with a good deal of skepticism. All I knew was that I was being defied at every turn. I consoled myself with a jar of local, raw honey and then drove the long way home.

For the Alliance!

When you are trying to eat real food from real farmers, you have to be resourceful. The government doesn’t want you to succeed. They won’t say it outright – in fact a lot of the USDA rhetoric is all about supporting family farms and your right to choose – but if you actually try to do it, you’ll find yourself tied down to an interrogation chair in all that red tape. The reality is that small farmers have it harder than ever dealing with all sorts of ridiculous regulations ostensibly for ‘consumer safety.’ I used to believe in the good intentions of Uncle Sam, but my quest to get raw milk has made a rebel out of me.

So, when I joined the PastureRaised buying club, I had no reservations signing a document that required me to testify against the federal government in the event they brought court action against my newest source of raw milk. The mere fact that court action was a possibility made the whole thing rather exciting. I felt like Luke Skywalker joining up with the Rebel Alliance, ready to fight against the evil Galactic Empire in my quest to bring real, raw, local food to the galaxy.

Mail-Order Milk

Of course, the price of admission to Pastureraised.net was a little steep. And the cost of shipping a single liter of raw milk was prohibitive. I could get as much milk as I wanted, if I could afford it, which I couldn’t.

Personally, I don’t think $4 for a half-gallon was such a terrible thing. Milk should be treated as something special and rare, after all, and the fact that this milk didn’t come from infected cows in over-crowded feedlots, wasn’t laced with pus, and hadn’t been flash-boiled to the point of searing was more than enough for me to pay up. The problem was the shipping. I tried buying in bulk, but no matter how you cut it, $100 for a bottle of milk, some butter, and a jar of fermented ketchup just doesn’t make economic sense (though the ketchup was pretty damn good…I’m still craving it from the last batch three months ago).

I have been trying to get some friends on board so that we can split the cost of shipping, but so far there aren’t that many people who want raw milk. People are suspicious of milk that hasn’t been seared until it becomes toxic. I get that. After all, who would want to eat something that was still living and vital?

While it is ridiculously expensive, just having reliable access makes me feel like part of some exclusive club or secret society. The Raw Milk Club doesn’t have the mystique of the Skull and Bones, but it sometimes seems like it was just as hard to get into. Now that I’m in, I intend to make the most of my membership. I’m not above sharing, however. After all, the more people who demand raw milk, the easier it will be to get, and that will make everyone, cows and goats included, much happier.