The food police take down a dangerous criminal enterprise:
A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.
The product in question: unpasteurized milk.
It's a battle that's been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it's also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
Geez. A sting operation that lasted a year. John Dillinger wasn't pursued with such dedication. You don't have to be a natural foods nut to think this is a little overzealous. I grew up in a rural area in which people raised their own chickens and pigs and -- omigod, how did we survive? -- drank milk straight from the cow or goat.
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Pennsylvania licenses raw milk dairies. It requires inspections a couple of times a year, and milk testing every 2-3 weeks. Allgyer is unlicensed. Pennsylvania would like to shut him down, and the easiest way to do it is to prosecute him for violating the federal laws.
Dad produced Grade B milk that went into Leiderkrantz cheese, because our milking parlor wasn't up to Grade A standards. Momma ensured that things were clean, pure and safe, though, because we drank the milk ourselves.
I drink raw milk, but when I visited Allgyer's place a few years ago, I decided to do business elsewhere. I don't know whether they meet Grade A standards, but they sure didn't meet Momma's standards.