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Back in the late 1980's, when I was weaning my oldest child and attending meetings of the breastfeeding network La Leche League, I became convinced that pasteurized milk was the root of all evil.

Hey, I was 22 years old. I'd fed my darling infant nothing but 100 percent pure breastmilk for the first 10 months of his life, and then, for another 9, only bits of organic baby food and pasture-fed meat in addition to on-demand nursings. The thought of putting antibiotic-ridden cow's milk into his perfect little body made me quail.

So once a week, I would drive to a farm in rural Iowa — about 20 miles from where we lived in Iowa City — to buy jugs of raw milk out from a dark-haired guy who sold it out of the back of his truck. I felt fairly confident in the product: Most of the women I knew in LLL bought his wares and gave it to their children; no one had died. But in the intervening two decades, I've become a little more circumspect.

Now that we have the option of [putatively] antibiotic-free milk, even in convenience stores, I'm not sure I'd take the bacterial risks that raw milk from "unofficial" sources may pose. What's more, I'm no longer a fan of milk, period. It's meant for baby cows — just as that milk I was making was meant for my human offspring, and not for calves — so probably should be consumed only in very small amounts.

All that said, if you want to hear from people with various viewpoints different from mine on this debate, stop by Common Roots Cafe for Local Food Happy Hour from 5-8 p.m. tonight.

From the Common Roots press release:

No LOCAL FOOD, no TRADITIONAL FOOD, is more misunderstood nor more in need of support and help than our LOCAL RAW MILK. When we say we live in "the land of milk and honey" and then allow those who attempt to create this world to be struck down it makes little sense. In a state where we can legally purchase alcohol, tobacco and junk food, purchasers of raw dairy products have to sneak around in alleys like common criminals. Local raw milk producers have been incarcerated, their only crime: selling delicious and wholesome raw milk. It's crazy and begs for change. That is no April Fool's joke.

On TUESDAY, April 1st, the topic of the Local Foods Happy Hour event will will be LOCAL RAW MILK. As you will learn, no animal food has a better track record for being safe, wholesome and pathogen-free than raw milk. No other food, bar none, is a "perfect food, perfect in the
sense that one could lead a healthy and long life consuming not a bite
of any other food, but raw milk. This cannot be done with any other
food, even pasteurized or homogenized milk could not alone sustain life.

WILL WINTER has assisted production, distribution and consumption of
local, healthy raw milk and wholesome raw dairy products in the TC
metro area for over 9 years. He works with his wife Rebekah as chapter
leaders of the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization dedicated
to connecting people who want good local food with the producers who
want to make it. The WAPF has created the CAMPAIGN FOR REAL MILK which works to help sustainable and organic dairy farmers create and market their wares. He is on the board of the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, a brand-new LDF that will come to the aid of any farmer arrested or harangued by the food police.

This brief presentation will cover the state-of-the-art for Raw Dairy
in MN, the products, the producers, the laws and the real facts. It
will be followed by a Q & A session while we experience a RAW BAR
TASTING EXPERIENCE of fresh, ice-cold raw organic milk .

All my skepticism aside, I would encourage you to go if you're healthy (meaning, your immune system is in good working order) and curious about what milk tastes like straight from the cow. No matter what my nostalgia for youthful arrogance or persnickety grown-up concerns, raw milk tastes like no other. It is creamy, earthy, buttery, and real. Go ahead. Take a sip. I know you want to. . . .