Dear Whole Foods, Please do not stop offering raw milk to your customers. Your commitment to continue to offer this important nutrient-dense food is a mark of your commitment to serving the community with the healthiest foods they can't easily access anywhere else. Clean, raw milk from grass-fed dairy cattle has sustained human populations for thousands of years and is a complete, balanced, and nutritious food. Raw milk contains lots of vitamins, amino acids, enzymes, and disease-fighting immunoglobulins, most all of which are destroyed by pasteurization. Raw milk is also an important source of calcium for those who are lactose-intolerant because the raw milk retains lactase, making the milk digestible. Raw milk contains many beneficial bacteria and immunoglobulins that protect against disease. In contrast, pasteurization destroys health-protecting properties of milk and does not convey any means of protection to the milk. Rather, pasteurization destroys organisms at the point of heating. This is why those who consume pasteurized milk are still subject to listeria poisoning. Modern raw milk comes from cows that are healthy--it has to in order for it to be fit for production and sales. Pasteurization was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by over-confinement, dirty production methods and feeding cows with distillery wastes. But raw milk from grass-fed cows is infinitely healthier than those that are kept in confinement dairies. Times have changed and modern stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks and inspection methods make pasteurization absolutely unnecessary for public protection. Raw milk is so hard to get, and those who wish to buy it go to great lengths to obtain it. Raw dairy farmers have a vested interest in maintaining the highest quality possible to ensure that strong consumer demand for their niche product. Pasteurization, in contrast, allows dairies to be lax in their cleanliness and sanitation, as they rely on the pasteurization process to "clean" the milk. Raw milk is not just good for consumers and cows, however. It is also good for local economies as it favors small farmers and dairies, allowing them to make a living, even from small herds, rather than sending our dollars and jobs to giant mega-corporations in far-off states. Raw milk from local sources is also good for the environment because it requires fewer fossil fuels to transport it to market than milk from giant conventional dairies in distant states. Again, we implore you to please reconsider your decision to stop selling raw milk. Raw milk is good for cows, farmers, and consumers--and selling it is good business for Whole Foods. Sincerely, Wendy Mathias Founder, Miami Real Food http://www.MiamiRealFood.org P.S. I understand that the decision to stop selling raw milk is one that pertains to the Florida Region specifically, but that is irrelevant to this petition. Whole Foods should continue to sell raw milk to its consumers, wherever it legally can. --------------------- Sources: http://www.realmilk.com/ , http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/raw-milk.html , http://www.whale.to/a/planck2.html , Real Food by Nina Planck

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