Do you love surprises?
Some people do, some don't and others might say, "it depends!" I happen to be one of those persons who is generally not fond of surprises. Now, I certainly appreciate all the beautiful things that are around the farm every day, but my 'surprises' often go like this...
"Surprise, the cows are out!"
"Surprise, the tractor has a flat tire!"
"Surprise, something got into the chicken coop!"
Really, I just need to stop being surprised by things...like how our milk cow, Cinnamon got pinkeye a month ago.
*Surprise!*
Well, really it wasn't. Pinkeye occurs in cattle in the summer months when the fly population is at its peak. Face flies transmit a bacteria that leads to the formation of a painful ulcer on the surface of the eyeball and if left untreated, can eventually lead to blindness.
How does this affect me, you ask? Bacterial infections often require antibiotics and while I avoid using them at all costs, curing an illness and alleviating suffering are well worth it! So, our milk cow Cinnamon got her recommended dose of tetracycline (and some aspirin:) and within 2 days her eye was completely normal. Antibiotics do work. However, they also hang around the system for a period of time. Because of these 'residues' in meat and milk, farmers are supposed to wait for a certain time period for the residues to metabolize before meat or milk from that animal enters our food chain. We don't want antibiotic residues creating "superbugs" in our bodies that can't be killed if we get an infection!
So, not only did I wait the the recommended 4 days and dumped all of Cinnamon's milk, I also contacted my lab to test a sample and make sure that there was no detectable level of tetracycline left in her milk. That day, I got a *surprise*...and an education! Whoah!
After I made the call to my lab, I learned that they no longer test for tetracyclines in milk. What’s more, the only antibiotics that they test for are penicillins. Hmm. Okay, we’ll just try another lab then, right?
Every lab that I contacted (and I called 5 milk testing labs...all big names in Wisconsin) said that they only test for penicillins in milk. This means that all other types of antibiotics that conventional farms might be using in their cows are likely going undetected in the milk and dairy products that you purchase in the store. Tetracyclines, sulfas, fluroquinolones (baytril), macrolides (like erythromycin) and florfenicol…some of which are illegal to use in milking cows… may be in trace levels in our food. Don’t believe me? Check out this article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on August 19, 2020. (Thanks mom!)
I was dumbfounded. Then things got more interesting. I shared this story with a young veterinary student at work, who then told me of a dairy that regularly mixed milk from treated cows with untreated cows because the farm manager knew it would be diluted enough to go undetected. The sad reality is that there are many farmers who simply don’t concern themselves with the health of the people they feed because they have had to struggle for years just to feed their own families. They don’t even know you as a customer. Their ‘customer’ is the dairy processing plant. Then the grocery store. Then you.
I share this information not to raise an alarm, but simply to educate. And yes, we want everyone in this country to be able to eat. But our abundance of ‘cheap’ food is coming at a price. That tag is our health, animal health and environmental health. What can you do? Each time you choose to purchase products from a local regenerative farmer, your body will benefit, the livestock will benefit and the environment will benefit. This is you, making very powerful choices with your food dollars, even if you can do it only once in a while! Your choices say yes to small, local regenerative farms and saying no to big factory farms. So thank you for what you can do!