There's a dangerous sense of superiority shared by Minnesotans who buy raw milk and serve it to their families.
They don't go to supermarkets like regular people. Instead, after watching documentaries and doing Internet "research," they have "a philosophy about how you consume,'' according to a recent Star Tribune story by Mike Hughlett. Others refer to supermarket milk as "dead milk." Even after a potentially deadly infection was linked to raw milk from the Minnesota farm of Michael Hartmann, one St. Paul woman told Hughlett: "This is hugely about consumer choice, and I think we need more farmers like Mike Hartmann.''
Had they visited Hartmann's Sibley County farm, they hopefully would have realized they were recklessly jeopardizing their families' health. A June 16 search of his operation by authorities shows it is far from the pastoral utopia they believed it to be. "Milk was drawn in a filthy or insanitary place,'' according to Sibley County court records and photos. Chickens ran free through the milking area. The gutter designed to carry manure out of this area was instead full of feces. The walls, floor, stanchion dividers, posts and other equipment were "visibly covered with manure.'' Piles of trash filled an area of the barn behind the milking area, and heifers were kept in a pen "wet, dirty and full of manure, and the air quality was poor.''
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