Idaho Legitimizes Small-Scale Raw-Milk Producers

On Aug. 3, federal and county law enforcement agents raided a Venice, Calif., raw-food club, searching for raw milk. The YouTube video of the raid showed officers, with guns drawn, working their way through the facility in what critics called "government-sponsored terrorism" and "an attack on food freedom."

Every few months, it seems, TV news or amateur videographers capture another raid on a raw-milk supplier somewhere in America. In the past several years, law enforcement agencies have carried out raw-milk raids in Georgia, Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. Each raid increases the tension that already surrounds the debate over raw milk.

Idaho, by contrast, has taken a very different raw-milk route.

"Raw milk comes straight from the cow or goat. We don't do anything to it except filter it and flash cool it and bottle it," said Debra Jantzi, owner of Treasured Sunrise Acres, a Grade A raw-milk dairy in Fruitland.

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