Milk from Oberweis Dairy?

We're thinking about signing up for weekly home delivery of milk from Oberweis Dairy.

The James Family Farm offers raw milk shares (both cows and goats milk), which would be far more local. (Fun bit of legal trivia: It is illegal in Illinois to sell unpasteurized milk. However, it is legal to sell shares in a cow, which qualifies you for a share of the cow's milk.) Andrea James is adamant that unpasteurized milk is safe. This isn't like the bad old days when the bucket sat on the ground under the cow, where straw, flies, dirt, and all manner of other things can fall in. And yet...

The biggest milk drinker in our household is our 4-year-old son Orlando. I realize Andrea feels the milk is safe enough for her kids to drink, but.... I'd feel really terrible and really stupid if my son became extremely sick from drinking unpasteurized milk. Maybe someday in the future I'll give it a try, but not yet.

So that takes us back to Oberweis Dairy. I'm no fan of the politics of Jim Oberweis (former Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate), but that's not much of a stumbling block for me. Many farmers have views that are far to the right of mine. If I let that bother me, I'd probably starve!

The milk sold by Oberweis Dairy comes from... well, they don't exactly say. I'm guessing primarily northern Illinois, but that's just a guess. They do say that it comes from smaller farms, that it is rBGH-free, that the cows are treated well, etc. They also say that it is not organic and that the cows do eat a certain amount of corn, rather than being primarily grass-fed.

Their big selling point is that their milk is supposedly of a higher quality, delivered in glass bottles for better taste. Any environmental benefits (e.g. the glass bottles are reusable) are a secondary consideration.

Of course, their milk is a bit more expensive, and there is a $3 delivery charge. Their milk is sold by both Schnucks and County Market. However, that means having to remember to return the used bottles to customer service each time to get your deposit back. Ugh. We have enough problems remembering to take our reusable shopping bags with us!

In addition to milk, they also sell yogurt, cheese, butter, ice cream, etc. Presumably they make these products, but they don't explicitly say so on their web site. Then again, they also sell pizza, salsa, lemonade, fruit punch, and more. Do they really make those as well? Probably not.

In short, buying Oberweis milk seems better than buying some national brand from the supermarket, but I'd like to find something better, meaning more identifiably local, organic, and sustainable.

Actually, if I really wanted to, I could buy raw milk from Andrea James and then pasteurize it on my stove, but I'm not that fanatical about it. At least not yet. I think.

P.S. Here's another foodie's take on Oberweis Dairy.

Comments

[Britney]

I stumbled upon your blog while trying to find a better alternative to Oberweis, because I share some of the same concerns. (ie: where is the milk coming from, Oberweis' politics) But, I love the taste and the glass bottles. Did a bit of digging and found a Missouri based company that has the same practices and the milk comes in your choice of plastic or glass. For me, that solve the "local" problem. (and since your in IL its not to bad for you either. they list stores that you can buy the milk in by state on their site) However, I'm not totally sold on the "politics" part of the equation. 100% of profits go to to Heartland Ministries. Not that I have anything against Christians, its just I'm not too sure I want to be that involved in the funding of a particular denomination or church. At least with Oberweis, 100% of you dollars don't go to fund his cause.

http://heartlandcreamery.com/

[DrGrace]

You say you would feel terrible if your child got sick drinking raw milk... but would you feel better if he got sick from FDA approved foods that have caused enough panic these past couple of years? Peanut butter, lettuce, cereal, spinach and several dairy products you buy in your local market?

If you have a trusted farmer in your area, stop listening to the politicians and the FDA (which approves drugs with warnings such as "May Cause DEATH!") and do your own research on the benefits of raw milk. You may notice that all the bacteria they advertise is good for our immune system, good for digestion etc, and now and push on us in the store bought yogurt, they say it's not good in raw milk?

The raw milk has these because it's not cooked out, it comes naturally the way God intended us to have it... What ever the cows eat, like alfalfa, clover, marygolds, herbs, yes, even grass has valuable vitamins minerals and enzymes, we get these nutrients through their milk naturally. Visit a couple of farms, look at the cows, ask questions, I can guarantee you will start feeling better and healthier drinking REAL milk.

Today's milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when generations ago Americans could buy Real Raw Milk, these diseases were rare. In fact, a supply of high quality dairy products was considered vital to American security and the economic well being of the nation.

visit these sites to find out more:
http://rawmilkcampaign.ning.com
http://www.realmilk.com/what.html

[Wally Hartshorn]

Sorry, DrGrace, but I don't respond well to hyperbole, scare tactics, and conspiracy theories.

As for raw milk being "the way God intended us to have it", that argument doesn't carry much weight with me, since I'm an atheist. Even if I was a Christian, that reasoning wouldn't carry much weight because cows' milk was "intended" for calves, not humans. It was relatively recently in human evolution that we developed a tolerance for milk. Even today, many humans still can't handle cows' milk, thus "lactose intolerance". I'm not saying that we shouldn't drink milk; I'm just saying that any argument about how "God intended us to have it" doesn't carry much weight with me. :-)

However, I will take your advice to visit My Raw Milk Campaign and A Campaign for Real Milk. Perhaps I will eventually be convinced to switch to raw milk, but if I do, it won't be because of warnings about THEM and what THEY don't want us to know.