134 animal, vegetable, miracleultra-pasteurized the product for long- distance travel. Better yet, she sug-
gested, ask around to find a farmer who has fresh milk. It may not be for
sale, since restrictions in most states make it impossible for small dairies
to sell directly to the consumer. But some allow it, or have loopholes the
farmer can advise you about. You may be able to buy raw milk for your
pets, for example. (Those kitties will love your mozzarella.) You can pas-
teurize raw milk yourself if you like, but most outbreaks of listeria and
other milk- borne diseases occur in factory- scale dairies, Ricki said, not
among small dairies and artisans where the center of attention is product
quality.
The subject of regulations touched a nerve for several small milk pro-
ducers in our workshop. Anne and Micki, two mothers raising families on
neighboring New En gland farms, got interested in home dairying after
their pediatrician suggested switching to organic milk. If a family can put
one organic choice on their shopping list, he’d said, it should be dairy. The
industry says growth hormones in milk are safe; the pediatrician (and for
the record, he’s not alone) said he had seen too many girls going through
early puberty.
So Micki and Anne acquired their own Jersey cows, happily guaran-
teeing their families a lifetime supply of hormone- free milk. Anne also
makes kefir, which she would like to sell at her farmers’ market, but can’t.
Micki’s daughter makes ice- cream-and-cookie sandwiches using their
own milk and eggs—a wildly popular item she could sell to build her col-
lege fund, except it’s illegal. “We’re not licensed,” Micki said, “and we
never will be. The standards are impossible for a small dairy.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. Most states’ dairy codes read like an obses-
sive compulsive’s to-do list: the milking house must have incandescent
fixtures of 100 watts or more capacity located near but not directly above
any bulk milk tank; it must have employee dressing rooms and a separate,
permanently installed hand- washing facility (even if a house with a bath-
room is ten steps away) with hot and cold water supplied through a mix
valve; all milk must be pasteurized in a separate facility (not a household
kitchen) with its own entrance and separate, paved driveway; processing
must take place daily; every batch must be tested for hormones (even if
it’s your cow, and you gave it no hormones) by an approved laboratory.