I recently tried to dissuade my sibling from "getting into" raw milk because it's got white supremecist/antivax vibes on top of the health concerns and she looked at me like I was a conspiracy theorist, lmao
my favorite trend recently has been telling raw milkers to boil they’re milk right when they get home for some unknown recently. it’s odd but people are a lot more receptive to pasteurization when they do it without having a label for it
She bought one bottle at the farmers market and then went back to regular milk, thankfully
It is still insane to me hearing that raw milk is not only produced but is actually sold in general (my college background is in biochemistry/microbio). Burger brains and their attempt to defy science and nature in the name of freeduM is astounding.
I still am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that people can be opposed to vaccines and pasteurization, maybe two of the leading causes of children growing up.
Seriously, is this what happens when a couple of generations are spared the horrific child mortality that's been the norm for thousands of years? Nowadays people in the imperial core can be pretty sure that their kids are going to grow into adulthood, and that's thanks to vaccines and making sure our food & drink aren't full of microbes & whatnot trying to kill us.
The maddening part is also the fact that there are people outside of the core that cannot receive the basic vaccinations for one and seeing stuff like this just makes me speechless.
That's exactly it. A decent chunk of the people in the imperial core are just so insulated from these types of hardships that are commonplace in too many places. People hike for days to bring their children to vaccine clinics because they know what happens if you leave your child open to preventable infections.
And then dipshits in the imperial core who don't know anyone who's lost a kid to measles don't vaccinate their kids because they heard that vaccines cause autism.
My father still tells me about his aunt that was an anti-vaxer back in the day. Then she lost her baby son because she chose not to vaccinate him. It was her biggest regret that haunted her till the day she died. Every other child she had was vaccinated and they all grew up happy & healthy.
I used to work at a nonprofit that helped refugees find housing in the US in an area where the early anti-vax movement really started taking off. I remember the refugees being fucking ASTOUNDED that Americans were refusing to vaccinate their kids against diseases that were still a dangerous threat in their home country
It's what happens when a couple generations are spared the historical ratio of "bury 1.5 children for every 1 that survives past 12" and a group of deliberate assholes decides to make money off the phenomenon by spreading disinformation.
All these things like bird flu in the raw milk, resurgence of shit like rubella, the millions dead because of COVID denialism etc. All of them made a small number of rotten people very wealthy. In a just world they'd have their assets seized and they'd be locked in an iron box for social murder.
On a slightly less jocular note, I think it's also what happens when you use late capitalism to morph psyches into that of Homo Economicus, and the brain pedestal of hyper-individualism that gets erected to create The Consumer. "My dollar my choice" has knock-on effects, not the least being the eroding of a social framework that might have held some of this shit to account.
defy science and nature in the name of freeduM is astounding.
Imagine what they (or their kids) will think a few decades from now as climate chaos begins. Unhinged insanity will be normalized.
Do these people actually believe that the risks are made up or do they have a death drive that makes the danger a selling point to them?
They think there are health benefits to drinking it because the pasteurization process kills off good and bad microbes and bacteria. The risk is in no way worth the potentially beneficial microbes and bacteria, if those even exist and they probably don't.
There is probably a little less risk if the farm treats their cows more humanely than a typical commercial dairy, but cows stomp around in mud and fling poop everywhere. It's basically just a way for small dairy farmers to charge a higher price for milk.
Any taste differences probably come down to a higher milk fat content, or being non-homogonized.
It's basically just a way for small dairy farmers to charge a higher price for milk.
It lets them do a subscription model. Since raw milk sales are illegal but using it from your own cow is not, you get it by buying a share in a dairy cow. Now you're subscribed to your diseased milk. Netflix milk.
Speaking very roughly - I think there might be three groups because we live in a bizarre time
One - people who believe the risks are real from stuff like raw milk so they drink it for the thrill of it. Two - people who are deluded and/or have no critical thinking skills. They think the milk is healthy and good for them. Groups one and two have an overlap. For example - imagine a Joe Rogan fan who calls himself an "independent thinker". He might believe in nonsense or sort of believes it. If his spouse or lover asks him why he really drinks raw milk - he can't articulate his opinion well. Maybe he says "I just do," and gets mad at them for asking.
Three - I think a small but still scary number of people are so disconnected from reality they somehow sincerely believe at the same time that the milk is risky and totally safe.
This is going to sound like a joke but I'm serious. Many Americans (mostly on the right but not entirely) believe in the following things so strongly - they will avoid common sense or even risk their health.
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They should be free to do whatever they want.
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They don't trust (big) government. This belief has existed for decades the right but now is at crazy levels.
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They don't trust any form of authority or expertise. This problem has expanded and grew to dangerous mind rot in our digital era.
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Even when it comes to health and medicine they think "doing their own research" trumps what pointy-headed scientists and doctors say.
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Right-wingers suffer from "own the libs" brain.
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I made the list off the top of my head - maybe other Hexbears can add more items to the list. I'm sure there are more obvious things I can't think of right now.
Contrarianism is another one. They will do the opposite of whatever is most popular so they can feel like they're above it all. "Snowflake" is pure projection. Because reality has leftwing bias and material analysis is empirical, they join the right and bring their contrarianism with them.
There's also the whole "return to the good ol days" bullshit they like to do, which I guess is the core of conservatism
Oh, trust me I know. Austria is similar with this shit. One guy even got the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art for his creation of magic water.
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start calling pasteurized milk "french milk" and we can halve the usamerican population within a generation or two.
COMMIE-FORNIA STRIKES AGAIN
months late bare-minimum public health policy and its still better than as-yet not suspended raw milk operations in multiple other states
It's funny to me that raw milk was mainly a thing for rich liberals until COVID happened. Then right wingers absolute hatred for public health measures bled over into all the dangerous health quakery.
California should pass a law banning arsenic in cheeseburgers.
when i googled to see if any other states had put a block on i literally found a texan health commissioner wheezing about how great raw milk was in response
I was pretty sure my state had a constitutional right for farmers to sell their goods so I looked it up. Turns out we're actually not too bad on this nonsense, though considering the current outbreak I wish it was a full ban.
Here if you want raw milk you have to physically go to the dairy farm, bringing your own container, and have them fill it up. It cannot be pre-bottled or sold anywhere other than on the actual premises of the dairy farm, any other sort of sale is illegal, as well as purchases not for "personal consumption". I'm sure there are some informal networks that still exist to distribute this stuff but I've certainly never heard of one.
I especially like the ban on bottling, it is pretty effective at dispelling the illusion of safety people get from buying a pre-bottled sealed container that looks just like what real milk comes in.
Nooo not my special cheese that needs the raw stuff!
They should keep it going and say it fine if you got a vaccine. You don't go in the poison swamp without some resist anyway noob.
