Topic: Could Bitcoin be a solution for the raw milk market? - page 3. (Read 6320 times)

I bet that these people living in these societies did NOT have a life expectancy that comes even close to the ~80 years that are the norm is western countries these days.
Also their cancer rates were probably much lower... This does not mean that raw milk helps against cancer, but that people died before getting old and degraded enough to get cancer.

Don't get me wrong, I come from a country with a lot of cows and I guess it won't be too hard to convince farmers here to just hand me a couple liters of milk without pasteurization (and yes, I just looked it up, it seems legal here, but only if the farmer sells directly from the farm - probably to get over issues with long transport routes). It's just that nearly nobody wants to do that, not even the organic-hippie kind of people I know. Also it would probably be cheaper than pasteurized milk, because farmers get only ~25-35 € cents per liter for their milk, so if they sell me 1 liter for 60 cents, I pay twice as much as the market and it's still cheaper than buying at the supermarket.

Strangely it seems that rather people in the US want to go "back to the roots" in some kind of romantic "good ol' times" fantasy with raw milk. Even googling raw milk in german brings up several translated US pages on the first page telling you how evil pasteurization is instead of people asking in forums where to buy the stuff (and the forum posts are generally like "US americans seem to be really into raw milk, WTF? Is there anything to it?").
Maybe US milk from the supermarket just sucks (I generally wasn't impressed with food quality in the US at all when I was there) and the few farmers offering raw milk would also produce great pasteurized milk compared to the average product? Of course making a great mystery and whatnot around raw milk then helps their marketing and enables them to create such ridiculous prices. Over her by the way farmers would rather go the organic route, get certified and approved independently and prove their "worthyness" that way instead of offering raw milk and proving that they "dare" to sell the stuff and showing this way that they are confident that their product is good.

The farmer would still need to sell received BTC for USD by the way and then get tax issues...

Right some things you cannot avoid, but there are some you can avoid.  Like drinking liquids known to have high levels of cow puss and fecal matter. 

I think bitcoin might be better suited because money would not have to change hands at the specific time and location of the milk exchange.  also, it's anonymous, so gives the farmer a bit of protection.  The consumer doesn't really need protection, it is not illegal to buy or consume, it is illegal to sell and especially over state lines (Fed law)

You could easily set up a Farmer service with someone to help them manage the stuff and exchange for $$$ when needed.

Milk prices are low in the US, but raw milk is expensive...

Just looking online, it can range at about $5-15 a gallon.  If we take the low end of $5/gallon, and I saw a figure of about 3-4M people drink it in the US, then the market is worth at least $15-$20M.

Unfortunately, this would not be accurate, either.  Because living conditions (hygiene) for most pasteurized milk producers is quite terrible (literally standing in their own shit).  So, the comparison is not equal:

If you drank raw milk from a cow eating pesticide feed standing in their own shit getting constant antibiotics (typical commercial setup), you probably have a much higher chance of getting sick vs drinking pasteurized milk from the same cow.

However, if you had milk from a rotational grazing system (grass fed), in organic and sanitary systems (typical raw milk setup), then the difference would be negligible.

Still, I think we are focusing on the wrong thing, here.  It's not whether or not raw milk is more dangerous or better for you, it is the fact that people want it and there are other people that can provide it.

You can advertise to sell anything, that's not against the law, as far a I know.

I guess i need to go through each state and see what each law says.

I think the word of mouth model is currently how it is done.  And I agree, people want to see the farmer eye to eye, but I don't see that as a problem.  Especially if gifting is legal, then you "gift" the milk to customers, and then take bitcoin donations beforehand.

It is hard to say how much it is being cracked down on, but I know of at least a dozen cases int he last year alone.

Apparently, the cops do care, but it is not the normal police, usually it is like State Health or FDA equivalents.

Breaking the law consequences are different for every state, but usually amounts to seizing assets, seizing equipment, destroying product (milk).

It's a perfectly valid argument, called "reductio ad absurdum". When you compare incidence of disease and death associated with raw milk and pasteurized milk you need to take into account the relative numbers of the populations who consume it. 0 deaths on the Moon, is just because we haven't settled it yet. And there would be a whole lot more health problems with raw milk if we drank it to the same extent as pasteurized milk.
Except for that they have had problems with raw milk, and that they've adapted to that by various strategies such as extra attention to hygiene .... or boiling it.

This is an excellent point, except it work the other way: If you control the statistical analysis such that pasteurization is the ONLY variable (hygiene, diet of cow, length of storage, etc. is kept equal for both raw and pasteurized milk), I think you'll find that pasteurized milk comes out even better.

It may not be a good idea... but I think raw milk is more about common sense. Think of all the indigenous people that have lived off of raw milk without problems. So thats extrapolating others experience to a whole market.  On the same vein I find it a little bit weird that people are okay with legislation that is based off statistics. Considering that studies are largely flawed and inadequate and biased. They aren't controlled experiments. How easy is it to manipulate statistics your way? Pretty easy I think.  For instance of those who got sick from raw milk... what was the diet of the cows that they drank the milk from? What were the cows living conditions? That information is crucial and yet it's not there.  The same thing goes with meat... You hear studies all the time about how meat is bad for you and yet there are societies on earth... that have lived happily for thousands of years eating meat(and raw milk). So in these studies do they account for the diet of the animal? You are what you eat but you also are what you eat eats. Do they account for how the meat is cooked? Rare meat is healthier than overcooked meat. Raw milk from a healthy cow is actually more resistant to bad bacteria contamination than pasteurized milk is. So if someone does get sick from raw milk there is probably another reason.... the health of the cow.

This pissed me off, so I did some research and found this comment among other things. According to someone else who claims to have lived in Atlanta and drank that milk, the FDA had attempted to do that due to the lack of adding vitamin A and D to the milk, not because it was raw. Just the same, this individual claims the FDA has been unsuccessful. What is your source?

- Just imagine how many of those you shake hands with don't wash their hands after going for a toilet visit.
- Just imagine how much of the fastfood you're served have residude of sweat, feces and dead skin cells from the workers that doesn't wash their hands after going to the toilet
- Nearly all fruits and vegetables have insects inside them, that you eat when you consume them.
- Your bed is most likely an infestation of different parasites that feed off you when you sleep.
- Your keyboard, your cell phone, they're all infested with bacterias.
- Imagine you sitting on a public seat in a bus, then using the same pant sitting in your bed, and proceeding to sleep there naked, it's quite likely that there will be leftovers of some hobo's urine in your bed.

And the list goes on and on and on... There's so many things that's 'grose', but that we don't think much about. But get this: We have immune systems, and we can deal with all these kind of things. So it's nothing to be afraid of or to obsess over.

Sweet dreams!

After reading how much puss and fecal matter is in pasturized milk I dont drink it at all.  I hear raw milk is better but just stopped drinking milk completely I've been scarred. 

If you referred to my post, I didn't make a scientific conclusion, neither did I claim to do so. My aim was to demonstrate that the 'danger' that raw milk presents to the health of it's consumers is not all that much of a big deal, not to the extent where it can be justified to outlaw it for instance.

Likewise, I would be more than happy to enter a plane without the ordinary safety controls done on the passengers. I would be happy to accept the risk of 1 to 25 million to die because some terrorist fucked up the plane.

Also, it's stretching it to use such outlandish claims as we should go to a planet and live there without an atmosphere, because statistics shows nobody ever died there. Everyone can readily see that this is a stupid thing to do.

On the other hands, statistics compiled regarding the chances to suffer certain fatalities/accidents are more interesting, as that says something about the chance of it happening to you. While drinking raw milk could be dangerous, statistics shows that the chance of it happening to you is negligble, and that there's a lot of other things that is much more likely to happen to you.

Try planting a seed that didn't come from Monsanto.

I find it generally weird that people are so eager to extrapolate from their own experiences to a whole market. Of course raw milk can be made safe and as already said for both raw and pasteurized milk it's really unlikely that you get sick. Also if you consume the stuff at home yourself from your own goats I guess you have a higher interest in keeping everything clean.
As also shown though is that the risk is far higher in raw milk that IF something is contaminated, it might be worse than in pasteurized milk. The data that supports this was posted too.

Comparing this then and claiming "it's safer to drink raw milk than to ride a bike" is however a wrong conclusion. Take another bad example: "No human has died while staying on the moon, ever. This means we should all go to this totally safe environment in outer space and live forever!".

On the topic: How is Bitcoin better suited for this than just sending USD by wire/Paypal or paying in cash? Also farmers probably will want USD on their accounts, so they have to use something like BitPay which has Terms of Service that might not like this business or they have to learn how to do some kind of Forex trading on MtGox et. al. just to be able to afford the next bag of food for the cow...

Oh, and something else: How high are milk prices in the US anyways? To compare: In my country organic milk costs 1.05 EUR per liter (or more), cheaper (still local) non-organic one down to ~85 cents.

How to make it work? It depends what the laws are. How much is this being cracked down on ? It's not like it's wildly profitable like the drug business. Could not a farmer just sell by using word of mouth ? Then only accept new customers that are vouched for by long time trusted customers, and build up a customer base slowly ?

I mean, if you put ads online or in a news papers, everybody can see it, and that's spelling problems if you want to avoid law enforcement.

Also I think many people want to see ther farmers eye-to-eye, to see who they're dealing with.

What are the consequences for 'breaking the law' in this regard ? And do the police really care about it at all ?

the fact remains that raw milk is a big market. There is no denying that.  Regardless if you believe in it or not, it's there.

There are farmers that are willing to sell it, and people willing to buy it, but can't.  Can bitcoin help with this situation?  I think so, but you have to do it just right to meet the requirements of the law.

How do you think we could make it work?

Total inhabitants:
313,914,040

Raw milk drinkers: 1%
Pasteruized milk drinkers: 99%

Raw milk hospital cases: 202
Pasteruized milk hospital cases: 37


Chance of being hospitalized after drinking raw milk: 0.000064%
Chance of being hospitalized after drinking pasteruized milk: 0.000000119%

The chance of actually dying would naturally be even smaller.

Chance of being struck by lightening during one year in the US: 0.000001%
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike

Chance of dying in a car accident during one year in the US: 1.49%
Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081015210636AAoQgNK

Now, drinking raw milk may seem dangerous if you say that it is more than 500 times more dangerous to drink raw milk than pasteurized milk, however when realizing that the risks are so small, a multiple of 500 is really not that much.

There's actually a 0.000003001% chance that you during the next year is accidentaly hit by some object and die.

The risk that you drown during the next year is 0.000011971%

The risk that you get assaulted the next year and die is 0.000061256.

So from the looks of things, it seems like that the risk of drinking raw milk is about the same risk as getting ambushed and killed.

And it gets worse. If you're pregnant, you have a 0.0002% chance of actually dying when giving birth.

The risk of you dying at work the next year is: 0.000035%

The risk of you dying at home the next year is: 0.000127%

So, the conclusion is that your risk of dying at home during the next year is twice as big as the risk of you getting hospitalized from drinking raw milk.

Now, do you live in fear of dying in your home ?

Source: http://www.riskcomm.com/visualaids/riskscale/datasources.php


Edit: The problem seems to be that certain businesses are lobbying for certain rules to be made by the government. This is more often than not to stiffle competition and to gain an advantage, giving the small guys poorer leverage. Also, clean facts often seems to be missing, and many people believe the governmental propaganda without really looking hard at it. A great government would actually look hard at the facts and the numbers and see where they should put in their efforts. From what we can see about stats above, it seems like safer cars and safer roads would be better to focus on than preventing farmers from selling raw milk.

I found that out by going to a pro-raw milk website.  They feel the risk is negligible but still higher then regular milk.  I am pro-raw milk.  Basically it is about freedom, the right to control ones own food and allowing the small farmer to profit from his work.

From imdb:

Incredible that peaceful people obtaining and making healthy food is raided by anyone.

Years ago, Mathis Dairies in Atlanta was forced by the FDA to put a label on the milk that came right from the cow, bottled then delivered to local residents. Label read "ARTIFICIAL MILK"