Raw, unpasteurized milk directly from the cow is considered a dangerous food in the United States and Canada. Yet, all across Europe, this probiotic and enzyme-rich traditional food that has nourished humans for millennia is available via vending machines that conveniently dispense its healthful freshness from stainless steel refrigerators.
I recently returned from a 10-day culinary swing through Italy (sponsored by the amazing company Jovial Foods) where I made use of two of these vending machines to supply myself and my son with the delicious frothiness that only raw milk provides. Below is a short video my son filmed while I was loading up at one of the 17 raw milk machines serving the small city of Modena, Italy alone.
One of the raw milk machines I used during our travels was right next to a school! The farmer delivered and filled the raw milk vending machine every morning at 6 am so the children had easy access to the freshest and most healthful of beverages each and every day.
Such smart Italians to provide schoolchildren with a truly healthy beverage to optimally grow their minds and bodies available with the push of a button! This is innovation at its best – delivering the most traditional and nourishing of foods to the next generation harnessing modern technology as servant.
This in stark contrast to the vending machines available in American schools that dispense obesity-promoting sodas and processed fruit juices sweetened with GMO sugar or high fructose corn syrup and loaded with additives. Even supposedly healthier options are little better as pasteurized milk cartons from GMO fed, confined cows are so devoid of nutrition that synthetic vitamins must be added to pad the nutrition label. What’s worse, the pasteurized milk options geared toward children in vending machines are typically sweetened with GMO sugar or even aspartame!
Over 1000 Raw Milk Machines in Italy Alone
According to the “milk maps” website designed by Andrea Verlicchi, hundreds of small family farms currently supply around 1,300 raw milk vending machines in Italy alone (1). These machines have been dispensing raw milk for years!
If raw milk was truly as dangerous as the United States and Canadian authorities claim, wouldn’t there have been a serious outbreak of food-borne illness with deaths involved by now? The truth is that Big Dairy doesn’t want the public to have easy access to raw milk because this would require local delivery networks that would keep the profits within the community which would crowd out massive and highly profitable corporate distribution channels. Hence, an army of highly paid dairy lobbyists twists the arms of government bureaucrats and legislators to demonize this healthful food ironically under the guise of “protecting” the public health.
The truth is that statistics provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) prove raw milk safety. Ted Beals MD examined CDC figures for foodborne illness for the entire population of the United States and found that a person is about thirty-five thousand times more likely to get sick from other foods than from raw milk (2). “It is irresponsible for senior national government officials to oppose raw milk, claiming that it is inherently hazardous,” says Dr. Beals. “There is no justification for opposing the sale of raw milk or warning against its inclusion in the diets of children and adults.”
Clearly, the entire continent of Europe sides with Dr. Beals.
This is where you get to decide. If raw milk is good enough for Queen Elizabeth who had bottles of it delivered to her grandsons William and Harry at boarding school (3), isn’t it good enough for your family too?
Click here for a raw milk finder to locate a grass-based dairy farm near you. While not as convenient and accessible as it is in Europe, raw milk is legal to obtain in most states in America although you will probably have to go out of your way to get it (hint: it is worth the effort!).
This is sooo interesting! Italy often seems to be on the cutting edge with food, we could find gluten free stuff there easily even a decade ago when it was still rare here. I will chime in about “everywhere” in Europe because we just moved back a few months ago after a decade in Germany and we struggled to find raw milk there although we lived in one of the major cities. It’s probably easier in the villages. But in the large city we lived, raw milk could only be found by going out of town to a farm or there was ONE organic farmers market that sold it. But if these are in Italy, I think they will spread to other countries and it seems like a GREAT idea. Thank you for all your great articles, I always look forward to reading them!!
Just got back from Germany and France three days ago and didn’t see one. Very disappointed at the milk in Germany especially, even has carageenan and other things in it and most is ultra-past.
Yay for Italy! Wish we would have found some where we were.
You definitely have to know where to look which is where the milk maps comes in handy with the addresses!
Hi Sarah!
I live in the Netherlands and some farmers here sell their raw milk this way. But more often you just walk in the barn and ask for raw milk en and they get it for you right out of the tank! I Always bring my onwn bottles and they fill it up.And for less then 1 euro! I feel Lucky!
I live in Phuket, Thailand. I’d LOVE to be able to get raw milk. I literally crave it! 🙁
This is so incredibly cool! We decided six years ago to buy a Jersey cow and just milk her ourselves (as well as raise our own organically raised pastured chicken, lamb and pork and organic veggies.) Now we have four Jerseys and LOVE our milk and all the other goodies I make from it. It breaks my heart (and makes me livid) at the restrictions placed on us for getting this milk to other folks who want and need it. We have seen so many health benefits. We hope to travel to France next year. I hope I can find one of those machines!
Thank you so much for all of your/your colleagues grassroots efforts. I love reading all of it and have made huge leaps in my overall food and beverage choices. I feel better and apparently look healthier too. My husband/family are semi believers(stubborn) and has seen my self healing over the years. I do not want to see a doctor or dentist ever unless it’s an emergency. You rock! Thank you for sharing your recipes and other books. You are truly god’s servant. I watched Ty’s thruth about cancer…great info. Please continue your mission. We are watching listening and of course supporting.
Thank you for your words of support! I am so glad you are improving with your traditional food choices!
I have a problem with your title. These machines are not all over Europe. When you click the link it shows them all over Italy. Also I live I. The U.K. And they tried one of those machines here. Although raw milk is not illegal in the U.K. the law states that the milk must be purchased from the farm. Also I have been in Belgium, France, and Germany in the last few months. And I do a lot of local shopping. And I have never seen one. I’m glad that Italy has moved forward faster than most countries. But it is one country in Europe. Not the who,e continent.
Guess I should have said “continental” Europe then 🙂 Sorry you don’t have more access … but if you click the milk maps link, you can see where the machines are in other countries in Europe as well. I just showed Italy because that is where I actually traveled and was able to try them out.
I’m in one of the ranch/ag areas in Wyoming,. and get fresh, raw milk every week (I could get it more often but I’d have to drive a bit farther than the local Farmer’s market). Also Greek style Yogurt – raw, unsweetened) and many other things. I never liked store milk, but thought I’d try the raw milk. It tastes completely different. I do have to mix it as the cream goes to the top. Wyoming is more of a leave you alone state. There is also – at least until the frost takes hold – a lot of CSA, local, organic produce, and lots of free range chickens (that aren’t artificially fed) for eggs, and grass fed beef, lamb, etc. I wasn’t unhealthy before, but I’m feeling better and even eating less – probably because I’m getting more nutrition in less food.
(In a bit of irony, the main crop locally is GMO Sugar Beets reduced to that deadly white powder – pure sucrose).
If you are transporting milk in a factory distribution system, where it goes through all kinds of pipes and vessels that are probably hard to clean, you need to pasteurize it. But that kills it. Cow to bucket to jar to me is a much shorter path.
I am so glad you shared this video because it is just so awesome!!! Goodness how totally cool would it be to just walk up to a vending machine and get raw milk from it! Wow, just wow!!! I love it and wish we could have this here in America!
Hello, regarding your recent raw milk YouTube video. We live in NY and had been blessed to be in an area where organically, etc are becoming more and more a part of the fabric of most homes. We had a wonderful opportunity to purchase raw milk from a farm, literally five minutes away. It did this for about a year and loved it. We went away out of the country for a couple of months, when we returned to the farm the raw program had been shut down. Apparently one of the testing samples came back with trace evidence of listeria, well the poor farmers were hit with such a heavy financial fee they had to close the program all together, it was just to expensive to maintain. The farmer explained to me the heavy legislation and regulations they are under. It is insane, so not only are the “dairy mafia” as you put it ???? But also regulators and such. (They might be one and the same) It’s sad really, we have been living this lifestyle since I was diagnosed with an incurable disease at 28, changing lifestyles have changed all that and I am healthy and “cured” We do not drink milk from the store it is a waste of money really. Unfortunately, there are no other farms providing this service around us any more. Thank you for sharing what other countries are doing that we should be or at least have the choice to have available.
Sincerely,
Cat
“If the people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in a sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson
Unfortunately that is neither an accurate Jefferson quote nor approaches what Jefferson was talking about. The quote was taken from “Notes on the State of Virginia” but changed. The original read “Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”
He was talking about religious freedom.
OTOH, I doubt that Jefferson would have been particularly pleased about how our governments are regulating food production, processing, and distribution!