Jordan Wirfs-Brock: Got raw milk?

Got raw milk?
March 3, 2009

Along a dirt road behind Denise Pinkard’s house in Longmont, young female goats – Pinkard gave away the males – chased each other up and down a dry grass slope. A mottled gray goat jumped into the air, twisting like a circus performer. The goat landed on unsteady legs, brown from the shin down as if she were wearing boots. Another goat made a meal out of a shoelace.

When the wind picked up, the air smelled sweet, a mixture of hay and dirt.

Pinkard grew up in California raising goats for 4-H and passed that tradition on to her daughter. But when her daughter got older, Pinkard had to decide whether to sell the goats or keep them.

“I love my goats, but I had to make these girls pay for their keep,” Pinkard said.

In Colorado, it’s illegal to buy unpasteurized, or raw, milk by the gallon or pint. It is, however, legal to buy a goat or cow – or a fraction of one – and pay a farmer to house, feed and milk it. This practice, known as herd-sharing, has been in the state since 2005. This new kind of stock market gave rise to Coyote Creek Ranch.

“We found a legal way to be able to share a delicious product that we were already putting on our table,” Pinkard said.

Pinkard runs a herd-share program at Coyote Creek Ranch. About 15 shareholders have invested in Pinkard’s herd of 38 alpine and Nubian goats, which includes 16 kids. The goats graze on grass and all have names: Fennel, Apple, Cinnamon.

Coyote Creek Ranch shareholders sign two documents, a bill of sale and a boarding contract. They pay $75 a month and receive a gallon of milk a week. Cow-share programs are usually cheaper, costing as little as $30 a month for a gallon a week.
The state monitors commercial milk pasteurization, a process where milk is heated to kill bacteria, but does not regulate raw milk. However, the Raw Milk Association of Colorado upholds voluntary standards for milk producers to ensure safety and quality. Blair McMorran, an administrator for RMAC, estimates that 2,000 families across the state regularly drink milk from RMAC dairies.

Raw milk drinkers tend to treat raw milk with religious devotion.

Maria Atwood from Burlington, Colo., is a cow-share owner at Ebert Family Farms. The first time she drank raw milk, she was shocked by her own thirst.

“I could not be satiated,” she said. “It calls you to drink it.”

“I’m addicted to raw milk,” said Gina Alianiello of Littleton, Colo., a shareowner at Johnson’s Acres. “I can see why in the Bible they said ‘milk and honey.’”

Alianiello’s devotion has become evangelism. “I’m trying to convert you,” she said.

Scientific studies on the health effects of raw milk are sparse and inconclusive. The Food and Drug Administration’s official stance is that drinking raw milk is dangerous because it increases the risk of food borne illness. But supporters of raw milk claim it has cured everything from asthma to eczema. And because pasteurization denatures the enzyme lactase, which helps digest lactose sugar, many people who get sick drinking conventional milk can drink raw milk.

For some, the direct connection between the consumer and the producer that the herd-share system creates is as important as the milk itself.

One Coyote Creek Ranch shareholder brings her 6-year-old daughter to feed the goats. Pinkard welcomes her shareholders to watch – or even participate in – the milking process, which takes place in a room attached to a garage that holds several authentic stagecoaches.

Although she doesn’t usually milk her goats by hand, Pinkard put a goat, Fennel, on a wooden platform to demonstrate the process. Fennel waited indifferently while Pinkard sanitized the goat’s teat. She reached underneath Fennel, pinched with her thumb and forefinger and squeezed with the rest of her hand. The udder felt like a warm, thick, slightly fuzzy balloon.

In an adjacent pen, six kids huddled around Pinkard’s sister Heidi. She poured milk into a plastic bucket with rubber nipples attached to the bottom, sloshing some over the sides. The kids’ tails wagged as they attacked the makeshift udder.

Later, in her kitchen, Pinkard poured some chilled goat’s milk into a cut glass jar and slid it across the table. The milk left a thin film on the inner walls of the glass, like the legs of a fine red wine. It tasted sweet and tangy at the same time, with the slightest aftertaste of hay and dirt.