Subculture goes beyond organic

Seven-year-old Katie Wilber watches her mother, Ariella Wilber, milk their new goat, Pearl. Katie's parents recently bought Pearl in order to replace raw milk that they once received from Alexandre Family EcoDairy Farms. (The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson).

By Nicholas Grube

Ariella Wilber always told her friends that if Alexandre Family EcoDairy Farms ever ended its raw milk program that she would buy a goat the next day to replenish her stock.

In one way she made good on her promise — she bought a goat — although it took a little longer than she expected.

About a week and half ago, Wilber purchased a white Saanen dairy goat named Pearl to replace the raw milk she once received from Alexandre.

"I feel like I took a trip back 100 years," Wilber said with a laugh as she strolled toward Pearl with a stainless steel bucket used to catch milk from the goat's bloated udder.

Pearl provides Wilber and her family about a gallon of raw milk each day, half in the morning, half at night. This is enough to end their drought; the Wilbers used to buy about six gallons of raw milk per week from Alexandre, nearly $150 a month habit.

"It's like gold to us," Wilber said Tuesday morning shortly after she finished milking Pearl.

She is just one of many people in Del Norte County who are seeking alternative sources of raw, unpasteurized milk since the dairy voluntarily shut down its program due to an outbreak of the bacteria Campylobacter that may have infecting up to 15 people who drank the milk.

They are part of a growing subculture formed around the presumed health benefits of consuming milk that comes straight from the udder.

"It's spreading out into the community," Wilber said, "because people recognize the benefits."

 'All word of mouth'

According to the Del Norte County Department of Public Health, more than 100 people were signed up for Alexandre EcoDairy's raw milk program, but as many as 300 to 500 people were actually consuming the product.

This is remarkable in that the program was never advertised.

"It was all word of mouth," Wilber said. Her family was one of the first to sign up when the program began three to four years ago. Since then, she has helped other people get access to unpasteurized milk.

This sort of cooperation has created a network among raw milk consumers, according to Wilber's husband, Chris.

"It's just normal people looking for healthy solutions," he said.

Almost everything the Wilbers consume is organic, if not grown on their own property. They live in Fort Dick, not far from Alexandre EcoDairy. They raise chickens, goats, and horses, and they also have a small garden.

"We don't walk into a grocery store much," Chris Wilber said. "It's rare."

He said natural foods, including raw milk, provide beneficial vitamins and minerals that are lost during food processing. These contribute to a healthier lifestyle, he said, including health benefits for his wife and two daughters, 7 and 12.

"The whole concept of eating food in its natural state just makes sense," Wilber said. "That whole concept I'm just a 100 percent believer in."

Others consider goat milk

Consuming raw milk is part of a broader movement to go beyond organics that has created a niche market for whole, and preferably local, foods.

"Raw milk is only one piece of a very big puzzle," Dr. Kevin Caldwell said. "There's this movement to get back to eating food the way people ate it a hundred years ago."

Caldwell practices medicine at Crescent City's Redwood Medical Offices, and he has been an Alexandre raw milk customer for over a year.

The way to complete the nutritional puzzle, he said, is to eat real fruits and vegetables, whole grains and meats that are raised in a pasture "the way it's supposed to be."

"When the food goes through the processing to make the food last longer, you have to take out the most volatile chemicals in the food and those are the chemicals that are the most nutritious parts of the food," Caldwell said. "The problem is it's now resulting in epidemics of obesity and heart disease and strokes and cancer because we're just not eating proper whole foods and we're just not getting the proper nutrition."

Now that raw milk has been cut out of his diet — the dairy owners said they won't restart the program — Caldwell said he probably won't look for another source.

"I'm just sticking with regular whole yogurt, which contains a lot of the same microbes that raw milk contains," he said. "I'm happy with that for now."

Others have not given up their quest to find raw milk.

The Wilbers know of people who are buying the product online from one of only two dairies in the state licensed to sell raw milk. They even have friends who are considering pooling their money to buy a cow, and take turns milking it.

Some are waiting to see how the Wilbers' experiment with Pearl turns out, so they can perhaps venture into the goat-milking business themselves.

"She gives us exactly what our family needs," Chris Wilber said of the newest addition to his family. "It's heaven."