monitoring of locally produced organic milk (pasture-fed cows)?
All the organic milk products at Trader Joes (from what I was told) come from a local organic dairy. There are several in CA i believe.
I know that Straus Family Creamery (based in Marin somewhere) says they pasture-feed their cows as much as possible, and rely as little as possible on feed. So people like me who buy organic milk may possibly be exposed to more contaminants from local fallout after all this rain than people who get non-organic from big factory-like dairies that mostly use feed from the Midwest and Canada.
Testing non-organic milk is certainly worth doing--even the midwest and Canada are probably getting some fallout. But it seems really important to test local, pasture-fed cows' milk separately, both for consumers' safety and also to get baseline info on levels of local fallout on the ground. Accurate data about percentage of pasture-feeding vs dry feed of the cows would also have to be factored in, organic dairies do use (organic) feed when necessary.
Will local, pasture-fed cows' milk be tested separately from milk from non-organic mostly feed-fed dairies?
--Ingrid
(my apologies for emailing earlier, I didn't know about this forum)
I just found this forum and
I just found this forum and reading all the discussions. So has anyone identify a milk brand that is safe for toddler use? Thanks!
Testing Dairy Products
Thank you so much for all you are doing! I really appreciate the full disclosure of findings. I only wish that government entities would do the same, with respect to posting all detailed information, giving explanations, and providing a forum/ feedback section, as you are doing.
With respect to testing for radioactive contaminants in milk. You may or may not already be doing this - but you may want to call each dairy farm and find out what date they bottled or packaged their dairy products. I've called two organic dairy farms in Northern California, and they told me that the bottling date for milk can be calculated by taking the expiration date and going back 18 and 19 days, respectively. Packaging dates for yogurt, cheese, ice cream, etc. are all different - some are package 6 months prior. So, it is not a suprise to me that you would not detect any radioactive isotopes at this time, but I suspect you may find traces in the next coming weeks.
This also tells me that vigilant testing by the FDA will need to happen for many months to come.
Thanks again for all your work.
Thanks. We have contacted
Thanks. We have contacted the dairies and have made notes on what they feed their cows and their packaging dates.
It is my understanding that
It is my understanding that OPDC in Fresno has submitted milk samples to an independent test facility and is awaiting results which will be published on their website.
OPDC testing
the problem is that if they are testing cows fed mostly on feed (most dairies), that feed usually comes from Canada or the midwest, wouldn;t reflect local contamination. It certainly would be good consumer info for overall U.S. milk supplies, but wouldn't be useful for local conditions, like your garden, California crops, local organic pasture-based milk etc.
--Ingrid
We have found a few local
We have found a few local pasture-fed dairies and we are testing now. First results show no signatures.
Claravale Raw Milk?
I was just wondering if you guys will try testing some of the locally-ish produced raw milk (Organic Pastures and Claravale are both sold at Andronicos). I read that the sale of raw milk from areas in Japan near the reactors have been banned and that radiation levels are typically higher in fresh (raw) dairy vs. conventionally processed and pasteurized.
Thanks so much continuing to pay attention to this situation and provide the public with information.
how fresh is the milk
I'm guessing there is a delay between the time the purple rain lands on grass --> cow eats the grass --> cow processes grass --> cow is milked --> milk is delivered to the store. I wonder if the milk that is affected has even hit our local store shelves yet and if you will be testing again in the coming weeks to make sure you get the affected cows' milk.
Thanks again to your team!
Cs-137 migration to milk is only a few days
'During periods of rapidly fluctuating intakes of cesium 137 by the cows, as during pasture feeding, the milk levels of cesium 137 responded rapidly to
the changes in pasture forage activity. This implied that the effective biological half-time of cesium 137 in the lactating cow was no greater
than a few days.'
from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1919831/pdf/pubhealthreporig...
-g
You are correct, there is a
You are correct, there is a delay. We are going to test once every two days, along with tap water.
milk samples in California
We have a small organic dairy in Santa Rosa, may we submit a sample of raw milk to be analyzed from grass fed cows?
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this forum and for all the testing--re the local pasture-fed milk especially. Seems like it might be a very important baseline since cows keep eating and making milk daily whereas vegetables etc are crop-based plus different types might have different pathways of "take-up" or whatever its called. I mean, what a carrot takes up from roots compared to what a spinach takes up from roots plus surface rain, plus factors like how slow-growing various veggies are etc. Harder to compare.
I suggest also finding out regularly--directly from the dairy--how much (non-local) feed their cows have been eating as a percent of daily intake. (even if this isn't entered into the data, just kept as side notes that may help explain anomalous results)
--Ingrid
Radioactive Iodine-131 in
Radioactive Iodine-131 in Pennsylvania rainwater sample is 3300% above federal drinking water standard
March 29th, 2011 at 10:11 PM
http://enenews.com/radioactive-iodine-131-in-pennsylvania-rainwater-samp...
03/23/2011 UC Berkeley
03/23/2011 UC Berkeley Rainwater Test = 20.1 Bq/L
20.1 Bq/L * 27.027 pCi/Bq = 543.2427 pCi/L
Federal limit = 3 pCi/L
543.2427 pCi/L = 181.08 * 3 pCi/L
543.2427 pCi/L = 18108% * 3 pCi/L
IIRC, the Federal limit is based on 4 mrem/yr exposure and 3 pCi/L of Iodine-131 equates with that. However, there are likely other radionuclides in the water and thus I suspect the rain water samples are above the limit by even more.
Not good of course, potentially far worse if it gets concentrated into something you consume (milk). However, IIRC Iodine-131 has a shorter half-life and decays to stable Xenon-131. Thus far I haven't found information which suggests that Xenon-131 is harmful.
So the longer one stores the water, milk, whatever the safer said would be in terms of just the Iodine-131 threat I think. Drinking water is relatively easy to store. If one doesn't mind ultrapastuerized milk, something like Lactaid has a 2 month or longer expiration date. Perhaps some ice creams would last longer. There is also condensed or powdered milks. A fair question would be what about the other radionuclides in said products.
Yeah
what about Ce-137 ... does that end up in milk and dairy products as well???
I'm not familiar with Ce-137
I'm not familiar with Ce-137 (Cerium-137) and I'm not sure it is in play. Cs-137 (Cesium-137) is in play and yes some of that will make it into the milk.