I am sure glad I drink organic milk. I was a aware of growth hormones that were given to dairy cows and have stayed away from milk that wasn’t organic for that very reason but hadn’t given it much thought otherwise. Then today, I received an email from a friend that had a report from the Food Safety and Inspection Service arm of the USDA. This report, the Residue Violators Alert List, which is found on their website at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Science/Chemistry/index.asp is updated each month and lists the names of the dairy or business and the violations that occurred. Here are some of the chemicals or drugs found just this last month: Penicillin, Oxytetracycline, Sulfamethazine, Ampicillin, among others. In some cases, thresholds of allowable amounts are zero yet there is the detected chemical. As someone who is sensitive to penicillen, I can’t take the chance that the milk I drink might be contaminated with this antibiotic, but I wouldn’t have known. Furthermore, violators were found in states across the country including NY, PA, CA, WA, TX. This is our food supply that is being contaminated, putting families across the country at risk. I didn’t know…did you??
Yes, I knew this at least 20 years ago.