http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/raw-milk-regulations/state/washington

Start calling retailers ...

After you read this:
http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com/raw-milk-news

I like to use this great site called Agrilicious to source my food directly from a farmer or farmers market.

I am not entirely positive if you can buy Raw milk in a grocery store. But if you click the link below it will show you a variety of farms and farmers markets that sell raw milk in western washington.

Here is a link that might be useful: Raw MIlk in Western washington

The federal govt. has to stop micro-managing our lives.

They'd probably do that if the people who produce our food would sanitize things well enough to stop killing people.

There's a reason we have food safety laws - they save lives.

@ JoppaRich:

That is one of the most mis-informed statements I have ever heard. It has nothing to do with "sanitizing" anything.

We have more food safety laws today than EVER, and you have more to worry about today, as far as food is concerned.

I really would like to see the people killed by drinking raw milk. Probably about the same number that died of raw carrots.

Jopparich: We have more food safety laws today than EVER, and you have more to worry about today, as far as food is concerned.

Have you ever read any housekeeping books from the 1890s? They tell the housewife how to detect all kinds of adulterants that you don't have to worry about any more because of those regulations.

RyseRyse - Here ya' go ... and is having to get a kidney transplant close enough to death for you?
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/02/a-mom-and-a-dairymans-plea-dont-feed-children-raw-milk/

Something similar happened in my community when I was a wee toddler ... except it was streptococcus , not E. coli, an outbreak of scarlet fever, not kidney failure, and some children were left with damaged hearts, not kidneys.

But the farm was doing everything "right", from the pasture fed cows to the scrubbed and scalded collection buckets. But somewhere along the route, a few pathogens got in the milk (a sneeze, a subclinical case of mastitis, a barely noticeable infected cut ... they never found the source) and children all across the valley were affected. the only thing they had in common was buying milk from that farm.

I don't know. We used to have dairy cows & always drank raw milk.Many dairy farmers do, too but don't admit it publically.
There's 2 sides to the issue.Both have merit to them.We have pasteurization for a reason but I think it's possible to have certified raw milk dairies operate,too.There are just a lot more variables involved than the dairy industry would care to deal with & I cant really blame them.It's a very demanding, 24/7 job & the last thing dairy farmers need is bad press.

RyseRyse ... So you would also be against other farm regulations.
No regulation on pesticide use?
No labelling foods with GMO ingredients?
No banning growing GMO crops?

An individual has the right to decide what they want to eat and drink. Period. The government has no business deciding that. Unfortunately most people gladly gave up their involvement in food preparation and fill their grocery carts with food processed and handled who knows where. Many do not even have a clue how to cook anything.

People became ill from filthy dairy practices and feeding cows swill back in the 1800's. Factory farms to this day are filthy operations, and yes, you would become ill drinking raw milk from one of those farms. What the government allows with huge factory farms is criminal. I have met people who had worked at some of them. What they told me made me feel ill.

Raw milk from 100% grass fed cows, who are moved to fresh pasture daily, and live and are handled in spotless conditions is perfectly safe. And delicious. It is extremely nutritious. It may not be your choice to drink milk from that farm, but it might be mine. And frankly, NO ONE has a right to tell me whether I can or not.

There is a great book titled "The Untold Story Of Milk". It's a great eye opener.

For the same reasons as stated above, I will not touch meat from a store either.

Here's another eye-opener

Here is a link that might be useful: Campylobacter outbreak - raw milk

Well there was a lot of talk here about not drinking raw milk.I agree theres laws for reasons.People were getting really sick from raw milk.Did you ever go see what a cow does in a day?Lay in poop,suppose one cow is sick.

While I'm all in favor of useful food handling regulations, the fear of raw milk OUTSIDE of a factory farm is overblown. Raw milk in and of itself is not dangerous. When proper sanitary procedures are followed, its as safe as pasteurized, and it tastes a heckuva lot better.

The method of ensuring cleanliness for raw milk is much stricter than for factory farms, where the "poop" you fear can be actually present in the milk - they just strain the big clumps out, cook the milk to kill the pathogens that were introduced due to unsanitary practices, and then homogenize it to a fare-thee-well.

In 2002, the last raw milk dairy in Ohio was bullied in to giving up its license to produce raw milk after an outbreak of salmonella - which was traced to a problem in post-processing handling and had nothing to do with the fact that the milk had not been pasteurized. In fact, such salmonella outbreaks are relatively common in factory produced pasteurized milk and far more widespread in their consequences.

Broken equipment and a couple of areas where improvement was needed in handling milk during packaging were the actual cause of the problem, and these issues were addressed and corrected. Nevertheless, the county took the opportunity to force the dairy to stop production of their raw milk, something they had been doing WITHOUT INCIDENT for nearly 50 years, even though the fact that the milk had not been pasteurized had NOTHING to do with the problem.

You do not want to know what they do to factory produced milk to get it to pass government regulations - and even then it still fails on a regular basis. If you are drinking pasteurized milk, you are definitely ingesting "pooped in" milk.

If you are drinking raw milk, from an approved dairy, you are getting something that is most definitely cleaner and safer - because raw milk doesn't get heated to high temps to kill the bacteria factory handling introduces to the supply stream, or the diseases they know the cows have but ignore because its' going to be pasteurized and filtered to get the chunks out. Disease organisms can never be present in raw milk - they are routinely present before pasteurization in pasteurized milk, and sometimes even AFTER pasteurization.

Requirements for cleanliness and checks on the health of the cows are MUCH MUCH more stringent for a raw dairy than they are for factory milk producers.

In either case, regulations and inspections are needed, because there are far too many lazy, greedy, ignorant, stupid, and/or just plain mean people out there to do without the regulations.

But lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater, yes?

Here is a link that might be useful: Some Facts about the Safety of Raw Milk

Pity people won't self regulate.
Greed and ignorance keep many from doing right by their fellow man.
Inspectors don't always do the right thing either.
Buying local is the best way to hold the producer accountable.
Be responsible for yourself, learn about your food, ask questions.
If your local food producer won't give you a tour of his farm, find one who will.
I drink only raw milk from a trusted neighbor.
Wonderful stuff

arkygirl -
We, too, bought milk from a trusted neighbor with a small dairy within walking distance.

The farm was doing everything "right", from the pasture fed cows to the scrubbed and scalded collection buckets, to the whitewashed and screened miilking parlor.

But somewhere along the route, a few pathogens got in the milk (a sneeze, a subclinical case of mastitis, a barely noticeable infected cut ... they never found the source) and children all across the valley were affected. The only thing they had in common was buying milk from that farm.

It was streptococcus , not E. coli or Campylobacter, an outbreak of scarlet fever, not kidney failure, and some children were left with damaged hearts, not kidneys.

During my life, the food poisoning episodes were from (2 times: mcdonald's hamburgers), 1 time from 'air dried' olives and 1 time from sorghum seeds I had tried to make into a fermented paste- AND I cooked that!). We have been drinking raw milk for a few years and have never gotten any sickness from it. Most people always blame the milk, even if it was something else (like potato salad they left out for hours or Caesar salad that had raw eggs from a factory farm in it). Go to realmilk.org to find a producer.
BTW, pasturized milk has been blamed for many sicknesses and deaths, but the govt/media makes sure to keep those quiet. Check out "The Milk Book" by Dr William Campbell Douglass III for excellent history on the subject. Also shows how to test your pasteurized milk for 'coliform' bacteria. If raw milk is bad, your nose will tell you, but if it's pasturized it can be seriously contaminated and you wouldn't be able to tell. Just reading about the dirty milk that is made into store milk is disgusting...they don't clean the cows, they don't wash anything and all that nasty stuff is in the milk, and then the way they 'prepare' it for consumption is gross too.