Whole Foods Permanently Discontinues Raw Milk Nationwide

I just received an email from Organic Pastures announcing that Whole Foods has decided to permanently stop selling raw milk nationwide. This is very disappointing to me.

I have been an avid fan and supporter of Whole Foods for two decades — since I was in college in the early ’90s. I went to college in Austin, where Whole Foods started, and I loved them from the beginning.

My love for Whole Foods has officially died.

I can’t get behind a company that proclaims, with their very name, to be all about WHOLE FOODS. And yet they won’t sell a product that is the original whole food. Raw milk. Straight from the cow. Unprocessed, unheated, untreated, full fat, free of antibiotics and added hormones. Grass-fed. Can it get any more of a WHOLE FOOD than that?

What are they going to do next? Stop selling eggs because they are raw? Perhaps they’ll decide to only sell pasteurized low-fat or “skim” eggs?

Here’s the statement from Organic Pastures:

BREAKING NEWS

OPDC was notified on Thursday afternoon March 25, 2010 that Whole Foods Corporate has decided permanently to discontinue raw dairy products from all stores nationally, as a matter of corporate policy.

We are very disappointed in this decision and believe that it is a move away from “whole food” being sold at Whole Foods. We all know that raw milk is a whole food, whereas pasteurized and ultra pasteurized milk are partial foods. These sterile foods cannot be consumed by many people because a killing heat has compromised their integrity, causing enzyme, digestion and other serious histamine and immune disturbance issues. Delicious living, probiotic raw milk does not create these problems. Sterile foods are not organic foods and never have been. Organic food is whole, bio-diverse, nutrient dense, enzyme and mineral rich by definition.

OPDC would like to warmly thank Walter Robb and Whole Foods for ten great years of market support and the instrumental roll that Whole Foods played in establishing the thriving California Raw Milk Market.

Please welcome our new retail partners as they join OPDC in providing delicious raw dairy products to you. The addition of these fine organic and natural food stores has created new market excitement. Many of these stores are using a lower price point which makes OPDC products more affordable for everyone. Please welcome our new accounts, and thank the dairy case mangers with a big raw milk hug!

OPDC WELCOMES THESE VALUED NEW CUSTOMERS:

Paradise Foods (Novato)
Estudillo Produce and Deli (San Leandro)
Piazza’s Fine Foods (Palo Alto)
Isla Vista Food Co-Op (Isla Vista)
The Market (Fresno)
Granny’s Pantry (Pasadena)
Grassroots Market (South Pasadena)
Elliot’s Natural (Sacramento)
Gene’s Fine Foods (Saratoga)
Health Unlimited (Castro Valley)
La Tropicana Market (Los Angeles)
Mollie Stones (Multiple Locations)

All the best in health,

Mark McAfee Founder OPDC

From now on, I’ll be avoiding Whole Foods and taking my money elsewhere. I truly believe that raw milk is a “whole food” and I believe that farmers producing raw milk need our support.

As Mark says in the video, there are 325 other stores carrying Organic Pastures products in California. If you live here in California, go shop at one of those stores. If you currently shop at a grocery store in California that doesn’t currently carry raw milk, please talk to them and ask them to carry Organic Pastures raw dairy products.

Photo credit: kire on Flickr