12/18/2025
𝗚𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗘𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗬 𝗳𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀…OH AND Virginia Law Makers!!!! 👇
Why is it illegal in Virginia for a farmer to sell 𝙧𝙖𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙠 directly to a willing consumer, yet perfectly legal for that same farmer to:
• Raise and process their own poultry on farm
• Sell eggs directly to consumers
• Produce and sell cottage foods from an uninspected home kitchen
• Sell custom exempt meat where the buyer knowingly assumes risk
• Sell raw honey
• Sell aged raw milk cheese made from the same milk
All of the above are allowed under Virginia law because the state already accepts this basic principle:
𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐬 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐫.
So here’s the part I can’t get a straight answer on.
Milk is produced daily, easily traceable to a single animal, rapidly chilled, and can be tested more easily than most foods listed above. Poultry and eggs are statistically higher risk for foodborne illness, yet they are legal to sell direct to consumer.
If the law were truly about public health, consent, and food safety, raw milk would already fit inside existing exemptions just like poultry, eggs, and cottage foods.
Instead, raw milk is singled out. 🤨
I can raise a cow, milk it, drink it myself, give it to my family, turn it into cheese and sell that cheese.
But if I hand my neighbor a gallon of that same milk, suddenly it is treated like moonshine and the milk police are apparently on the way.
That’s not consistency. That’s selective prohibition.
And no, this isn’t ideology. 𝙒𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙖 𝙙𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙙….so we dont monotarily benifit by asking, we just find it…strange…
I’m asking for logical consistency in Virginia food law. Either informed adults can choose local food from local farmers, or they can’t.
Yes, the CDC supports pasteurization. No one is arguing that. CDC data also shows that between 1998 and 2018 there were two confirmed deaths nationwide linked to raw milk outbreaks. Two. Risk exists, but it exists everywhere.
We don’t ban raw chicken. We tell people to cook it.
We don’t ban laundry detergent because kids ate Tide Pods. We slap a common sense warning label on it and move on.
And we all just lived through a few years of CDC approved things like the Covid jab that still came with acknowledged adverse events. That includes myocarditis, blood clots, and severe allergic reactions affecting tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone, with serious reactions occurring at rates like roughly five per million for anaphylaxis and a measurable myocarditis risk in young men. That’s not an argument against vaccines. It’s a reminder that approved has never meant zero risk.
As farmers and homesteaders, we manage risk with transparency and informed consent. Virginia already lets adults assume food risk every day with eggs, poultry, cottage foods, raw honey, custom exempt meat, and even cheese made from raw milk from the same cows.
Treating raw milk like moonshine while allowing all of that isn’t public health. It’s just inconsistent and, honestly, kind of ridiculous.
We’re genuinely confused and don’t really see where the problem lies.
📌 All supporting info is available. CDC data, Virginia code sections, food safety comparisons, historical context of pasteurization laws, and legal exemptions.
If you disagree, I’m genuinely open to discussion. Just please bring sources, not slogans.
If you believe farmers and consumers deserve the same freedoms already granted in other areas of food law, it may be time to push for change.
Thoughts? Civil discussion welcome 👇
