While people understandably go out of their way to consume meat products that are “antibiotic free,” there’s no similar level of concern with conventional dairy products. And there should be.
Here’s the dirty little secret about modern dairy: Antibiotic residues are in nonorganic dairy products, period. Granted, they are almost always within what the FDA calls “acceptable levels,” which means they can exist at some level. The FDA, for example, considers milk that has 10 parts-per-billion of the antibiotic ampicillin as “adulterated,” and thus must be discarded as unfit for human consumption. But at 9 parts-per-billion, drink up! And therein lies the pharmaceutical game being played out in the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) that dominate the U.S. dairy supply: Keep the cows drugged but get below the thresholds.
But even while these CAFOs know how to game the system by pre-testing and blending, many still get caught shipping milk or burnt-out cows to slaughter that have illegally-high levels of antibiotic residues. And, make no mistake, some of that tainted milk and meat is reaching the marketplace.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that there’s a solution: Organic dairy. Always.
