Tuesday, January 8

Flying home after the first week on the road was great, and I was also coming off my first quarter Perfect Cleanse. I’m telling you that my batteries are recharged, and the Perfect Cleanse went very well. Today I flew cross-country again, this time to Fresno since I was speaking at Organic Pastures Dairy Company located in the heart of the California’s San Joaquin Valley. Here’s the link: http://www.organicpastures.com/

In case you haven’t heard of Organic Pastures, they are one of the largest—and best—producers of raw dairy in the United States. I’ve been touting Organic Pastures for a long time, ever since I discovered them while I lived in San Diego back in the 1990s trying to get healthy. Back then, I developed a huge urge to drink raw cream, so I would go to Henry’s Farmers Market and buy a pint of Organic Pastures raw cream and mix it with carrot juice. I felt so good after consuming that treat.

The owner of Organic Pastures is Mark McAfee, who deserves sainthood for how he’s persevered with the business of producing organic dairy products. I’ve gotten to know Mark over the years, and I’ve interviewed him several times for my TV show, Extraordinary Health, so when I was putting together the California part of my Perfect Weight America Tour, I knew that a stop at Organic Pastures dairy was a must.

When I arrived in Fresno, though, the Central Valley was being slammed by a series of storms that dropped a ton of rain in the valley and more than 10 feet of snow in the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains. I was scheduled to talk that night inside an airplane hanger on Mark’s property—at least, that’s what it looked like to me. Then I learned that Organic Pastures has a dirt airstrip just west of the McAfee home, and folks actually fly in to pick up their purchases of raw milk, colostrum, kefir, and cheese from cows that munch the dewy grass in his pesticide-free fields. Mark jokes that his “airport” has no other services than organic raw milk sales, dairy tours, warm handshakes, and hugs. And when you leave, you don’t have to pass through an X-ray machine or get patted down by TSA security!

Although the weather was horrible, we had about 100 show up, some as far away as Los Angeles, although I don’t think they flew in. Inside the hanger, Organic Pastures set out samples of chocolate raw colostrum known as Chocoleche, brownies, cookies, and organic oranges from a local farm. I found some raw granola with nuts and seeds and dates and pounded it.
Afterward, everyone found a place to sit. It seems that Mark and his team had stacked bales of hay and created a little “set” for my talk, which was filmed by my crew. After saying a few words, I brought Mark up and we discussed the state of raw milk. Heavy on Mark’s mind was a new California state law, AB1735, that went into effect on January 1. The new law, Mark said, didn’t actually ban raw milk, but it did eliminate the ability to effectively produce raw milk by making the standards impossible to comply with. He and another dairy farmer filed a lawsuit on behalf of the estimated 40,000 California consumers of raw milk, saying that the standards were unreasonable and if enforced, dairies like his will be shut down. That would be a shame because 22 states do not allow the sales of raw milk, and my home state of Florida is one of them.

Raw milk has some real fans, and I felt the fervor Tuesday night at the Organic Pastures ranch. I believe raw dairy was one of the major reasons why I got better in San Diego, and I believe in it so much that I’ve had Mark and other producers ship raw milk and colostrum to my Florida home for our personal use and for making infant and baby formula. Here’s hoping that Mark and raw milk supporters can get AB1735 repealed in Sacramento.

Wednesday, January 9

The next day, I came back to Organic Pastures and toured the farm like any other tourist. Mark said I could try my hand at milking, so I figured, Why not? With my film crew chasing after me, we headed out into a foggy pasture toward some cows. There was one bull that I was little bit afraid of, but we found some friendly cows. I kept trying to call them “Bessie,” but one of the friendlier bulls, named Theodora—Theodore in Spanish—was more like a house pet than a paw-scratching bull. One of the farm hands had raised him since birth, bottle-feeding him, so he was like a house puppy who liked to nuzzle people. Let me tell you: when you weigh a couple of tons, you’re one big puppy.

The Holstein cows, the black and white ones, wanted nothing to do with me, but they were the ones with the milk. Even though it was after their early morning milking, I donned some blue surgical gloves and gave it a shot, even though I had never milked a cow before. I had milked a goat once, fairly ineffectively, so I have to say that grabbing a cow’s teats was “udderly” different. At any rate, I tried to get some shots of milk into a glass and managed to do so. Of course, I had to drink my glass of fresh milk, but first I had to pick a few hairs out. As the camera footage rolled, I tasted the warm but good milk. Delicious. As soon as the video is on the Perfect Weight website I will let you know.

I can not wait to post is because on the video you’ll see that I poured the milk on my face and did the “Got Milk?” milk moustache thing.

After our adventure in the pasture, we found that Organic Pastures is making raw kombucha (pronounced kom-BOO-cha), which is a fermented beverage made from black or green tea and a fungus culture. Russian in origin and tart as a Granny Smith apple, kombucha delivers a cidery flavor with a kick of fizziness. We took a tour through Organic Pastures’ kombucha plant and videoed how they made this probiotic-rich drink.

We got tons of kombucha to sample, and the whole crew loved it, including our bus driver, John. One thing led to another, and the folks at Organic Pastures and I talked about how we could work together to bring their kombucha to health food stores around the country. We’ll see what unfolds.

After filling our bellies with kombucha, we hopped on the bus and drove to Roseville, near Sacramento, to Sunrise Natural Foods (http://www.sunrisenaturalfoods.net/retailer/store_templates/shell_id_1.asp?storeID=33B99B6006684FD28C0CE3D3C628EB13), which was founded in 1971. About 130 folks came out to hear me talk—I seem to be getting a lot of crowds around 130 or so—but everyone had a nice time.

Thursday, January 10

Today we had a long bus ride to Ukiah, which is one of those funky Northern California towns in Mendocino County along the old 101 highway. I scheduled four radio interviews during the morning drive, and one of them was with former Orlando Magic general manager and executive vice president Pat Williams, who is into adoption, you could say, having adopted 14 children with 5 natural-born children of his own. I told him on the air that I was a fan of his, and perhaps I made him feel old by telling him I was in the third grade when my favorite team—the Philadelphia 76ers—won the NBA championship in 1983 with legends like Dr. J, Moses Malone, and Lloyd “World B.” Free. (Pat was the GM for the 76ers back then.) Pat is an amazing sports figure, but it was good to talk about health with him. I did three more radio interviews on the drive up to Ukiah, and we somehow managed to get them all in even though there were cell phone dead zones galore.

My evening talk at the Ukiah Natural Foods Coop (http://www.ukiahcoop.com/) was like stepping back into the Sixties or the Seventies. Lots of tied-dyed clothes and aging hippies in the crowd of 60 or so.

I flew home on Friday and spent the weekend with the family, which was a welcome salve for the road. Meanwhile, the team motored north to Oregon on their way to Seattle. I’ll catch up with them on Tuesday for the most action-packed week yet.
On Saturday, I took Joshua, our three-year-old, to the West Palm Beach airport because he loves watching the big jets land. He’s gotten quick good at identifying the various airlines—Delta, American, and even the rare plane with a red maple leaf that occasionally lands at PBI . . . Air Canada.

I also shared some of Organic Pastures kombucha with the family. I had packed three bottles into my shoes and checked the bag, figuring that when I landed that I was either going to have some really good fermented beverage or a really stinky suitcase. Fortunately, it was the former.