According to the Food Bank of Wyoming, our state has at least 12 areas designated as “food deserts.” These are geographic areas where access to affordable, healthy food options is limited or nonexistent because grocery stores are too far away. Swaths of Goshen, Carbon and Fremont counties are often listed among these geographic areas.
Opinion
In a state with more than 10,000 farms and ranches — many of them small, family-run operations — spanning nearly 30 million acres, we can and should tackle our food desert problem with true food freedom reform.
The same areas infamous for their designation as “food deserts” also produce the most healthy foods locally. But the law currently prohibits many direct food sales through a confusing web of red tape, zigzagged across the food industry by state and federal bureaucrats.
Where people should be able to access farm-to-table foods, they’re instead forced under the fluorescent lights of a nearby Loaf ‘N Jug or a distant grocery store; shelves stocked with inflammatory chemical concoctions masquerading as real food.
In Park County, a beloved dairy operation has been barred from selling lattes with healthy, fresh, real raw milk, based on its location. What’s safe being sold at a farmers market or from a home kitchen is magically transformed into a public health hazard when sold and consumed in other locations.
In Cheyenne, a family-run farmstand had its meat freezer locked up by the state, but when the ranchers are able to drive for hours and camp out while the sales occur, the meat becomes safe for consumption.
This aforementioned web of nonsensical regulations and the heavy hand on our farmers are tripping hazards. They keep no one from getting foodborne illnesses while harming our producers and consumers. In Wyoming, we still believe families — not unelected bureaucrats — should decide what’s on their kitchen tables.
Food freedom isn’t a slogan. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle to solve our food desert crisis and the chronic health epidemic in Wyoming.
In the Cowboy State, we’re known for “bucking the system.” Let’s do that by embracing the thinking of Hippocrates, namesake of the Hippocratic oath, who famously — and rightly — stated, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.”
Raw milk isn’t safe to drink. It has not been pasteurized and can contain dangerous levels of bacteria.
I do think we need to work on addressing food insecurity in this state and a lack of accessible good food. On the other hand, selling milk that gives people food poisoning or salmonella is probably not a good idea.
Raw milk that is sold in this state is not fit for human consumption and is sold as animal feed.
Rachel Rodriguez-W. like the majority of her Freedom Caucus cabal have a serious deficit of factuality on a wide range of issues. Since she’s fulminating on food freedom , I’ll feed some facts to her and hope she can digest them. She chose to cite Cody’s Hippy Cow Creamery as a victim of the perceived State Health Department food police. All politics is local , right ? The family run Hippy Cow dairy is a little over a mile from Rachel’s residence in east Cody, with five cows and ten kids-grandkids and no pasteurization.
No pasterurization. That recalls the first decade of the 20th century in the American midwest. From Wisconsin down to Kansas the stockyards and dairy farms spawned the deaths of up to 30,000 people per year from Undulant Fever. Eleven thousand in one year alone in the Chicago stockyards, but record keeping was scant. The real number was undoubtedly higher all around.
Also known as Brucellosis, it was the one and same disease present in Yellowstone bison and elk that has been crossing over into beef cattle herds in Park County Wyoming today , resulting in quarantines and serious financial burdens for ranchers. Until pasteurization became mandatory , tens of thousands died and many hundreds of thousands were afflicted by exposure to raw milk and meat . Life saving antibiotics came late to the party. Regulations and enforcement won the war. These days undulant fever in humans is rare in the developed world, but brucellosis still lurks in the wild , within sight of Rachel’s and the Hippy Cow viewscape. A strong State-run public health system and strong enforcement are an excellent defense, proven daily. We’ve come a long ways.
Contrary to Rachel’s disinformation , foodborne illnesses are in fact held in check by those imaginary nonsensical regulations There were only 30 cases of so-called ‘ food poisoning’ reported in all of Park County in 2024 from all sources : E. coli, salmonella, listeria, Campylo , yersinia ( a sleeper, that one) , noro, botulism , blah blah . Sure, there were likely many more unreported cases , but nobody died around here like they used to after WWI. Nobody going broke that I am aware of , no matter what the Stockgrowers and the Freedom Caucus wail about. This is not a Food Freedom situation crying out for urgent resolution . Anybody like Rachel who believes there are macro-Food Deserts in Wyoming because we have used regulations to drive hungry mouths away from natural homegrown classic food sources is not right in the head. They either not paying attention to the immediate world around them , not trying hard enough to break their microwave pizza and Diet Coke habit, or is being purposely disingenuous.
It’s not regulations and the Food Police that are causing hunger in Wyoming. I can make a strong case that food insecurity is more due to longstanding conservative Republican policies that purposely punish low income people, minorities, the elderly , immigrants and tribes.
Then there’s the context of a paradoxical fact to ponder. Among all 50 states, Wyoming is number one in the average size of the family farm , at 2400 acres per spread.Yup. But it ranks 25th in cattle and calves production ; 27th in hogs ; 35th in corn ; 33rd in wheat ; 23rd in Hay/Alfalfa. Only sheep, beans, and sugar beets make it into the top ten of agricultural commodity production quantities. Wyoming fruits and vegetables barely register nationally. [ 2023 USDA figures ] As intensive and widespread as Agriculture is touted to be in Wyoming, we are not really a food and crop source. A growing season last frost in Spring to first frost in Autumn is rarely over 120 days anywhere in Wyoming. A hundred days is a good year most places. Water getting scarcer, too.
Rachel Rodriguez transplanted to Wyoming from Bay Area California wine country where food production happens yearround and farmer’s markets are bountiful. Perhaps she needs to recalibrate her food production perception for a semi-arid climate zone at altitude. Actually, she needs to recalibrate on a great many issues. Her politics are a bad fit here.
The hypocrisy here is epic. Food freedom and governmental overreach from one who led the attack on bodily autonomy and freedom of women’s right to choose? Wow. Just wow..
Pass the jiffy pop.🍿
Is whether or not you can buy some raw milk latte in Cody really the most important issue facing Wyoming? I would think that Ms. Rodriguez-Williams could find something more important to editorialize about, but these “Freedom Caucus” folks have a strange set of priorities.
I’m confused, is this Rachel Rodriguez-Williams also Rachel Williams, the Cody lady who just recently whitewashed her name to run for Sec. of State? The same goofy chairwoman of the UnFreeDumb Carcass? Rachel whoever/whatever you finally decide to call yourself, we all pretty much know that you are unqualified for any and all things government and sorry, your “opinion” doesn’t count here. Go back to CALI
As for Hyppocrates and his philosphy, another very important fact is “He emphasized detailed record-keeping, noting physical symptoms, prognoses, and the environmental factors that led to illnesses.
Raw milk is an negative environmental factor as proven by the potential harmful outcomes that are documented. Not all natural forms of food are healthy:
Advocates sometimes claim unpasteurized milk holds health benefits, but health organizations state the reality is quite different:
Nutrition: Pasteurization does not reduce the nutritional value of milk (calcium, protein, and vitamins remain the same).
Lactose Intolerance: Raw milk is equally likely to cause allergic reactions or trigger lactose intolerance compared to pasteurized milk.
The “Bird Flu” Risk: The H5N1 avian flu virus has been actively detected in raw milk samples from cows. Pasteurization kills the virus, but drinking raw contaminated milk poses a new viral risk.
While anyone who drinks raw milk can get sick, the consequences are particularly life-threatening for highly vulnerable populations, including:
Children and infants
Pregnant individuals
Adults over 65
Anyone with a compromised or weakened immune system (e.g., cancer, diabetes, or HIV/AIDS patients)
RE: Wyoming State lockdown of Cheyenne Meat freezer at a farmstand:
State regulators stated the farm stand failed to obtain a required $200 license (pursuant to Wyoming Statute 35-7-124) needed for anyone processing, distributing, storing, or preparing food for retail sales. The WDA placed yellow zip-tie seals on the freezer doors.
Excellent information Sheryl. Many people have not contracted illness from unpasteurized milk but speaking from personal experience, a bone infection from unpasteurized milk is not pleasant. The Hippocratic oath also states do no harm. Understanding a food dessert is a complicated process. It is also important to consider the differences in state inspected meat as opposed to USDA facility
Tell this to the sweetheart of the book-banning Moms for Liberty, Superintendent of Public Instruction (are you kidding me?) and candidate for governor (you’re REALLY kidding me!) Megan Degenfelder, who thinks that feeding kids over the summer turns them into welfare cheats.
Not to mention Chuck Gray who thinks the enfranchisement of Tribes, usurped and sequestered on a small portion of the land they used to freely roam constitutes an afront to democracy.
What a sad pair of feckless opportunists racing to the bottom!
Finally, Ms Rodriquez makes a public, statement that makes sense. We should all find common ground with this.
Let’s assist her in putting her words into action.
A voice of reason, in a sea of hysteria. Thanks Todd
Williams is such a clown. This is just warmed over libertarian bs. It is incredible that someone as dumb as she is can hold office. Raw milk is dangerous and she is dangerous.
Both extremes have now been heard from, raw milk is naturally safe and healthy, raw milk is inherently unsafe and dangerous. As is almost always the case, truth lies between the extremes.
Oh boy, let me get my popcorn for watching the comment section to go bananas. I can see the line forming now to hurl insults at the author without even digesting a word of what she said.
most of us find that this Unfreedom Clownage Rachel Rodriguez-Whatever Williams is quite hard to digest, Chad.
Thanks for proving my point.
There was NOTHING partisan or divisive in this article. It was about getting Wyomingites better quality food which everyone needs today in ultra-processed America.
The partisan divide blinds so badly that people will ignore or even fight against something that is a positive for everyone.
You can go back to your pink slime chicken nuggets now.