Milk

Breast milk is the most natural food on Earth and -- some would argue -- the most essential for a baby's health. Still, it isn't something every woman can produce. For those who can't, the quest to obtain it can become a mission. They spend hours a day finding their own donors.

Thanks for keeping T.J. Simers on your payroll. He sounds like my 85-year-old Uncle Wallace, who got kicked in a bad spot by a cow six years ago and hasn't liked anyone or anything since. He especially dislikes cows, but, like T.J., he still goes out a couple of mornings a week to milk 'em. Paul Wannamaker Glendora

About a third of an ounce of botulinum toxin poured into a milk truck en route from a dairy farm to a processing plant could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in economic losses, according to a scientific analysis published Tuesday despite efforts by federal officials to keep the details secret. The study by Lawrence M. Wein and Yifan Liu of Stanford University discusses such questions as how terrorists could release the toxin and what effective amounts might be.

Kelsey Kozack's kitchen is a dairy wonderland. Fresh cheeses, yogurt and quarts of fresh raw milk abound, all compliments of Iris, a gentle tan cow who grazes on the family's 7-acre property. Kelsey, just 16, established and runs Fort Bantam Creamery from her family home on this island just west of Seattle. At first, Kelsey's parents and sister were the main consumers of her culinary creations from Iris' raw, unpasteurized milk.

I loved Regina Schrambling's blue cheese story ["Our Brilliant Blues," Nov. 30]. My wife and I came upon the Old Chatham Sheepherding Co. in upstate New York. Its blue cheeses are out of this world, especially Ewe's Blue, a pure sheep's milk cheese. DAVE STONE \o7Ventura\f7\o7 \f7

An E. coli outbreak that has sickened at least eight children has been traced to unpasteurized milk from a dairy that had been ordered last summer to stop distributing the product, health authorities said in Woodland. The dairy was shut down. People who drank unpasteurized, or raw, milk from the Dee Creek Farm were asked to contact their health department, whether they were sick or not.

Consumers soon can expect to pay 50 cents more for a gallon of milk, due to a combination of smaller herds, higher feed and beef prices, less growth hormone on the market and the emergence of mad cow disease. Milk prices reached a 25-year low last year but are rebounding to record highs in 2004, helped by a reduction in supply.

Shocked by the price of milk last week, Jose Batista joked that he should just buy a cow for his two children as he filled a shopping cart at a Food 4 Less in Hollywood. Batista had better get the barn ready. Starting Saturday, the minimum retail price of milk, which has been climbing steadily this year, will take a big jump. A gallon of whole milk will cost at least $2.90 -- 50% more than a year ago. And in major supermarkets, a gallon could command more than $4.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday revived lawsuits filed by out-of-state dairy farmers who claim California's complex milk-pricing system discriminates against them. The court ruled 8 to 1 that a federal law passed by Congress as part of the 1996 Farm Bill didn't exempt the state's pricing system from claims that it violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution and interferes with interstate commerce.

I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere -- and this could go back as far as the fifth grade -- that milk is among the most complex of all foods. It's possible that whoever told me about this was referring to its chemical composition and the interaction of milk fats and solids and healthful proteins, all of which is intricate enough. But it's child's play compared with the system by which milk is priced and marketed in the state of California. That's where milk really gets complicated.