Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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Bob Comstock: So they have heavy regulations on radiation used in food, but without any additional congressional mandate or any, somehow the FDA created a regulation for all uses of ultraviolet light, and I've argued that this is completely insane because they've lump an ionizing radiation like ultraviolet light, which includes.

Infrared at your seven 11 where they're heating a hot dog or microwaves in your microwave oven. They're not regulating those, but they chose ultraviolet and they have a regulation that says you can't use ultraviolet light to make food safer unless it's on this list.

intro: Everybody's gotta eat and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points from the supply chain to the point of sale. Join industry veterans, Francine l [00:01:00] Shaw and Matt Regus for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule. Don't.

Eat poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt Regusci: Hello and hello, Francine. Hey Matt. Exciting times. We have a new guest here on our show. We talked about him a few weeks ago, and we were like, Hey. We need to get this guy on the show. He actually messaged me on LinkedIn. He added me and then shortly thereafter, Bob was like, to Francine, I would love to be on the show.

And so now we have Bob. We have Bob Comstock to talk about how he's planning on saving the world, one raw milk consumer at a time.

Bob Comstock: Well, hopefully not more than just raw milk advocates are interested in this, but yes.

Matt Regusci: Yes. My wife was really interested in this conversation too, because she's a NICU nurse and some of the issues with baby formula and NEC and what type of stuff, how this can help with that.

And there's a lot of things we wanna ask you about. But to start [00:02:00] off with the first question, Bob, tell us about yourself. Tell us about your company.

Bob Comstock: Yeah, so I started Tamarack Biotics 12 years ago. Because we developed a low temperature drying technology, and I sent samples of this low temperature dried raw milk to UC Davis.

And they said, that's remarkable because normally spray drying milk into a powder, uh, destroys all these thermally sensitive compounds in milk. And then we realized that there was no future in selling raw powdered milk. We came upon this UV technology, and we've developed that for quite a few years, doing a lot of what's called computational fluid dynamic studies, trying to optimize the delivery of UV to milk.

And we've succeeded in doing that. And now we have an FDA affirmation that our process is legal pasteurization of skim milk.

Matt Regusci: Wow. And

Bob Comstock: so very

Matt Regusci: cool. With UV, basically explain the [00:03:00] technology. So you're basically using artificial sunlight.

Bob Comstock: Well, we're using a component of sunlight, if you will. So sunlight is really effective.

And if you think about it a bit, people take apricots and they lay 'em in the sun. And the germicidal effect of the ultraviolet bandwidth actually, you know, prevents bacteria from growing on a drying apricot, which otherwise would be great food for bacteria to grow. So that's that technology of drying fruits has been around for tens and tens of thousands of years, and so what we're doing is just utilizing the fact that UV has a one particular wavelength called UVC that disrupts DNA and RNA from replicating.

So it stops any bacterial growth in milk.

Matt Regusci: From,

Bob Comstock: sorry. Sometimes I get a little bit too tech.

Matt Regusci: No, you could definitely, we do say like our show is food safety for moms. At least that was what my wife said. [00:04:00] So we do try to explain the technology of things in layman's terms. It's very helpful. But you're from Fresno, correct?

Correct. Yeah. So when he's talking about.

Bob Comstock: Not originally, I've lived in Singapore for most of my professional life, but Got it. Came back here to pursue this business.

Matt Regusci: So when he's talking about drying fruit, you can't live in Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. Without driving up and down different roads and like highway freeways have multiple street addresses across the way, like Mountain View, et cetera, et cetera, without seeing raisins being dried, without seeing apricots being dried, without seeing all this stuff, and it's literally on the ground.

Being dried right there. So, so there was a great analogy for people that actually see it like every fall and in, in Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley, it gets up to temperatures of 102 degrees. Oh, more. It was 107 last week. Yeah. And so it's between the, the wind and the [00:05:00] sun. It's a very effective at drying out a lot of product really fast.

And you're right, there aren't like pathogenic issues with raisins, for instance. We're not seeing that, right?

Bob Comstock: Ultraviolet light is amazingly beneficial part of light, if you will, and it's not very widely known. But in the 1920s and thirties, UV light was used to treat milk to increase the vitamin D content.

'cause a lot of children growing up in the northern climates in the US and Europe would develop rickets. And bow legged kids, I'm old enough to remember bow legged kids. That's a calcium absorption deficiency. So UV light was used to increase the vitamin D cut and it converts one cholesterol into vitamin D.

But yeah, it's wide, more widely used in people realize.

Matt Regusci: Wow. So in the process, are you seeing that vitamin D increases when you do that as well?

Bob Comstock: Not because we're treating in Our first application of this [00:06:00] technology is skim milk. And in skim milk there is really none of this cholesterol that can convert a vitamin D three.

But yeah, that's one of the previous uses of ultraviolet light. It's used in almost every single factory today to treat water. So water can grow all sorts of bacteria and things. And treating water in a plant for almost any food is very common.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: It's commonly used in homes that have wells if there's a problem.

Bob Comstock: Yeah, there you go.

Francine L Shaw: There's a problem with the water. There's a high bacteria count of e coli or not different type of bacteria. They'll put a UV light in the home to shoot water.

Bob Comstock: Or even swimming pools. Wow.

Francine L Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. Swimming pools.

Matt Regusci: So with, uh, right now it's approved for what, again.

Bob Comstock: For skim milk that's going to be used in dairy ingredient processing.

So the shelf life is only 48 hours, and next week [00:07:00] I'm in South Dakota State University, and we're going to prove that this will work for liquid milk to a 21 day shelf life. Wow. And that's getting us on the road to liquid milk and being able to buy this on store shelves as basically, it's like safe raw milk.

But we're not particularly targeting the raw milk consumer. I think anyone who drinks milk will enjoy nutritional benefits of these bioactive compounds that will remain intact in liquid milk.

Francine L Shaw: So will the milk taste different than the normal pasteurization pro? That, that's just a curiosity question.

Bob Comstock: Yeah. So we, we, in the lab, we, we go around with, you know, cups and, and bring it to everybody to taste. Nobody has been able to taste really any difference from the raw milk itself. Some people have noted it tastes a little more creamy, but no, there's no off notes or anything like that. So compared to something like UHT [00:08:00] milk, which tastes basically like, it's burnt toast.

Yeah, it tastes like fresh milk.

Francine L Shaw: Huh? So different than pasteurized milk that you buy out of the, but not different than.

Bob Comstock: Yeah. I think it's not gonna be so different than Pasteur pasteurization. Changes the taste a bit, but not heavily. ESL extended shelf life milk, which has multi-month. Yes, that milk, it definitely has a kind of a heated note or a little bit of a burnt taste.

And UHT milk, the shelf stable boxes of milk.

Francine L Shaw: Right?

Bob Comstock: That stuff's horrible.

Francine L Shaw: I've never had it, nor have I ever had raw milk.

Matt Regusci: Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Oh, milk.

Bob Comstock: Huge difference between all those. Yes.

Matt Regusci: Yes. Huge difference. Huge difference.

Okay, so right now it works for dried milk protein powder formula type.

Bob Comstock: Yeah. Whey [00:09:00] proteins. Like you go with Costco, you can buy a bag of whey protein.

This will totally transform that market because that whey protein has some of these bioactive proteins remaining, but most of the proteins are actually agglomerated or not bioavailable. So the biggest issue in all these proteins is how much of them are actually useful for your body. And we call that bioavailability.

And having these bioavailable proteins is gonna substantially change the nutritional benefits from milk. It's an amazing biofluid. This professor at UC Davis said that to me when I first started this project. Said milk is an amazing biofluid, whether from a human or a cow, and it's able to impart immunity to a sterile infant.

Yes. When babies are born, they're entirely sterile and their entire immune system comes from mother's milk. So what we proved in a clinical trial was those [00:10:00] same bioactive components that initiate a baby's immune system are able to restore immune function in older people. Because as you get older, your immune system weakens and the best measure of immune health is how many antibodies you produce in response to a vaccine.

So a lot of older people got COVID vaccines and their immune systems were so weak that the most vulnerable didn't get any benefit. 'cause they didn't develop any antibodies in response to that vaccine. Wow. And UC Davis proved we could restore immune function and we more than doubled on average the amount of antibodies developed in response to a vaccine.

So that's huge. Huge. Keeping people well as they get older is an enormous benefit of this technology.

Matt Regusci: You're changing current pasteurized milk from being a caloric dense [00:11:00] product to being a caloric dense nutritional product.

Bob Comstock: Immune active. If yes, it's going to really, and yes. One of the funny parts of this whole project is it's gonna do three things.

It's gonna make milk safer because we kill the bad bugs better than heat. It's gonna make it much more sustainable because it saves incredible amounts of energy. When you pasteurize milk, you have to use steam to heat it up, and then you use electricity to cool it back down. It takes lots of energy to do that.

And the third reason is it's gonna retain all this bioactivity that's found in raw milk that has been lost for the last 150 years. And

if you go to the FDA headquarters in, uh, Maryland, they have a museum off the lobby. And in the very first panel is the founder of the what became the FDA Harvey Washington Wiley.

And under his name, it [00:12:00] says Harvey Washington Wiley was concerned about pasteurization degrading the nutritional value of milk. I find that so funny that in the FDA's headquarters in their museum, they're talking about the fact that milk has been degraded for all this time from it, what it could potentially be.

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Regusci: And milk was a big part of his, all of his studies was all the different chemicals that were used in milk prior to pasteurization to extend shelf life.

Bob Comstock: It was an adulterated food for a long time, and they tried to make it safe by just heating it, and they heat the living daylights out of it today, but they make it safe.

It's just, as you said, nutritionally dense and not very nutritious.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. So all the benefits of the raw milk, like the raw milk advocates are correct. There are a lot of, and we've talked about this Francine and I multiple times on the show, that there are more [00:13:00] bioavailable bacteria and nutrients in raw milk.

The problem is it kills people because of the pathogens. So you're able to do both at the same time. Keep right the everything that people who want raw milk. Keep all the good stuff and get rid of all the bad stuff.

Bob Comstock: Exactly. And so UV is very specific in what it can damage. So you mentioned bioactive bacteria.

Actually the most important bioactive components are milk, are these proteins. So you've probably heard the names like lactoferrin or immunoglobulins or IgG. These are very valuable proteins and enzymes that are found in raw milk, and we don't hurt any of them. We can only disrupt the DNA of bacteria and the RNA of viruses and that's all UV can do.

It's not a very powerful tool, if you will.

Francine L Shaw: So, and this is something that the organic suppliers are [00:14:00] going to like as well. Did I read that correctly?

Bob Comstock: Yeah, I think so. There's no reason why you're not organic by shining a cultural violet light at it.

Francine L Shaw: That makes sense.

Bob Comstock: A little sunshine in your milk. Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: Right. That's a great, that's a great. That's a great advertisement.

Bob Comstock: Yeah. It may be in the future,

Francine L Shaw: Sunshine in your milk..

Matt Regusci: So process wise, and you don't have to tack about anything that is trade secrets or anything like that, but I'm just trying to picture like UV has the ability to kill things more like on the surface.

So I assume that you're just gonna be getting vats of milk and then sending it through a, like a thin process line. Is it all cooled as it's going?

Top and bottom, correct?

Bob Comstock: Yeah, it's in a tube. So you're right. It's very important that you have a very thin film of milk and it's highly turbulent, so it's flowing and changing surface very quickly. So yes, you're right. You have to get a very thin [00:15:00] fluid, and it's done in a long tube with a very thin layer, with a light is shining on the milk and inactivating any of the pathogenic bacteria that's in there.

So you have, you go through one tube and another tube, so you go through multiple tubes and Yeah, we're designing for plant productions that are huge, tons and tons of milk an hour, so. Wow. Honestly, I think one of the dairy experts that we work with said all dairy pasteurization, we'll be done with UV light within the next 10 to 15 years.

Your investor, why would you use heat? Yes, please tell more people that

Francine L Shaw: yours went loose for you.

Bob Comstock: Yeah. Why would you, why on earth would you use heat? Well, the funniest part about dairy plants, when they're producing these whey protein powders or milk protein concentrates, all these things, one of the big problems is called fouling because when you heat milk up as much as they do, it becomes sticky and it [00:16:00] makes services build up and.

That's one of the big challenges in a dairy processing plant, so they have to shut down every eight to 10 hours to clean and one of, we ran our UV system for 12 hours and we opened it up and it's as clean as it was ever because you're right, the milk is cold in coming in from the dairy to the processing facility, whether it's bottling milk or making additional milk components.

It's always cold. We never heat it at all, so it never fouls. These proteins aren't as, it's called denatured so they don't become sticky and cause all these problems.

Matt Regusci: So I worked in the dairy industry really early on. Each of the individual dairies work with creamery, right? Well, like processors. Are they going from the dairy to the processor then to you?

Is that the strategy or are you gonna be picking this up directly from the dairy, paying the dairy directly and this?

Bob Comstock: No, the dairy processors are the [00:17:00] creamies as you're calling them. We'll all have our equipment and processes in their facilities. We're just gonna replace the heat with UV.

Matt Regusci: Got it. So you're not looking to manufacture this milk yourself.

You're looking to work. That's, that's awesome because then the infrastructure's already there. They already have all the contracts. They're already working with the go. People might not know this either, that the dairy industry is like one of the most regulated industries. It's the food industry. The raw food industry is one of the only, if not the only industry in the United States you're encouraged to create monopolistic type of expectations. What I mean by that is price setting.

So in California for instance, they set the price for dairy, right? Like they set the price and they, and it's based on milk fat and then milk liquid. And all of that is set with these individual like co-ops and creamies. And so you don't have to deal with [00:18:00] all that business. You're just the technological supplier of this equipment that is just gonna replace a process that they're already doing.

Bob Comstock: Exactly. So it'll fit into their plants without any change to the rest of the process. It's very easy for them to slot this in and it doesn't take up that much space and they save a lot of energy and cleaning chemicals and water and everything.

So from a sustainability standpoint, this is very attractive 'cause it will pay for the cost of the equipment rather quickly in just energy savings. Wow.

Francine L Shaw: So how easy is this machine, machinery technology to clean?

Bob Comstock: Oh, it's, it, it cleans itself. It has cleaning cycles, so you push the button for clean and it goes and rinses and cleans itself, but there's very little cleaning that needs to be done.

It doesn't get as dirty as the rest of normal dairy processing does. Has done.

Matt Regusci: Wow. [00:19:00] So, so what's the slowdown for this being in every single processing plant? The FDA always, always.

Bob Comstock: Uh, my relationship with the FDA is actually excellent. They've been so helpful in getting us to the finish line. Nobody has ever applied for an alternative to heat for pasteurizing milk in the history of the FDA.

I'm the first person to do it, and the big hurdle is actually sad. In the 1950s, Congress said, Hey, this radiation thing, not long after the atomic bomb, they said radiation is dangerous in food. So they said, we want to regulate radioisotopes gamma rays and x-rays, and we think anytime those are used, which are called ionizing radiation because it has the ability to change the components.

The molecular structure of food. So they said, we [00:20:00] better regulate that. And everyone said, sure, that makes sense. So they have heavy regulations on radiation used in food, but without any additional congressional mandate or anything. Somehow the FDA created a regulation for all uses of ultraviolet light.

And I've argued that this is completely insane because they've lumped an ionizing radiation like ultraviolet light, which includes. Infrared at year seven 11 where they're heating a hot dog or microwaves in your microwave oven. They're not regulating those, but they chose ultraviolet and they have a regulation that says you can't use ultraviolet light to make food safer unless it's on this list.

And to get on this list is a huge food additive petition process that is really tedious. It's just a shame that Congress never intended for this regulation to exist. And it does. And it's 'cause you could use ultraviolet [00:21:00] light and salad mixes and all sorts of things where it wouldn't harm the nutritional value of the food, but it would make it so much safer and it isn't being used because of this onerous regulation.

Yeah.

Matt Regusci: Do you have to put like a radiation sign on? 'cause I've heard from other companies that do like irradiation, for instance, and they have to put the little radiation, the yellow triangle. Thing on the packaging and stuff. No, of course, of course. Nobody's gonna buy it. They're like, wait, this is what this is.

Bob Comstock: Yeah, it's it. That would be funny. But no, we don't need to do that. Thankfully. It's just sunlight. Let's milk with a little sunlight. Yeah. Actually, I'll tell you another kind of funny thing of dealing with the FDA is in milk. When you pasteurize it, you damage an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase. That is used as the measure to make sure milk has been properly pasteurized, is it must be negative on this [00:22:00] alkaline phosphatase test.

So there's a lot of evidence this enzyme is actually rather helpful for gut health and is also probably related to allergies, which is one of the things we haven't talked about and we should definitely speak of. There's this test to say you've hurt the enzyme sufficiently. So milk is the only food in the world where you're required to confirm damage to the food, to ensure its safety.

And I pointed this out to the FDA and they're all quiet on this conference call. Huh? So it's just sad that you actually have to confirm that you've hurt the milk to ensure it's safe. Wow. Crazy.

Matt Regusci: But the FDA deals with a whole lot of stuff, and you just happen to be you and your team. Probably the rain man of milk.

Definitely this is not good to damage this enzyme. [00:23:00]

Bob Comstock: But we haven't talked about the allergy story, which is one I think your listeners will love to understand. 50% of children born today will develop some form of allergy, whether it's asthma or hay fever, eczema, atopic dermatitis, or a food allergy. It is an enormous problem and a lifelong problem.

If a child develops asthma at a young age, it's with them the rest of their life. Yeah. This is our food allergies. They, you've got, you're allergic to peanuts your whole life and it's horrible problem. And Europe, many years ago demonstrated through many studies, many studies involving over 27,000 children in seven countries, and they conclusively demonstrated.

Children that consume raw milk at a young age are protected from developing allergies. Whoa, it's, lots of papers have been published on this, but raw milk, particularly for children is really crazy. It's dangerous. And it's interesting that past Louis [00:24:00] paste, the inventor of pasteurization was French. So on French dairies, it's very common for the dairy to boil the milk to pasteurize it.

The children don't drink farm fresh milk on a dairy in France. And what the study did is it looked at those children in France on these dairies that drink boiled milk, and opposed to German children that buy fresh farm milk at the village store. And they found the German kids didn't develop allergies.

And the French kids, even though they lived on a dairy farm around a lot of animals, they developed allergies. So this conclusively proved that two things, that raw milk provides a protective effect from developing all these allergies. And the second thing is that heat destroys the protective effect. So this woman named Erica Von Muus has been very instrumental.

A lot of that research, and she's been part of my advisory panel since the founding of [00:25:00] this company is that was one of our objectives is to reduce the number of children that develop allergies.

Matt Regusci: Wow. How soon are you gonna have, have the ability to, obviously it's it you're, like you said, it's the FDA, but like you're talking with them, you have a good relationship with them, you're helping them with this whole process.

How soon do you think this is gonna be commercially available for the processors?

Bob Comstock: Yeah, we're working with the people all throughout the globe. In fact, in every continent already except Antarctica, we're working with people in Japan, in China, in Brazil, in Mexico. I'm speaking to the European Commission on the 30th of September.

India is the largest dairy market in the world, and we're working there. I think it's gonna roll out in other parts of the world faster than the FDA can move. Wow. So I, the FDA could take. It could take two to three years to finish this final step, which is unfortunate, but we're already moving full steam ahead in [00:26:00] the rest of the world.

Francine L Shaw: And that really is a shame it.

Top of mind for me is baby formula. While milk is certainly great and a lot of these other things are amazing, what it could do for a baby formula with the issues that we've had with Baby Formula in the last couple years.

Bob Comstock: Oh, absolutely. And we are already working with all of the baby formula manufacturers.

They've already tested our product and validated all this bioactive retention. So yeah, we, we expect this to absolutely improve baby formula in some time. That will take some time, but it will transform baby formula to make it more closer to human milk. Wow, that is awesome. You bring this up, Francine, and I'd like to point out that baby formula is one of the safest foods that exists, but because it's heated so many times, so they take [00:27:00] these dairy ingredients that have been fully heated at multiples times and they heat it more when it gets to the final step before packaging.

So. Yeah, it's gonna take some creativity because our product is in the first instances is going to be in a powder form, and you don't want to heat that powder. So how do you deliver it to the consumers? And one of the ways is, if you can see in my hand here, is a cap. So a lot of ready to drink beverages like Ensure, or Boost or elderly nutrition.

Those bottles are retorted or they're heated a whole bunch before they're put it in cases and ship to your store. What this would do is you would put the, our powder, our TruActive powder in these caps, you'd heat the bottle with a foil seal. Once the bottle cools, you put this cap with our TruActive powder on the top, and then the consumer will twist it [00:28:00] and the powder will fall into the bottle, and then they'll consume it that way.

But. How the consumer goods companies will deliver. This isn't entirely sure. I'm sure they're gonna have sachets and lots of creative ways, but you don't want to heat the powder before you deliver it to the consumer.

Matt Regusci: So like on a large baby formula company, we won't name names, but I have one in my head.

They're getting their product already pasteurized from the co-op or the creamery or whatever milk company that they're utilizing. And each of 'em could have their own suppliers in different places of the United States. Those are coming over to them in big milk trucks dropped in onto their factory and then they're powder it.

Correct. So it's already processed pasteurized before it comes to them.

Bob Comstock: Well before anything goes to an infant formula company, it's already a powder.

Matt Regusci: It wouldn't be a liquid because they're adding like whey proteins, all this different type of stuff to it as well, right?

Bob Comstock: They're adding lots of components and we're getting better as a dairy [00:29:00] industry at making infant formula better, but it's really at a glacial pace and it could be so much better.

But the regulations are so stringent, so. Francine, you're right. Needs to improve.

Matt Regusci: It's fascinating. It's like the regulations are designed to minimize food safety on both ends. Technology like, well, no, I think it's making it very safe.

Bob Comstock: Yeah, they're making it very safe. It's just a lot could be done to make it more nutritionally beneficial.

Matt Regusci: What other applications could be this be used for? Are you looking at this as for fresh vegetables?

Bob Comstock: We are so focused and, and on, on the dairy industry. Well, there's, you know, unfortunately things like almond milk, use the word milk, and there's just no bioactivity. There's no lactoferrin to be found in an almond, and so [00:30:00] dairy is the biggest beneficiary of this technology because it has this very unique, mammalian milk is this amazing biofluid and unfortunately people think that oat milk or almond milk is similar. It's not. It's just ground up nuts. So your, it's really a shame that.

Francine L Shaw: They're telling me they didn't squeeze milk out of the almonds to get that almond milk.

I don't. I have, is that what you're saying?

Bob Comstock: Yeah, there's, it didn't milk the nut, the almond tree. It's a shame because yeah, there's a certain amount of protein, but proteins is enormous classification of compounds and all these bioactive proteins found in mammalian milk, whether from a human, a cow, or a goat is insanely different. So it's a shame that they've been lumped together in a lot of consumers' minds. And yeah, so we could use [00:31:00] this technology on almond milk, but the benefits to almond wouldn't be significant, right? There's nothing to protect.

Francine L Shaw: You bring up a valid point. I wonder how many people think that is milk. Is

Bob Comstock: that almond milk and oat milk is milk. I think a lot of consumers think it's milk. It's really sad. It's so, yeah. Yeah. These plant-based milks are.

Matt Regusci: So like on the, like once this does get approved by the FDA in the next couple, few years, hopefully faster, but let's just say two to three years, and then the big companies are obviously gonna put that in as fast as possible.

'cause the ROI and the risk is. Reward is there? What about the smaller raw milk type companies? How big is this technology? Would it be able to be utilized for those type of raw milk farms that maybe they have a [00:32:00] d dairy that is direct to consumer? Could they just plug it in in a, in a build like a steel, small steel building off of their milk refrigerator and just run it through?

Bob Comstock: Yeah. So one of the largest raw milk dairies in the United States, I believe is here in Fresno. And I know the owner Mark McAfee very well. He's been a long time friend of mine. And in fact, the first time my wife saw him, she said, did you see his skin? And I said, yeah, as a guy, I said, he had skin. She said, his skin is perfect and.

Drinking raw milk is, his skin has been a beneficiary of all of his raw milk consumption. 'cause I guess he has very good skin. But yeah, I think depending on their consumer's acceptance. But yeah, we would make raw milk, small dairies safe, and I think it's a little bit of educating the raw milk consumer, but it's just putting sunshine in milk.[00:33:00]

So. I encourage all that whole raw milk industry to continue delivering what they do to the consumer, but it would finally be really safe. Yeah.

Francine L Shaw: And I wonder, and Bob, you may not wanna comment in this and that's fine. I don't wanna drag you into this conversation. I wonder, Matt, how receptive they will be.

Matt Regusci: That was our question when we were talking about, we need to have Bob on here because we need to talk this through and figure out the technology, how this thing works. And so thank you Bob, for coming on. But well, I mean, yeah. The other part was, is this gonna be accepted?

Bob Comstock: I don't know. I think it's gonna be broadly accepted for the average consumer because I, we're gonna do a pretty big push to understand bioavailability and proteins, and that's a consumer education story.

But one, I think the industry is motivated because of these bene, these enormous benefits. But the raw milk consumer, these tend to be purist people. I think telling 'em a story that it's just Sunshine addition is perhaps enough convincing that it isn't unnatural.[00:34:00]

Matt Regusci: Yeah. And if the large dairy processors are coming on board with your equipment, will the raw milk industry that's propped up disappear?

Bob Comstock: I dunno.

I think a lot of these raw milk people are trying to do organic as healthy as possibly grass fed cows. And that is not the large bulk of the milk industry. So I think there's still be a very important niche for that very premium milk suppliers, but...

Matt Regusci: That is a really good point 'cause I, you've always been to the same dairies I have in Turlock and Sanford, et cetera, et cetera, and those are not grass fed cows.

Bob Comstock: No. And Mark's cows are all grass fed out in his pastures and things. Yeah. So my children grew up in Singapore and in the early days they could only get UHT milk and when they would come back to visit the grandparents here in California, they say, oh, the milk tastes [00:35:00] funny here. 'cause it was fresh milk.

It wasn't burnt milk that they were used to. The difference. Then we finally were getting fresh milk from like Australia or New Zealand where it was grass fed cows, and then they'd come to California and they vastly preferred the milk from New Zealand and Australia to California milk.

Francine L Shaw: That's why I bought something that was milk based in another country, and it's like, ah, that doesn't taste right.

That tastes really weird. And I bet it was UHT milk. It was made. I bet. That's why I just thought that

Bob Comstock: burnt taste is, I think it's pretty horrendous.

Matt Regusci: Not a fan. This is fascinating. Like, I wish that you were able to be on the show and be like, yeah, the FDA signed this thing. We're ready to go. It's gonna be, but no.

Francine L Shaw: You're gonna be able to pick it up in six months.

Matt Regusci: What you're saying is that every other country, except for the United States, this is going in.

Bob Comstock: We're going full steam ahead all over the [00:36:00] world.

Yes. It's, it's some very exciting that this approval we got from the FDA was groundbreaking. It is, it's opening an enormous door because they've affirmed that we're legal pasteurization of milk and that we're actually safer than heat. It's not a compromise in safety that some people might think from an alternative to heat, but it's safer. We kill the bad bugs better.

So this is going to be a very exciting rollout to the whole world because there just is no reason to continue using heat.

Matt Regusci: So the rollout to the whole world and then to the United States. My, my next question, just Francine and I are both business people and we have to deal with scalability in our businesses and stuff like that.

What is your scalability like? Are you able to...

Bob Comstock: Oh, it's really easy. Okay. Yeah. The equipment is, is, there's some very special components. These tubes are very special and how we make them and things is very proprietary, but the rest of the systems are very standard [00:37:00] processing equipment. So scaling this and making a lot more equipment faster is not a really big challenge.

Wow. So the next, we done my

Matt Regusci: subcontractors within the next decade or so. This could be ubiquitous, it could be everywhere.

Bob Comstock: I think it will. Why would you continue to use heat? It just makes all these dairy processing facilities a big headache. With all the fouling, you make the product less nutritious. You spend a lot of energy doing it, so I just wanted Why would you?

Yeah, we'll come to South Dakota next week. South Dakota. South Dakota has this amazing university. There're really, it's somewhat sad in the entire United States. There really are only two dairy research centers. One at the University of Wisconsin and Madison and one at South Dakota State in Brookings.

And. These are our jewels that the United States has. We should have had more of them around, particularly in California. Yeah. Where we have such a large dairy [00:38:00] industry, but we don't, and so I have to travel to South Dakota every month to go do processing with different potential partners to, to produce stuff.

And we have multiple companies coming to South Dakota next week to to do testing.

Francine L Shaw: Oh wow. One from

Bob Comstock: Japan.

Francine L Shaw: Drinker. Yeah. I love milk.

Matt Regusci: So Davis doesn't have a research center for dairy?

Bob Comstock: Davis has, and he is probably one of the most advanced food technology and nutrition centers in the world. But no, they have no processing.

What's big spray dryers and ultra filtration units. Cal Poly was the closest. Yeah. That's where my, but their equipment has gotten is very antiquated and really they just would need an enormous infrastructure injection to be able to do what's modern processing.

Matt Regusci: Yeah. My grandfather studied dairy science in Cal Poly back when it was a all boys school.

Bob Comstock: Oh, really? I didn't know it had. [00:39:00] California. Huh? I didn't know that. Yeah, that's

Matt Regusci: how long Cal Poly's been doing that. And then he helped out a lot with Cal Poly throughout his years. He passed away this last year, but throughout his years he helped out with the dairy stuff over in Cal Poly. But it's not a research school.

You're not getting your PhD at Cal Poly? Uh,

Bob Comstock: no. Davis. You are. So yeah, Davis is a pretty impressive place. I, every time I go there, I meet more and more people that are just brilliant. And what we're learning about human milk. They have the International Milk Genomics Institute and Conference headed by Jennifer Smulowitz there.

Some of the work they're doing with Bruce German and David Mills and things is fascinating work. You should interview them about bacterium and infantis and what that has could do to to NICU babies.

Matt Regusci: Yes. My wife just, it's, she calls it NEC, that's the acronym or whatever, when the kids, and she tells me about this [00:40:00] enteritis.

Yeah. Oh, that it happens. It's, and it literally is just eating the baby alive.

Bob Comstock: Right. Uh, their immune systems are, need to be kicked off in a stronger way, and they're very fragile when they're a preemie.

Matt Regusci: Yeah, it's terrible. Well, Bob, thank you so much.

Anytime that you have some new news and you wanna share it, let us know because raw milk is such a huge topic.

I think Francine and I have over the 130 episodes. This is gonna be a 1 31 that we've done. We've probably talked about raw milk more than anything else. Just as an individual topic. And it's fascinating, right? Because like we say, like you're saying like the benefits of raw milk are there. The fear just on the pathogenic side where Francine and I spend a lot of time talking about is, yeah, it could kill you, right?

Like it, the bacteria in there, the pathogens in there can kill you. So how do you have the best of both worlds? And it sounds like you have the technology to do that, [00:41:00] and that's great.

Francine L Shaw: It's just so controversial and people are s. Very passionate about it, and you feel very strongly one way or another, usually about.

Bob Comstock: About raw milk.

Yeah. Well, and I, I fully agree with the benefits. Absolutely. Whether it's your skin or your gut health or whatever raw milk is, is substantially better nutritionally than pasteurized milk. It just is a little dangerous and, but even kills cats.

Francine L Shaw: I never thought about it quite like that, but.

Bob Comstock: Well that the bird flu, there's some cats that have been killed because they drank raw milk and the bird flu killed the cat.

It doesn't harm humans so much, but it certainly can kill cats and does Wow. So giving while bird flu is still around, don't give any raw milk to your cat.

Matt Regusci: Wow. Well. On that note that note, take care of your, your dad. Yeah. On yeah. [00:42:00] Death to animals and babies are like the two things that scare people the most.

Yeah. So on that note, don't eat poop, but if you do have to, which a lot of times you are when you're consuming dairy because it's so hard to, I was just telling people like in, in an episode a couple weeks. The problem with it is I just, the cow lays on its udder and the cow is laying in poop like it just is.

And so it's gonna, the pathogens are gonna be on the udder, even if it's not laying on it.

Bob Comstock: Even if you clean them really well.

Francine L Shaw: The udders right by the rectum, I might ask.

Matt Regusci: So even if it's grass, it's right next to the, like it's,

Bob Comstock: I have never seen a cow bidet.

Francine L Shaw: Nor did I.

Matt Regusci: And so you're just gonna, it's gonna be there like the, no, I like [00:43:00] my whole life watching dairyman put iodine on the udder and, which is great. They clean the udder. They put iodine on the udder. But come on, there's so much e coli. There's e coli and masti. Mastitis and salmon oil. Yeah. It gets in the er. So this is like the best of both worlds.

If you are going to drink poop, which you are when you drink milk at least, and you don't want it to be pasteurized, at least Bob, get this everywhere so that we could have tamarack biotics, UV life,

Bob Comstock: TruActive milk. That's our brand. TruActive. We hope to, that becomes a ubiquitous term in the TruActive.

Love it. TruActive. Love it.

Matt Regusci: Hi. Don't eat or drink poop.