Raw Milk: Not Only Does It Taste Great!
Raw milk? What is it all about? Is it safe? Back in the day, you could get all kinds of raw milk products. That was all you could get. Fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses.
We are the only animals on the planet that indulge in milk after childhood. And boy does it taste good. But recently it has been blamed for all kinds of illnesses, from allergies to heart disease and even cancer, but when all we could get was ‘real’ milk – raw milk, these diseases were relatively rare. We have moved from small producers to large mega production plants that use ultra-high temperatures to pasteurize the milk in order to supply milk that has a ridiculously long shelf life (think up to 6 months!?!) which is more profitable for the dairy industry.
Raw milk left out will sour naturally (think buttermilk) but pasteurized milk will rot. Pasteurizing milk destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamins, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6 (that is why they add back in vit. D, etc), kills beneficial bacteria and promotes pathogens. This is because the beneficial bacteria in the raw milk helps to keep putrefactive bacteria under control. Pasteurized milk, however, does not have any of the beneficial bacteria left to keep it from rotting. They even did some studies and found that if you put bad bacteria into raw milk, it couldn’t survive 24 hours. The good bacteria in the raw milk out-competed the bad so that it couldn’t be found later. (read the article – the info is amazing.
http://mysite.verizon.net/jsschleh/gardenhomefarm/id14.html)
Not only does raw milk taste better than pasteurized milk – it is smooth, creamy and subtly sweet, raw milk is an outstanding source of nutrients including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidophilus, vitamins and enzymes, and it is one of the finest sources of calcium available. Even better for you is raw goat milk. And no, it is NOT ‘goaty’, it is a bit sweeter than cow’s milk, and is even easier for your body use. Many people who are allergic to pasteurized milk can consume raw milk with no issues.
There are many local producers for both raw cow and goat milk in our/your area, and quite a few of them can be located through either:
http://www.realmilk.com/ or http://www.rawmilk.org/.
My family, and my son, who is now 6, has been consuming raw goat’s milk and raw cow's milk since he was a tot and we all love it – no cavities in our house! Here are a few articles of interest that you might peruse, beware, you’ll never drink pasteurized milk again!!!
http://mysite.verizon.net/jsschleh/gardenhomefarm/id13.html: a great article called, The Forgotten History of Modern Milk: How the health of milk was pasteurized out.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2004/04/24/raw-milk.aspx : The Real Reasons Why Raw Milk is Becoming More Popular.
http://www.westonaprice.org/children/rawmilk.html: Addresses the issue of raw milk being safe for babies.
Enjoy!!!
Article by Andrea U-Shi Chang, RKC, CK-FMS, Z-Health Practitioner
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