I drink raw milk.
I drink fresh, raw milk. Really fresh, really raw and always in season. In essence, I drink real milk. I’ve waxed poetic about my love of fresh cream before, but now it’s milk’s turn.
My milk is fresh, in season, grass-fed, full-fat and locally produced. It is rich, and luscious and creamy and it is a living food, teeming with beneficial bacteria, food enzymes and naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. It is not fortified; it doesn’t need to be – for every mineral, every vitamin contained in that cool glass of frothy white milk was placed there by nature as it is in all truly whole and unrefined foods. Real milk – raw milk – doesn’t need fortification as vitamins, minerals and enzymes remain intact instead of broken, denatured and destroyed through heat processing by standard pasteurization or, worse yet, the extreme temperatures reached through ultra-high-temperature (UHT) pasteurization.
Raw milk is a living food. It is dense in food enzymes and beneficial bacteria – two components of traditional diets that are severely lacking in the standard American diet in which foods have been subject to irradiation, pasteurization and other treatment. Raw milk, like any raw food, contains food enzymes – notably amylase, catalase, lactoperoxidase, lipase and phosphatase1. These food enzymes play important physiological functions in the human body; notably, they help our bodies to better digest our foods. Amylase helps our bodies to digest carbohydrates, while lipase helps us to digest fats. Lactase, though not an actual component of milk itself, but a result of the presence of beneficial bacteria in raw milk, helps to digest lactose, or milk sugar. Raw milk is also a good source of beneficial bacteria – which are critical to human health (learn more about beneficial bacteria and lactic acid fermentation).
I drink milk in season.
We don’t often think of milk as a seasonal food, but it is. The value of fresh milk and is at its height in spring, when grasses are green and lush and cows grazing on these fresh grasses produce cream particularly dense in naturally occurring fat-soluble vitamins – particularly vitamin A and E, though it also contains vitamins D and K2 in smaller quantities1. Moreover, the milk and cream of cows grazing on fresh pasture is extraordinarily rich in conjugated linoleic acid, a substance linked to reduced risk of cancer2, 3, 4. In traditional dairy-consuming societies, the milk of cows grazing on fresh, spring grasses was particularly well-prized5. Such milk, fresh and in season, is rich in flavor and that flavor changes, ever so slightly as the season progresses. Come winter, the cows go dry and we wait a few months for fresh milk once more – increasing our enjoyment once it arrives again in spring. There is nothing quite as charming and quaint as fresh strawberries paired with fresh cream when both hit their peak season in early spring.
I drink whole milk.
I drink whole milk, with its fat content fully intact – shaking the half-gallon mason jar until the cream that has naturally risen to the top combines with the milk. Real food is full-fat. Traditional societies consumed meat with accompanying fat, and milk with its full complement of wholesome, nourishing fats including vaccenic acid – a fatty acid with health benefits that could outweigh those of conjugated linoleic acid alone6. Despite what you may have heard to the contrary, fat – particularly dairy fat – may also play a role in protecting cardiovascular health; indeed, a recent study indicates that while fruit and vegetable consumption helped to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, they only did so when combined with full fat dairy7. Moreover, studies analyzing the role of dietary fat and human reproduction indicate that women consuming skim and low-fat dairy products experienced greater risk of anovulatory infertility while the consumption of full-fat dairy products actually decreased the risk of infertility8. And, despite current recommendations that children should consume low-fat and skim milk products as opposed to whole milk, evidence indicates that doing so does not decrease the risk of overweight in preschoolers9.
I drink local milk.
I drink locally produced milk, from people I trust and people I know care for their herd. Doing so ensures that the money I spend for the food I feed my family stays within my community and supports the very people actually producing the food I consume rather than the people marketing the food I consume. My decision to support my locally owned family-run farm means the continued viability of local agriculture within my community; moreover, it ensures that I can easily visit the farm, see the cows that my family owns through our cow share program and watch how they’ve been cared for. This system establishes trust, supports the local economy and continues to maintain the viability of time-honored traditions in agriculture. There’s a great deal of relief in knowing exactly where your food comes from, being able to ask questions and see firsthand how the cow was treated, what she was fed and how she was milked. There’s a great deal of relief in this system.
1. Raw-milk-facts.com (Accessed. Sunday, April 18, 2010) 2. Belury. Inhibition of carcinogenesis by conjugated linoleic acid: Potential mechanisms of action. Journal of Nutrition. October, 2002. 3. Bocca et al. CLA reduces breast cancer cell growth and invasion through ERalpha and PI3K/Akt pathways. Chemical-biological interactions. January, 2010. 4. O’Shea, et al. Milk fat conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) inhibits growth of human mammary MCF-7 cancer cells. Anti-cancer Research. September – October, 2000. 5. Price. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. 6. Field, et al. Human health benefits of vaccenic acid. Applied physiology, nutrition and metabolism. October, 2009. 7. Holmberg et al. Food Choices and Coronary Heart Disease: A Population Based Cohort Study of Rural Swedish Men with 12 Years of Follow-up. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. October 2009. 8. Chavarro et al. A prospective study of dairy foods intake and anovulatory infertility. Human Reproduction. May, 2007. 9. Huh, et al. Prospective association between milk intake and adiposity in preschool-aged children. Journal of the American Dietetic Association.
Lovage Soup for Spring
Moroccan Preserved Lemons
campfire roast chicken with flowering onion and dill
Our Daily Bread: No-knead Sourdough
A Story of Recovery (and a Recipe for Grain-free Carrot Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting)
A Recipe for Beet Kvass: A Deeply Cleansing Tonic
I looked up this post in regard to the new data that just came out of Harvard regarding the high levels of estrogen found in pregnant cows that are 33 times higher than normal with links to breast and testicular cancers. The hormone is estrone sulfate. My dad told me about this yesterday, but I have not seen anything on any of the Weston Price blogs about it yet.
Actually, I addressed this on facebook several weeks ago. I recommend purchasing milk from farms practicing traditional dairying techniques and from seasonal dairies that don’t milk their cows in late pregnancy.
I read this article too. It was concerning. The idea is we should not drink milk from late pregnancy to while their young nurse. I am concerned about this as well.
No – there’s not an issue with drinking milk while the young nurse. The issue is hormones in milk late in pregnancy – and the solution is easy, by farm-direct from seasonal dairies who don’t milk their cows late in pregnancy.
Hi there. I’m not convinced that raw milk is the way to go. But I’m going to review your information step by step and hope that you might be interested in discussing this with me. Please note that for the most part I totally enjoy your blog, and have for many years. But I am concerned about the hospitalizations that are on the rise from people drinking raw milk. So, I’d like to have a thorough discussion with you on why you are recommending raw milk so heavily to people.
I read in a book years ago that mentioned a study feeding new calves “dead” aka pasturized milk. Not only did the calves fail to thrive, but eventually died. I am nearly certain I read this in a book by Gary Null, “The New Vegetarian”.
I see that the first enzyme you list is amylase. Amylase is an enzyme that is present in human saliva and is produced in the pancreas. Tell me, since this is an enzyme that is produced naturally in the body, why do you feel that this enzyme is an important component of milk? How do you know that amylase is actually deactivated during pasteurization? Is it inactivated during the lower temperature pasteurization techniques? If it is so heat-sensitive does it actually survive during refrigeration?
Catalase: from my understanding, catalase is present in many foods, but it is destroyed by your stomach anyway… if that is the case, why do you feel it is important in raw milk?
lactoperoxidase: I see that this particular enzyme is helpful in reducing bacteria. Do we know if this bacteria is selective, or does it break down all bacteria including beneficial? How do we know that it is effective at preventing bacterial growth… are there studies and sources? What temperature is this particular enzyme active? Does the addition of acidity (such as in making yogurt or cheese) deactivate it?
Phosphatase: I can only assume that this enzyme is involved in phosphate metabolism. Is that correct? How do you know it is inactivated?
Lipase. Same questions.
Re: vitamin D, are you saying that the vitamin D is destroyed during the pasteurization process?
Re: vitamin A, I understand that this vitamin is destroyed, but have read that the amount is negligible anyway. What are your thoughts on this?
Love this article thank you so much for sharing!
I personaly super creeped out by My Suburban Homestead. They just get on several Raw Milk articles and just bash them NO positive at all seems to me like a bug of some sort. They also have a clever way of filing up the whole page weird!! Why and who would be planting raw milk bashers? Who knows?! Just makes me LOVE raw milk more knowing they actualy pay people to bash it. SUPER Creepy!!!!!
Kendra, if you want to be really creeped out again, you should visit http://www.realrawmilkfacts.com. I would suggest watching all 5 videos. All of these people were supporting their local farmer by purchasing raw milk and the almost killed themselves or their children. Someone forgot to inform them that if cow/goat shit contaminates the milk, serious illnesses could result. It is the other side of raw milk that no one wants to talk about.
Pasturized or not, if feces (the grown-up word for s–t) contaminates your milk, you are in big trouble.
Thank you for this! I’m working on broadening my horizons… and I’ve recently become a convert to juicing and whatnot, and ran across a site talking about raw milk. Today at my farmers market I saw a sign, “raw milk for pets.” I jumped at it, and bought it, the smallest size: half gallon.
My husband said he hoped it was good… and for me-I felt like I purchased something illegal! Thanks again!
I love this! I drink raw, real, whole milk in season, too! I’m so happy that you’re writing beautiful poetic prose about it. It’s such an inspiration. I’ll share with you that until I learned about raw milk I did not drink milk. As a teenager, though, I added water to my skim milk in my cereal! Can’t believe it. I no longer eat cereal, and will never touch processed pasteurized milk again.
Thanks for your inspiration!