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).  (...)
Click here to read the rest of I drink real milk: fresh, raw, local and full of fat. (722 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2011. | Permalink |
]]> http://nourishedkitchen.com/drink-raw-milk/feed/ 108 http://nourishedkitchen.com/raw-milk-yogurt/ http://nourishedkitchen.com/raw-milk-yogurt/#comments Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:33:26 +0000 Jenny http://nourishedkitchen.com/?p=3755

Raw milk yogurt is a sort of holy grail for traditional foods enthusiasts, coupling the enzymatic and probiotic components of both fresh milk and fermentation in one glorious, creamy, lovely food.  Served over baked oatmeal or soaked oatmeal porridge, on its own or as a basis for savory dipping sauces, a good yogurt can find its way to nearly every meal if you let it.

Raw milk yogurt, thanks to the effects of food enzymes, has a tendency to be a touch runnier than the stuff you find in grocery stores or what you might make in your own kitchen from boiled or pasteurized milk.  For this reason some of the very best raw yogurt is prepared using a combination of fresh cream and fresh milk rather than milk exclusively.  If you follow the fermentation process with straining, as you would for labneh, the resulting product would be even thicker and creamier and you could, in turn, use the accompanying whey in properly preparing grains and flours through soaking or even as an addition to your morning smoothie.

In preparing a classic, or thermophilic, yogurt at home with raw milk, you do need to heat the milk slightly and culture it in a warmed environment.  We heat the milk only to 110° Fahrenheit (about 43° Celsius) which keeps food enzymes and naturally occurring beneficial bacteria intact and thriving. Other cultured dairy foods ferment at room temperature and can also be made with raw milk.  I also recommend culturing with Bulgarian or Greek starters which are available online (see sources) and which produce a rich, tangy and super creamy product.

Raw Milk Yogurt Tutorial(...)
Click here to read the rest of How to Make Raw Milk Yogurt (639 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |
]]> http://nourishedkitchen.com/raw-milk-yogurt/feed/ 123