I will start out saying, if you choose to switch to real milk, you must be very careful. You absolutely would not want to drink real milk from just anyone. If you go the real milk route, know your farmer. A big part of why milk is pasteurized is that the cows that are raised in close quarter feed lots are not sanitary sources for fresh real milk. Factory farmed cows are not fed a natural diet and are often given shots of bovine growth hormone to increase milk production. Some of them even routinely receive antibiotics. These animals are not kept in their natural habitats and live in stressful conditions and do not produce quality milk that would be safe to drink raw. A commercial dairy cow has an average life span of less than 4 years. A pastured cow can easily live for 10-15 years. Pasteurization destroys certain disease-carrying germs and prevents milk from souring as quickly. Pasteurization can be beneficial because it destroys dangerous germs, but it also kills harmless germs and germs that can actually be helpful. It also destroys some of the most nutritious aspects of the milk.
First of all, if you decide that real milk is the best route for your family, you need to ask your farmer the following questions:
1. Are your cows raised on pasture? If so, how long do they spend grazing? If not, how are they raised? They should have many, many hours access to pasture all day long.
2. Do your cows eat anything besides hay, grass, or grass silage? Some farmers give their cattle candy, manure, or even corn - cows are not meant to eat corn. Some people mix candy in the grain because the cows love the sweet taste. If the cow gets any feed, you will want to know if it is non GMO/soy free.
3. Do you give your cows rBGH or any other type of hormone? If the answer is yes, RUN!
4. Do you give your cows antibiotics? If so, do you keep the milk from the sick cow while on antibiotics?
5. How long do you keep the cattle in your herd? Average should be 10-15 years
6. Do you test for pathogens (For farmers with a larger herd - small farmers probably can't afford this testing)? If so, how often? What do you do when you get a bad test result? It isn't uncommon to have pathogens from time to time. You should be more concerned with how they handle it.
7. What kind of equipment do you use for milking? How often do you clean it? Milking area should be clean and equipment should be sanitized often.
8. How quickly do you cool down the milk and how do you cool it? This should be immediately.
9. Do you feed your cow anything during milking? Some cows get grain during milking. Find out what kind of grain.
10. Do you rotationally graze your cattle? This provides a better quality diet for the cows.
Lastly, go visit the farm. Most farmers welcome you to see their farm. If you are not welcome, that is a RED flag.
Now, here are the reasons that we enjoy REAL milk.
1. Lactose intolerance is not an issue. I had a milk allergy as a child. Milk would make me very sick. It was because of lactose intolerance. Real milk comes with its own lactase to digest the milk. Pasteurization damages lactase, which is delicate. You need lactase to digest lactose and when you drink it raw, it is digestible for many folks. This doesn't work for everyone, but I can personally attest that it works for me.
2. Our child on the spectrum can tolerate it without stimming. If he drinks pasteurized milk, he has a visible reaction. This was very noticeable when he was preschool aged. He would have a very visible reaction within 20 minutes. He would rock back and forth and become aggressive or have a tantrum. We switched to alternative milk sources for many years (almond, rice, hemp). There are some technical reasons as to why children on the spectrum can digest real milk and I'm not going to go into that in my blog post. We tried and found that it indeed works for him. He can drink real milk with no reaction.
3. We are healthier. We switched to real milk late summer/early fall of 2013. Since we've made the switch, we have been healthier. Real milk has higher Omega 3 fatty acids and the pasteurization process does not destroy as many of the natural nutritional content. The vitamins, minerals, and enzymes are all intact. Combined with our Fermented Cod Liver Oil (which I will post about on a later date), we have been sick only minimally.
4. Asthma and allergies. Our youngest is borderline asthmatic. All of us have suffered from some type of allergy. A lot of the research on real milk shows that it protects against asthma and allergies. We have seen much improvement with his asthmatic flare-ups since we made the switch. Our allergies are slowly improving as well.
5. We are supporting local farmers. We are helping local farmers make a decent living and investing into our local economy. Farmers make much more money when they sell their milk directly to the consumer. This allows them to take better care of their cattle and gives the farmer a higher wage as well. Farmers gotta send their kids to college too!
6. Promotes gut health. We are trying to heal our guts. Years of eating a standard American diet (SAD) has destroyed our guts. We are still transitioning to a Traditional Diet. The polysaccharides in real milk encourage the growth of good bacteria. There are wonderful food enzymes in real milk (amylase, catalase, lactoperoxidase, lipase and phosphatase). All of these enzymes have an important function!
7. It tastes DELICIOUS! Seriously, I don't really like pasteurized milk, but fresh milk is absolutely delicious. I find it creamy and sweet. Not to mention incredibly filling.
8. It is a REAL food in its truest form. It hasn't been altered by a chemical process. It is in the form that God intended it to be. An amazing thing happens when we eat foods the way God intended them. Our bodies start getting healthy. Crazy huh? We are trying our best to feed our family a diet with as little processed ingredients as possible. This is just one of the ways we make that possible.
Now, I know there is a lot of scary information out on the internet about how awful and unhealthy raw milk is for human consumption. That is up to you to make the decision for what is best for your family. I did not write this blog post to debate the topic. I wrote it to explain why we made this choice for our family. It may not be a choice for which you are comfortable and that is okay. We've had nothing but positive changes in our life since making the switch. And again, I will mention that when my parents were children, this was the norm and they did not suffer ill consequences. The incidence from food related illness from dairy products is actually very low anyway. The highest instances from food related illness actually come from salads, fruits, and vegetables. You are more at risk of listeria from deli meats than real milk. Here is an interesting blog post by Cheeseslave that discusses some dangers of pasteurized milk. The bottom line is that you must make an educated decision on what you feel is best for your family. I'm certainly not trying to change anyone's mind on the topic - just saying why we choose to drink this creamy goodness!
Some resources that you can read lots of good information are as follows:
http://www.realmilk.com/
http://www.westonaprice.org/
http://www.hfa.org/
http://www.gardenstaterawmilk.org/documents/Chapter15ofRonSchmidtbookpdf.pdf
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_health_benefits.html
I would encourage you to watch the following food documentaries. I believe all of these can be found on Netflix or Amazon.
Food, Inc.
Fed Up
Farmageddon
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