I love milk. Oh how I love milk! ...This is starting to sound like a Dr.
Suess book --100 Good Parent Points to whomever can tell me which one
I'm referring to. So everyday I drink a glass of milk. (Here's a hint as
to which Suessian book it comes from: I wear yellow drink milk socks
when I drink my milk.)
Onward we go! I grew up on a little family farm in rural Idaho. We
had a Jersey cow, (which we milked by hand), as many as two steers, a pig
or so, dogs, chickens, rabbits, cats, and fish. We even tried having
goats at one point (that didn't really work out for us... They're pretty
sneaky).
Oh, and we had a garden that was a full 1/5 of an acre.
My
Dad is sort of a revolutionary. He has always believed in foods, and
plants that heal and sustain. And though he never spoke to me about it
when I was a child, he believed in the healthful properties of raw
(unpasteurized) milk. So much so that before we were able to have our
own cow, we would buy milk, pre-pasteurization, from a dairyman
neighbor. I only remember getting sick a handful of times as a child.
Now as adults, my husband and I buy raw milk for our family. I am
asked questions, and told "facts" about this whenever people find out. I
thought I'd collect some of my ideas and share them here, answering a
few of the questions and "facts" I've heard along the way.
"Aren't you afraid your family will get sick from drinking raw milk?"
I'm
not afraid my family will get sick from drinking raw milk. In fact, I
am more worried about my family getting
sick from pasteurized milk. Since switching to raw milk we are far healthier than before. This may be graphic for some, and I'm sorry, but I feel that it illustrates my point well. My oldest son is 22 months old, and has only had diarrhea once in his little life.
Pasteurization is a relatively new practice actually. Catherine
Shanahan is an MD, who studied genetics, and more particularly, how what
we ingest can change how our genes are expressed, whether for good or
bad. (You can learn more about that specific area of study by looking up
the term, epigenetics.) In her book Deep Nutrition, Dr. Shanahan, gives
a detailed history of the advent of the first batch pasteurizing
machine that came out in 1907. on P. 157 she states,
"A skilled
orator and savvy businessman, [Charles North] visited small towns
throughout the country creating publicity and interest in his machines
by claiming to have come directly from another small town, just like
theirs, where people were dying from drinking unpasteurized milk. Of
course his claims were total fiction and doctors were staunchly opposed
to pasteurization. The facts were on their side. Unfortunately, North
had something better -- fear... The pasteurization industry mushroomed
from non-existence to a major political presence."
Really, if you
consider the life that most dairy cows live, you would never patronize
those "farmers" who keep them. (Hopefully!) Humans have been drinking
unpasteurized milk from various animals for a very long time, just not
animals who were kept in conditions that many modern milk and beef cows
are kept in. Dr. Shanahan again states, p. 156, "The need for pasteurization became a
reality when in-city dairies housed diseased cows whose hind quarters
ran with rivulets of manure. Tainting milks reputation even further,
around the same time dairymen were often infected with diphtheria,
spreading the deadly bacteria through the medium of warm, protein rich
milk."
"But surely with groups like PETA around, that is not how modern dairies function..."
I'm
sure we're all familiar with the feed-lot idea that is America's dairy,
and beef cow reality. Let's really look at it for a second, though.
Most cows are kept in closely confined pens, with not very much room to
move around. They sleep there. They are fed there. They defecate there.
Many die there.
That is for the beef cow. The dairy cow is kept inside at all times.
They are kept inside because the suction cups of the milking machines
aren't taken off of them, poor gals! Again, they eat, sleep, and answer
the call of nature all in that confined area. It's all about efficiency,
you see.
Because the suction cups never get removed from the cow's udders,
these cows have very high infection rates, and that infection, (i.e.
germs an puss), and coincidentally the antibiotics the poor cows are on, are in the milk.
Dr. Shanahan put it this way, p.
156, "If the animal is sickly -- as they invariably are when raised in
crowded, nightmarish conditions -- its milk should probably not be
consumed at all." I could not agree more. We only drink milk we know
comes from cows who are treated humanely, (pastured), and thus can
produce milk that is what it should be, full of nutrients,
including beneficial bacteria.
"Did your family get sick when switching from pasteurized milk to raw?"
We didn't. I haven't actually heard of a case where a family did
either. Any of my raw milk drinking friends are welcome to contribute
their own experiences here.
"The majority of people walking
around are actually lactose and/or casein intolerant. Why not just drink
Almond milk (or soy milk, or hemp milk... just insert some milk alternative here)?"
I had never heard this idea before a few years
ago, and then all of a sudden, it exploded, and I hear it often. I
don't mind people not wanting to drink milk because they don't like it, but this is what my studies
have taught me about the above idea.
The main idea that I have
heard in connection with the above statement is that drinking cow's milk
is a new concept. I've heard from some that adults consuming milk
originated in Europe, and from others that it is an American phenomenon.
According
to Dr. Shanahan, and Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions,
drinking milk is historical, though there are certain populations that
are more likely to be, we'll call it milk intolerant, as adults. This
has to do with the availability of milk, and it's freshness, and would
take a very long time to write about. I would be willing to write about
it all, but I don't know if you'd want to read it in this blog post that
is already quite long?
To be short, all humans are born producing
lactase, (an enzyme that digests the
lactose in milk), in their intestines. Through the history of man, many
cultures have used milk animals, ie. goats, sheep, cows, camels, you
name it. I have even read of some areas where horse milk was utilized.
Some cultures have not used milk at all, or have used milk products that
were fermented which uses the lactose in it's chemical process,
rendering them lactose free.
In those areas where milk animals
were used, the gene for making lactase, that handy enzyme, will have
been switched to stay on throughout childhood and into adulthood. In
areas where milk consumption was a rarity, or in climates where they eat
their milk products fermented, this will not be the case. Because their
genes were told they didn't need it, the offspring of those groups
will, at some point before adulthood, stop making lactase.
Many people in America have quite a conglomeration of genes, (in researching my ancestry I found that I have genes, literally, from all over the globe), and since using milk animals has been a common practice in many areas of the world through out history, it stands to reason that for many, though not all, adults, the lactase producing gene is still switched on. It is not milk that is wrong, but perhaps it is how we have changed milk that makes it hard for our bodies to digest. Read
here for stories from individuals and families whose lives were changed by switching to unpasteurized milk.
If you or someone in your family has a milk allergy, you may be interested in the ideas shared in the film Genetic Roulette.
For more great information on raw milk visit realmilk.com, rawmilkinstitute.net, and also westonaprice.org.
P.S. I know my first two links are to the same webpage. I did that on purpose hoping you'd be more likely to read the article if you saw it twice. ;)
