About raw milk: Please read and evaluate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_milk

Consumption of raw milk has been empirically linked to:
[list]undulant fever
dysentery
salmonellosis
tuberculosis
[*]

I'm sure these bad things can be explained by some kind of poor management of the raw milk in the first place.

What really starts me thinking is this following quote:

While pasteurization reduces the content of some vitamins, such as Vitamin C, these nutrients are not present in milk in large quantities to be begin with

The change to pasteurized milk occurred a long time ago in the industrial revolution when people were getting sick from drinking raw milk from unhealthy cows. That no doubt explains the findings you reported. Today, problems with raw milk that is produced in clean facilities by healthy, pastured cows are nonexistent. The nutrients are not really the issue. The issue is that pasteurization destroys the enzymes and probiotics that are living in milk already.

In a healthy intestine, good bacteria live in an ecosystem. Any pathogenic strains are held in check and dominated by far larger numbers of the good bacteria. When you take, for example, an antibiotic, the numbers of good bacteria decline sharply and immediately. This gives the pathogenic bacteria a window of opportunity to take over as the dominant organisms in the gut. The same thing happens with raw milk from clean, healthy cows. The cows provide milk that is naturally teeming with probiotics. Any bad bacteria would have a hard time getting a foothold in that environment. Thus, so long as the cows are healthy--which is true of cows that are pastured (meaning they live on pasture, not in confinement) and eating grass/hay instead of grain--their milk will be safe.

The enzymes are another element. Humans do fairly well eating cooked food. It does not seem to matter too much, for example, if meat is cooked. However, milk proteins tend to be very, very sensitive and become very difficult to digest once heated. Lactose is also a difficult sugar to break down even in healthy people. When you heat milk, it is a double whammy: you make it difficult to digest and destroy the enzymes you need to help you digest it! Undigested foods of any type will cause allergic reactions in the body and milk that is heated is very difficult to properly digest. I could go on about this for hours.

Check out this video: http://cheeseslave.wordpress.com/2008/06/21/raw-milk-road-trip/

EIC--

That right there is what I refer to as a "wallet explanation." Meaning, it's so good, I'd print it out and keep it in my wallet to have people read that I run into and discuss this stuff with. Fantastic.

Misirlou - It's amazing what marketing and propaganda can do to a something that is one of the healthiest foods on the planet--Raw Milk.

"Regular" milk equals disease. What good marketing and propaganda do is send a message to make a poison seem "healthy" and a something incredibly health seem like a "poison."

Here's a good site that explains some of the deal http://www.realmilk.com/why.html

I noted a long time ago that some of the healthiest, longest living people have been some farmers who would drink a lot of raw milk (grass-fed of course) from their cows.

Milk is entirely perverted once it is grain-fed and of course pasteurized.

One of the best authorities on the subject of Raw Milk is William Campbell Douglass II, MD, who wrote,
"The Raw Truth About Milk."

I buy raw milk on occasion and it is the best milk I've ever had. I only get the full fat kind, that's the kind you want.

Check out the testimonials from this site: http://www.organicpastures.com/testimonials.html

You'll notice that real, raw, grass-fed milk has serious health benefits.

EIC - Thanks for the video

nidhogge wrote:EIC--

That right there is what I refer to as a "wallet explanation." Meaning, it's so good, I'd print it out and keep it in my wallet to have people read that I run into and discuss this stuff with. Fantastic.

Thanks, Nid. It was pretty basic, but should get the job done. Glad to hear you liked it.

Caustic,

You're welcome. I like that video because it shows that normal, intelligent consumers want raw milk and that knowledgeable, articulate academics believe in its safety and effectiveness. This is critical because a lot of people think of raw milk as part of the lunatic fringe, when it is quite mainstream. I've had both stuff off the farm here in Nebraska and the Organic Pastures stuff when I'm in California. The farm stuff is a tad better IMO; the cream that separates is actually yellow in the spring/early summer!

I'm going to the public market tomorrow and asking the grass-fed meat dude if I can stop by his farm and buy some raw milk. Illegal of course, but he might hook me up. Damn NY laws.

Nidhogge - Do you have a Trader Joe's in your area? They sell grass-fed beef and natural chicken.

nidhogge wrote:I'm going to the public market tomorrow and asking the grass-fed meat dude if I can stop by his farm and buy some raw milk. Illegal of course, but he might hook me up. Damn NY laws.

It might change things if you suggest that it is for your pet. Virtually all of the raw-milk laws restrict milk for human consumption. During the winter, when raw milk was unavailable here, I had Organic Pastures ship some to me from CA. Very, very expensive. Anyway, the boxes and containers came labeled for pet consumption. Otherwise, it would have been illegal for them to ship across state lines. Barring any catastrophes, the laws will change soon.

IH--

I think Trader Joe's is a no-go around here, but I will look into it for sure.

I'll aslo keep that pet reference in mind! Thanks a bunch!

Thank you so much for your insights. Of course I need to understand more about this issue before go further, but I know, that some of my relatives, which were farmers and ate most foods from their own farm, got +100 years of age. Two of them are still alive.

About grain feeded cows, this is bad cos the grains contains mycotoxins and ...?

It feels as if both air and land is too polluted nowadays, nothing could be taken as "safe". Humans..what a bunch of morons.

I fould a raw milk powder pill, would this be any good?

Misirlou - Do you have a link for that product?

RAW versus PASTEURIZED MILK
http://www.thehealingjournal.com/prev_issues/2007_apr_may_raw.htm

I was actually talking about colostrum, and this is not the same thing as unpasteurized milk.
http://www.greenhealth.co.nz/Colostrum5.htm?gclid=CNm-p7ncupQCFQ6T1QodRDbMUQ