| Hearing lots of controversial information on | | | | very healthy, and the benefits far outweigh |
| raw milk? Don't believe everything you read. | | | | the risks. You'd be statistically much more |
| Educate yourself on the benefits of this | | | | likely to contract E coli from your local |
| natural and delicious alternative to | | | | produce department than from that farmer's |
| store-bought pasteurized and homogenized | | | | cow. |
| milk. Once you are enlightened, you will | | | | |
| never look at milk the same way again. | | | | The source of the majority of our commercial |
| | | | milk is the modern Holstein dairy cow which |
| ARTICLE BODY | | | | has been bred specifically for quantity in |
| | | | order to produce large amounts of milk far |
| Raw milk straight from the cow or goat is | | | | beyond what a cow was ever meant to produce. |
| chock full of the benefits of wonderfully | | | | Since she is fed so much grain (remember this |
| healthy bacteria, vitamins, and enzymes that | | | | is unhealthy for a cow), she requires |
| you simply will not get from store-bought | | | | antibiotics to keep her healthy. Growth |
| milk. | | | | hormones also end up in that milk you're |
| | | | pouring over your breakfast cereal every |
| Milk you find on your supermarket shelf is | | | | morning. |
| flawed for many reasons. One reason is the | | | | |
| big commercial dairies do not feed their cows | | | | The most healthy and best-tasting raw milk |
| grass and hay which is what they are supposed | | | | will come from the "old" breeds of dairy cows |
| to eat, but rather their cows exist in small | | | | such as the Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire, or |
| feedlots being fed large amounts of grain | | | | Brown Swiss, or the older lines of Holstein |
| which is actually not something a cow was | | | | which were not bred to produce obscene |
| meant to eat. | | | | amounts of milk. The average butterfat of |
| | | | these old breeds of cows back at the turn of |
| As a result, these cows must be fed | | | | the century was 4%. Today's butterfat |
| antibiotics which in turn are going into your | | | | normally comprises less than 3%. There is |
| milk. Bleach is also often added to make sure | | | | also the misleading notion that skim and |
| your carton of milk is as white as can be. | | | | low-fat milk is good for you. Full-fat milk |
| Scary, isn't it? | | | | is awesomely healthy as the butterfat |
| | | | contains the vitamins A and D which are |
| But even if this were not the case, | | | | needed for the absorption of calcium, and is |
| commercially available milk is pasteurized | | | | also rich in the short- and medium-chain |
| (heated) and homogenized (process that breaks | | | | fatty acids that protect us against disease. |
| down butterfat), and you can be sure that all | | | | You get no health benefit at all from |
| those beneficial enzymes and healthy bacteria | | | | drinking low-fat or no-fat milk, and you |
| are long gone by the time it reaches the | | | | might as well just have a glass of water |
| grocery shelf. What you have left is simply | | | | instead. That would actually be far more |
| dead liquid which can possibly cause more | | | | healthy. |
| harm than good due to the growth hormones and | | | | |
| antibiotics (among other things) given to the | | | | Many are jumping on the raw milk bandwagon, |
| unhealthy commercial-dairy cow. | | | | and many more will climb on board in the |
| | | | coming years as people educate themselves |
| Many people will argue that drinking milk | | | | about what is actually going into our food |
| straight from the cow is not healthy, and | | | | through the commercial processes. |
| that pasteurization is necessary to kill off | | | | |
| things like E coli. The fact is that milk | | | | If you have a small dairy farm near you, drop |
| collected hygienically from a healthy | | | | by and sample some real milk and see what you |
| grass-fed cow on a small family-owned farm is | | | | have been missing. |