You may be wondering what’s so special about real milk. Here’s how it’s different from milk you’d buy in a supermarket:

Supermarket Milk		Organic, raw milk
Mostly from Friesian cows		From Jersey cows
Non organic pasture		Organic pasture
Pasteurised		Raw
Often homogenised		Non-homogenised
Mostly has modified fat content		Full fat
At least 5 days old on arrival at supermarket		Fresh from the farm

In NZ, there are some common myths that can make many people question the health benefits of drinking raw milk– for example:

• Milk is good for you, but it must be pasteurized, or it could cause food poisoning
• Saturated fat is fattening and causes heart disease, so its better to drink low fat milk
• Milk is food suitable only for baby cows, and is unhealthy for people

Let’s look at some of these advantages of real milk in more detail, and answer some of the questions you may have.

Dangers of non organic pasture:

• The quality of the milk depends on the quality of the feed. Here in NZ, most cows are grass fed, which is vital. But that’s only one criteria.
   
• Pesticides (such as DDT) on grass that is eaten by cows makes its way into the milk supply. A healthy person’s liver can neutralize and eliminate such toxins. But we’re exposed to lots of toxins in our modern world. At some point your liver will get overloaded and be unable to do it’s job properly. Why not help it out a bit by avoiding non organic milk?

Jersey cows vs Friesian:

• Holstein or Friesian cows are commonly used for producing dairy as they have a higher milk yield. But more isn’t necessarily better. To achieve this, they are bred to have higher levels of growth hormone, which is undesirable for feeding to children, unless they have growth deficiency diseases.
   
• Jersey cows give you delicious, “old fashioned milk”, with a high quantity of cream. Which leads to your next question – but isn’t saturated fat bad for me?

Saturated fats & cholesterol:

• Many people are now purchasing low fat dairy products under the mistaken belief that saturated fats, especially dairy fats, are bad for you. In fact, traditional societies ate large amounts of saturated fat and enjoyed excellent health. When they started eating “western” food, their health declined dramatically.
   
• Animal fat is a good source of valuable vitamins such as A & D, which are needed to assimilate calcium and protein. Many people believe that betacarotene, found in plants, is the same as Vitamin A. Beta-carotene can be converted to Vitamin A by most people, but some people are unable to make the conversion or make it poorly, especially infants & children (those who need it most) and people with hypothyroid or diabetes. Fat is also needed to make the conversion, so conversion can also be hindered by a low fat diet.
   
• It is widely and inaccurately repeated that eating fat makes you fat. But fat and cholesterol in the diet are needed by the body for building materials. It is mainly excess carbohydrates (eg bread, pasta, sugar) that get stored as fat.
   
• The main increase in heart disease has been since we started adopting low fat diets. Many studies have shown that those people who eat most saturated fats have the least heart disease.

Pasteurisation:

• Raw milk is a healthy food that has nourished children and adults for generations. Pasteurising kills harmful bacteria, but also destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12, and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens. It is also associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer. The practice of heating milk to kill germs was instituted in the 1920s to combat diseases caused by poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods. But times have changed and modern production methods make pasteurisation unnecessary for public protection.
   
• You may have heard stories of people getting sick from raw milk, due to pathogens such as campylobacter, salmonella, e.coli and listeria. (NZ is brucellosis free, and our area is TB free. Our herd has also tested TB free for many years). It can happen, but is very rare in good quality, organic, grass fed, raw milk. That is due to the natural disease-fighting enzymes present in raw milk from healthy animals, some of which specifically target salmonella and listeria, for example. In California, one organic farm who produce raw, grass fed milk, deliberately contaminated a batch of their milk (for testing purposes only!) with millions of pathogens. Within a few days, they had nearly all been neutralised. If pasteurised milk is exposed to pathogens, on the other hand, it is far more dangerous, as there is nothing to combat them. Nearly all cases of food poisoning are from eating foods other than raw milk (generally foods that most people eat with no concern), or from contact with non-food contaminants. Often an illness is initially attributed to raw milk, but is then traced to something else.
   
• There is a small danger that people with very compromised immune systems may occasionally contract a disease. But this is a much smaller risk than that of developing a chronic illness due to the consumption of pasteurized milk. And to offset it further, raw milk has great potential to build up the immune system of such people.
   
• A byproduct of killing bacteria by pasteurisation is the formation of histamines. This may be one reason that so many people have asthma or allergies from drinking milk. Raw milk doesn't contain histamines, and many asthamatics find that while drinking it regularly, they have no or few asthma attacks.
   
• Historically, raw milk was successfully used as a treatment for many illnesses, including chronic diseases such as asthma.
   
• Pasteurized milk goes off and turns putrid. Raw milk sours naturally, and is still a nutritious food.
   
• Calves fed pasteurized milk do poorly and many die before maturity. Similar effects have been observed with other animals. Early last century, a scientist called Pottenger conducted a series of feeding experiments on cats, over a 7 year period. Those he fed on raw meat and raw milk thrived. Those fed cooked meat or pasteurised milk quickly developed many diseases, by the 2nd generation had stunted growth and high kitten mortality rates, and by the 3rd were unable to reproduce.

Homogenisation:

• Homogenisation is a process that breaks down butterfat globules so they do not rise to the top. But by doing so the structure of the fat is damaged, so that our bodies can’t process it. Homogenised milk has been linked to heart disease. So whether you choose raw or pasteurized milk, always avoid homogenized milk.

Dairy allergies/intolerances:

• The fact that so many people have dairy allergies has led many to believe that dairy products are intrinsically bad for humans. While there are some people who are truly unsuited to eating any kind of dairy, there are many others who are unable to tolerate pasteurised dairy products but can eat raw dairy with no ill effects.
   
• Adelle Davis, in her classic book Let’s Have Healthy Children notes that food allergies of any kind are less likely if children are breast-fed for longer. This also applies to many other foods that are commonly eaten. Sometimes it’s not the food itself that is bad, but the fact that it was fed to the child before the digestive system was ready for it. She recommends raw milk for all growing children. One of our customers recenly said "I'm so pleased we can get real milk for our grand-daughter. She is thriving and so healthy, while her classmates are always coming down with sniffles."

Potential health benefits of switching to raw milk:

There are just a few of the many documented benefits :

Reduction in: asthma allergy problems infections heart failure high blood pressure diabetes obesity joint stiffness

Improvements in: children’s growth calcium absorption immunity