By Bonnie Pockley
Dairy is probably one of the most hotly contested foodstuffs when it comes to nutrition. Is it good, full of calcium, vitamin D and Vitamin A or something that causes inflammatory conditions and food intolerance? Rather than answering this question immediately, let’s first take a look at the changes in the production of milk over the last hundred years and examine the difference between raw and pasteurised milk.
In the early 1900s, the world went through different stages of what is termed ‘The Green Revolution’ in an attempt to increase crop sizes and minimize crop loss to critters. This encompassed the use of chemical sprays, fertilizers, heat treatment and pesticides in food production. Where once cows grazed on unsprayed pastures, they now consumed chemical laden grasses. As stock levels increased with the demand for greater supply, animals began to be fed high protein soy and other nasty and equally inappropriate food sources. Milk, once bottled ‘raw’, was now subjected to a heat treatment process called pasteurisation. This practice neutralised the danger of transferring infections (such as bladder infections and mastitis) and their by-products from unhealthy animals into the milk. Where once disease in an animal prevented its milk being sold commercially, it became standard practice to treat the milk rather than the cow and still sell ‘bad milk’. If you drink commercially sold, homogenised, pasteurised milk today, the chances are you are also consuming sterilized puss. From the 1980’s, milk consumption became associated with problems ranging from weight gain, eczema and ear infections to allergies and intolerances. Surprised?
Raw milk, on the other hand, had been consumed in massive quantities in the ‘pre-processed food era’ without any relationship to poor health. In fact, as a huge part of dairy food cultures across the globe, milk was considered not only safe but an important part of our diets, containing high levels of calcium, protein, vitamin D and vitamin A. Un-heated milk is rich in colloidal minerals and the necessary enzymes required by the body to digest its calcium, fat and sugar content. Butterfat in unpasteurized milk also contains a heat sensitive cortisone-like factor that maintains joint flexibility. In contrast to pasteurised milk, raw milk has no association to coronary artery disease or breast and prostate cancer.
‘Once heated, milk becomes rotten, with precipitated minerals that can't be absorbed (hence osteoporosis), with sugars that can't be digested (hence allergies), and with fats that are toxic.’ (Cowan, Tom MD. ‘Raw Milk’, The Western A. Price Foundation, www.realmilk.com/raw.html 10.10.10)
What about dangerous bacteria? Contrary to popular belief, most of the bacteria in raw milk are highly beneficial to our immune system. With more bacteria in the human body than cells, good gut bacteria are essential to our physiology and our health. Regarding safety, the bacteria in raw milk is protective rather than destructive and plays a part in killing pathogens within the milk itself as well as preventing pathogen absorption across the intestinal wall. In fact, the dangers of drinking milk untreated are, according to experts. grossly exaggerated. There is, in fact, 29 times more risk of illness from drinking pasteurised milk than raw as pasteurisation kills off many of milk’s anti-microbial and immune boosting components.
N.B. Raw milk is already sold legally in Japan, London, Wales and most of Europe but completely illegal in Australia.
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