Is the milk you drink real?
Have you ever had a glass of real milk? Are you sure about that?
The milk you buy in your local grocery store is either pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized milk harvested from conventional cows kept in confinement. By confinement, I mean you have to wear a space suit to get near them.
These cows are not natural cows. They are highly-engineered freaks of nature. As recently as a century ago, a cow produced an average of two or three gallons of milk per day. Today’s conventional industrial dairy cow gives up to three or four times as much milk!
What’s wrong with that, you ask. If science has helped us produce more milk per cow, then that means we can give more people milk for less money. That’s a good thing, right?
Wrong. The increased milk yeild comes at a cost. Not only does the milk produced from these cows contain an unnatural and disarmingly high amount of growth hormones (which in some studies have been linked to excessive tumor growth and cancer), but the cow herself is weak and disease-prone. Her milk is always laden with pus, and she is fed a steady stream of antibiotics to keep the sustained mastitis from overwhelming her system and killing her.
Did you catch that? The milk you buy at the supermarket is riddled with antibiotics, growth hormones, and pus.
Pus. Just the sound of that word gives me the willies.
The milk is so unhealthy for you, in fact, that milk manufacturers have to pasteurize it or ultra-pasteurize it to make it “safe” for human consumption.
What is pasteurization? Well, I’m glad you asked.
Pasteurization is a quick heat process designed to kill unpleasant bacteria and protect us against infectious diseases. But, it is no guarantee of cleanliness. Every single outbreak of salmonella from contaminated milk in recent decades have occurred in pasteurized milk — milk that’s supposed to be “cleaned.”
Besides not being the fail-proof protector that we’re told it is, pasteurization does a lot to milk to rob it of its value to us as a source of good nutrition. From Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions (available in our bookstore), we read this succinct summary:
Heat alters milk’s amino acids lysine and tyrosine, making the whole complex of proteins less available; it promotes rancidity of unsaturated fatty acids and destruction of vitamins. Vitamin C loss in pasteurization usually exceeds 50%; loss of other water-soluble vitamins can run as high as 80%; the Wulzen or anti-stiffness factor is totally destroyed as is vitamin B12, needed for healthy blood and a properly functioning nervous system. Pasteurization reduces the availability of milks mineral components, such as calcium, chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and sulfur, as well as many trace minerals. There is some evidence that pasteurization alters lactose, making it more readily absorbable. This, and the fact that pasteurized milk puts an unnecessary strain on the pancreas to produce digestive enzymes, may explain why milk consumption in civilized societies has been linked with diabetes.
Last but not least, pasteurization destroys all the enzymes in milk — in fact, the test for successful pasteurization is absence of enzymes. These enzymes help the body assimilate all bodybuilding factors, including calcium That is why those who drink pasteurized milk may suffer from osteoporosis. Lipase in raw milk helps the body digest and utilize butterfat.
After pasteurization, chemicals may be added to suppress odor and restore taste. Synthetic vitamin D2 or D3 is added — the former is toxic and his been linked to heart disease while the latter is difficult to absorb. The final indignity is homogenization, which has also been linked to heart disease.
Powdered skim milk is added to the most popular varieties of commercial milk — one percent and two percent milk. Commercial dehydration methods oxidize cholesterol in powdered milk, rendering it harmful to the arteries. High temperature drying also creates large quantities of cross-linked proteins and nitrate compounds, which are potent carcinogens, as well as free glutamic acid, which is toxic to the nervous system.
Modern pasteurized milk, devoid of its enzyme content, puts an enormous strain on the body’s digestive mechanism. In the elderly, and those with milk intolerance or inherited weaknesses of digestion, this milk passes through not fully digested and can build up around the tiny villi of the small intestine, preventing the absorption of vital nutrients and promoting the uptake of toxic substances. The result is allergies, chronic fatigue and a host of degenerative diseases.
Raw milk to the rescue!
Raw milk got a bad reputation in the 20’s when poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods led to increased epidemics of TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases. That’s when pasteurization became the law of the land.
But today’s ultra-clean methods of production, stainless steel tanks, milking machines, and refrigerated trucks keep milk clean.
I still wouldn’t want to drink raw milk that was full of pus, antibiotics, and growth hormones. But raw milk from healthy, pastured cows eating their natural diet of green grass has a lot of advantages. It contains lactic-acid-producing bacteria that protect against pathogens. It contains milk’s natural and full array of vitamins and minerals. It contains the enzymes your body uses to help digest it, easing your pancreatic load and preventing degenerative diseases. And, it comes rich with butter fat — good wholesome cream that I use to make fresh butter & cheese. YUM.
Compare this to the denatured, pasteurized, antibiotic-laden, growth-hormone riddled, pus-filled milk that comes from industrial cows fed a conventional diet of grains, soy, bakery waste, and pellets containing chicken manure, and the choice is clear.
I drink raw milk. Correction, I drink real milk — natural, God-given milk.
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