Raw Milk is Good Milk

Have you heard of raw milk? Do you know what it is? Well you should do, as raw milk is what comes directly out of the cow when it is milked. This nutritionally rich super food is actually greatly different from what we now call milk and buy in our supermarkets and local shops.
Before we understand raw milk we should first have a look at how the milk we buy in the shops is prepared, manipulated, and ultimately ruined for human consumption. Pasteurisation is the first step in modern milk production, taking raw milk from the cow and passing it between hot plates, quickly heating it to about 70 degrees Celsius, before flash cooling and continuing on through the processing plant. So, what’s the problem? We were all taught at school about how pasteurisation kills bacteria, and how it is a great victory of science over disease and illness so surely it is for our own good? The simple answer is that the pasteurisation process causes irreparable damage to the milk in the following ways: Firstly it does kill all or most of the bacteria in the milk, but this includes the good bacteria like the probiotic ones in those fashionable little yoghurt drinks. These bacteria are beneficial to the health of our gut and digestive system, and by ingesting them we can remain healthy and are much less likely to have food allergies and intolerances. Pasteurisation also kills the enzymes needed to allow us to properly digest the proteins and other nutrients from the milk. The simple fact is that if the milk comes from healthy, well looked after cows in the first place, that there should not be any bad bacteria in the milk. They should be free of Tuberculosis and the other diseases that we are told we can catch if we don’t pasteurise our dairy products.
The next step is homogenisation and this is done to make the milk more pleasing to the eye and to stop it from separating with a layer of cream at the top. The modern perception is that cream is fatty, so is bad for you, so the milk producers change it to fit what they think we want. To do this the pasteurised milk is passed through tiny holes at high pressure, breaking down the fat globules so that they are so small that they are unable to re-form and create the layer of cream on top. During this process the previously good, healthy cholesterol found in raw milk becomes oxidised making it damaging to our health and putting us at increased risk of coronary heart disease.
Finally milk is skimmed, and depending on the degree of skimming it takes the fat content down from about 4% in raw milk to as low as 0.1% in skimmed. What we are left with is devoid of nutrition and is little more than white water.
So....... what to do? The best thing I believe you can do is to find a raw milk supplier, and try it. It is usually available at farmers markets as well as direct from farms. You can’t buy it in the shops though - which to me is criminal! If you can’t get raw milk the second best option is un-homogenised milk that is often available in organic and health food shops as well as farm shops across the country. I would not drink supermarket milk FULL STOP.
Raw milk is creamy and tasty. It is natural and healthy, giving us energy and high quality protein and you and your family should be drinking it.