Interpretation of raw-milk law hypocritical

MILK IS A TOXIC SUBSTANCE?

By Doreen Hannes
September 18, 2010
NewsWithViews.com
http://www.newswithviews.com/Hannes/doreen107.htm

Destroying family farms in the name of food safety

This is the second of three articles to demonstrate the effects that Senate Bill S510, the Food Safety Modernization Act, will have on all of us. The third article in this series will be devoted to Senate bill S 510. As you read this article, it’s important to keep in mind that while the US Congress was on August recess, Senate bill S510, that will completely control the production of food, was resubmitted as a bipartisan complete substitute for the original.

On June 30th of this year, a private food co-op named Rawesome, founded by a rather iconoclastic individual by the name of Aajonus (pronounced odd-genus) Vonderplanitz was raided in Venice, California. The co-op’s members prefer to eat all raw food and have many personal testimonies of the benefits they have received from following the paleo-diet and eating all things raw. The raid involved multiple agencies – the FBI, FDA, California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Health Department among them. The agents entered with drawn guns and seized all products from the private food club. Among the products seized was raw cheese from the licensed and inspected Morningland Dairy in Mountain View, Missouri.

Morningland Dairy is a small raw cheese company that has been in business for 30 years with no reports of illness from their products ever being levied. They milk cows on site and use that milk to make their cheese in a separate building. Denise and Joe Dixon took over operation of Morningland Dairy several years ago and expanded the operation to include goat cheese made from Missouri family-run goat dairies. The cheese is sold directly to consumers and to grocery stores across the nation. According to Joe, nine families are dependent upon Morningland for their livelihood.

On August 24th, fifty-five days after the cheese from Morningland Dairy was seized by agents at Rawesome, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) tested the cheese and reported that they “detected” listeria monocytogenes and staph aureous in two cheeses. The CDFA then reported this “detection” to the Missouri Milk Board and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On August 26th, the Missouri Milk Board contacted the cheesemaker from Morningland Dairy, Jedadiah York, and told him they were coming by to discuss a problem with some cheese. Denise and Joe Dixon were at the American Cheese Society convention in Seattle when this call occurred. Jedadiah called them and told them that Milk Board Inspectors, Don Falls and Roger Neill, were coming to the plant to talk about a problem and the Dixons said to fully cooperate and find out what the problem might be. And that’s when things began to get interesting.

The Missouri Milk Board Inspectors had no batch numbers or paperwork to show to Mr. York, but they pulled up the report from CDFA on Morningland’s computer and show Jedadiah the picture of cheese that was definitely under a Morningland label. However, the codes, which would tell the Plant Manager the dates of the batches, were not visible in the photos nor recorded on the CDFA report. Details were completely lacking. No levels regarding the amount of bacteria detected in the cheese were indicated on the CDFA report, no chain of custody regarding the product, no explanation of sample temperature controls or the lack of such were delineated, and no reports or complaints of illness had been made. Mr. Falls of the Missouri Milk Board told Jedadiah they would be back in the morning and that he expected to have this all taken care of very soon. The inspectors checked into a hotel and came back the next morning.

When the inspectors returned, Jedadiah was told that the FDA would be coming and heading up the investigation and that Morningland would need to suspend all operations until the investigation was complete. Their cheese was put under embargo by Missouri Milk Board and immediately inventoried, and an official notice taped to the cooler door to not remove any product.

Jedadiah thought that if he simply went along and did all things the agents asked, that Morningland would be up and running again in a matter of days. This was on August 27th, and two weeks later he sees things a bit differently.

On the 27th, Michele Thompson, the Recall Coordinator for the FDA, sent Jedadiah an email asking that a recall notice of all product from 2010 be sent to the Associated Press immediately.
The Dixons, General Managers for Morningland LLC, told Jedadiah to just wait until they returned from the American Cheese Society convention they had attended so they could get a better understanding of the situation by being there in person. Again, no illnesses or complaints had been reported from any consumers of Morningland’s products, and it is a very serious action to recall half a year of work based on the findings of an agency with no detailed information on the tests performed.

Nonetheless, over the weekend the FDA prepared and released a press release stating that Morningland Dairy was –voluntarily- recalling ALL of their product made from January through June 2010 nationwide, even though Morningland had not authorized the recall. This release went out at 12:01am Monday morning before the FDA showed up at Morningland in camoflauge to inspect the cheese plant. At that point, there had been no communication to the heads of Morningland regarding the lot numbers that were tested in California and no agreement to recall a half year’s work on an unsubstantiated test. The FDA’s Michele Thompson later communicated to Morningland that the FDA did not have the authority to “push for a recall” as that was against the law. She requested Morningland change commentary on their website to be in line with FDA policy. The fact remains that the FDA issued a press release announcing a recall prior to Morningland approving a recall. In other words, Morningland hadn’t volunteered to be bankrupted, yet the FDA issued a national notice stating that they had.

Joseph and Denise Dixon are committed to making a safe product. Joe says, “If we have a problem, we definitely want to deal with it, and we are willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that we provide our customers with a trustworthy and healthy product. We do all the tests that we are required to do and are committed to our customers well being. We want to provide living, healthful food that blesses people.”

Back to the ‘facts of the case’, as it were. As mentioned before, Morningland has dairy cattle on the same property as the cheese plant, and they use that milk to make their cow cheese. When the issue of potential contamination first reared it’s ugly head, the Missouri Milk Board Field Inspector, Don Falls, told the Dixons that they would be able to sell their cow milk into the normal commercial (pasteurized) chain without much difficulty. They would simply need to find a co-op that would put them on their route and get their barn inspected and graded by the Milk Board as a Grade A dairy barn. As it turns out, that wasn’t quite accurate.

The Dixons found two milk co-ops that would pick up their milk as soon as they were graded and inspected by the Milk Board. Then the Milk Board told them that until the FDA “cleared”
Morningland, they wouldn’t inspect their dairy barn. So the Dixons are left dumping their milk, unable to bring in any compensation for their labor, and still required to labor. The milk dumping might end up bringing in the EPA as they have recently declared that milk is oil because of it’s fat content.

Thus far, I’ve visited Morningland four times since the embargo on the cheese and the recall notice. My main objective is to determine the definitive procedures and timelines, with a clear chain of command, from the agencies involved, that are necessary to clear Morningland for production. The clarification of this process would ensure agency accountability and delineate a specific course of action for Morningland to follow that would give them a reasonable expectation of being allowed to get back into production and distribution of their product. It seems I would have better luck nailing fresh Jell-o securely to the wall.

The FDA and the Missouri Milk Board are playing hot potato with explaining the process. The FDA says that the Milk Board and state of Missouri are responsible for the decision that will allow Morningland to return to shipping in interstate commerce, yet the only reason for the FDA’s presence is interstate commerce. The Milk Board says that the decision must be made by committee including the inspector, his supervisor, the State Veterinarian, two microbiologists from Jefferson City, and the FDA. All discussion of procedure is couched by terms like “normally,” “usually,” “I think,” “we’ll have to see” and “probably.” The process of being cleared is as clear as mud.

So right now, the FDA is awaiting results from the swab tests they did of the cheese plant and the legs of the milk bulk tank in the dairy barn last week. When those results are in, recommendations for clean up of the environment (if necessary) will be made, and then, should the Dixons want to test the 40# blocks of cheese in their cooler, they can. However, the Milk Board says that “due to statistical probability” if Morningland tests their cheese inventory and the tests come back showing clean product, those tests are not considered official. So there is no guarantee that Morningland will be able to ship the cheese at all. It depends on whether or not “the committee” and the FDA agree that the product is ‘safe for human consumption’.

The products produced by Morningland are all ‘suspect’ for adulteration by FDA definition. FDA’s definition is so broad that according to information on the FDA’s own website, all food could be considered adulterated. [Look under Legal Aspects at the previous link (4) and you will find this: “Hence, to be adulterated, food need not be shown actually to contain filth or other contaminants; a demonstration that the food was prepared, packed, or held under conditions whereby it would, with reasonable possibility emphasis added, become so is legally sufficient to prove adulteration and provide grounds for taking action against the lot”].

When one considers the FDA’s documented opposition to raw dairy, and this most sensational germophobic testimony of John Sheehan (head of the Plant and Dairy division of the FDA that oversees cheese plants like Morningland) and then the cooperative agreements, the Memoranda of Understanding (MOU’s), the guidance documents between state and federal agencies along with the federal Food Code and the initiatives outlined therein, the likelihood of Morningland being declared “clear” and moving forward without continued harassment is slim.

Remember that there is an inspection process that is ongoing in both the milk barn and the cheese plant on Morningland’s property. The milk barn must be inspected, and the cheese plant must be inspected. In my experience, if an inspector wants to find a problem, he most certainly will. The number of flaming hoops that Morningland must jump through to be re-approved for full operation are currently indefinite and could be nearly infinite.

Stepping back from the particulars surrounding the Morningland Dairy, and another Missouri fresh milk dairy under prosecution, we must look at the agency objectives revealed in their Food Code, their Motion to Dismiss response in a raw milk suit brought against them, their Healthy People 2020 program, and the international standards and guidelines of the World Animal Health Organization (OIE), Codex Alimentarius and International Plant Protection Convention(OIE) that are embedded in Senate Bill 510 to ascertain what kind of regulations S510 will allow the FDA to write to ”protect” the food supply. Senate Bill 510 will expand the authority of the FDA beyond any common sense; and I believe they’ve already illustrated they lack common sense.

What we have here is the continued destruction of food freedom, food choice and food availability. The federal government does not believe that people are capable of deciding what to eat themselves and have “erected a multitude of New Offices and sent forth swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.” Literally. That citation from the Declaration of Independence couldn’t possibly have been more true at any time in history than it is today. Remember, no farmers, no food.

Tags: Grassfed, Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk

http://w.westonaprice.org/action-alerts/2010-alerts/2013-urgent-action-alert-on-s510-food-safety-legislation.html
Action Alerts – 2010 Action Alerts
Friday, 17 September 2010 17:23
Although it has been delayed many times, the Food Safety Modernization Act (S.510) continues to be a threat. This bill greatly expands FDAs authority over both processed foods and fresh fruits and vegetables, and would give FDA authority to impose extensive, burdensome requirements on even the smallest processing facilities and farms who sell to local consumers.

While the latest version of the bill included some provisions for flexibility and scale-sensitivity, the provisions do not go far enough to protect the small-scale local food businesses that could be destroyed by the new federal regulations.

Take Action:

S.510 could be voted on in the next couple of weeks without much notice. So the time to call your Senators is NOW!

You can find your Senators contact information at www.Senate.gov or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or toll-free at 877-210-5351. When you call your Senators offices, ask to speak to the staffer who handles food safety issues, and tell them these two things:

1) Support the Tester-Hagan amendment to exempt small-scale, direct marketing farms and facilities from some of the most burdensome portions of the bill. This common-sense amendment is critical to protecting local food sources.

2) Oppose criminal penalties for violations that do not endanger human health or safety: Although it is unclear, there may also be an amendment introduced to combine S.3767 (introduced by Senator Leahy) with S.510, which would create criminal penalties for knowingly introducing adulterated or misbranded food into interstate commerce. Adulterated or misbranded food could mean simply that the farmer or producer did not have all his paperwork in order or made a technical violation of some kind that does not endanger human health or safety.

Special Action for OKLAHOMA residents

Senator Coburn is blocking the passage of S.510 by unanimous consent, and has raised a lot of very good objections to the bill. Please call and THANK HIM for taking this stand. Call his DC office at 202-224-5754. You can read Senator Coburns statement at:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/rightnow?ContentRecord_id=8df5cb89-91a2-4ae3-b846-7487db0bd4f0

SAMPLE EMAIL

Dear Senator ________:

As you consider sweeping new federal food safety legislation (S. 510, the Food Safety Modernization Act), please vote in support of common sense amendments offered by Senators Tester and Hagan to exempt small-scale direct marketing processing facilities from federal hazard analysis and control regulations and to exempt small-scale direct marketing farms from the produce safety standards. Local and state health and sanitation laws are enough for producers selling into local markets. These small-scale producers do not need and many may not survive new federal regulations.

In August, half a billion eggs were recalled to try to prevent the spread of salmonella that had originated on two related farms in Iowa. Those two farms had sold eggs under at least 25 different labels in 12 different states! The recall is symptomatic of the industrialized food system characterized by mega-farms and long, complex supply chains and distribution systems. This food system needs reform.

But without Senators Tester’s and Hagans common sense amendment to S. 510, the bill actually hurts food safety by imposing FDA regulation on the local food businesses who provide consumers with an alternative to the industrialized food system. More and more people are seeking out local producers to buy fresh, wholesome foods from people they trust, and they dont need or want FDA to interfere.

I urge you to vote FOR the Tester-Hagan Amendment to S. 510!

I also urge you to vote against any attempt to create criminal penalties for adulterated or misbranded food. These terms as defined in S.510 could include minor technical violations that harm no one. Criminal violations should be limited to those who knowingly cause serious harm to human health or safety.

Signed,
Your name and state

Tags: Grassfed, Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk

http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/20080515/n1

“Raw” milk proponent and dairyman Mark McAfee sheds light on pasteurization, the benefits of consuming unadulterated food, and the war on bacteria.

By Loren Muldowney

Editor’s note: The following article is the first of a four-part series that will appear monthly in the nutrition section of our website. It is based on the first of four recent lectures in a Seminar Series on Raw Milk hosted by Rutgers University Agriculture Experiment Station. See part II: Lactose intolerance, and part III: Got raw milk?

Mark McAfee is owner of Organic Pastures Dairy Co. (www.organicpastures.com) in Fresno, California. His high-energy talk February 6 was entitled “Raw Milk: Mother Nature’s Inconvenient Truth.” “Raw milk” is milk in its natural state, McAfee explained, as it comes from the cow, without heat treatment or pasteurization. Pasteurization is used to extend shelf life and to immobilize certain bacteria, he said, and public health authorities generally appear convinced that this process is highly desirable.

McAfee’s overarching theme can be summarized as the coexistence of people and milk and bacteria. Even when produced under the most sanitary conditions, he said, it is normal for milk to contain some bacteria, and human societies have been coexisting and benefiting from these bacteria in the milk for thousands of years. Fermented milks are and have been important foods in many cultures for their nutrient value, McAfee informed the crowd, for their superior digestibility, and for the preservation that fermentation, a bacterial process, provides. Today products are marketed as containing “probiotics,” as if this is something brand new. Of course, McAfee said, various active bacteria have always been in these foods—only the standardization and taxonomy are new. Some of what he termed “Mother Nature’s truths about bacteria” follow. Bacteria…

…are earth’s oldest life forms.
…are everywhere.
…are essential for human survival.
…comprise more than 90 percent of the cells in the human body.

It’s no small wonder, then, that McAfee calls the human being “Bacterio sapiens” and suggests that public obsession with killing bacteria misdirects efforts at improving public health because relatively few bacteria are pathogenic. By constantly sterilizing and pasteurizing and disinfecting, he said, we tip the balance in favor of the pathogen. Campylobacter has always been found in the environment but only relatively recently has it been called a “pathogen.” What changed, he asked, and is it possible that reducing the microbial biodiversity of the human body has created more disease than it has prevented?

“When mothers nurse their babies, do we make a point of saying that the babies are drinking ‘raw’ milk.”
~ Mark McAfee

Raw milk is another of Mother Nature’s truths, McAfee asserted. Raw milk is “new” only in the sense that it used to just be called “milk,” without the adjective implying that there is something unusual about it—pasteurization is what’s relatively new. In American cities in the early 1900s, pasteurization permitted the safe use of poor quality milk by destroying pathogens introduced by its production method. That’s a plus if you need to use poor quality milk, McAfee said. But milk has always been the first food of newborn mammals so how could it be intrinsically hazardous? Human societies developed and prospered upon (raw) milk usually milk of ruminant species adapted to living on grass due to the bacteria in their gut. Grasslands, he said—provided that we respect the appropriate stocking density—are a wonderful, low energy, sustainable ecosystem.

“When mothers nurse their babies, do we make a point of saying that the babies are drinking ‘raw” milk,’” McAfee asked rhetorically.

Raw milk is not a single substance, he said, stressing that it is important to distinguish “raw milk” intended for direct consumption from “raw milk” intended for further processing. The former has been variously called “physicians milk,” “babies milk” and “certified milk.” Milk intended for direct consumption should meet higher standards of production, he said, beginning with the genetics, feeding, bedding and housing of the cows. McAfee uses rotational grazing of well-managed pastures and keeps his cows mostly outdoors, on a diverse forage ecosystem. He believes pasture-fed cattle do not have the acidified rumen of the grain-fed industrial dairy cow so they are less susceptible to developing acid-tolerant gut bacteria. Without antibiotic use, McAfee said, there is no problem with evolution of antibiotic resistance. Conjugated linoleic acids are highest in milk from pasture-fed cows, and the vitamins, natural fats and enzymes are all intact.

According to McAfee, it is difficult to get at the truth because so much research is little more than advertising—self-interested and commercial. Stories offered by those who have been helped by taking charge of their own health are largely dismissed as “anecdotal.” But if you take a big collection of anecdotes and add statistical analysis, you have a study, said McAfee. He believes this kind of research would actually benefit the public so it is appropriate that the National Institute of Health or other public agency should fund such work. Unfortunately, most of this kind of preventative health research remains unstudied for lack of funding.

Many anecdotes about raw milk involve people reporting that chronic diseases such as arthritis, Crohn’s disease, asthma, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome or chronic ear infections are eliminated by a change to drinking raw milk. These diseases are lumped under the heading “autoimmune problems,” McAfee said, and they are generally unexplained and uncured by modern, “Western” medicine. McAfee shared one such anecdote about Kimeli, a Maasai tribesman from east Africa who came to the United States to study at Stanford University. Kimeli grew up drinking milk (known in the U.S. as “raw milk”), but after arriving in the states got sicker and sicker and was diagnosed with severe lactose intolerance and Crohn’s disease. Ultimately it was recommended that part of his colon be removed. He resisted this idea and began to drink “raw milk” from Organic Pastures dairy. His lactose intolerance somehow did not apply to this milk. For the better part of a year he drank a daily half gallon of raw whole milk. Kimeli, McAfee said, remains convinced that this food is what allowed his damaged insides to heal.

McAfee advised the audience that it is illegal to say that anything other than a recognized pharmaceutical product can cure a disease and reports that he was fined several thousand dollars for putting such customer testimonials (anecdotes) on his business website. (Presumably, private citizens are still allowed to share their own stories provided that the anecdotes do not appear on commercial websites.)

McAfee’s take-home message is that people can educate themselves directly and make health choices without the intervention of so-called “experts.” An informed consumer, he said, is always his best customer.

Loren Muldowney is holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and a master’s degree in soils and water from Rutgers University, where she is continuing studies in sustainable agriculture. Her backyard is home to nine compost units, organic gardens, and is a certified wildlife habitat.

May 15, 2008

Tags: Grassfed, Missouri Raw Milk, Raw Milk

There’s little mention in the mainstream media these days, of traditional foods having healing properties. Sure, there’s a ton of hype touting unfermented soy products, vegetable oils and supplements as modern saviors, but in reality, these items have risk-to-benefit ratios like many drugs do (1).

Few people are aware that clean, raw milk from grass-fed cows was actually used as a medicine in the early part of the last century (2)(3). That’s right. Milk straight from the udder, a sort of “stem cell” of foods, was used as medicine to treat, and frequently cure some serious chronic diseases (4). From the time of Hippocrates to until just after World War II, this “white blood” nourished and healed uncounted millions.

Clean raw milk from pastured cows is a complete and properly balanced food. You could live on it exclusively if you had to. Indeed, published accounts exist of people who have done just that (5)(6). What’s in it that makes it so great? Let’s look at the ingredients to see what makes it such a powerful food (7).

Proteins

Our bodies use amino acids as building blocks for protein. Depending on who you ask, we need 20-22 of them for this task. Eight of them are considered essential, in that we have to get them from our food. The remaining 12-14 we can make from the first eight via complex metabolic pathways in our cells.

Raw cow’s milk has all 8 essential amino acids in varying amounts, depending on stage of lactation (8). About 80% of the proteins in milk are caseins- reasonably heat stable and, for most, easy to digest. The remaining 20% or so are classed as whey proteins, many of which have important physiological effects (bioactivity) (9). Also easy to digest, but very heat-sensitive (10), these include key enzymes (11) (specialized proteins) and enzyme inhibitors, immunoglobulins (antibodies) (12), metal-binding proteins, vitamin binding proteins and several growth factors.

Current research is now focusing on fragments of protein (peptide segments) hidden in casein molecules that exhibit anti-microbial activity (13).

Lactoferrin (14), an iron-binding protein, has numerous beneficial properties including (as you might guess) improved absorption and assimilation of iron, anti-cancer properties and anti-microbial action against several species of bacteria responsible for dental cavities (15). Recent studies also reveal that it has powerful antiviral properties as well (16).

Two other players in raw milk’s antibiotic protein/enzyme arsenal are lysozyme and lactoperoxidase (17). Lysozyme can actually break apart cell walls of certain undesirable bacteria, while lactoperoxidase teams up with other substances to help knock out unwanted microbes too.

The immunoglobulins, an extremely complex class of milk proteins also known as antibodies, provide resistance to many viruses, bacteria and bacterial toxins and may help reduce the severity of asthma symptoms (18). Studies have shown significant loss of these important disease fighters when milk is heated to normal processing temperatures (19).

Carbohydrates

Lactose, or milk sugar, is the primary carbohydrate in cow’s milk. Made from one molecule each of the simple sugars glucose and galactose, it’s known as a disaccharide. People with lactose intolerance for one reason or another (age, genetics, etc.), no longer make the enzyme lactase and so can’t digest milk sugar (20). This leads to some unsavory symptoms, which, needless to say, the victims find rather unpleasant at best. Raw milk, with its lactose-digesting Lactobacilli bacteria intact, may allow people who traditionally have avoided milk to give it another try.

The end-result of lactose digestion is a substance called lactic acid (responsible for the sour taste in fermented dairy products). Besides having known inhibitory effects on harmful species of bacteria (21), lactic acid boosts the absorption of calcium, phosphorus and iron, and has been shown to make milk proteins more digestible by knocking them out of solution as fine curd particles (22)(23).

Fats

Approximately two thirds of the fat in milk is saturated. Good or bad for you? Saturated fats play a number of key roles in our bodies: from construction of cell membranes and key hormones to providing energy storage and padding for delicate organs, to serving as a vehicle for important fat-soluble vitamins (see below) (24).

All fats cause our stomach lining to secrete a hormone (cholecystokinin or CCK) which, aside from boosting production and secretion of digestive enzymes, let’s us know we’ve eaten enough (25)(26). With that trigger removed, non-fat dairy products and other fat-free foods can potentially help contribute to over-eating.

Consider that, for thousands of years before the introduction of the hydrogenation process (pumping hydrogen gas through oils to make them solids) (27) and the use of canola oil (from genetically modified rapeseed) (28), corn, cottonseed, safflower and soy oils, dietary fats were somewhat more often saturated and frequently animal-based. (Prior to about 1850, animals in the U.S. were not so heavily fed corn or grain). Use of butter, lard, tallows, poultry fats, fish oils, tropical oils such as coconut and palm, and cold pressed olive oil were also higher than levels seen today. (29)(30)

Now consider that prior to 1900, very few people died from heart disease. The introduction of hydrogenated cottonseed oil in 1911 (as trans-fat laden Crisco) (31)(32) helped begin the move away from healthy animal fats, and toward the slow, downward trend in cardiovascular health from which millions continue to suffer today.

CLA, short for conjugated linoleic acid and abundant in milk from grass-fed cows, is a heavily studied, polyunsaturated Omega-6 fatty acid with promising health benefits (33). It certainly does wonders for rodents, judging by the hundreds of journal articles I’ve come across! (34) There’s serious money behind CLA, so it’s a sure bet there’s something to it.
Blue sky and cow on grass Among CLA’s many potential benefits: it raises metabolic rate, helps remove abdominal fat, boosts muscle growth, reduces resistance to insulin, strengthens the immune system and lowers food allergy reactions. As luck would have it, grass-fed raw milk has from 3-5 times the amount found in the milk from feed lot cows (35)(36)

See my Fat Primer for a better understanding of saturated fats and fatty acids and their impact on our health.

Vitamins

Volumes have been written about the two groups of vitamins, water and fat soluble, and their contribution to health. Whole raw milk has them all, and they’re completely available for your body to use. (37) Whether regulating your metabolism or helping the biochemical reactions that free energy from the food you eat, they’re all present and ready to go to work for you.

Just to repeat, nothing needs to be added to raw milk, especially that from grass-fed cows, to make it whole or better. No vitamins. No minerals. No enriching. It’s a complete food.

Minerals

Our bodies, each with a biochemistry as unique as our fingerprints (38), are incredibly complex, so discussions of minerals, or any nutrients for that matter, must deal with ranges rather than specific amounts. Raw milk contains a broad selection of completely available minerals ranging from the familiar calcium and phosphorus on down to trace elements, the function of some, as yet, still rather unclear.

A sampling of the health benefits of calcium, an important element abundant in raw milk includes: reduction in cancers, particularly of the colon: (39) higher bone mineral density in people of every age, lower risk of osteoporosis and fractures in older adults; lowered risk of kidney stones; formation of strong teeth and reduction of dental cavities, to name a few. (40)(41)(42)

An interesting feature of minerals as nutrients is the delicate balance they require with other minerals to function properly. For instance, calcium needs a proper ratio of two other macronutrients, phosphorus and magnesium, to be properly utilized by our bodies. Guess what? Nature codes for the entire array of minerals in raw milk (from cows on properly maintained pasture) to be in proper balance to one another (43) thus optimizing their benefit to us.

Enzymes

The 60 plus (known) fully intact and functional enzymes in raw milk (44)(45) have an amazing array of tasks to perform, each one of them essential in facilitating one key reaction or another. Some of them are native to milk, and others come from beneficial bacteria growing in the milk. Just keeping track of them would require a post-doctoral degree!

To me, the most significant health benefit derived from food enzymes is the burden they take off our body. When we eat a food that contains enzymes devoted to its own digestion, it’s that much less work for our pancreas. (46) Given the choice, I’ll bet that busy organ would rather occupy itself with making metabolic enzymes and insulin, letting food digest itself.

The amylase (47), bacterially-produced lactase (48), lipases (49) and phosphatases (50) in raw milk, break down starch, lactose (milk sugar), fat (triglycerides) and phosphate compounds respectively, making milk more digestible and freeing up key minerals. Other enzymes, like catalase, (51) lysozyme (52) and lactoperoxidase (53) help to protect milk from unwanted bacterial infection, making it safer for us to drink.

Cholesterol

Milk contains about 3mg of cholesterol per gram (54) – a decent amount. Our bodies make most of what we need, that amount fluctuating by what we get from our food. (55) Eat more, make less. Either way, we need it. Why not let raw milk be one source?

Cholesterol is a protective/repair substance. A waxy plant steroid (often lumped in with the fats), our body uses it as a form of water-proofing, and as a building block for a number of key hormones.

It’s natural, normal and essential to find it in our brain, liver, nerves, blood, bile, indeed, every cell membrane. (56) The best analogy I’ve heard regarding cholesterol’s supposed causative effects on the clogging of our arteries is that blaming it is like blaming crime on the police because they’re always at the scene.

Seriously consider educating yourself fully on this critical food issue. It could, quite literally, save your life. See my Cholesterol Primer to learn the truth.

Lactobacillus casei Beneficial Bacteria

Through the process of fermentation, several strains of bacteria naturally present or added later (Lactobacillus, Leuconostoc and Pediococcus, to name a few) can transform milk into an even more digestible food. (57)

With high levels of lactic acid, numerous enzymes and increased vitamin content, ‘soured’ or fermented dairy products like yogurt and kefir (made with bacteria and yeast, actually) provide a plethora of health benefits for the savvy people who eat them. (58) Being acid lovers, these helpful little critters make it safely through the stomach’s acid environment to reach the intestines where they really begin to work their magic (59) (Above right, Lactobacillus casei).

Down there in the pitch black, some of them make enzymes that help break proteins apart- a real benefit for people with weakened digestion whether it be from age, pharmaceutical side-effects or illness. (60)

Other strains get to work on fats by making lipases that chop triglycerides into useable chunks. (61) Still others take on the milk sugar, lactose, and, using fancy sounding enzymes like beta-galactosidase, glycolase and lactic dehydrogenase (take notes, there’ll be a quiz later!), make lactic acid out of it. (62)

As I mentioned way up yonder in the Carbohydrate section, having lactic acid working for you in your nether regions can be a good thing. Remember? It boosts absorption of calcium, iron and phosphorus, breaks up casein into smaller chunks and helps eliminate bad bugs. (I told you there’d be a quiz!)

Raw milk is a living food with remarkable self-protective properties, but here’s the kick: most foods tend to go south as they age, raw milk just keeps getting better.

Not to keep harping on this, but what the heck: through helpful bacterial fermentation, you can expect an increase in enzymes, vitamins, mineral availability and overall digestibility. Not bad for old age!

A Word About Diet In General

Use common sense and stick with whole, unprocessed foods, free from genetic tweaking (there’s still just too much conflicting information out there on that topic), and you’ll likely be ahead of the game.

Cook your foods minimally, and you’ll be even better off. Learn about sprouting and fermentation. Question everything before letting it past your lips.

Explore what worked for countless generations before ours, and put it to work for yourself today. You can achieve great health by diet alone. I’ve done it, and so can you!

References

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