America is a land of comforts and luxury, or, as the saying goes, the land of milk and honey. However, sadly the unending misinformation and assault on milk has resulted in an undigestible, useless shadow of what was once milk. Rant to follow, consider yourself forewarned.

Humans have been drinking milk for 9000 years. Milk has always been considered as a food that’s good and healthy for us. In the past, humans consumed milk in it’s pure, raw form. Milk contains lactose, or milk sugar, and casein, or milk protein. Both lactose and casein are problematic.

Lactose, or milk sugar, is hard to digest. People need an enzyme called intestinal lactase to digest it. Lactase is found in yogurt and fermented milk products.

Casein, or milk protein, is one of the most difficult proteins for the body to digest. Fermenting or souring milk breaks down casein.

Milk fermentation, souring and culturing is traditionally done in most cultures. As just mentioned, this process takes care of lactose as well as casein. All good so far.

In early 1900s, concerns were raised about bovine tuberculosis and its effect on humans drinking milk. These concerns led to the development of pasteurization.

Pasteurization involves heating milk to 160-165 degrees for 10 – 15 seconds. Ultra pasteurization involves heating milk to 280 degrees for 2 seconds. All the organic milk that I have seen in grocery stores so far are ultra pasteurized.

So, what’s the problem? Pasteurization causes milk’s proteins and amino acids to be less available, promotes rancidity of unsaturated fatty acids and destruction of vitamins. It destroys all enzymes in milk that help in assimilating the milk in your body. Fermentation processes that were needed to break down lactose and casein cannot be done with pasteurized milk. The product that you are left with is undigestible, devoid of proteins and vitamins. The vitamin D3 that’s typically added after pasteurization doesn’t absorb well. Pasteurized milk puts a heavy strain on our digestive system. The digestive system or your gut is a second brain and messing with it will produce a host of problems.

After pasteurization, milk is further subjected to homogenization. This is a process where fat particles of cream are strained through tiny pored under great pressure. Resulting fat particles are so small that they stay in suspension in the milk rather than rise to the top of the milk. However, this also makes milk fat more susceptible to rancidity. The small fat globules also make it small enough to bypass digestion causing a host of problems.

Bovine tuberculosis, which was a motivation behind pasteurization, does not cause tuberculosis in humans. We have been conditioned to believe that pasteurization protects us from infectious diseases. However, all milk farmers, whether selling raw milk or milk for pasteurization, have to adhere to the same standards of modern milking machine and stainless steel tanks, cleanliness and sanitation. My local milk farmer who I buy raw milk from has to follow the same safety and cleanliness standards as any other milk farmer. Moreover, all salmonella outbreaks from contaminated milk in recent decades have occurred in pasteurized milk.

My family started using raw milk in 2015 and we are never going back. The milk tastes like ice cream, it separates into a cream layer which we can use to make ice cream. The move from pasteurized to raw milk was a leap and occurred after a lot of thought, misgivings and discussions with my food scientist friend. We are happy with our decision. It works for our family, is more local, and as such, works better for our local economy and well being.

Oh, my animals are here. I don’t need another heist, so over to them.

Kylo Ren the dog: Groan. My snout is still sore from when Daisy the chicken wrapped the twine around it. I’ll get back at her someday. After all, I am the grandson of Darth Vader (heh heh). Anyway, on to the topic of the day. Milk, you say? I love a creamy drink of milk as much as the next dog. But my absolute favorite dairy product is yogurt. Mom is nice to us (sometimes) and gives us yogurt. I make my appreciation known. You can read it in my eyes. Oh yeah (day dreams). Ok, back to milk. Sometimes I also get to lick out the raw butter containers. Yum. I love butter. But Rosie, my wife, beats me in her love for butter. Let’s hear it from the queen herself.

Rosie the dog: Oh yeah. So my friends, here’s a tidbit to make you sit up! Most dogs are sad when their owners leave. But not me! At least not me when I was younger. As soon as they left, I would find a way to steal their butter and eat it all! I have eaten many a pounds of butter in my life, thanks to my well honed thievery skills. What can I say, I am a wholesome food fan. Oh, here comes Daisy the chicken, the love of my life (sorry Kylo Ren).

Daisy the chicken: Hi Rosie, move over, there’s a dear! Pat on her head with my wings and she is happily passing out. Ok! So my friends. We the chickens love milk. The forms of milk that we like are: raw, yogurt, curd, whey, cream, butter, buttermilk, rancid milk, smelly milk, moldy milk. You name it, we take it! Yes, we the chickens are the best dumpsters you can ever own. Never again will your molding milk products (or any food product, for that matter) will go to waste again. You feed us your garbage, we feed you fresh eggs? Deal? I think its a sweet deal. Ooh, Kylo Ren the dog is charging at me to avenge his capture the other night! Later pals.

https://extension.psu.edu/lactose-in-cow-milk-and-digestion-in-humans

Excerpts from my email conversation with a food scientist

Nourishing traditions by Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary Enig

https://www.livestrong.com/article/323470-advantages-disadvantages-of-pasteurized-milk-powdered-milk/