Gimme milk ... In a dirty glass

For me it's actually, "Gimme raw milk". I've read enough for myself to convince me that it's the way to go. However, I'm not fluent enough in stats of raw milk vs. pasteurized milk provide meaningful commentary - yet. This book seems very good.

All milk was raw before 1840 or so. After the War of 1812, the U.S. couldn't purchase alcohol from Britain as they had been, so it started being produced here. The competition was stiff, so the manufacturers needed to squeeze every cent to make a profit.

They began distillery dairies. The waste grain produced by the distilling process was fed to cows in adjoining dairies. Now cows are made for grass, not grain by-products. Cows on this diet did not thrive and beaome sick, but the milk production increased.

In was common for cows to be tied to one spot for 15 to 18 months until they were too sick to milk or died. The milk became contaminated with diseases from the cows and the squalid environment. To combat the rising infant mortality rate in the big cities from bad milk, milk was pasteurized.

I write this to give the backdrop for how pasteurization began. The downside is this: pasteurized milk lacks the enzymes and vitamins that make milk worthwhile to consume in the first place.

Go to realmilk.com or The Weston A. Price Foundation site for a more rigorous defense of raw milk. In future postings, I hope to add some bullet points for raw milk and against pasteurized milk.