Raw Milk

Someone asked me about raw milk and raw cheese.
Raw milk refers to milk that is unpasteurized and unhomogenized. All of the milk that you see in the grocery store has been pasteurized, or heated, to a very intense temperature in order to kill any bacteria living in it. Homogenization refers to the process of shooting the milk at a very high pressure through a sieve with microscopic holes in order to break up the globules of milk and make it all uniform. The benefit of these two processes is that all bad bacteria is killed, the milk does not separate, and it has a longer shelf life. What most people are not aware of is the downside. Along with killing the bad bacteria, all of the good bacteria and enzymes are killed. The chemical nature of the milk is reorganized and the calcium (and other nutrients) are not absorbed properly by our body. We are told by the Dairy Council to drink milk in order to prevent osteoporosis. Ask yourself this: If our country has the highest consumption of cow's milk...why do we also have the highest rate of osteoporosis?
When you choose to drink raw milk, you are choosing milk that still has all of its enzymes intact. Many people who cannot tolerate dairy products are actually fine on raw milk because raw milk provides the necessary enzymes to help break it down in our digestive systems.
So if raw milk is so great, why do we pasteurize at all? Well, for thousands and thousands of years people have been drinking raw milk. It was not until the industrial age, when cows were brought off of the pastureland and were confined and crammed together in small pens that pasteurization became necessary. Sanitation practices were minimal and the milk began to poison multitudes of people. The invention of pasteurization was a saviour to the dairy association. They were able to heat this germ-laden milk and make it safe to drink. The practice continues today, and it allows dairy farms to pump the cows full of antibiotics, hormones, pesticide-laden grain (cows should eat grass, not grain!), and force them to live in small confined areas.
If you choose to purchase raw milk (which can only be purchased directly from the farmer in Texas--other states have varying rules), make sure that you get it from a reputable farm. The cows should be able to roam freely, be on an organic grass-fed diet, and have no antibiotic or hormone injections. I get my milk from Stryk Jersey Farm where they have the health department test their milk every other day.
Raw cheese is simply made from raw milk. You can purchase raw cheese in the grocery store.
So...Got Milk?