Original post on rawmilkdigest | Jan 14, 2021 | Raw Milk

Milk today isn’t like milk that’s been around for thousands of years. People used to own cattle and milk them in their backyard, and drink the milk fresh or fermented.

But today, practically all dairy milk sold in stores is highly processed, making it hard to digest and leading to America’s #1 food allergy according to the FDA.

So what do we mean when we say raw milk?

Raw milk is milk (from cows, goats, sheep, camels etc.) straight from the animal that has not undergone any processing to alter it from its original form. That means no pasteurization, homogenization, ultra-filtering, or adding of synthetic minerals or vitamins.

Let’s define each one:

Pasteurization – heating milk to between 155 – 280 degrees F to kill bacteria. As a side note, organic milk is typically ultra high temperature pasteurized (UHT) to make it shelf stable for months even without refrigeration. This is the worst kind of pasteurization for milk.

Homogenization – runs milk through a sieve at high pressure to break apart the fat globules so the cream no longer rises to the top. This has been linked to heart disease and is completely unnecessary for milk.

Ultra-Filtering – is a process that breaks apart milk into it’s different component and then re-combines them to market dairy beverages containing modified ingredients like less lactose or higher protein. Companies like FairLife (owned by Coca Cola Co) are using this to try and claim a larger share of the dairy market at the detriment of milk that is balanced for your body’s needs.

Synthetic Minerals or Vitamins – are additives to milk (like vitamin D and calcium) that are commonly used to “fortify” the milk. Synthetic vitamins can actually be poisonous because they are isolated from the foods that normally contain them such as the naturally occurring vitamins in milk from healthy grass-fed cows.

So when your friends ask you what raw milk is, you can tell them that it is milk straight from the cow that doesn’t have ANY processing!

Thoughts? Reply and let us know your questions for future digests!

For raw milk,

Peter

For raw milk in North Dakota, check out Bartlett Farms Raw Milk Shares.