Swilling milk from the carton again? You look over your shoulder to if any one caught you. You may have gotten away with breaking the house rules, but you might be guilty of something else. On the side of the carton you notice: “Fortified Vitamin D homogenized Milk, – Pasteurized for quality”. Nothing to worry about? Don’t be so sure.
Raw milk is milk straight from the cow (or llama, camel, mare, water buffalo, or reindeer). It has all the fats and vitamins and nutrients that the calves need, and they come straight to you. To make it for sale in most grocery stores this milk is pasteurized (heated to a temperature of 145 degrees to 150 degrees for at least half an hour, and then reduced to not more than 55 degrees) and homogenized (pressurized and sprayed through a narrow hole to break apart the fat globules suspended in the milk). These processes have impacts on the nutrient value and other properties of the milk.
Raw milk advocates would say fortified, homogenized, pasteurized milk is the worst type to buy. They argue that commercial dairy processing renders it nutritionally deficient when compared to fresh raw whole milk. The Weston A. Price Foundation’s Campaign for Real Milk states,
“Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.”
Retrieved April 21, 2011, from http://www.realmilk.com/what.html
Skeptics believe neither pasteurization nor homogenization are nutritionally necessary, and are simply ways to stabilize poorer quality milk products that would otherwise separate or spoil.
Only by marketing low-fat and skim milk as a health food can the modern dairy industry get rid of its excess poor-quality, low-fat milk from modern high-production herds.
Retrieved April 22, 2011, from http://www.realmilk.com/what.html
To go deeper…
The Campaign for Real Milk by the Weston A. Price Foundation is one of the best websites on the health benefits of raw milk. It has articles on Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized Milk and Abstracts on the Effect of Pasteurization on the Nutritional Value of Milk among stacks of other information.
Raw-Milk-Facts is another site dedicated to the health benefits of drinking raw milk.
