People have been drinking raw milk from animals for thousands of years. Really, the term "raw" is a misnomer because it implies that all milk should be cooked, but that's a topic for another page! Onward...
Whether it's from cows, goats, sheep, camels, yak, water buffalo, horses, donkeys or even reindeer, unheated, unprocessed milk has been a safe, reliable food source for a good, long time.
Even in the tropics, and centuries before refrigeration had been invented, raw milk was an important food source for many cultures. By exploiting the preservative benefits of fermentation, primitive peoples were able to take a great food and make it even better.
Having access to a nutrient-laden food from their animals gave many cultures a distinct advantage over their hunter-gatherer contemporaries.
Rather than having to go from kill to kill, with sometimes days in between, even nomadic tribes like the Maasai nearly always had a protein source at hand, whether it was milk, blood or meat.
With a readily available food supply at hand, members of societies were freed up to pursue more productive things like making babies, building permanent communities, conquering their neighbors and everything else that comes with not having to spend energy hunting for food.
Considering raw milk's role throughout history, it's simple to see that it's not a deadly food. If it were, all those dairy-loving primitive cultures would have died out long ago, leaving their vegetarian cousins to mind the store. At the very least, people would have dropped it from their diets entirely. And we haven't even gotten to germ theory yet... Closer to home, our early American ancestors lived in a farm-based economy. As the Industrial Revolution reached our shores, the cities swelled with job seekers lured from their farms by the factories and mills. By 1810, there were dozens of water-powered operations lining the rivers of southern New England, all staffed by thirsty workers.
With raw milk and whiskey being the main beverages of choice (hopefully not mixed!), demand for both grew along with the cities. When the War of 1812 broke out, the supply of distilled spirits from Europe essentially dried up. Although the conflict only lasted about two years, it's impact on our country was substantial, and strangely enough for milk, particularly nasty.
To meet the soaring demand for spirits, distilleries soon sprang up in most major cities. In one of the most bizarre twists of entrepreneurial insight, some brilliant soul thought it would be fun (and profitable) to confine cows adjacent to the distillery and feed them with the hot, reeking swill left over from the spirit-making process.
As you might guess, the effects of distillery dairy milk were abominable, and for many of those drinking it, amounted to a virtual death sentence. Confined to filthy, manure-filled pens, the unfortunate cows gave a pale, bluish milk so poor in quality, it couldn't even be used for making butter or cheese. Add sick workers with dirty hands, diseased animals and any number of contaminants in unsanitary milk pails and you had a recipe for disaster.
Lacking its usual ability to protect itself, and with a basic understanding of germs or microbes decades away, the easily contaminated "pseudo-milk" was fed to babies by their unwitting mothers. In New York City during 1870 alone, infant mortality rocketed to around 20% and stayed there for many more years.
The Distillery Dairy page mentioned above contains links to articles in the New York Times archives which enable you to 'read all about it' in the language of the era.
The situation languished for years until two men stepped up to the plate from different directions, united by a disaster common in the day- the death of a child.
In 1889, two years before the death of his son from contaminated milk, Newark, New Jersey doctor Henry Coit, MD urged the creation of a Medical Milk Commission to oversee or "certify" production of milk for cleanliness, finally getting one formed in 1893.
By joining with select dairy experts, Coit (above, treating babies in New Jersey) and his team of physicians (unpaid for this work, by the way) were able to enlist dairy farmers willing to meet their strict standards of hygiene in the production of clean, certified milk. After years of tireless effort, raw, unpasteurized milk was again safe and available for public consumption, but it cost up to four times the price of uncertified milk.
New York philanthropist Nathan Straus, who lost a child to milk contaminated with diphtheria, felt differently. He believed the only safe milk was that which had been pasteurized.
Straus (at right) made a fortune as co-owner of Macy's department stores and spent decades promoting pasteurization across America and Europe.
Using his considerable finances, he set up and subsidized the first of many "milk depots" in New York City to provide low-cost pasteurized milk. While infant mortality did fall dramatically, other technological advances, such as chlorination of water supplies and reduction of previously ever-present horse manure (through the arrival of the automobile) occurred in the same time period making it difficult to say which change was most responsible. Pasteurized and certified milks managed to peacefully co-exist for a time, but by the mid-1940's, the truce had become decidedly uneasy. In 1944. a concerted media smear campaign was launched with a series of completely bogus magazine articles designed to spark fear at the very thought of consuming raw milk.
Government officials and medical professionals, swayed by corporate dollars and lies, have effectively taken this valuable, healing food from the mouths of the people. Only in recent years has the consumer backlash against valueless processed foods grown to the point where access to clean, raw milk is once again being considered a dietary right. Source: http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/milk_history.html
Just what is in raw milk? Think of it is as an oil/water emulsion. It's also known in some circles as a colloidal suspension.
To make every gallon of milk, a cow must pump from 600-800 gallons of blood through her udder. Think of that next time you pour yourself a glass. That cow poured her heart into it!
Whole raw milk's composition varies slightly among cow species, type of food and other conditions, so the figures below (and, at right, from a commercial raw milk dairy) are only approximations. Here's a rough breakdown in percent of total volume: Water 87.3%
Few words are as highly charged in the food world as "fat." Perhaps "lipid" would be a better word. Please see my Fat Primer for images and more information on this wonderful, energy-laden food group.
In milk, more than 95% of the fats form into spherical shaped objects called globules from 0.1 to 15 microns in diameter (that's pretty tiny- a micron is a millionth of a meter, or roughly 25,400 to the inch.)
Just over 98% of the lipids in milk are in the class known as triglycerides- a glycerol molecule (glycerin) with three fatty acids (of various lengths and saturations) attached. There are ten major fatty acids found in milk to varying degree: Butyric Acid 4 (# of Carbon atoms) Caproic Acid 6 Caprylic Acid 8 Capric Acid 10 Lauric Acid 12 Myristic Acid 14 Palmitic Acid 16 Stearic Acid 18 Oleic Acid 18:1 (one double bond) CLA 18:2 (two double bonds)
Milk also contains cholesterol, another controversial and dreaded word. For the most part, it's located in the cores of fat globules, and amounts to roughly 0.3% of all milk lipids. The less we get in our diets, the more our bodies make on their own. Check out myCholesterol Primerto get the straight scoop on why this much-maligned substance is essential to our health. Raw Milk Proteins: Proteins are complex molecules comprised of long chains of amino acids. Depending on interactions between some of the amino acids, the molecules can twist into helical formations or pleated sheets (secondary structure). Tertiary proteins undergo further coiling and folding. When clustered together somewhat spherically, they are known as globular proteins. Fibrous tertiary proteins are formed when two or more long strands of amino acids form links along their length.
The caseins, normally highly in the intestinal tract, are relatively heat stable. Being secondary in structure, and so without much complex structure to unravel, they survive the heat of pasteurization (145-160 deg. F.) fairly well. After ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurization (280-305°F./138-152°C.) their fate is uncertain.
The whey proteins,including the immunoglobulins, are very sensitive to heat (heat labile) and denature well below the heat of normal pasteurization.
Incidentally, the denaturation of whey protein affects the whiteness of milk. Milk gets whiter after it's processed.
By the way, did I mention that not all raw milk is the same? It's not. Check my About Raw Milk page to find out why. Milk Sugar: Lactose, the first carbohydrate most baby mammals ever taste, is actually made up of two simple sugars, glucose and galactose, making it a disaccharide. Cow's milk hovers at around 5% lactose (human milk averages a bit higher at just over 7% by comparison). It's got a fairly low glycemic index (doesn't boost insulin levels very quickly) and so is better tolerated by diabetics.
As some people age, their levels of lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose, drop significantly. When they consume heat treated dairy products with no remaining food enzyme activity, they lack sufficient lactase to break the milk sugar down, and suffer numerous unpleasant symptoms, notably gas and bloating. Not fun. But raw milk, with live, friendly lactobacilli, has its bacterially-produced lactase intact, so chances are good these folks may be able to tolerate it.
Another way to enjoy the benefits of dairy with almost none of the lactose, is to eat fermented products such as yogurt and kefir. The friendly microbes, during the fermentation process, have consumed pretty much all the lactose, turning it into the sour tasting lactic acid that's such a powerful antimicrobial agent.
Raw milk cheeses are another tasty way to enjoy dairy without the lactose. Again, most of the lactose is consumed in the fermentation process. Minerals in Raw Milk: The mineral content of milk varies with a host of conditions as well. Soil quality, geographical location, species of cow, health of the animal- all these factors and more come into play.
Accesibility to raw milk's mineral content is dependent upon its enzymes and other factors remaining functional. Here are some approximate values for mineral levels in the average quart of raw milk: Mineral Content per quart (Typical range):
Vitamins in Raw Milk: Raw milk contains every known fat and water soluble vitamin. To get them all, make sure you drink whole raw milk or you'll miss those lost in the skimming process.
Vitamin C levels, already fairly low in cow's milk (typically less than 20mg/quart- about half the level found in human milk), have been shown to drop further when exposed to ultraviolet light such as from sunlight or fluorescent lights. Store it in the dark at home, and ask your store to look into UV filters for their cold-case lights. Here are some approximate but typical amounts of vitamins found in raw milk:
Enzymes in Raw Milk: Yet another controversial topic, and important enough to deserve a website all its own, the enzymes in raw milk are crucial in making it the valuable healing food it is.
The arguments range from their having no digestive benefit because they can't withstand the acid environment of the stomach, to outright denial of their existence.
No one can truthfully or knowingly deny that these powerful but fragile protein-based substances are in milk for a purpose. Getting people to agree on that purpose is another matter entirely! To understand their importance, it's helpful to know what enzymes are, and what they do in foods and in our bodies.
Basically, enzymes are complex forms of protein (made out of amino acids) that can change (catalyze) other substances without taking part in the reaction themselves. In digestion, for instance, they help break down starches, fats and proteins into chunks the body can use.
Here's a list of the more important enzymes in raw milk: Amylase Catalase Lactase-(through bacterial synthesis) Lactoperoxidase Lipase Phosphatase
Finally part 1 of the project! Presenting our findings about Dutch raw milk cheese in Italy. We are very contented about the final result and curious what you think of the market research report! Hope you like it so enjoy reading it!
With raw milk and whiskey being the main beverages of choice (hopefully not mixed!), demand for both grew along with the cities. When the War of 1812 broke out, the supply of distilled spirits from Europe essentially dried up. Although the conflict only lasted about two years, it's impact on our country was substantial, and strangely enough for milk, particularly nasty. 
Using his considerable finances, he set up and subsidized the first of many "milk depots" in New York City to provide low-cost pasteurized milk.
