Monday, June 15, 2009

Raw Milk

What is the difference between “raw milk” and what we buy in the store?
Milk you buy in the store has been pasteurized, homogenized and fortified with vitamins D2 and D3.

What is pasteurization?
“Pasteurization” is heating a food product to a high temperature in order to kill all the bacteria. The problem is it destroys the good bacteria and lactic acid (which helps you digest your food and fights bad bacteria) as well. This leaves the very small amount of bad bacteria with no competition for food, allowing it to multiply. All salmonella cases from the last few decades linked to milk have all been from pasteurized milk.
Pasteurization was begun eighty years ago because dairy cows near cities were fed the leftovers from distilleries and city garbage. 65% of these cows had Tuberculoses. These cows were kept on filthy feed lots and milked under unsanitary conditions. I wouldn’t drink unpasteurized milk produced under these conditions either.

Today’s dairies milk under much more sanitary conditions and all cows are tested once per year for tuberculoses. Any cow testing positive is immediately destroyed.

Certified Raw milk is inspected on a daily basis (far more often than normal dairies and the facilities must be almost surgically clean) and tested for pathogens. Bacteria numbers must be lower (10,000 parts per cubic centimeter) even than post-pasteurized milk (25,000 parts per cubic centimeter). Also, often Certified Raw milk is from cows who actually live on pasture instead of feed lots. This is the difference in sanitation between a pigpen and a golf course.

Pasteurization also:
§ Destroys at least 90% of digestive enzymes- especially lactase- leaving anyone who doesn’t produce their own, dairy intolerant. (The test to make sure pasteurizations was successful is to see that there are no digestive enzymes detectable in the milk.) Digestive enzymes are what helps the body assimilate all nutrients.

§ Destroys amino acids lysine and tyrosine which makes proteins less available.

§ Destroys many vitamins including 50% of C, 80% of the B’s, 2/3 of A and D, all of vitamin B12,

§ Destroys 50% of the minerals, including calcium. This destruction of calcium leaves pasteurized milk consumers more susceptible to osteoporosis. It also destroys chloride, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and sulphur as well as many trace minerals.

§ Destroys the Wulzen factor related to the prevention and treatment of arthritis.

§ Alters the protein making it easier to be allergic.

§ Alters the lactose (literally “milk sugar”) making it more absorbable. This not only adds unneeded sugar but puts stress on the pancreas leading to diabetes.

§ Has been linked to chronic fatigue, and other degenerative diseases.
§

What is homogenization?
Homogenization is the forcing of milk through microscopic holes, which breaks up the fat molecules into much smaller pieces. This makes the fat stay thoroughly mixed in the milk instead of rising to the top like normal. This produces a prettier product that lasts longer on the store shelf.
Homogenization also:

§ Causes more fat to absorb into the blood. This raises the amount of absorbable calories.

§ Has been linked to increased heart disease because more fat gets into the circulatory system and thus more is able to stick to the arteries.

§ May contribute to cancer. Studies have shown butter to protect against cancer, but homogenized milk does not. No studies have yet been done on un-homogenized milk, but it would stand to reason that milk with unaltered butterfat in it would have the same results as butter. The fact is that homogenized/pasteurized fat particles go rancid faster than natural ones. Rancid fats are a known carcinogen.
§
What about vitamins D2 and D3?
The vitamin D that we absorb from sunlight is D1. This is the natural kind. D2 and D3 are derived from toxic substances. Now, it is better to have even these types of D than nothing, (Many children today who spend all day in front of TV and the computer and only drink soda get none and Rickets (a vitamin D deficiency disease) is on the rise), but D2 and D3 have been linked to heart disease and are difficult to absorb.

Hormones?
Our dairy cows are all fed hormones (Estrogen) to make them produce more milk. Feedlot beef (most of what you find in stores) is also fed Estrogen in order to make them gain weight faster. Trace amounts of hormones are found in our milk and meat. This…

· May be the cause of so many women having hormone related problems today. Some researchers say the problems are definitely symptoms of estrogen overload.

· May be one cause of our national epidemic of obesity.

· Is doing who knows what to our men!

·
Antibiotics?
Also, these animals are routinely fed antibiotics, which also find their way into our food. The unnatural conditions which these animals are raised in causes stress reducing their natural immunities. This reduced immunity combined with overcrowded, mucky living conditions is the perfect environment for spreading disease. Thus the routine antibiotics.

This causes common germs to become immune to antibiotics putting us all at risk of contracting antibiotic resistant strains of disease. An outbreak of salmonella in 1985 in Illinois made 14,000 people sick, killed at least one and was alarmingly genetically resistant to penicillin and tetracycline.

What else?
· Chemicals to suppress odor are added.

· Powdered skim milk is added to 2% and 1% milk. The dehydration process that produces powdered milk oxidizes cholesterol making it harmful to arteries (natural, un-oxidized cholesterol is what makes our cell walls stiff and is necessary to life.) High temperature drying creates compounds that are known carcinogens and glutamic acid which is toxic to the nervous system.

Add to all this the unnatural, high protein diet the cows are fed (in order to increase production). This high protein (soybean) diet has been linked to altered proteins in milk that cause milk allergies and diabetes.

Raw milk has all the things God originally put into milk. It is the most complete of all foods. There is no place in the Bible that calls milk or any milk product anything but a blessing.

When you buy a bottle of raw milk, you will see a layer of cream colored liquid at the top. This is real cream. You can skim it off and use it as cream (in your coffee or ?), whip it with a little sugar or honey for whipped cream, or keep going and it makes butter.

The milk itself can be drunk, made into butter milk, yogurt, kerfir, or many different cheeses (all with or without the cream still in it).

Monday, June 1, 2009

Breast is Best!

Breast milk was designed by God to meet the needs of babies. For thousands of years, this was the only real food available for little ones. The human race has thrived on this early food.

The milk of a mother of a preemie is different in just the right way from the milk of a mother of a full term baby.
Milk from a mother of a newborn is different from the milk of a mother of a six month old.
Milk produced in the winter is higher in fat (to keep the baby warm) while milk produce in the summer is higher in water.

God made breast milk to be just right at just the right time.