Benefits of Raw Organic Dairy 
(un-homogenized, un-pasteurized Goat or Cow milk dairy)

  • Easily digested by those intolerant to dairy (digests itself)
  • Excellent for your health: contains enzymes, probiotics, and immune building compounds not found in regular organic milk
  • Helps prevent asthma, eczema, allergies, ear infections, GI problems, dermatitis, and auto-immune problems instead of causing them.
  • Contains enzymes that improve Calcium and Magnesium absorption into your bones.
  • Probiotics in the milk strengthen the digestive system allowing tolerance by those with IBS and allergies.
  • Contains immune building compounds excellent for infants & kids
  • Raw goat dairy is most similar to breast milk: ideal & delicious substitute to infant formula (recipe on this page)
  • Good for the heart, kidneys, prostate, & blood pressure (pasteurized milk makes these worse). More info below.
  • The most delicious, rich, milk & cream you can get 
  • Fresh milk from the animal only a couple of days before you get it!

Other Topics


What's so special about RAW dairy?

For those who have not heard, raw milk (unpasteurized) is one of the most coveted health foods around. In general, it's not easy to obtain RAW dairy because it's challenging to find a reputable farm that is clean, ethical and exclusively grass-feeds their animals. A few states such as California readily have raw dairy available in stores. Unfortunately, other states have limited to no supply. In Florida, Whole Foods sells raw milk in plastic bottles (which leak phthalates), the milk is not very fresh, and it is questionable if the animals are exclusively grass fed. For this reason, I'm thrilled to have found Miller's Organic Farm as a great source! 

Unlike pasteurized milk which is linked to many diseases, infections, colds, and allergies, raw dairy is extremely healthy and easy to digest. For anyone with dairy intolerance, there is an 85% chance you won't have complications with this milk. Unless you grew up on a farm, raw dairy is unlike any product you've ever had so you are in for a gourmet healthy treat!

What is Raw Milk and Why Buy It? 

Raw milk is the way we used to get our milk back when it was delivered to your doorstep in a glass bottle or fresh from the cow/goat on the farm. It is not homogenized nor pasteurized. Unlike organic supermarket milk, raw milk contains numerous immune building compounds, natural enzymes, is richer in vitamins and minerals, and contains cancer-fighting CLA. Pasteurization kills all the beneficial properties of milk making it difficult to digest because it is devoid of enzymes. People who cannot tolerate or digest regular milk can digest raw dairy without complications. The homogenization process damages the fats, creating health and digestive problems.  

Complete details, links to informative websites, health benefits and safety of raw milk are provided below on this page.

Why do babies do so well on Raw Goat Milk?

From birth, my baby was allergic/sensitive to cow milk based products. When I consumed cow dairy, my breast milk made my baby very sick causing her to vomit and scream from pain. She is now two years old and has never done well on pasteurized dairy including formula. Yet, she does great on raw milk productswith no adverse reactions at all! 

All infant formulas are cow dairy based and soy formula is poisonous to babies (read more about dangers of soy formula and on the research and problems with soy). Read more about general Infant Nutrition from this link. It is highly recommended for moms who are unable to breastfeed or produce enough milk, to feed their babies raw milk formula because it is a far superior nutrient dense option. Poor quality commercial formula makes infants sick with allergies, vomit, gas, tummy ache, constipation, diarrhea, etc.

After months of research, I've concluded that homeade raw milk formula is the second best to breastmilk a baby can get. This is a fascinating topic that I recommend you read up on! I've met other moms who share my experience with pasteurized dairy products so I delightfully announce that a great breast milk substitute is homemade infant formula or buying raw milk from Miller's Organic Farm.  

Read various topics on this site about Infant Nutrition


Is it SAFE to drink Raw Milk?

YES. It's quite safe. After months of researching this topic, it's evident that consumption of raw milk from grass-fed animals is the safest option. Based on statistics from a Stanford University Microbiologist (p56 of Expert Court Testimony), it's safer to drink raw milk than pasteurized milk. The Raw Milk story is truly incredible information that everyone should know. Here is an interview with Dr. Mercola with Mark McAfee on the topic of raw milk safety.

The goal is to obtain milk from a quality farm that raises healthy pasture grazing animals. I encourage you to read why pasteurizing came about and how it was a better alternative to the filthy conditions surrounding the industrial revolution. Pasteurization continues to be imperative for the sole benefit of big commercial farms to maximize profit by milking unhealthy animals, locking their animals in barns and injecting them with hormones. This simply is NOT the case for milk obtained from healthy grass-fed animals on ethical farms. 

Here are some stats from 2008: 
* 60 government-reported illnesses from raw milk per year.
* About 500,000 raw milk drinkers in the US.
Rate of illness from raw milk can be calculated at .012%. 
* 76,000,000 cases of food-borne illness from all sources in the US per year. (deli meats, produce, chicken, beef, pasteurized milk, etc)
* Population about 300,000,000
Rate of illness from all foods is 25%

Thus, even using inflated government statistics on illness from raw milk, you are over 2,000 times more likely to contract illness from other foods than from raw milk. PLUS, drinking raw milk protects you against illness from other foods!

The problem stems from big farms who in order to increase profit follow unethical practices that increase production at the expense of the animal's health. They milk the cows despite being unhealthy and having infections! The details on this story are quite disgusting and sad. The health of the animal has everything to do with the health of the milk, hence, it's important to drink milk from healthy grass fed, free roaming, happy animals. 

Raw Milk Websites, Links & News


Pasteurization vs Raw Milk by Mark McAfee, Organic Pastures Dairy owner (Dr. Mercola's website)


 

Infants and Milk Allergies

Many babies are allergic or sensitive to cow dairy based infant formula and frequently get sick from consuming it. However, they do great on raw goat milk or raw cow milk. If indigestion, diarrhea, constipation, gas, and vomiting occur while using cow infant formula, substituting with raw cow milk or goat milk may solve the problem. Raw goat milk protein is very similar in size to breast milk and it contains enzymes that aid in the breakdown of these proteins. In addition, raw goat milk contains immune building compounds similar to those found in breast milk. 

Store bought infant formula is considered "dead milk" and it is not similar to breast milk. That's the reason babies commonly get sick with colds soon after switching from breastmilk to formula. If your child is not reacting well to cow milk, try a homemade infant formula made from RAW goat or RAW cow milk. It's a completely different and superior nourishment that will cause your infant/child to do great on it. (See video by Mark McAfee on explanation why infants do not do well on pasteurized milk).

Research on Allergies, Asthma, and Raw Milk

In a study of 14,893 children aged 5-13, consumption of raw milk was the strongest factor in reducing the risk of asthma and allergy (whether the children lived on a farm or not). The benefits were greatest when consumption of farm milk began during the first year of life. Clinical & Experimental Allergy. 2007 May; 35(5) 627-630


Breast Milk and Raw Milk vs Pasteurized MilkSee comparison between Breast Milk, Raw Milk, and Pasteurized Milk on this chart.


Raw Cow or Raw Goat Milk Infant Formula 

The second best thing to breast milk is making your own infant formula using healthy raw milk. Homemade infant formula is far superior to commercial formulas which have no living compounds for immune system enhancement, contain far fewer beneficial nutrients, and lack enzymes or cultures (probiotics) for digestion. Aside from breast milk, homemade raw milk infant formula is the only food ideally suited for the newborn because they are born without immunity. If you cannot get raw milk, you can buy pasteurized goat milk at the market and follow the recipe for fortification. This milk is easier for infants to digest, but is still considered "dead milk" with fewer health benefits compared to raw milk. You must follow the "recipes" in order to add the correct amounts of nutrients and fats for each batch and dilute the milk accordingly.

Raw Milk Infant Formula Recipe 

Sourced from Weston A. Price Organization (www.westonaprice.org)Here are the  vitamins, nutrients, and healthy fats I add into my homemade infant formula:
 See page of Infant friendly supplements my clients and I use which mix in perfectly. Here are the studies on why adding EFAs are so critical for your infant's brain development.  



More Information on Raw Dairy 

(from www.ppnf.org)
Interview with Dr. David Getoff 
Traditional Naturopath, Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist and Vice President of Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation. To read more about David Getoff, click here.

Q: Why are people allergic to milk?

A: That's the big important piece of information that the public doesn't know. In general, there isn't anything in milk that a large percentage of the population is allergic to...until we start changing and altering it via homogenization and pasteurization.

Raw milk shouldn't be called "raw milk", it should simply be called milk. Nobody ever calls the broccoli or cauliflower they buy in the store "raw broccoli" or "raw cauliflower". They simply say broccoli and cauliflower, and if you cook it, you refer to it as "cooked". Well, the same goes for milk. Rather than say raw milk, we should say "milk" if it's raw and "cooked milk" if it's pasteurized because pasteurization heats milk to a temperature higher than the boiling point. This process destroys enzymes and denatures proteins.

Pasteurization alters milk. Many people, who would not otherwise experience complications, are intolerant to changes that occur during the pasteurization process. From my own research with thousands of students and patients, approximately 8 out of 10 people who have complications digesting milk, do not have the same problem when it is consumed RAW. Why is this? Pasteurization damages the enzyme lactase that is required to breakdown the sugar lactose into glucose and galactose. As babies, we produce lactase to digest breastmilk. In some people, lactase production decreases drastically after being fully weaned from breastmilk. Raw milk contains its own lactase, making milk digestion possible. People do not have a problem with raw milk, they only have a problem after it's been pasteurized and homogenized. This shows that milk is not the issue, rather the issue stems from an intolerance to lactose. Most importantly, intolerance is not a milk allergy, it is a lactose malabsorption. 

Low and behold Mother Nature knows that the human body generally doesn't do well with lactose so she put plenty of lactase into milk to prevent malabsorption. Let's not kill lactase by pasteurizing milk. Most people who are lactose intolerant can handle raw milk as long as they don't use it for cooking because cooking raises the temperature even higher than the heat of pasteurization making it no longer RAW.

Other people have problems when protein denaturation in milk occurs from heating. This is another reason why people who otherwise could handle raw milk have a problem with pasteurized milk.

Raw milk is higher in quality than pasteurized milk because the cows are much healthier. What the public doesn't know is that bacteria are still present in pasteurized milk as dead bacteria. This is extremely unhealthy because dead bacteria are very toxic. Killing something (bacteria) doesn't make it go away, it just makes it dead.

I interviewed the owners of 3 dairies that have their milk pasturized. They agree that raw milk is much healthier and that is what they feed their own families!

Two raw milk dairies that I know in California, Organic Pastures and Claravale, predominantly grass feed their animals, meaning they feed on what nature intended them to eat. They're not given grain, such as corn or other grains. Dairies feed their animals grain because it makes cows produce more milk and it's far too expensive to have sufficient land to enable cows to be herded to new pastures every few weeks for new grass. It also costs a great deal of money to irrigate the land enough to grow adequate grass in dry areas like California. When the cows eat all the grass in one pasture, they have to be moved to another pasture. This is an ongoing rotation process. It's simply very expensive, therefore it's cheaper to confine them to one place and feed them corn and grain twice a day. That's not what cows are meant to eat so they're not as healthy. A good quality raw dairy will have their cows eating mostly grass and may supplement the grass with alfalfa hay, but not grains. Grass fed cows don't have many health problems. If you have good quality raw milk, then you have a very healthy food (unless somebody truly has a milk allergy). I don't want anybody to eat a food that may cause them a problem no matter what it is...even if it is the best food in the world.

I recommend raw dairy products to my patients and students, unless they tell me raw milk causes them problems. Thankfully this is not often the case. The big issue with milk is not whether milk is good or bad for us, instead the issue is whether milk comes from healthy cows. Many different types of milk and varieties of cows exist. Almost all non organic dairy farms pump their cows with B.S.T. hormones to make them produce milk for longer time periods than they're naturally supposed to.

In general, I think most people would benefit from adding good quality raw dairy to their diet. This is especially the case of people who don't acquire enough protein from food.

The other big argument I often hear is that cow milk was meant for calves as human milk was meant for humans. We've decided numerous sort of fruits, vegetables, and meats are good for us. Some people selectively pull milk out and say it is obvious that milk was made for baby calves because it comes out of cows and it's not meant for humans. I could just as easily say it's obvious that we are not supposed to fly or we would have been given wings and we're not supposed to use electricity or it would have been put on this planet long before we would have figured it out. So it's a very poor argument that milk from cows was meant only for calves. Maybe fruits and vegetables are meant for birds and insects but not for humans?

Q: I heard that the molecules in cow milk are too large and therefore hard to break down in the human body.

A: Millions of people have been consuming raw cow milk and raw goat milk for thousands of years and have not only NOT been harmed by it but instead have benefited from it. In the book "The Untold Story of Milk" (to purchase this book, visit The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation bookstore by clicking here:) the author, Dr. Ron Schmid, does an exceptional job explaining the entire story of milk including how milk used to be farmed and what happened to destroy healthy practices in favor of the almighty dollar. In addition, "The Milk Book", by Dr Douglas, tells that using raw milk helped his patients get well. It's possible the use of raw milk was helpful because it was the only raw animal protein and the only raw animal fat these people had eaten, and the milk was an easy way to get those substances in his patients. People won't eat raw beef or raw chicken but they'll sip raw milk and say, “Oh, this tastes like regular milk, OK, I'll drink it to get my raw protein and raw fat.” I do not believe there's any problem with consumption of raw milk unless an individual is allergic to it, in the same manner one can be allergic to bee stings or anything else. (To purchase The Milk Book, visit The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation bookstore by clicking here:),

Q: What's the difference between pasteurization and homogenization?


A: The process of pasteurization was developed by Louis Pasteur. The process requires heating of milk at temperatures sufficient to kill bacteria and inactivate pathogens in attempt to sterilize milk. Of course it also kills the good bacteria, acidophilus/bifidus. Pasteurization eliminated the possible existence of tuberculosis bacteria in milk. In the last ten years or so, ultra-pasteurization came about to kill more bacteria and extend the shelf life of milk. They higher the heat utilized during pasteurization, the less the milk needs refrigeration. I want people to understand that preservation is the opposite of digestion and assimilation. So anything that we do to food to preserve it or make it last longer is drastically opposite to what we need in order for our body to be able to break it down properly. To promote optimal health, it's best to consume foods that will rot quickly because it means they are fresher.

Regarding homogenization, milk is not homogeneous. Milk is supposed to separate where the butter fat or cream comes up to the top. The poor American public should never have to do something like shake their milk. Maybe that will make them hurt their arm or cause them to get a muscle strain, so we, therefore, have to make everything more convenient so that it doesn't have to be shaken. This is the same thing they do with peanut butter. They put in partially hydrogenated (artery clogging, cancer causing) fats so it won't separate and the oils won't come up to the top anymore. That's what they did with homogenization. They break the molecules up into smaller particles to make them so small that they will no longer separate. They've again changed the milk . There are some people that believe that this releases a chemical called Xanthine Oxidase or XO which makes the homogenized milk more cancer causing and that's very possible. There is an entire report written about that by Frank Oski. It's all for convenience so we don't have to worry about milk separating anymore. I drink raw milk every day. I have for the last 10-15 years and it's not like some things where you have to shake it and shake it. You just shake it one quick time and it instantly goes back into solution. To treat the milk with things that may cause us problems just so the poor American public won't have to shake it once I think is totally ludicrous. I don't think there's really been any good research to show how many detrimental health affects may be caused by taking a natural product such as milk and homogenizing it.

Then there's organic, pasteurized milk . It's organic, not raw, and it is also homogenized. All the problems are still there except that it was not given hormones and antibiotics. They've removed one of the processes that are done to it (no hormones or antibiotics) which, of course, makes it better, but it's very important for people to understand that raw and organic have nothing to do with one another. Those are two very separate words. Raw means raw. Raw means it's never been cooked. Raw means it came out of the cow that way, whereas organic means that it meets whatever the local and state organic standards are as far as the cow not being fed things that have pesticides or herbicides in them and not being given injections of different chemicals and hormones. But you can take that organic milk and still pasteurize it. It's still organic. It's just organic pasteurized. A lot of people ask, if they can't get raw milk, "Is organic, pasteurized milk as good?" The answer is absolutely NO. The easiest way for anybody with a dairy to prove this themselves is to take 20 calves that have been recently born from cows who were raised on organic food, take half of them away from their mother and feed them raw milk from some other mother's udders. Then take the other half and feed them milk from another mother's udders (sound's like a tongue twister) except you pasteurize it first before you feed it to them. Within a few months, many of the calves on the pasteurized, organic milk will start becoming ill. Some may die because it's no longer a wholesome food for the calf after you have pasteurized it, even though it was organic . Organic just has to do with what is not in it (pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, etc) and raw means it hasn't been cooked.

Q: What happens to the protein in the milk that has been cooked?

A: It is denatured and the enzymes are destroyed. The same thing happens with other protein foods. For example, steak has some protease in it which is a protein digesting enzyme. All foods that are fresh and ripe (as opposed to heated or cooked) have enzymes, and in general, the enzymes that Nature put in the food will help you to better digest that food unless we destroy them by cooking.

Milk protein is called whey which is denatured when cooked. Whenever we cook something, we slowly begin to break it down (depending on the length of cooking time and the temperature it reaches) or we denature some of the amino acids (the building blocks of the protein). Some amino acids are more heat stable than others.

Q: If the proteins are destroyed then you aren't getting the benefits of milk like you to think you are?

A: Well, you are certainly getting some of the benefits, but you're not getting all of them. Every time we cook a protein, the amino acids that are the least heat stable start becoming harmed more quickly. There's an entire book written on the gross destruction of one very important amino acid, L-Glutamine. It is one of the more unstable (or less stable) amino acids. It's a very important amino acid for gut/intestinal function. Since it's one of the more unstable amino acids and because people eat most all of their proteins cooked, the book claims that a lot of people are deficient in L-Glutamine, which is one of the reasons for all of the leaky gut syndromes. It's very possible.

Q: You mentioned earlier that people need 500-600 mg. of calcium per day. Is that over and above what they get in their food?

A: Yes, as an extra supplement over and above what they get in their food if they are eating a decent diet. Any good multiple vitamin should already have that amount of calcium in it, so many people, if they take a really good multi-vitamin, do not need a separate calcium supplement.

Q: How much more calcium is in a glass of whole RAW milk?

A: The amount of calcium in raw milk and the amount of calcium in a glass of pasteurized milk is not going to change because pasteurization (or heating) does not destroy minerals. They remain the same. That's one of the good things about cooking vegetables. We don't cook the minerals out of them. However, we destroy many of the vitamins depending on how heat stable they are. We also kill all of the enzymes, but we don't kill the minerals. A mineral can't be killed just by heat.

As far as how much calcium is in milk, 8 fluid ounces of whole milk with 3.7% butterfat has 227 mg. of calcium. If somebody drank two 8 ounces of whole milk a day, they'd be getting close to 500 mg.

Q: If a person is getting more calcium than they need due to drinking a lot of milk, can it be harmful?

A. No there shouldn't be enough of anything in there to hurt them unless they're allergic to milk.

Q: I understand they have different standards and allow different bacteria counts on pasteurized milk verses raw milk. Is this true?

A. Milk standards are set by the milk or dairy commission in each individual state so there could be 40 – 50 different standards around the country, or they could be similar.

Q: But I heard that they were more strict with the raw milk and therefore, because of that, there is less bacteria in the raw milk.

A: There's one place that I am aware of that had a stricter standard for raw milk. When the Medical Milk Commission was in Los Angeles , CA. (they disbanded awhile ago, although they may be starting up again), they had a stricter set of standards for raw milk verses pasteurized milk.

Q: How bad is the dead bacteria in pasteurized milk?

A: Dead bacteria in pasteurized milk is not healthy but it will not kill you. It is just one more toxin to add to the thousands we are exposed to every day. Any substance which is not a food, that we consume when we eat, may cause some type of harmful effect. When we take in chemicals that are in our environment or when we're exposed to pesticides, herbicides, or heavy metals, our body has to detoxify them. Any of those are going to cause a problem. What people simply need to understand is why we are pasteurizing milk. The purpose of pasteurizing milk is to kill any undesirable bacteria and organisms that are in the milk. Now, if there weren't any undesirable organisms in the milk (clean milk from grass fed, disease free cows) but you decide to pasteurize it anyway, you will kill all the enzymes, denature many of the proteins, and cause some damage to the milk. On the other hand, if you're pasteurizing the milk because of the overcrowding of the animals that are being fed unnatural grains and you want to get rid of undesirable organisms in your milk, now you've killed the bacteria and are drinking milk with dead, undesirable organisms (in addition to denaturing the protein and killing the enzymes). A lot of the toxic nature of these undesirable organisms is still there, they simply aren't alive or infectious. I have to say that if I had to (I'm glad that I don't) consume this milk with bacteria, even I would rather the bacteria be dead.

Q: Why did we start pasteurizing milk?

A: There's a fabulous book with all the information and details that I mentioned earlier: The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, Naturopath, forward by Sally Fallon. (To purchase this book, visit The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation bookstore by clicking here:) It explains that it all started with commercial farming, with the overcrowding of the cows, feeding them grains, etc. People started getting sick from their milk, so rather than going back to the more natural way which would cost too much, they found that you could just pasteurize the milk and kill all the bad bacteria. Of course, it made it a very unhealthy milk, but at least it's not going to make people sick from live disease producing organisms. It's all in the book. It's a fabulous book. They are very specific as to what went on. It's a big book with over 400 pages.

Q: People will ask me, “How do I know that the raw milk that I get from the store is safe and that my kids won't die from it?”

A: The first thing I would want them to do (which most people won't do because they don't want to take the time to find the research or make a phone call) is to call up the Center for Disease Control and find out the statistics and the number of cases per year there are of people getting sick from drinking pasteurized milk versus raw milk from a commercial dairy.

The other thing I have people do just as an experiment (because it's very simple to do) is to buy a container of grass fed raw milk and a container of the best quality pasteurized milk you can find, which of course will be an organic brand. DO NOT OPEN EITHER CONTAINER. Put them in the back of your refrigerator and leave them there for 4 weeks. At the end of the 4 weeks, open up the raw milk. Because the acidophilus/bifidus are in there, it has lacto fermented. In other words, it has done the same thing that yogurt does, but it didn't have the exact same kind of bacteria in it and it didn't have the same starter culture so it hasn't jelled up. It has soured the way yogurt sours and it won't get anybody sick. Sour milk isn't going to hurt you, it just has a whole bunch of the lacto fermenting bacteria in it, which are actually beneficial for you. It will just taste sour. Some people actually do let their raw milk go sour because they like the taste of soured milk.

Now open up the pasteurized, organic milk. You will find that it has not gone sour because it didn't have any live lactobacillus in it. They were all killed by pasteurization, but pasteurization doesn't actually kill all the bad bacteria, so the milk has (sort of) been rotting as the bad bacteria break it down. Instead of souring, it has turned rancid. The bacteria that are in there can make you sick. You'll be able to smell the difference.



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