Disclaimer:  Since the original posting of “A Campaign for Raw Milk”, I felt it was necessary to convey what should be obvious:  That unpasteurized milk is a raw product that contains live bacteria, beneficial and non-beneficial, which under rare circumstances in these modern times have been known to cause illness—especially if said milk is acquired from a facility that is not licensed to sell it.  If drinking raw milk, it is of utmost importance that the milk comes from a regulated and certified dairy that holds a Texas State Health Department “Grade A Raw for Retail Milk Permit”.

I am neither a chemist nor a microbiologist, and the assumptions that appeared in the original post were based on research that I did, which heavily relied on studies provided by the Weston A. Price Foundation.  I’ll be the first to admit that I was blown away by the plethora of facts or “facts” that can be found on the internets purporting raw milk’s alleged health benefits.  After several conversations with a chemist as well as our local microbiology expert, Dr. Richard Sucgang, it appears that most of the health benefits of raw milk are to this day, highly questionable. Aside from the argument of miraculous benefits that some have associated with raw milk, I feel there are still extremely important reasons to support its production and partake of the bovine elixir. Swim at your own risk…

 That being said: 

Honestly, I’ve never been much of a milk drinker. I wasn’t the type of person who would step up to the fridge, pour myself a tall glass of ice-cold milk and gulp it down. In fact, just the thought of that, even to this day, makes me want to throw up a bit—something about the way it smelled after I swallowed. I grew up around these people though. I was good friends with a guy who drank massive quantities of the stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Weird, I thought.

Good Old Fashioned, Raw Milk

Chocolate milk? Now that was a different story. Put enough chocolate and sugar in something and believe you me, I’ll get it down. That’s about as far as my milk bastardization went though. Of course I had no problem with milk on my cereal. And, ice cream is one of my favorite things in the entire world. Drinking milk for milk’s sake though? Never. It probably didn’t help my milk outlook that the only milk my parents had around was of the skim variety. In hindsight, if I don’t get the “whole-milk drinker” then I really don’t get “the skim-milk drinker”. Chalky, white water? Thanks, no, I’ll pass.

Over the last couple of years, in our effort to eat less-processed foods, of course the question of milk came up. Real unpasteurized, unhomogenized, no rBST (recombinant bovine Stomtotropin—this is an anacronym for a genetically engineered growth hormone that is used to increase a cow’s natural milk supply) , straight out of the cow, raw milk. 

Depending on your location in this fine country of ours, procuring milk of that sort can be a tricky endeavor. In some states its plain illegal to sell or buy it. In other states it is legal to drink real milk from a cow that you own. So what did people do? Cow shares, that’s what. Dairy’s would sell a portion of a cow to their customers and the customers in turn could have all the real milk that they could use. Obviously, this was a loophole in the system; one that the Man has mostly closed in the last few years.

In other states, real milk can be sold to the general public as long as it is labeled “not for human consumption”. I’m thinking, “Ok, THIS milk…the milk I’m paying $7 per gallon for is for my dog. Really, it is. I won’t be drinking it. You don’t have to worry about that.” Really? Now this is becoming silly. The Fed is telling me that they’re fine with smoking (which has obvious harmful effects), but drinking milk in the same manner that people have drunk it for thousands of years is not only bad for me, but a punishable crime? Wow.  (Note to self:  must cut raw fish out of my diet as well as raw and/or undercooked beef…oh, and must start cooking pork to point where it sucks the moisture out of my body as I chew it.)

Jerseys in the Sun

So why all the fuss? To adequately answer that question, some historical context is needed. During the mid-19th Century, industrialized cities seemed growing at an alarming rate. To meet the burgeoning demand for milk, inner-city dairies began to pop up. Because space was limited, the dairies simply crammed as many cows together as possible and fed them the most economical feed available (not much has changed in those regards). A century-and-half later, we understand that feeding cows a diet consisting of anything other than hay or grass, takes a serious toll on their bodies. The unnatural diets, paired with disgusting, squalored conditions produced milk that was heavily contaminated with pathogens that wreaked havoc on whom most partook.

As is typical, we decided to figure out how to make the filthy milk drinkable, instead of simply addressing the way in which the animals lived that in turn made the milk toxic to begin with. In 1864, microbiologist pioneer, Louis Pasteur developed a technique to kill the harmful pathogens in the filthy milk, thusly saving the world from certain destruction. Bless his heart.

[Granted, the above video documents the "post-dairy life" of many dairy cattle, but it struck me that it was stated that many times the cows come to the auction barely able to stand, and often extremely sick.  Check out the cow's udder around the three minute mark]

By forcing milk between steel plates or through pipes heated on the outside with 161 degree water for roughly 15-20 seconds, the harmful pathogens in the filthy milk are killed, thusly eliminating most of the risk associated with drinking it. There is another process used with organic milk called Ultra-Pasteurization. I remember the first time we picked up a gallon of organic milk. I had no idea what ultra-pasteurization was, nor did I care. I just slept soundly at night knowing I was drinking (on cereal only of course) organic milk. Notice the next time you pop into the grocery store that non-organic milk is rarely ultra-pasteurized and organic milk almost always is. This is yet another area in which the symptom is treated, not the problem. To meet the demand for organic milk, dairies still use the factory farm model. The problem is that they’re not able to use antibiotics in the feed per USDA guidelines, to keep disease down. The milk that comes from organic dairy cows that live in the same conditions as conventional dairy cows, but without the antibiotics to treat the diseases, is therefore dirtier and has to be dealt with in a different manner. Ultra-pasteurization was the obvious answer. In this process, the milk is heated evenly to 280 degrees for a fraction of a second. The resulting milk is said to be 99.999% dead—free of any pesky micro-organisms: yeasts, mold, bacteria (beneficial and non-beneficial). This is why ultra-pasteurized milk will pretty much last indefinitely in the fridge; there is simply nothing in it to spoil.

"Fleur" the Jersey Milk Cow

What about safety though? Did we not originally begin pasteurizing our milk because the raw stuff was killing people? Yes, and we already addressed that. But really, how safe is raw milk? The answer is, well, it depends. Would I ever suggest going to a large, industrial, factory farmed dairy to purchase raw milk? Not a chance (plus, more than likely, they can’t legally sell it raw anyway).

Regardless of one’s stance on pasteurization, the model that most modern dairies use to produce milk still leaves a lot to be desired.  In general, the factory-farmed methods for agriculture leave a lot to be desired.  It is for this main reason that we choose to support a small dairy.  At any given time, Bob Stryk owner of Stryk Dairy in Schuelenberg, Texas, is milking about thirty of his eighty Jersey cows which are kept rotating on approximately 100 or so acres (as opposed to Industrial Milk keeping hundreds  of cows crammed into small confinement operations). Everything from his pastures, to the milking facility, to the cheese room are clean as a whistle—they have to be or his license hangs in jeopardy. When a farmer removes the safety net of pasteurization, the accountability falls back to him and when that means his livelihood is at stake, you better believe he takes it seriously.

In Texas, only a handful of dairies have a “Grade A Raw for Retail Milk Permit” issued by the Texas Department of State Health Services. To qualify and maintain this permit, the Texas State Department inspects the facility, the milk, and the cows, every other day. As Bob Stryk, told me, “I don’t want to sell milk from a cow that I wouldn’t be comfortable milking from myself” (literally…stepping up to the teat and well, you know…). 

Stacey and the Calf

So why does the Fed make it so hard to acquire raw milk? We’ve all seen the Got Milk? campaign (and are all hopefully, eagerly waiting for that moment of marketing brilliance to die and never be ripped off again). It was created by the California Milk Processors Board in 1993 and then licensed by national dairy farms and milk processors across the country. This group obviously has a powerful lobby and as with most things in the agricultural world, they’re commingled politically with the powers that be. As with the beef industry, the dairy industry is heavily subsidized with inexpensive feed which in turn produces cheap milk. Maybe it’s the conspiracy theorist in me, but it makes sense that if large amounts of people turned back to drinking raw milk versus pasteurized, the milk industry would be left scratching their heads wondering what to do with all of the overhead that incorporates Industrial milk.  They would be forced to change.

Instead, they demonize raw milk and the farmers that produce it. The consumer is the one that loses in the end. In Houston, we either have to rely on people that frequent a dairy that provides raw milk, or we have to go to the dairy ourselves, which for most folks, is a major inconvenience.

So what constitutes a clean dairy? I suppose the answer to that is in the eye of the beholder. Being in Texas, we obviously don’t have a lot of choices at this point. We get our milk from Stryk Dairy. It’s convenient because it is on our way to the ranch in Yoakum. More than that though, it is a small operation that anyone with a smidge of desire, can drive to and see for themselves (…even pet a few calves if you’re little heart desires).

Whoah, did I actually forget to mention that the taste of raw milk will make you never want to drink that chalky, supermarket crap ever again? Well, it does.