On front page of MSN UK today:

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What does everyone think about this?

1) I know some raw foodists say they drink small amounts of raw milk without any major (apparent) side effects, but if this really takes off, does this mean the non-raw general public will be drinking raw milk with their tea? Making 'cooked' meals using raw milk thinking they're being 'healthy'!?

2) If it really takes off, how realistic is it that all the raw milk will come from grass-fed, roaming cows who haven't been pumped full of hormones? Intensive farming exists because it makes more money.

3) How long will it be before someone gets seriously ill from drinking raw milk? Will this mean the media will suddenly take an anti-raw stance?

I'd like to think that the fad will introduce people to more raw food- where hopefully they'll find the need not to drink another animal's breast milk for nutrition.

On the same article was this link about kale:

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Excerpt:
Health benefits
So what’s so good about it? For a start, baby leaf curly kale is rich in vitamins A and C. Plus, of course, it’s low in fat and calories. It also contains six times more calcium than broccoli, milk (so it’s perfect for non-dairy eaters), yoghurt or spinach. We need calcium to build and maintain strong bones and teeth, to support our muscles and prevent blood clots.

Six times more calcium than milk. Why didn't they mention that in the pro raw-milk article!

-News is about the OUT OF THE ORDINARY. With 99.99% of the universe being compassionate, kind, & healthy.......it's the other percentage that gets all the headlines! Ha! ha! So what do I think of it? I don't personally believe raw dairy to be healthy........or a very conscious way to live.....by taking milk from a pregnant cow. But you cannot judge others. Perhaps the change from cooked foods to some 'raw' milk indicates an outward sign of increase of consciousness for them. More power to them and their process - and I support them 100%

-There are those that worry about what some 'gurus' say....or what information is being disseminated to the public in the name of 'raw'. But those in the know...and that are doing the real research...and walking the walk....and networking with other raw food folks that have been doing this for years.....are NOT fooled....or mislead. THEY have their goals firmly in mind....and the tools are made available for them.

-There is far less need to speak out against injustice and ignorance.....as their is onus to lead a just and enlightened life. Don't you think?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

As long as the raw milk is tested, which I think laws require it to be, I think it is a much better choice than pasteurized milk. I have a friend who recently started getting raw milk and makes kefir with it. Before she had made her kefir with pasteurized milk and now she says she sees improvement in her digestive system. Dr. Mercola is definitely pro raw milk, even though he cannot drink it himself.

Even pasteurized milk has had lots of recalls and pasteurization doesn't kill many of the bugs. I used to subscribe to the notmilk man's newsletter and learned that from him. He is not pro raw milk though, he is anti all milk.

I feel 100% better without any dairy in my diet. I can't judge those who want to use it, but in my opinion raw milk is still milk and i don't believe any animal is meant to drink the milk from another animal.

Raw milk isn't really new... I knew about it years ago. Just becoming more popular as people are becoming more aware about "regular" foods.


1) I know some raw foodists say they drink small amounts of raw milk without any major (apparent) side effects, but if this really takes off, does this mean the non-raw general public will be drinking raw milk with their tea? Making 'cooked' meals using raw milk thinking they're being 'healthy'!?

- Many people already do. There are also "health food" eating people that aren't raw. Like the kinds of people who shop at Whole Foods buying foods buying "healthy" alternatives even if it isn't quite raw. Oatmeal and Natural Peanut Butter is better than sugar cereal and transfat peanut butter.

2) If it really takes off, how realistic is it that all the raw milk will come from grass-fed, roaming cows who haven't been pumped full of hormones? Intensive farming exists because it makes more money.

- I don't see how this is any different than trusting your fruits or veggies to be "organic" or full of nutrients.
In either case, the trick is going to SMALL farms who care about their health and their animals health and aren't about taking shortcuts to make a profit.

3) How long will it be before someone gets seriously ill from drinking raw milk? Will this mean the media will suddenly take an anti-raw stance?

- The media is already anti-raw milk... Someone will get sick from it eventually I'm sure. But doesn't mean it'll end.

This must be a UK thing because it isn't new in the states.

anti-raw stance?

California has recently passed a ban on raw milk starting in 2008- namely, raw milk with a certain number of one of the many bacterias is no longer 'safe' (it's one of the feeder bacteria that keeps the milk less toxic than pasturized)- and whenever some veggie or fruit has contamination, raw milk is temporarily banned for the 'public's safety'.

i work for a raw milk distributor- so i'm forced to keep updated. milk is no less toxic now than when that first crazy man decided to start taking it from a cow teat. and it's been around for a while.

it's not for everyone- but i do think that a move to less processed foods for the general public is a great idea.

(i'm a nursing mother- so i might be biased for the milk world in general)

peace-

Without getting into the pros and cons of human adults drinking cow's milk, there is no doubt that fresh, clean raw milk is WAY, WAY, WAY better for you (or less harmful to you) than pasteurized, homogenized milk.

The real reason pasteurization and homogenization became legally mandated in most areas was lobbying from the milk industry. Milk treated like that won't support most bacteria any more, and thus has a much longer shelf life. This means they can store it longer and ship it longer distances before it expires.

Of course, when you do something that extends shelf life, by making the food less supportive of bacterial growth, you also make it less supportive of cellular function in the (human) consumer. Fresh, raw milk is a "live" food, in a sense. It strengthens the immmune system directly, helps build bones and other tissues, etc... Processed milk, on the other hand, is a "dead" food: it does not digest well at all, and actually causes the body to REMOVE calcium from bones, thus contributing to osteoporosis. Most of the claims made my processed-milk sellers are based on studies done using raw, unprocessed milk, or they use tricky/deceptive wordings like "Contains calcium. Calcium helps build strong bones." As with so many changes that have been made (and are being made) in our food supplies, this one was definitely for the sake of the manufacturers, not really for the benefit of the consumers. YES, there were issues of people getting sick from bacteria-laden milk, but no more often than from many other fresh foods. Some foods just have to be kept refrigerated, because they are so supportive of life that they spoil quickly. Bacterial risk was a convenient excuse for the manufacturers to lobby and get aws pushed through to force the market to accept processed "milk product".

Of course, the best milk for humans to consume will always be HUMAN milk, as it was designed/evolved to support human growth and health. A little socially awkward, though, for an adult to consume this, to say the least. [ALthough billionaire J. Paul Getty drank it for years, under a doctor's prescription, because of a health disorder, and there was briefly (not sure if it still exists) a restaurant in China that was featuring it as an ingredient in their recipes.]

Dr Bernard Jensen, who developed Iridology, was a great believer in raw goat milk, especially clabbered. Clabbered milk is a cultured milk like buttermilk. To clabber your raw milk just add a couple of tablespoons of buttermilk to it and let sit overnite at room temperature. At 4 - 8 oz per day clabbered raw milk can be a valuable transition food. Try it with 90% fruit and 10% vegetable juices, esp green.

An even better transition food is grass juice. Eliminate the milk, which can have some negative effects and supplement your all fruit diet with grass.

For human babies, it is best to consume human milk. This is because at this stage of life, the requirements for fat and protein are the highest for humans. In adulthood, the human body is not growing so rapidly, or if it is, the growth is in the fat around the belly or butt or thighs.

So human milk is designed to get babies to grow say 10 pounds a year.If you feed them cows milk, that is designed to grow cows at 600 to 900 pounds a year. The nutritional profile for that kind of growth is quite different than human growth.

Here are the macro nutrient profiles of human milk versus cows milk from nutrition data:

Human milk: 39% carb, 55% fat, 6% protein, 45% of fat is saturated
Cow milk: 30% carb, 49% fat, 21% protein, 62% of fat is saturated

You'll note that at the stage of life where human growth is the most rapid, that only 6% protein is sufficient. Cows milk on the other hand has 3.5 times this amount of protein. If humans adults drink cows milk, not only is the fat profile too high (3-5% is all we need, 49% fat is 10 times or more than we need), but the protein profile is 7 times or more what we need.

Excess consumption of fats lead to overweight, diabetes, cancers. Excess protein consumptions lead to osteoporosis, heart disease, cancers.

This all applies to fresh organic grass fed raw milk. Even in this kind of milk, where the feeding is somewhat natural and the health care is somewhat natural, the enslavement of the animal and the constant forced pregnancy of the animal is not natural, and this energy of captivity and forced servitude is likely transmitted in the milk and ultimately to the consumer.

Sorry to throw cold water on this discussion, but this is a non-vegan topic which is inappropriate for this forum. As the banner at the top of this page says:

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This board is for the discussion of Vegan Living and Raw food related discussion.

Agreed. More than enough has been said about milk in this thread.