Many, many centuries ago, the father of medicine, Hippocrates talked about the importance of milk within our diets. It was said that milk had its own healing powers and these traditional beliefs survived through society all the way up until fairly recent times, when questions were raised about tuberculosis and other diseases, believed to be passed to humans from raw milk. In truth, beginning in the 1900s, poor production processes lead to a significant deterioration in milk quality, as it was being distributed to the burgeoning population. Cows were kept in very poor conditions and fed an even poorer quality of grain, often a byproduct of alcohol distillery. The milk produced as a result of eating this slop was very poor in quality and had few other nutrients that would help our immune system to attain good health. As this was going on, tuberculosis became more and more evident, the rate of infant mortality was growing and people began pointing fingers at the poor quality milk. Not surprisingly, pasteurization was the answer, a process that heats the raw milk to extreme temperatures in order to destroy pathogens. At that time, and continuing into the 20th century, pasteurization was indicated for milk produced from cows that were not “certified.” Raw milk from healthy cattle was still deemed to be safe, so long as the farms had the all important certification.
The major problem with pasteurization is that it destroys many of the nutrients and microorganisms that give milk its undoubted health benefits, as initially revealed by Hippocrates all that time ago. Pasteurization destroys many of the enzymes needed to digest and reveal milk’s nutrients and this enzyme destruction causes lactose intolerance, as seen in certain parts of the population. Important minerals such as calcium and vitamins such as B6 and B12 are altered or destroyed during this process of pasteurization. While it is not so easy to summarize a complicated area, basically excessive food and drink sterilization eliminates all too often those important bacterial elements that can help us with our detoxification, digestion and the protection of our immune systems.
In almost every way, grass fed milk is superior to grain fed or soy fed. Factory farming has a very bad reputation, as farmers feed cattle very unnatural and unhealthy diets that compromise the health of the animals and the quality of the milk that is produced. For example, antibiotics are regularly fed into the diet, in addition to hormones that are designed to increase the volume of milk produced. When cows are forced to produce more milk, the relative amount of vitamins in each serving of milk is decreased proportionately. It follows that when cattle are fed with grass, the milk that is produced is much higher in vitamin D and vitamin A, both essential.
Some of the latest trends have pointed toward the production of organic food and drink, but this is not all that it appears to be, either. While the USDA certifies organic milk production, some cattle are still fed grain instead of grass. Many organic brand manufacturers seek to ultra pasteurize milk, which destroys even more nutrients than processes that pasteurize milk, and is thus of even less value to us!