The Blessing of Fresh Raw Milk

Raw milk is a staple in my home.  We have used it almost exclusively since 1995.    It is not easy to come by.    Currently we drive between one and two hours in one direction to acquire it.   Why you might ask?  The government laws of most states across the country forbid the sale of raw milk for human consumption, so if you live in one of those states, it can be very difficult to get a hold of.  But for those who are determined to get it, it is possible.

There are still a few states in this country where you can buy raw milk.  If you live to far to drive, some places will ship it overnight to you and some will mail it frozen.   So it is still possible to buy raw Grade A milk.  In almost every state you can buy pet grade milk, and do what you want with it.   Pet grade just means it does not have to meet the Grade A or Grade B handling requirements for human consumption standards. 

The laws are in place to help protect the public from exposure to milk that has been contaminated with bacteria.   But how does milk get contaminated?  Is it the cow’s fault? Is it the milk’s fault?  Is it the farmer’s fault?  Or is it the additional risks of contamination in shipping, processing, and storage practices that leads to contaminated milk?   The contamination is not caused by bad milk, but is caused by the practices of the shipper, and handler,  and processor (factory).   According to the CDC their are  412 cases of confirmed illness related to pasteurized milk and 116 cases from raw milk.  According to their own numbers, Americans are four times more likely to become sick from pasteurized milk rather than raw milk.   There is a very good article and a video clip about a new documentary, on the Mercola.com website about raw milk and how the government has wrongly attacked the local raw dairy farmer, but allows the massive dairy farmer of pasteurized milk to continue practices that seriously jeopardize human health.   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/11/09/the-return-of-fresh-milk-from-the-king-dairy.aspx

Risks

Risk of contamination with bacteria can come from several different sources.   On the farmer level, bacteria could get into the milk if it is exposed to manure.  For example,  if the teats are not clean before milking, or if a cow is pooping when your moving the milk bucket, of if the farmer has manure on his clothes.  These could all lead to manure getting into the milk.   A speck of manure may or may not be a huge problem.   If you have grass fed cows, they have very little to no contamination in their manure.  If you have grain fed cows , they can have massive amounts of E. Coli bacteria in their manure.  If you have cows with mastitis ( a breast infection ) then mastitis can also put bacteria into the milk.  But a farmer who knows how to keep his equipment clean and properly handle the milk to grade A standards will not have a problem with this.

The biggest sources of contamination is the piping and equipment that is used, by the trucks who haul the milk and the storage facilities they take it to.  A truck usually visits several farms before it takes the milk to the factory.  The trucker hooks up a hose from the truck to the bulk storage tank in the milk house.  These pipes and tanks could harbor bacteria if not cleaned properly.   After the milk leaves the farm, any equipment that is used to ship, process, and store the milk could lead to bacteria getting into the milk.   So to protect the general public , and still allow the sale and use of milk, most state governments have established laws saying you can’t sell raw milk for human consumption.   

To change the milk from raw to cooked, most milk is heated to over 150 degrees and held at this temperature for a period of time.  This heating of the milk is called pasteurization.   This kills all the enzymes, the good bacteria, and most of the bad bacteria and allows the milk to be kept in storage approximately two to three weeks, before bad bacteria are able to recolonize and spoil the milk.   The new method for the past few years is ultra pasteurization, where the temperature is heated well above 200 degrees and kills all bacteria, and the milk will last in storage upto six months, unrefrigerated.  Yes, that is right.  It can sit right on the shelf, no refrigeration necessary, for six full months or longer.    This ultra pasteurized milk is most often the milk the public is consuming these days, and it is mostly being consumed by America’s children.

Like many of our foods, America has taken a live, nutrient dense food and messed it up, in the name of progress.  We stick a label on it and we call it food, but it in no way is anything like what it was created to be.  It has gone from being a living food to a toxic fluid we are feeding our families.  Our bodies are not doing so good with this toxic overload of messed up foods.  Just check out the information on modern human disease, and you will quickly see this is increasing at an alarming rate.

But I want to tell you today, there is hope to bring healthy nutrient dense foods , such as raw milk to your family.   Buying FRESH Raw Grade A milk from a local farmer who manages his cows and equipment properly, and feeds the cows lots of fresh grass, hay, and sunshine, is a life giving nourishment for you and your family.   However, if you have no immune system or a severely damaged immune system, then you should avoid any food that puts you at risk for infections. 

How do you know if it is Grade A raw milk?

You can milk a cow by hand, but that won’t meet Grade A standards.  You can milk a cow with a machine and it still may not meet Grade A standards.  Yes it is still safe to drink whether milked by hand or by machine, no problem.   But it would be considered pet grade, or grade B if a certain set of steps were not followed.

Raw Grade A milk is typically milk that is not exposed to open air or exposed to contamination on the cow side, belly, or teats.  Grade A milk is done with a machine that makes a complete system from cow to tank.   Then when it is in the storage container, it is immediately chilled and reaches a temperature of 36 degrees fahrenheit within 30 minutes.  It is then kept between 32 and 36 degrees until it is sold to the public.   

This is not difficult to achieve this Grade A process. 

Here are the basic steps:

1)      Get the cow into a clean stall.  You simply lock the cow’s neck into a holding device or stall (if she is really calm and well trained, you can just lead her to where you want her to stand and she will stand there till your done, but it is best to tie her up in one form or another so she doesn’t try to walk away) .

2)      Clean her teats.

3)      Latch on a milking machine.  The machine can be really simple with four suction cups (called a claw) and a hose that go into a small (5 or 7 gallon) stainless steal tank, or it can be elaborate and be a part of a huge milking parlor with hundreds of suction cups, hoses, a filtering system and a large bulk tank (500 to a 1000 gallons) with a built in churning and cooling system.

4)      Chill the milk to 36 degrees within 30 minutes.

That is grade A milk.

Now, the challenge is this,  how to get the fresh grade A raw milk to the public while it is still fresh and nutrient dense.  See resource links below near the end of this article.

My Personal History With Raw Milk

As a teenager, living in town and drinking pasteurized milk, I suffered from constipation and acne.   The acne went away when I was about 18, but the constipation continued for several years into adult hood.  Another concern as a young married woman, I could not get pregnant.  Once I started using raw milk, the constipation went away.  Within two years of using raw goats milk daily, eating foods we raised ourself on the farm, and taking a few vitamins, herbs, and super food supplements, my body was restored and I conceived my first child.  I had been sexually active for eleven years, without trying to prevent pregnancy, yet no pregnancy occurred.  But within two years of rebuilding my health with nourishing foods and supplements, I conceived.

My husband had always had the opposite problem from me. He had loose stools and if he consumed any pasteurized milk, he had instant gas and diarrhea.   After about a year of marriage, we were convinced he was allergic to milk.  He avoided milk, except for the occasional ice cream for the next several years .  We continued to think he was allergic to cow’s milk.  Even after getting our own dairy goats, he had no reaction to the raw goat milk, but was still reacting to pasteurized cows milk, so we believed he was allergic to cows milk.    

Finally after our first child was about a year and a half old, and we were visiting the pediatrician and telling him our son had the same reaction as his daddy did, we learn what the true problem was.  He was unable to process pasteurized milk.  That is it in a nut shell.  Cook the milk, kill the enzymes that help you digest the sugars and proteins in the milk.  It becomes a toxic substance, causes gas, and the body does not know what to do with it so it tries to expel it.     Most people will either get constipated, or get gas and diarrhea.  

Then one day a friend at church shared a glass of fresh raw cow’s milk with us, and my husband had no reaction.  He loved it.  It was from a Jersey cow.  We started getting a gallon of their milk when we could, but they lived an hour away, so it was a seldom occurrence, a real special treat.  I would skim the cream for butter, as goat milk does not have that much cream rise to the top, and I would also turn this milk into raw ice cream.   The pediatrician was right.  The family had no problems with the raw milk, whether goat or cow.  The problem was using it after it had been pasteurized.

Raw milk really changed our lives.   It provided a boost to our immune system and made us stronger.  After a year of using raw milk,  we noticed we seldom caught a cold or had to visit a doctor.  We continued to get stronger with each new year of this lifestyle.

With each new child that was born to our family, we saw a bigger picture of using raw milk.   For ten years, all of the children were introduced to raw milk at the age of one year old.   All of the children consume raw milk with no problems at all.   However, two of our five children have constipation from pasteurized milk, and three of the five children have immediate gas pains and diarrhea from the consumption of pasteurized milk.  Clearly our children are an example of how the digestive track of children are affected by these two very different types of milk.

The Dairy Animals We Milked.

When we lived on the farm, and had our own dairy goats and milk cows, we drank the freshest milk everyday.  For breakfast we drank fresh milk that we milked from the cow during chores at 5:30 am that morning.   For lunch we had more of that morning’s milk.  For supper we had milk from the 5:30pm milking that evening.   Now that is fresh!

 We owned two registered Jersey cows.    And before we got the cows, we had dairy goats.  Fresh milk was plentiful.

We started out with Nubian goats and then progressed to Nubian crosses.  The best milk came from a pure bred Nubian, but the second best milk with the greatest quantity came from a Nubian Sannen cross.   I tried all other pure breeds (Sannen, Alpine, Oberhasli, Toggenburg, La Mancha, Pigmy, etc.  ) and was not happy with the taste of the milk for drinking, though it was fine for cooking.   Nubian milk was creamy tasting, just like cows milk, and I enjoyed drinking it.   However I did not try the rarer Nigerian dwarf breeds that were new then to the market in the US.  If you would like to read about the different breeds and see some pictures of each one, here is a link   http://www.goats4h.com/DairyGoats.html

We also raised boer meat goats, and they produce a very nice lean meat.  Eventually our herd grew too large as we got quite a few breeds of different dairy goats from teenagers who were done with them after completing highschool 4-h competitions and leaving for college.  We eventually had 70 various goats.  There was a market for the meat in Cincinnati Ohio, and a man skilled in selling them there would come and pick up the young that were born in the spring or fall weighing 70 to 100 lbs, to sell in the market.  This was a good way to make money and sell the fastly multiplying herd.  I also sold the young males to children in the local 4-H group.  They raise these and compete in a show during the local county fair.  I also sold the females as breeding stock to other farmers, as our female goats were registered with the American Dairy Goat Association.

Goats usually have two to four baby’s every kidding season.  Goats can breed twice a year, usually in the spring and in the fall.  Meat goats are usually bred twice a year and often run with the buck year around.  However, most dairy goats are only let near the buck for breeding once a year and they can be milked up until one month before kidding.  So a farmer usually gets 11 months of milk from a goat, if managed right.  Another reason to keep the milk goat away from the buck, is the buck gives off a musk scent and this smell will taint the milk and make it offensive.

I milked 6 of these Nubian and Nubian cross goats every day, twice a day.  They usually give between ½ gallon and 1 gallon per milking.    Due to their size ( about the size of a medium to large dog), they are easy to care for compared to a cow, as they don’t need much space.  They do however, need good shelter and really good fencing.   If they can get out, they will.  Dairy cows on the other hand, need no shelter other than a shade tree.  They need a simple inexpensive electric fence ( we used solar power).  Cows need about 1 to 2 acres of fresh grass to roam and eat freely each day.   They should be rotated to fresh pasture every three days or so.   They should both be given free choice hay, but it goes without saying the cow will eat a ton of it compared to the goat.  The cow will consume one to two bales a day.  The goat will eat about a flake (about 1/10^th of a bale) or two flakes a day.  A typical square bale weights about 80 lbs.   A typical round bale could weight about 1000 pounds.  We fed both methods of hay to our animals.

Share Program

I soon learned that in Indiana, as well as many other states, it is illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption.  You can sell pet grade milk, and people can do what they want with it.  You can also have a cow share or goat share program. 

When I became pregnant with our first child, milking six goats by hand became quite a chore, and my husband started helping me milk the animals.   Well, he likes tools, and doesn’t like labor intensive chores that could be shortened with the use of a tool, so my husband bought us a milk machine.  It could milk two goats at once and greatly reduced the time and labor involved.  

We bought our milking machine and equipment from a dairy goat supply company.    We stored our milk in glass 1/2 gallon and glass gallon jars.  A very simple set up you can do for about $2,000 new, and possibly find for under $1,000 used.   Here is a link for a wonderful small scale milking machine that works for both cows and goats.  You can milk 1 cow at a time or two goats at a time.  There are also simple systems to double this capacity without having to buy a big commercial machine.  http://www.hoeggergoatsupply.com/xcart/product.php?productid=4323&cat=8&page=1

As people learned we had dairy animals on our farm, several folks stopped in to ask if we would sell our excess milk.  After checking on the laws of our state, we decided to sell pet grade goat milk.  This lasted for several years, but once we got the cows, we decided to arrange a cow share program.   

 We milked two cows everyday.  We cooled the milk according to Grade A guidelines.  Then families in our cow share program came each day and picked up their fresh milk from a refridgerator in a back room in the barn.

Here are my two registered Jersey dairy cows eating hay out in the pasture.  The lighter brown one is Elvira and and the darker brown one is Cutie Blue.  In the picture, is also a barn my husband built himself.  He built a custom milking parlor in the back.  It had hot and cold water, water proof walls, concrete floor with a drain, and a special water proof ceiling with water proof lights.  In the room next to it was a stainless steal sink with hot and cold water to wash our milk equipment.  It also had special hooks on the wall to hang the milking equipment up to dry.  In another room was a custom commercial kitchen with a three bay stainless steel sink, an ice machine, and a refrigerator.  We bottled and stored the milk in the back room for the cow share program.  Our cow share members would send in their cash or check each month to the program, then come and pick up their fresh milk.

A cow share program is where you take a cow and share the ownership of it with others.  Kind of like selling shares of your company in the stock market (only it is not public and you don’t earn interest).  Shares usually sell for $20 to $100.    Then a share owner pays the farmer to take care of the cow and have the milk ready for pick up.  Paying the farmer to care for the cow is similar but not exactly the same as paying the farmer to board a horse, where the farmer feeds and cares for the needs of the horse and you just come and ride it when you want to.  Well one of the needs of the dairy cow is to be milked.  As an owner you are entitled to the milk, or you can tell the farmer to do with it what he wants.

In our case, we sold shares for $25 and people paid us $25 a month to milk and care for the cow.  If the cow shares are sold twenty five times, then the milk is divided 25 ways.  In this case, each share is worth 1/25 of the production of milk.   In our situation a share equaled about  1 gallon of milk per week for as long as they owned their share.  If they wanted to leave the program, then we set it up so they could sell their share back to us or to another family on the waiting list.  This was a win-win situation for all of us.  This allowed us to cover the expenses of the cow for her hay, fence, upkeep, and labor to move her in the pasture and to milk her.  It gave us an outlet for what she produced too, that was in excess of what we could use for our family.  One Jersey milk cow will normally produce approximately 4 to 5  gallons of milk a day.  A Holstein cow could produce 8 to 10 gallons.    One of our jersey cows gave us near 25 gallons of milk a week and the other Jersey gave us about 35 gallons a week.  Our family only needs about 5 gallons of fresh milk each week, maybe a little extra if we want to make ice cream.  So having others to share the milk was a great blessing.   It is heart breaking to pour milk out.  However, if we had extra milk, it went into making butter, cheese, yogurt, kefir, cream cheese, ice cream, and if we still had more to pour out, it went to baby cows, baby sheep and goats, and chickens.   Nothing was ever wasted.

Why go to the store to buy messed up processed food, when you can go to the farm, where the food is grown, and buy it fresh and unchanged?   You could go to a farm that sells fresh Grade A milk, fresh pet grade milk, a share program, a raw milk association, or a CSA program. 

You can find out about where to buy local raw milk, pet milk, and milk shares for your area on two great websites:

Local Harvest     Click on the link and enter the local area you are searching for raw milk.

http://www.localharvest.org/search.jsp?ty=-1&nm=Raw+Milk&zip=&but.x=0&but.y=0

Real Milk        Click on your state or a state nearby to find raw milk products.
http://realmilk.com/where1.html

Answers to questions What Is Real Milk?
http://realmilk.com/what.html

Further Reading
http://realmilk.com/suggested.html

The Benefits Of Drinking Raw Milk
http://douglassreport.com/reports/raw-milk/

Deuteronomy 6:3
Pay attention, Israel! Our ancestors worshiped the LORD, and he promised to give us this land that is rich with milk and honey. Be careful to obey him, and you will become a successful and powerful nation.

What We Have Found

Since moving to my half acre, in a subdivision in North Carolina, I haven’t been able to locate a local source for good quality Grade A raw milk or a good cow share program.   It is illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption in NC.   I have found sources for raw pet grade milk, both cow and goat.  Sometimes the milk is really good, and other times not so good.  Overall,  I have not found pet grade milk be the quality I was used to producing on my own farm.  I even had some sources that were not very fresh at times and they soured quickly.  The milk could still be used for baking, but my children nor myself would drink soured milk, health benefits or not.   For us, this is the same as pouring money down the drain.  I don’t have a dime extra to send milk to the sewer.  So I have diligently hunted for a good source that tastes good, has good storing ability in the refrigerator for a week, and does not give you gas (if it gives you gas, it is either caused by what the cow is being fed, or by unclean handling process at the farm).

Even though selling raw milk for humans is not legal in North Carolina, it is legal to sell fresh raw Grade A milk in South Carolina.  We live about a half hour from the state line.   Much of our life is across the state line, including church , travel, and sometimes shopping.  So, I started looking across the line to find this resource.

There are several raw dairies all over the state in South Carolina.   The state of South Carolina checks out the farmer, his equipment and tests the milk too.  Then licences the farmers who produce clean Grade A milk.  They test them periodically, and update their licenses.  They sell their raw milk from $3.50 to$ 4.50 a gallon from the farm, and around $4.50 to $5.50 at the markets.   

In searching for this resource, I found we live about an hour from two dairies in South Carolina, and just under two hours  from another dairy.   We make the drive every week to South Carolina to get fresh milk from one of these sources.   We are not unique in this as many folks from North Carolina also do this.    There are huge numbers of educated people  from Asheville,  doing the same thing.   Sometimes our source for raw milk runs out, because there is such a huge demand.  That has been disheartening on several occasions to drive an hour only to find them sold out.  We would usually call ahead, and several times were saved from a trip as the farmer had sold out already.

So we found another consistent source.   It is a farm 83 miles away (83 miles including mountains and foot hills takes a little under two hours).   This is somewhat of a burden to go so far for a gallon of milk, or in our case 5 gallons of milk to feed our family of 7 people.   But we notice such a difference when we go with out it, or substitute pasteurized milk from the store.  Our children need the fresh raw milk for their growth and for their immune system.  So we have been making the drive.  If we wanted to, we could buy several extra gallons and freeze them and use as needed, and we will likely do that on weeks we know we can’t make the drive due to being to busy or due to the winter weather.

I wanted to share the best source for Fresh Grade A raw milk we have found so far in our search (even though this could mean running out from increased demand, I would rather share what a great source this is).  They are called M and M Dairy, and they are located in Fair Play, near Westminster, South Carolina. 

They sell their milk on the farm and in at least 5 markets, one being a healthy food store in Pickens, SC called Bee Well Honey.   That is how we learned about this milk.    We bought it in the store, when our other source was out.  We later decided we wanted to get it the day it is bottled and see their operation, so we decided to make the drive to the farm.  M and M Dairy sells their fresh raw grade A milk for $4.50 a gallon.

They have a very clean facility.  They milk Holstein cows.   Yes, we are partial to Jersey cows,  and we are partial to totally grass fed cows, but we have found M and M Dairy milk to be very delicious, no health side effects such as gas, and keeps very well.  No spoilage problems, the milk keeps fresh at least a week and a half, but we usually use it before the week is over.

Last Saturday, we also went to the Carolina Foothills Heritage Fair, and the owners of the dairy had a booth set up.  We stopped in to meet them and asked if we could talk about how they run their dairy and post their information in this article.  Here is a picture of Ronald Martin.  His wife was over on the side talking to another booth visitor and I failed to get her picture.  Her name is Doretta and they have a son named Ben.  All three oversee the farm operations.  They also have two full time hired hands whom we met at one of our visits to the farm.

Ronald explained to me he has been in the dairy business since 1978 and switched to producing raw milk for the public three years ago.  He milks 100 to 130 cows twice a day.  The cows are out on 170 acres of pasture all day except during milking.  He has another 100 acres of Coastal Bermuda Grass Hay that he raises, bales, and feeds to the cattle.  He grinds some of this hay into a feed mixture he gives to the cows during the milking.  This helps them stand still while being milked and provides additional nourishment. 

He grinds hay, grain, and vitamins and minerals to make his own feed rations.  He told me his feed rations are based on the recipe and supervision of a veterinarian-animal nutritionist who is in support of raw milk.  She checks his herd, hay and pasture quality, and decides the best vitamin-mineral recipe for his given situation.

Inside the milking parlor, he has 20 stalls, or 10 on each side.  He sends his helper ahead of him to wipe the teats clean, then he goes behind him, and wipes them clean for a second time to be sure they are very clean before putting on the milker.   All of their equipment is kept very clean and has the strictest standards.    Only himself and his wife do the bottling of the raw milk.

During the Carolina Foothills Heritage Fair, Ronald and Doretta were passing out brochures to the public to educate them on the nutritional benefits of drinking fresh raw milk.  He also had a flyer that compared the nutritional values of raw milk and pasteurized milk in several categories including: enzymes, protein, fats, minerals, vitamins, carbohydrates, and good and bad bacterias.  Hands down, raw milk was superior in every category by a mile.  This was awesome material to hand out to the public and I was thrilled to see a farmer take time away from the demands of the farm, to educate people about a wholesome food that was so good for their health.

Blessings

Though the drive to get the milk is long, it is a beautiful drive.  We always make this trip a family adventure.  The changes in scenery and seasons is one a traveler would dream of.   For the first thirty minutes of the drive, until we reach the foothills, we have changed about 3,000 feet in elevation.   The views driving down highway 25 are breathtaking.  It is some of the prettiest views I have ever seen, especially with the colors of fall.  The rolling foothills of South Carolina are absolutely beautiful too.  And from almost everywhere, you can look to the North and see the Blue Ridge Mountains where we live. 

The Blue Ridge Mountains span the entire Northern horizon from East to West as you travel along highway 11.  Such a fascinating view.  You can see beautiful trees, cliffs, solid rock faces that are 3,000 feet tall, and deep valleys and ravines.  There are incredible lakes and streams and rivers to visit, and several waterfalls not far from the road.   There are wonderful weekly vacations spots, as well as places to just spend an hour or two.

We have stopped at several of these spots.   One great stop is a stream just a few feet from the road, where hundreds of people gather in the summer to swim, fish, and enjoy a picnic.   Another great place is a tavern and garrison and a waterfall in Ocanee State Historic Site.  I will write an article on this adventure soon and post a link here.

Northern South Carolina, all the way to the Georgia border, has huge lakes and reservoirs everywhere.   As a matter of fact, the town of Fair Play and a few other towns nearby are literally on a peninsula surrounded by vast lakes of water on all sides.   I haven’t even mentioned the cultural diversity of the area and famous places like Clemson University with sports and lots to do.
This trip is filled with many great places to see and things to do with the family.  

As a homeschool family, we take advantage of this great scenic drive to pick up our milk from a hard working farmer, to learn about where our food comes from, and learn about the marvelous world we live in.  This situation is a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the BLESSINGS of fresh raw milk.

Please send us your comments about any of these three questions below.

How do you teach your children about where healthy food comes from?  
How do you support family farms?  
What does raw milk mean to your family?