(image via Chiot’s Run on Flickr)
Healing Our Children Book Excerpt
Many indigenous cultures were able to create excellent health among their populations using milk and milk products. Among them: isolated Swiss, the Masai in Africa, the Anchola in Uganda, the Bahema and Balendu tribes in the Congo, many tribes along the Nile near Ethiopia, the Neurs in Sudan. Indigenous Arabs used camel milk, and Pathans in northern India ate soured curd. Due to their high calcium content, raw dairy products are extremely helpful in building strong bones and teeth.

A century ago, the question of whether women should drink whole or raw milk during pregnancy did not exist. Raw milk was the only choice, and milk was usually consumed in its whole, natural form. Today, skim milk is a popular choice. It is created by removing the cream from the whole milk. While the cream is used to make butter and other dairy products, the leftover liquid becomes the skim milk you find on supermarket shelves. This skim milk does not contain the valuable fat that provides essential nutrients to the human body.

Milk and Pregnancy Health

To gain the most benefits from dairy, the dairy food you consume should be raw. If you can’t find raw dairy products in your state, try eating a top quality yogurt or unpasteurized cheese, both of which are readily available almost anywhere.

Due to raw dairy foods being outlawed in many states, a sort of black market has arisen for these products. It is a sad state of affairs when one of the planet’s most nutritious foods is illegal to buy for human consumption. If you would like to see this situation change, take action to get your local laws about raw dairy foods revised in your state.

Why Is Milk Pasteurized?

Early urban dairies were filthy and full of horrible conditions. The cows were sick and the milk they produced was low quality. People regularly got sick or even died from this milk, so a public campaign was launched to convince the public that pasteurized milk was safer than raw milk. Pasteurization allowed people to consume this unsafe milk with fewer health problems.

Although pasteurizing does make unsafe milk safer, it also kills the milk’s good bacteria and destroys the vitamin content. The milk loses vital nutrients like vitamins A, D and E and has been linked with many diseases. Raw milk, on the other hand, is one of the safest foods in the world thanks to its probiotic contents. People who say milk is unhealthy are referring to their experiences with pasteurized and usually homogenized milk. This doesn’t meant that you should avoid milk altogether; rather, you should seek out milk in its “safer” form.

Real Healthy Whole Fat Milk

Pasteurization is done at high temperatures and is meant to make undrinkable milk drinkable. Meanwhile, raw milk from healthy, pasture-fed cows is life giving. The best way to drink raw milk is at room temperature. If raw cow or goat milk can’t be consumed immediately, it is often preserved in the form of cheese, cream cheese, kefir, cottage cheese, butter, buttermilk and other delicious healthful foods.

Cheers!