What is Real Milk?

(A Campaign for Real Milk is a project of The Weston A. Price Foundation, PMB 106-380, 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20016. For sources of Real Milk call (202) 363-4394 or visit www.realmilk.com)

Real Milk comes from real cows that are fed real pasture grass -- not grain fed. The milk is full-fat (cream at top) and unprocessed (raw) -- unpasteurized and unhomogenized.

The source of most commercial milk is the modern Holstein,* bred to produce huge quantities of milk–three times as much as the old-fashioned cow. She needs special feed and antibiotics to keep her well. Her milk contains high levels of growth hormone from her pituitary gland, even when she is spared the indignities of genetically engineered Bovine Growth Hormone to push her to the udder limits of milk production.

*Please note, there are farmers who produce excellent “Real Milk” using older lines of Holsteins and Holstein crosses (Holsteins who can survive on grass are “old-fashioned”). It is the modern commercial Holstein, bred only for quantity, not quality, and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, that should be avoided. Know your supplier! Ask questions!

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Buy only milk from old-fashioned breeds of cows, such as but not limited to Jerseys, Guernseys, Red Devons, Brown Swiss, Milking Shorthorns, Dutch Belted, or older genetic lines of Holsteins, or from goats or sheep. (Or, depending on what part of the world you live in, from llamas, water buffalo, or reindeer!)(camels, mares, and donkeys produce non-kosher milk).

Real Milk comes from real cows that eat real feed.

Real feed for cows is green grass in Spring, Summer and Fall; stored dry hay, silage, hay and root vegetables in Winter. It is not soy meal, cottonseed meal, corn or other commercial feeds, nor is it bakery waste, chicken manure or citrus peel cake, laced with pesticides. Vital nutrients like vitamins A and D, and Price’s “Activator X” (a fat-soluble catalyst that promotes optimum mineral assimilation, now believed to be vitamin K2) are greatest in milk from cows eating green grass, especially rapidly growing green grass in the spring and fall. Vitamins A and D are greatly diminished, and Activator X disappears, when milk cows are fed commercial feed. Soy meal has the wrong protein profile for the dairy cow, resulting in a short burst of high milk production followed by premature death. Most milk (even most milk labeled “organic”) comes from dairy cows that are kept in confinement their entire lives and never see green grass!

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Buy only milk products from herds allowed to graze on green pasture.

Real Milk is not pasteurized.

Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins C, B12 and B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer. Calves fed pasteurized milk do poorly and many die before maturity. Raw milk sours naturally but pasteurized milk turns putrid; processors must remove slime and pus from pasteurized milk by a process of centrifugal clarification. Inspection of dairy herds for disease is not required for pasteurized milk. Pasteurization was instituted in the 1920s to combat TB, infant diarrhea, undulant fever and other diseases caused by poor animal nutrition and dirty production methods. But times have changed and modern stainless steel tanks, milking machines, refrigerated trucks and inspection methods make pasteurization absolutely unnecessary for public protection. And pasteurization does not always kill the bacteria for Johne’s disease suspected of causing Crohn’s disease in humans with which most confinement cows are infected. Much commercial milk is now ultra-pasteurized to get rid of heat-resistant bacteria and give it a longer shelf life. Ultra-pasteurization is a violent process that takes milk from a chilled temperature to above the boiling point in less than two seconds. Clean raw milk from certified healthy cows is available commercially in several states and may be bought directly from the farm in many more. (Sources are listed on www.realmilk.com.)

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Demand access in all states to clean, raw milk. Boycott processed milk!

Real Milk is not homogenized.

Homogenization is a process that breaks down butterfat globules so they do not rise to the top. Homogenized milk has been linked to heart disease.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Use only milk with “Cream on the Top.”

Real Milk contains butterfat, and lots of it!

Average butterfat content from old-fashioned cows at the turn of the century was over 4% (or more than 50% of calories). Today butterfat comprises less than 3% (or less than 35% of calories). Worse, consumers have been duped into believing that low-fat and skim milk products are good for them. Only by marketing low-fat and skim milk as a health food can the modern dairy industry get rid of its excess poor-quality, low-fat milk from modern high-production herds. Butterfat contains vitamins A and D needed for assimilation of calcium and protein in the water fraction of the milk. Without them protein and calcium are more difficult to utilize and possibly toxic. Butterfat is rich in short- and medium chain fatty acids which protect against disease and stimulate the immune system. It contains glyco-spingolipids which prevent intestinal distress and conjugated linoleic acid which has strong anticancer properties.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Buy only full-fat milk products.

Real Milk contains no additives.

Powdered skim milk, a source of dangerous oxidized cholesterol and neurotoxic amino acids, is added to 1% and 2% milk. Low-fat yogurts and sour creams contain mucopolysaccharide slime to give them body. Pale butter from hay-fed cows contains colorings to make it look like vitamin-rich butter from grass-fed cows. Bioengineered enzymes are used in large-scale cheese production. Many mass produced cheeses contain additives and colorings and imitation cheese products contain vegetable oils.

Join A Campaign for Real Milk: Boycott counterfeits.

Real Milk can save family farms.

Pasteurization laws favor large, industrialized dairy operations and squeeze out small farmers. When farmers have the right to sell unprocessed milk to consumers, they can make a decent living, even with small herds.

Why a Campaign for Real Milk?

Back in the 1970s, a couple of blokes were sitting in an English pub, bemoaning the consolidation of the brewing industry in England and the decline of British beer and ale. A commodity that represented the soul of Britain–carefully brewed ales from countless small-scale manufacturers, each with a distinctive color and taste–had been edged out by the insipid canned beers of a few large monopolistic breweries. What was needed, they decided, was a return to traditional brewing methods. They launched A Campaign for Real Ale, which soon became the force that turned back the mega-brewers and reinstated varied and delicious ales to English tables and pubs.

Back in the 20s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses. Today’s milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare. In fact, a supply of high-quality dairy products was considered vital to American security and the economic well being of the nation.

What’s needed today is a return to humane, non-toxic, pasture-based dairying and small-scale traditional processing, in short . . .A Campaign for Real Milk.

Real Milk–Nature’s Perfect Food

Galen, Hippocrates, Pliny, Varro, Marcellus Empiricus, Bacchis and Anthimus, leading physicians of their day, all used raw milk in the treatment of disease. During the 1920s, Dr. J. E. Crewe of the Mayo Foundation used a diet of raw milk to cure TB, edema, heart failure, high blood pressure, prostate disease, urinary tract infections, diabetes, kidney disease, chronic fatigue and obesity. Today, in Germany, successful raw milk therapy is provided in many hospitals.

Studies show that children fed raw milk have more resistance to TB than children fed pasteurized milk (Lancet, p 1142, 5/8/37); that raw milk is very effective in preventing scurvy and protecting against flu, diphtheria and pneumonia (Am J Dis Child, Nov 1917); that raw milk prevents tooth decay, even in children who eat a lot of sugar (Lancet, p 1142, 5/8/37); that raw milk is better than pasteurized milk in promoting growth and calcium absorption (Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 518, p 8, 1/33); that a substance present in raw cream (but not in pasteurized cream) prevents joint stiffness and the pain of arthritis (Annual Review of Biochemistry, 18:435, 1944); and that children who drink raw milk have fewer allergic skin problems and far less asthma than children who drink pasteurized milk (Lancet 2001 358(9288):1129-33).