Last week a client asked me what I think of raw milk consumption. He had driven 200 miles over 4 hours down to the End of the Road to catch me up on his life and gain some perspectives on his worldly successes and how he feels about balancing his family life within himself. He laid it all out, and so did I.
Before he left he asked me what I thought of his new practice of drinking raw milk; i.e., milk gathered from pasture fed cows which is neither pasteurized nor homogenized. It is natural milk that comes out of the cow and into a container. The milk container is then delivered to you, and you enjoy the milk. The milk isn’t messed with by some industry.
My client had been procuring raw milk from Windsor Farms, just north of Boulder. I used to procure my raw milk from the same source, and so I am familiar with the quality of the product. I have toured their facility in times past and found their dairy practices and facilities to be at least as technically sound as what happens in most hospitals and clinics across the medical landscape of America.
I told my client friend that I endorse raw milk and I recommend it for those who do not have dairy allergies. Some may have dairy allergies because they have been exposed to processed milk. The last statement is a tiny part of the current food allergy epidemic, and I rendered it to simply insert a small, but significant point about food allergies.
Many people have leaky gut membranes, the real source of their food allergies. They just need to learn how to heal their gut mucosa and maintain it. Then they can consume dairy products and many other prior food allergens without subsequent allergic responses.
Raw milk is safer than surgery, safer than being hospitalized, and safer than pasteurized and homogenized milk. There are some very real problems with conventional dairy industry milk which we shall have a look at.
I’ll register some biochemical commentary in my concluding remarks.
Here is an article from The Alliance for Natural Health-USA, whose website can be viewed at http://www.anh-usa.org. I do recommend their very interesting weekly email updates about the latest nutrition, FDA, and Big Pharma dramas.
This is website is devoted to accurate reporting. I think it is important that you stay up on these critical matters.
Profoundly Flawed Study Used as Basis for CDC’s New Report on Supposed “Dangers” of Raw Milk
March 6, 2012
“To hear the media tell it, our lives are in jeopardy if we drink unpasteurized milk. But the facts tell the opposite story.
A new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) declares that raw milk “cannot be considered safe under any circumstances,” and essentially advocates for stricter laws and enforcement against raw milk on the state level. The study claims that the rate of outbreaks caused by unpasteurized milk and products made from it was 150 times greater than outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk. The authors of the study based this conclusion on an analysis of reports submitted to the CDC from 1993 to 2006.
However, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, the CDC has manipulated and cherry-picked this data to make raw milk look dangerous—and it has dismissed the same dangers associated with pasteurized milk.
What the CDC data actually shows is that there are almost 24,000 food borne illnesses reported each year on average. For the fourteen-year period that the authors examined, there was an average of 315 illnesses a year from all dairy products for which the pasteurization status was known. Of those, there was an average of 112 illnesses each year attributed to all raw dairy products and 203 associated with pasteurized dairy products.
In other words, pasteurized milk products cause nearly twice as many illnesses as raw milk products, but illnesses from dairy products still constitute only 1.3% of the total, with raw dairy products coming in at less than half of a single percentage point. All of this is minor compared to the health risks of taking prescription drugs or even entering a hospital.
Raw milk, despite what the media reports said with such hysteria this week, is simply not a high-risk product. And, as we pointed out last week, there has been not a single death from consuming raw milk in the 38 years the data has been collected—compared to over 80 deaths from pasteurized milk products during that same time period.
The time frame examined by the researchers dramatically skewed the results as well. The authors analyzed data from 1993 to 2006. Perhaps they chose that range because one year later, in 2007, 135 people became ill from pasteurized cheese contaminated with e. coli and three people died.
Nowhere do the researchers identify the specific reports they analyzed, so the veracity and quality of the reports, and how this might affect the results, are impossible to judge. In stark contrast, the CDC refuses to look at Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting data for the human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV) because the data is considered “lacking.” Clearly, the agency picks and chooses when it wishes to analyze complete data and when it does not.
Another factor that is completely neglected is the source of the milk. Most food contamination products originate in large factory farms or CAFOs. Many people would consider unpasteurized milk from a family farm safer than pasteurized milk from a CAFO, but of course the government does not want to alienate Big Farma by getting into such qualitative distinctions.
The CDC study also utterly neglects any analysis of the long-term health benefits of consuming raw milk versus pasteurized milk. The pasteurization process destroys delicate proteins, enzymes, immune factors, and vitamins, and inhibits mineral availability. As we noted last week, based on the latest research, the very healthiest milk would be raw, grass-fed, organic, and from a cow that is only milked for the first six months after giving birth. Of course, now that a judge has ruled against “cowshares” and called them a “subterfuge,” it appears that to get the healthiest possible milk (not milked all through pregnancy), you will have to own your own cow.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our government valued informed consumer choice instead of relying on misinformation to serve the interests of big food operations?
A new farm bill will be drafted soon. We hear that healthy milk, and not just raw milk but even healthier pasteurized products like organic milk, will be under attack in the bill. We’ll monitor the situation and keep everyone posted.”
Crestone and Beyond
Let’s consider some biochemistry now. My commentary will cover some milk chemistry, and will wander into some consideration of body acid-alkaline considerations.
The process of milk pasteurization is rather damaging to the milk proteins whose stoichiometry is smashed to smithereens in the process. Heat denatures protein’s 3 dimensional and functional arrangements. Pasteurized milk just isn’t the same stuff. Some would say, “It is no longer a living food.” I have to concur.
Furthermore, the process of homogenization, used to emulsify the fat into the milk so that it all looks homogeneous, is even worse.
Once upon a time, the local dairies would deliver pasteurized milk to your door in now nostalgic glass quart milk jars that had a fabulous 3 inch layer of cream at the top, and a very functional thick paper lid that would crinkle around the top to provide something of a seal. To homogenize it, all one had to do was shake it well, and then enjoy it. Even if they had pasteurized it—it was still pretty dang good tasting milk—even if it was dead.
Somewhere in my wonderful youth of growing up in the 1950’s (that magical decade of exuberant post WWII prosperity and unabashed newfangled inventions which seemingly came out on a weekly basis), some dairy industry clowns decided to get in on the latest food industry trickery and bamboozlement, and so they took to homogenizing milk.
The process of milk homogenization actually began in 1932, but didn’t make it to Alabama until the mid 1950’s. The homogenization process involves running the milk through pipes at a velocity of 600 feet per second under a ridiculous amount of pressure, like about 2500 pounds per square inch, and then forcing the milk through very fine filters. This fast paced pressurized milk is then sprayed out as a homogenized product, the small fat particles now remaining in suspension. This process serves to extend the shelf life of the transformed milk product.
Such utterly transformed natural food is now toxic. The homogenization process releases an enzyme from the milk fat called xanthine oxidase, or, XO. This enzyme is very important in some of our liver functions, serving to break down purines (particular DNA base pair by-products) into uric acid which is then excreted as a waste product. However, XO is not supposed to be floating around in a free form state inside of our blood vessels.
Free floating circulating XO commences to disrupt the vascular endothelial basement membrane, and destroys plasmalogen, a connective substrate which makes up about 1/3 of the arterial wall. You can read a bit on plasmalogen at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmalogen. Such a scenario of arterial damage is one of the methods by which LDL cholesterol particles manage to find their way into the vascular subendothelial space and thus initiate the chemistry of atherosclerosis.
This is just one of several mechanisms of atherosclerosis initiation—the consumption of the dairy industry’s pasteurized and homogenized milk product. It is what I call an anti-food. Other anti-foods are sugars and trans fats, for examples.
Aside from these 2 milk transformation travesties, we also have to contend with the misinformation campaign about milk being a good source of calcium. Milk really isn’t such a great calcium source, hardly even mediocre. Vegetables are much better sources of calcium.
Furthermore, milk is acidic in its pH level. This will actually assist in slowly pulling minerals out of bone. Acidic food chemistry demineralizes bone. Alkaline food chemistry mineralizes bone. Any incremental improvement that we make in alkalinization of our body fluids’ pH will be very conducive to good health in general.
Since I tend to consume a number of acidic foods and drinks, I attempt to moderate the effect by pushing more alkaline foods into my system. Alkaline foods are foods that are metabolized to an alkaline ash; like vegetables, fruits (including citrus), some nuts, lentils, some grains (quinoa, wild rice, oats), and green tea.
Meats, dairy, most nuts, legumes (except lentils), alcohol beverages, coffee, black tea, sugar, and most grains are all acid formers. The acid loading adds up in our biochemistry over time.
A Short Acid-Alkaline Chemistry Diversion
The worst acidic anti-food substance going is soft drinks, which are a combination of phosphoric acid, caffeine, and sugar. There are about 10 teaspoons of sugar in an average soft drink. As you know, you can drop a penny or a nail into the container and it will dissolve. This effect is a result of the phosphoric acid, a strong acid which is catastrophic for the flesh.
Soft drinks in men and women are the best promoter of osteoporosis that I know of. For women, this process starts in their teens with soft drink consumption. Birth control pills do not help, but that is a whole other biochemistry disaster that you can research in Dr. John Lee’s book What Your Doctor May not Tell You about Menopause.
Try to get about 60% alkaline foods on a plate, and 40% acid foods on a plate. That will help your bones and your anti-western disease state campaign. The acid foods give you your protein, by the way.
Your maximum protein needs are about 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds, should you want to figure. Most people will do very well with only half of that amount of protein consumption. If you are a very active athlete or very active physical worker, you may need to increase your protein into the 1 gram/kg/day range.
A good way to improve body alkalinity is to buy a water alkalinizer. These devices split the water into acidic hydrogen ions (H+) and alkaline hydroxyl ions (OH-). The alkaline level can be dialed up on the good water ionizers to levels of about pH 10, which is overly adequate. Alkalinized water comes out of one spigot, and acid water comes out of the other spigot.
After a few days of using a water ionizer, and drinking alkaline water, you can use pH strips to measure your morning urine pH, as well as spot saliva measurements, and note improvements toward pH of 7, which is neutral. Above pH of 7 is alkaline.
You can buy good pH strips from good pharmacies, and from the world wide web. I recommend the pHydrion brand, which has color gradation increment reading capacity from pH 5.5 to 8.0. You might be able to find this product in very good pharmacies or health food stores. Another good brand is from Enzymedica.
Urine will always run acidic as the kidneys are busy controlling body pH to be weakly alkaline in the range of pH 7.35 to 7.45. Acid waste is dumped via the kidneys into the urine. A good urine pH to strive for with alkaline food and drink intake is 6.6 to 6.75. Such a urine pH indicates that you are getting the blood and peripheral fluids nicely alkaline.
I offer one caveat to the use of water ionizers, and this is from my own presumptive reasoning. Since the pH of the stomach is strongly acid to assist in food digestion, I do not recommend the use of alkaline water with food consumption, as this may neutralize some of the gastric acidity. Stomach pH runs about 2.0, which is quite acid.
Gastric acid levels are extremely important to maintain for correct digestion and health.
This would be an excellent moment to go into the current gastric acid blockers put out by Big Pharma who promotes these poisons to treat gastroesophageal reflux disorder (GERD). The people and companies who promote proton pump inhibitors have it all back-ass-wards, but I shall defer on this treatise…………
Back to Milk Concerns
Another obvious problem with ordinary store bought milk is the negative chemicals in the milk, like antibiotics which are used to keep the poor cows’ udders from bursting with infection, the bovine growth hormones, the bovine female hormones of lactation, and whatever negative food chemistry these poor animals are being fed. The dairy industry actually monitors the count of white blood cells in processed cow milk to determine how much antibiotic to dose the mama cows with, and how much pus (white blood cells) is allowable in the milk. Yum.
If the dairy farmer is using the routine junk food to feed the cows as opposed to letting the cows graze on clean organic pastures, then we also get to consider the carcinogenic pesticides which accumulate in fatty dairy products: some of the usual suspects are BHC, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, heptachlor, HCB, lindane, and others which have become infiltrated into our ecosystems. Some of these pesticides are no longer legal in the USA, but they are still hanging around in everybody’s fat cells, and elsewhere.
You can choose for pasture fed chemical free animals that give you your natural raw milk. In Crestone these days there is an angry contingent of people who are quite upset about an agent in our local drinking water which is harmless, as far as I can tell. The agent is used to change the pH of the water so that heavy metals don’t leach out of the water pipes into the water. I wonder what kind of milk these folks are using. I never see them buying Quintana milk. Maybe they drink the belly-wash soft drinks.
As the milk mustache ads used to say, “Drink More Milk,” or some such line. I used to present a slide show about milk degradation. Part of the show featured a number of chosen celebrities who sported the catchy milk mustache often seen in milk commercials in the 1990’s. One of them was a female Olympic star, and in her mustache advertisement she was underneath the water wearing her milk mustache; obviously some kind of plastic stick-on mustache.
And so, you see, even the advertisement is fakery and bamboozlement. Americans are not very savvy consumers, and are highly susceptible to many types of flim-flam, propaganda, and other forms of misinformation.
Just choose the right source of your milk. You’ll love it. Consider purchasing a water alkalinizer also. You’ll love it even more. You will get happily addicted to enjoying more good water in your day. The alkaline water from such units produces smaller water molecule clusters, and these penetrate the cell membranes more efficiently. This adds up to better cellular hydration.
And last, but by no means least, please watch this video on the new emerging science about the Devil in the Milk: http://undergroundwellness.com/devil-in-the-milk-part-1/. This 10 minute video will introduce you to the science of A1 and A2 milk. Better have a look.
I shall end this missive with a letter from Colorado Senator Mark Udall to me, which I received several days ago:
“Dear John
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about unpasteurized milk and milk products. I appreciate hearing from you about this issue.
I understand that current law prohibits selling unpasteurized milk across state lines. In addition, each state has individual jurisdiction over the sale and transport of raw milk within the state. In most states, it is currently illegal to sell raw milk because it is not regulated for safety by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. I am aware that because of the current laws, some consumers are concerned about having safe, adequate access to unpasteurized milk and milk products.
As you know, Congressman Ron Paul introduced H.R.1830 on May 11, 2011, a bill to authorize the interstate traffic of unpasteurized milk and milk products that are packaged for direct human consumption. Currently, the bill awaits further consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health. Taking into account the personal health decisions of thousands of Coloradans, I believe a balance can be struck between ensuring consumer safety while preserving consumer choice. I will keep your thoughts in mind should any related bills come before the full Senate for consideration.
I will continue to listen closely to what you and other Coloradans have to say about matters before Congress, the concerns of our communities, and the issues facing Colorado and the nation. My job is not about merely supporting or opposing legislation; it is also about bridging the divide that has paralyzed our nation’s politics. For more information about my positions and to learn how my office can assist you, please visit my website at www.markudall.senate.gov.
Warm regards,
Mark Udall
U.S. Senator, Colorado”
The next Journal entry shall touch on some Big Pharma malfeasance, and you will find that it is related to some of the comments presented above. I shall present another article from www.anh-usa.org which accompanied this week’s article on milk, and I shall have some recommendations for your consideration in regards to securing a supply of Vitamin D and silver solution in these times.
We are tangled up in the most preposterous time in human history—when corporations rule the world. I just read “in the news” that there are now 1226 billionaires in the world.
I do not think that having so many billionaires is a very good economic sign. The middle class of citizens is evaporating.
Disclaimer: The comments on this Journal site are not intended to diagnose or treat disease, nor shall I claim that comments herein are intended to really assist your health in any manner whatsoever.
And I am certainly not writing entries in this Journal in an attempt to cure or heal you. That might create an outbreak of wellness.
I am simply rendering some facts. You can make your own choices.
Well, just remember the old Chinese adage: If we don’t change our direction, we are going to wind up where we are headed.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond.