If You Like Milk You Will Love This!
Milk contains a vast number of nutritional benefits including vitamins, minerals, good fats and natural growth hormones. Milk is a complete food; it contains everything a baby needs from the moment it is born until it is ready to be weaned off breast milk and onto solid foods. Breast milk contains Human Growth Hormones (HGH) and cow’s milk contain Bovine Growth Hormones (BGH). Each type of hormone is ideal for the particular species’ offspring to assist with growing into a healthy, strong person or cow.
superfoods australia
Possibly due to the embarrassment of feeding from their mother beyond infancy, people intuitively began consuming cow’s milk. This began a long time ago, back before scientists determined what cow’s milk is made of and why it may be good for people. In the last hundred or so years the demand for not just cow’s milk but in particular cheap cow’s milk has been increasing at a rate that outweighs the possibility of supply unless science intervenes and unnatural measures are taken.
This has resulted in cows being fed diets that they would not naturally consume. Predominantly cows eat grass but these days they are fed grains as a part, if not all, of their staple diet. Perhaps if nature intended cows to eat grains rather than grass then cows wouldn’t be born with three stomachs. I wonder what they do with their spare stomachs… I wish I had two spare stomachs… Anyway, I digress.
Just like humans, when cows don’t consume their appropriate diet they become susceptible to disease. Sick cows don’t produce as much milk and sometimes no milk is produced if the cow is dead so antibiotics are included in their grains to try to minimise the severity of the illnesses. You may have heard the term ‘you are what you eat’. When cows consume medicine, medicine becomes a part of the cow and traces of the medicine can found in the milk because the milk is made by the cow. A potentially larger issue than the medicines the cows are fed is actually the type of grains which they consume. When we as the consumer demand cheap milk, cows aren’t fed expensive organic grains, they all too often are fed cheaper genetically modified (GMO) grains.
This article is not about GMO foods but I feel it is important to explain what GMO foods are. So long as adequate irrigation takes care of the water needs, three of the greatest problems soy, wheat and corn famers face are:
Nutritionally deficient soils;
Weeds; and
Pests/bugs
Soil being nutritionally deficient means they are inadequate to provide the plants with the nutrients they require to become big and strong and to assist with their resilience to the other iwo issues, weeds and pests. There is a huge demand for corn especially, because it is used for everything from food and drink sweeteners to packaging materials to animal feed and an astonishing array of products in between. Due to this high demand for cheap corn, soils are not given rest from growing at least one out of every seven years as was recommended as far back as the bible days, but rather crops are sown and reaped continuously with a total disregard to seasons; these days there are more plants per square metre of land, too. When you can force a plant to grow wherever and whenever, there is no need to let the soil rest until the next appropriate season.
Nutrition and defence deficient plants are susceptible to being overcome by weeds and eaten by pests so scientists have modified the genetics of the plants so they can be sprayed with weed killer to kill the weeds and bugs but not the plants. Weeding can be time and money consuming and when bugs consume the plants they may as well be eating money. Because genetically modified crops can be sprayed with poisons, even if a bug were to bite into a piece of corn that has been sprayed previously, it would die. Because people and cows are a little bigger and stronger, we just get a little sicker year after year.
So the cows are consuming these nutritionally deficient grains containing weed and pest killing poisons and traces of these poisons can be found in conventional milk if it came from these cows. This is a huge problem in the US of A and is a substantial and growing problem in other countries, including Australia. In addition to this however, the same company that developed the poison resistant grains has also developed an artificial product called “recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone” (rBGH). This causes cows to produce about thirty percent more milk than nature intended which enables the consumers’ milk to be cheaper, in price and quality.
rBGH is arguably causing grave health defects in cows and is found to be present in their milk. I say arguably because for the farmers who have sick and dying cows it is a fact but the company producing rBGH is arguing the coincidental increase in bovine diseases that escalated when their product was introduced.
There is a full report here if you would like to read more: http://foxbghsuit.com/
These sick cows are given medicines to keep them producing milk and to counter the high rates of infections in their udders. Due to the infections from lowered immune systems and over-milking, the cows udders become painful to the cow and produce pus and blood from the sores which end up in the milk, too. Hmm, I thought milk seemed a little creamier than it was a few years back… So when you think you are buying wholesome milk, you are also getting the added benefits of pus, blood, antibiotics, genetically modified DNA, weed killer and artificial bovine growth hormones. Don’t even start me on the cereal you are pouring it on.
But wait, before you run to the toilet to vomit, there are other options.
There is a growing demand for organic, raw milk but the people consuming this milk are not getting sick as governing bodies would have you believe. In fact there is evidence to show people who consume raw milk are healthier than those who consume pasteurised milk. How could this be? The milk people consume raw comes from different cows. These are cows that eat grass as nature intended rather than genetically modified grains containing traces of weed killer, they are not fed antibiotics while they are producing milk, if at all, and they don’t consume artificial growth hormones.
The reason for conventional milk not being raw is because pasteurisation was introduced as a way to kill off bacteria found in cow’s milk. Authorities governing the dairy industry deemed it unsafe to consume milk that was not cooked and with consideration of what you have just read, they are probably right when it comes to milk from those particular cows.
What exactly is pasteurisation? Pasteurisation is a milk cooking method that usually occurs at temperatures below boiling point because at very high temperatures milk will irreversibly curdle. There are two main types of pasteurisation used today. The most common method heats the milk to seventy eight degrees centigrade for fifteen to twenty seconds and the other heats milk to one hundred and thirty five degrees for a minimum of one second. The second method is used for creating a longer than standard shelf life for the milk.
If the reason for heating the milk is to kill bacteria, I ask if you would be confident cooking anything you eat for fifteen to twenty seconds at seventy eight degrees, even with a further cooking at a higher temperature for a minimum of one second?
Pasteurisation damages the contents of the milk, regardless of whether or not it damages the bacteria. A common belief is that we need to consume milk for the protein and calcium content because milk is great for our bones, right? When milk is pasteurised, many scientists believe the calcium becomes insoluble or at least difficult for the body to absorb it. This is the same with the protein. There are a whole lot of other beneficial nutrients in milk, most of which are damaged by the pasteurisation process. These include but are not limited to B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin A and natural growth hormones (designed by nature, these are different to the artificial rBGH mentioned earlier). Remember, RAW milk is a complete food source for growing infants, there is a lot of goodness in raw milk.
How many things in this world can you can hold a flame to that end up in better condition than before you started? A house? A piece of paper? A glass of milk?
Note regarding protein and calcium: Animal products are not the only or necessarily the best and most bio-available source of protein. Virtually every food contains protein. For our calcium requirements, leafy greens are the best source (also the best source for most other vitamins required to be truly healthy). Meat and dairy industry marketing companies would have you believe otherwise.
Some people will tell you raw milk is a health risk and others will tell you that pasteurised milk is a health risk. Then different people believe milk is not required in any way, shape or form once an infant has been weaned. Often our bodies will signal us when something is not good for us. How loud and clear these signals are depends on how healthy we are and how in tune with our body we are. It is estimated that between seventy five and ninety percent of the population is ‘lactose intolerant’. Lactose is a sugar found in milk and symptoms of intolerance come from an inability to digest these sugars. Symptoms include gas, cramps, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, growth problems in children and many, many more. If you live with any of these symptoms every day due to a poor diet then lactose intolerance symptoms may not even register on your radar.
Many people who experience lactose intolerance symptoms are able to consume raw milk without experiencing any of the usual symptoms which could indicate that the lactose is transmuted during pasteurisation.
Earlier I mentioned what conventional dairy cows are fed but I would also like to touch on another subject. Like humans, cows produce milk post pregnancy. Cows may continuously produce some milk but once they give birth the flow increases to feed their calf. If the calf was to consume their mothers milk though, that would cut into the dairy farms profits which would drive the price of milk up. However, we as the consumer demand cheap milk! We also demand tender veal so calves are taken from their mothers shortly after birth (within minutes, sometimes). The cow is taken to the milking shed and the calf is taken to a dark little room barely bigger than the calf itself. The less it can move the more tender the meat when it lands on your plate.
The cow will be kept in this state of post pregnancy until the milk flow reduces and it is time to get her pregnant again. This lifestyle can reduce a cows lifespan down from about twenty years to as few as two years. As a comparison, that would be like humans only living to seven or eight years old.
The calf will spend its first and only eighteen to twenty weeks of its life in a small room where it cannot move until it is slaughtered for its meat. Why is it kept in such a small room? Because if it is able to play and frolic with the other calves it will build muscle tone and the meat won’t be as tender. Calves are slaughtered at such a young age because their diet of grain (often genetically modified) will not provide enough nutrients for the calf to be healthy like his mother’s milk would so it would not be physically able to live much longer. Also, the grains have a fattening affect and due to this fattening diet and lack of exercise the calf can be slaughtered at a younger age for the same amount of meat.
Organic, raw milk that comes from grass fed cows are often from farms where the cows are respected and ethically treated. This includes the calf being able to live with its mum and share her milk until it is old enough to live and feed on its own.
If you are still not convinced that organic raw milk is ethically and nutritionally better – raw milk tastes better, too. There is not necessarily any scientific proof for this. If you get the opportunity to try organic, raw milk, have a taste and see for yourself. If you would like to stay away from milk altogether but don’t know what to use as a replacement, look for organic rice, oat or almond milk at your local supermarket or health food shop. Avoid soy milk as it often comes from genetically modified sources, just like corn. It is also known to contain neuro-toxins and contains high levels of unnatural estrogen which messes with your body like the contraceptive pill. If you currently consume any soy products including tofu and you experience headaches, cut out the soy and see if it helps reduce or eliminate your headaches.
If you feel I am mistaken on any of these comments I invite you to do your own research. I am not claiming to be right, I only wish to raise awareness so people do their own research and understand exactly what they are putting into their body. I wish for you to live a long, healthy and enjoyable life and for all animals to live long, healthy and enjoyable lives, too.
organic food perth
superfoods australia
Possibly due to the embarrassment of feeding from their mother beyond infancy, people intuitively began consuming cow’s milk. This began a long time ago, back before scientists determined what cow’s milk is made of and why it may be good for people. In the last hundred or so years the demand for not just cow’s milk but in particular cheap cow’s milk has been increasing at a rate that outweighs the possibility of supply unless science intervenes and unnatural measures are taken.
This has resulted in cows being fed diets that they would not naturally consume. Predominantly cows eat grass but these days they are fed grains as a part, if not all, of their staple diet. Perhaps if nature intended cows to eat grains rather than grass then cows wouldn’t be born with three stomachs. I wonder what they do with their spare stomachs… I wish I had two spare stomachs… Anyway, I digress.
Just like humans, when cows don’t consume their appropriate diet they become susceptible to disease. Sick cows don’t produce as much milk and sometimes no milk is produced if the cow is dead so antibiotics are included in their grains to try to minimise the severity of the illnesses. You may have heard the term ‘you are what you eat’. When cows consume medicine, medicine becomes a part of the cow and traces of the medicine can found in the milk because the milk is made by the cow. A potentially larger issue than the medicines the cows are fed is actually the type of grains which they consume. When we as the consumer demand cheap milk, cows aren’t fed expensive organic grains, they all too often are fed cheaper genetically modified (GMO) grains.
This article is not about GMO foods but I feel it is important to explain what GMO foods are. So long as adequate irrigation takes care of the water needs, three of the greatest problems soy, wheat and corn famers face are:
Nutritionally deficient soils;
Weeds; and
Pests/bugs
Soil being nutritionally deficient means they are inadequate to provide the plants with the nutrients they require to become big and strong and to assist with their resilience to the other iwo issues, weeds and pests. There is a huge demand for corn especially, because it is used for everything from food and drink sweeteners to packaging materials to animal feed and an astonishing array of products in between. Due to this high demand for cheap corn, soils are not given rest from growing at least one out of every seven years as was recommended as far back as the bible days, but rather crops are sown and reaped continuously with a total disregard to seasons; these days there are more plants per square metre of land, too. When you can force a plant to grow wherever and whenever, there is no need to let the soil rest until the next appropriate season.
Nutrition and defence deficient plants are susceptible to being overcome by weeds and eaten by pests so scientists have modified the genetics of the plants so they can be sprayed with weed killer to kill the weeds and bugs but not the plants. Weeding can be time and money consuming and when bugs consume the plants they may as well be eating money. Because genetically modified crops can be sprayed with poisons, even if a bug were to bite into a piece of corn that has been sprayed previously, it would die. Because people and cows are a little bigger and stronger, we just get a little sicker year after year.
So the cows are consuming these nutritionally deficient grains containing weed and pest killing poisons and traces of these poisons can be found in conventional milk if it came from these cows. This is a huge problem in the US of A and is a substantial and growing problem in other countries, including Australia. In addition to this however, the same company that developed the poison resistant grains has also developed an artificial product called “recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone” (rBGH). This causes cows to produce about thirty percent more milk than nature intended which enables the consumers’ milk to be cheaper, in price and quality.
rBGH is arguably causing grave health defects in cows and is found to be present in their milk. I say arguably because for the farmers who have sick and dying cows it is a fact but the company producing rBGH is arguing the coincidental increase in bovine diseases that escalated when their product was introduced.
There is a full report here if you would like to read more: http://foxbghsuit.com/
These sick cows are given medicines to keep them producing milk and to counter the high rates of infections in their udders. Due to the infections from lowered immune systems and over-milking, the cows udders become painful to the cow and produce pus and blood from the sores which end up in the milk, too. Hmm, I thought milk seemed a little creamier than it was a few years back… So when you think you are buying wholesome milk, you are also getting the added benefits of pus, blood, antibiotics, genetically modified DNA, weed killer and artificial bovine growth hormones. Don’t even start me on the cereal you are pouring it on.
But wait, before you run to the toilet to vomit, there are other options.
There is a growing demand for organic, raw milk but the people consuming this milk are not getting sick as governing bodies would have you believe. In fact there is evidence to show people who consume raw milk are healthier than those who consume pasteurised milk. How could this be? The milk people consume raw comes from different cows. These are cows that eat grass as nature intended rather than genetically modified grains containing traces of weed killer, they are not fed antibiotics while they are producing milk, if at all, and they don’t consume artificial growth hormones.
The reason for conventional milk not being raw is because pasteurisation was introduced as a way to kill off bacteria found in cow’s milk. Authorities governing the dairy industry deemed it unsafe to consume milk that was not cooked and with consideration of what you have just read, they are probably right when it comes to milk from those particular cows.
What exactly is pasteurisation? Pasteurisation is a milk cooking method that usually occurs at temperatures below boiling point because at very high temperatures milk will irreversibly curdle. There are two main types of pasteurisation used today. The most common method heats the milk to seventy eight degrees centigrade for fifteen to twenty seconds and the other heats milk to one hundred and thirty five degrees for a minimum of one second. The second method is used for creating a longer than standard shelf life for the milk.
If the reason for heating the milk is to kill bacteria, I ask if you would be confident cooking anything you eat for fifteen to twenty seconds at seventy eight degrees, even with a further cooking at a higher temperature for a minimum of one second?
Pasteurisation damages the contents of the milk, regardless of whether or not it damages the bacteria. A common belief is that we need to consume milk for the protein and calcium content because milk is great for our bones, right? When milk is pasteurised, many scientists believe the calcium becomes insoluble or at least difficult for the body to absorb it. This is the same with the protein. There are a whole lot of other beneficial nutrients in milk, most of which are damaged by the pasteurisation process. These include but are not limited to B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin A and natural growth hormones (designed by nature, these are different to the artificial rBGH mentioned earlier). Remember, RAW milk is a complete food source for growing infants, there is a lot of goodness in raw milk.
How many things in this world can you can hold a flame to that end up in better condition than before you started? A house? A piece of paper? A glass of milk?
Note regarding protein and calcium: Animal products are not the only or necessarily the best and most bio-available source of protein. Virtually every food contains protein. For our calcium requirements, leafy greens are the best source (also the best source for most other vitamins required to be truly healthy). Meat and dairy industry marketing companies would have you believe otherwise.
Some people will tell you raw milk is a health risk and others will tell you that pasteurised milk is a health risk. Then different people believe milk is not required in any way, shape or form once an infant has been weaned. Often our bodies will signal us when something is not good for us. How loud and clear these signals are depends on how healthy we are and how in tune with our body we are. It is estimated that between seventy five and ninety percent of the population is ‘lactose intolerant’. Lactose is a sugar found in milk and symptoms of intolerance come from an inability to digest these sugars. Symptoms include gas, cramps, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, growth problems in children and many, many more. If you live with any of these symptoms every day due to a poor diet then lactose intolerance symptoms may not even register on your radar.
Many people who experience lactose intolerance symptoms are able to consume raw milk without experiencing any of the usual symptoms which could indicate that the lactose is transmuted during pasteurisation.
Earlier I mentioned what conventional dairy cows are fed but I would also like to touch on another subject. Like humans, cows produce milk post pregnancy. Cows may continuously produce some milk but once they give birth the flow increases to feed their calf. If the calf was to consume their mothers milk though, that would cut into the dairy farms profits which would drive the price of milk up. However, we as the consumer demand cheap milk! We also demand tender veal so calves are taken from their mothers shortly after birth (within minutes, sometimes). The cow is taken to the milking shed and the calf is taken to a dark little room barely bigger than the calf itself. The less it can move the more tender the meat when it lands on your plate.
The cow will be kept in this state of post pregnancy until the milk flow reduces and it is time to get her pregnant again. This lifestyle can reduce a cows lifespan down from about twenty years to as few as two years. As a comparison, that would be like humans only living to seven or eight years old.
The calf will spend its first and only eighteen to twenty weeks of its life in a small room where it cannot move until it is slaughtered for its meat. Why is it kept in such a small room? Because if it is able to play and frolic with the other calves it will build muscle tone and the meat won’t be as tender. Calves are slaughtered at such a young age because their diet of grain (often genetically modified) will not provide enough nutrients for the calf to be healthy like his mother’s milk would so it would not be physically able to live much longer. Also, the grains have a fattening affect and due to this fattening diet and lack of exercise the calf can be slaughtered at a younger age for the same amount of meat.
Organic, raw milk that comes from grass fed cows are often from farms where the cows are respected and ethically treated. This includes the calf being able to live with its mum and share her milk until it is old enough to live and feed on its own.
If you are still not convinced that organic raw milk is ethically and nutritionally better – raw milk tastes better, too. There is not necessarily any scientific proof for this. If you get the opportunity to try organic, raw milk, have a taste and see for yourself. If you would like to stay away from milk altogether but don’t know what to use as a replacement, look for organic rice, oat or almond milk at your local supermarket or health food shop. Avoid soy milk as it often comes from genetically modified sources, just like corn. It is also known to contain neuro-toxins and contains high levels of unnatural estrogen which messes with your body like the contraceptive pill. If you currently consume any soy products including tofu and you experience headaches, cut out the soy and see if it helps reduce or eliminate your headaches.
If you feel I am mistaken on any of these comments I invite you to do your own research. I am not claiming to be right, I only wish to raise awareness so people do their own research and understand exactly what they are putting into their body. I wish for you to live a long, healthy and enjoyable life and for all animals to live long, healthy and enjoyable lives, too.
organic food perth