June 2007

Last column I mentioned the interest locally in forming a food co-op, and received quite a few emails wanting to know more, particularly about milk and cheese made from raw milk.

I would love to share with you what we, as a community, have been learning on the subject and how it is changing our views on food.

Most importantly, the more we learn about buying locally, the more important it becomes that I have a real and personal connection with the food I take into my body. Part of making an effort to eat foods produced locally is that we are able to support local farmers. In the Ottawa Valley, for example, the average farmer is 61 years old. Young farmers need to work two jobs, while the large industrial agriculture operations are increasingly making it more difficult for small family farmers to survive.

Most importantly, in order for us to have a say in how our food is produced, to have choice, we need to take advantage of our place in history, where consumers can still stand up and have a say. If the predictions are true, we could lose our small family farms within a generation, and with them lose our right to access organic, unprocessed healthy foods.

Raw milk is a great example of what can happen to our food supply. It is understood the world over to be not only healthy but also extremely beneficial. Europeans can legally drink raw milk, as they have done for thousands of years, and doctors there use it specifically for patients with osteoporosis and various cancers. Raw milk is full of vitamins and proteins, and free of additives. It does in fact give you strong bones and teeth. Traditionally the yellow cream is saved for pregnant women because it has always been recognized for its nourishment and healthy fat.

Right now in Ontario however, it is illegal for a farmer to even give you a glass of beautiful nourishing raw milk directly from an organic grass-fed cow.

We might all still be drinking raw milk if not for a tuberculosis outbreak in the mid-1800’s which, at the time, was believed to have come from cows. Researchers now know that the source of the TB was not the cows’ milk itself, but infected workers at the ‘milk distillery’ who, at the time, used unclean milking methods. So the cow’s milk was blamed for human folly, and well over a hundred years later many of us still believe pasteurization is necessary to prevent infectious disease. (See The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid). Yet modern milking machines and stainless steel tanks make milking so safe and sanitary that pasteurization is unnecessary.

Personally, I am allergic to ‘dairy products’. However I am not allergic to raw milk and raw milk products. It is not milk I am allergic to; it is the products that result from pasteurization. Some people with dairy allergies have intolerance to the hormones and or antibiotics fed to commercial cows, and some to the soy feed given the cows. For me the problem arises from what happens to raw milk when it is heated through pasteurization – the digestive enzymes that enable the digesting of the milk are destroyed, and the amino acids that enable easy digestion of calcium are altered.

I am able to digest raw milk because it still contains the enzymes required to digest the milk sugars in the first place. Raw milk yogurt has even less lactose than milk or cheese, while butter and cream have the least, and are often tolerated by those with lactose intolerance. (Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon).

There are lots of great books on the subject of raw milk for those of us in North America who are unable to easily access raw milk’s nutritional benefits, including: The Milk Book by Dr William Campbell Douglass MD, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid.

I also highly recommend going to Michael Schmidt’s website and reading the health testimonials on raw milk, and the petition to The Parliament of Ontario on behalf of the citizens who believe they should “have the right to make informed decisions about how, where, and by whom our food is grown and produced” (www.glencoltonfarms.com.)

Right now the best way to legally access raw milk is to buy a share in a Jersey or Guernsey cow. So that is what we are doing, working with a fifth generation dairy farmer. Knowing the cow that gives you the milk is so direct and meaningful. It’s making this city-girl happy, that’s for sure!

Also check out Realmilk. com, westonAPrice.org, and newtrendspublishing.com