Don't Listen To The Media - Pasteurized Milk Is Not Good

We can trace milk back 20 centuries or more to the time of Hippocrates, who was known as the father of medicine. This guy was a big advocate of the healing powers contained in milk and what he believed in has served us well up until recent times, when people started to talk about diseases such as tuberculosis, passed to humans through raw milk. In the 1900s, poor production processes led to a big deterioration in milk quality, as it was being fed to the growing population. Cows were raised in deteriorating conditions and had to eat grain which was fed to them as a byproduct from alcohol production. It's not surprising that this milk was poor quality, low in nutrients and not very beneficial to our immune system and good health. Infant mortality was an issue and tuberculosis was in evidence, so everybody pointed to this poor quality milk. Pasteurization followed, when raw milk was heated to high temperatures, destroying pathogens. This was applied to cattle herds that weren't! certified and pasteurization in this way continued into the 20th century. It was still said that raw milk from healthy cattle was okay, so long as the all-important certification was in place.

The major problem with pasteurization is that it destroys many of the nutrients and microorganisms that give milk its undoubted health benefits, as initially revealed by Hippocrates all that time ago. Pasteurization destroys many of the enzymes needed to digest and reveal milk's nutrients and this enzyme destruction cause lactose intolerance, as seen in certain parts of the population. Important minerals such as calcium and vitamins such as B6 and B12 are altered or destroyed during this process of pasteurization. In summary of what is essentially a very complicated issue, excessive sterilization of the food and drink that we consume can often eliminate far too many of the important elements of bacteria beneficial to our digestion, detoxification and immunity.

Grass fed milk is generally far superior in quality than grain fed or soy fed. Factory farming has a very bad reputation, as farmers feed cattle very unnatural and unhealthy diets that compromise the health of the animals and the quality of the milk that is produced. These poor practices include the introduction of antibiotics into the diet of the cattle, as well as hormones in many cases to increase the amount of milk they produce. As each cow is forced to produce more milk, the amount of vitamins that are included in the milk is proportionally decreased. Conversely, grass fed cattle produce milk with higher concentrations of vitamin A and vitamin D, essential to our health.

We have all heard how organic food and drink is supposedly the best for us, but this does not contain all the answers. The USDA certifies the production of organic milk, but cattle are still fed grain and not grass in many cases. Sometimes, the manufacturers of organic brand milk go through an ultra pasteurization process, destroying even more of the nutrients than regular pasteurization and reducing its value even further.