There’s a new flashpoint for controversy in the food world, and it’s not peanut butter or spinach or melamine-tainted caramels. Hint: It’s creamy, white, and comes straight from a cow.

If you’ve read about raw milk at any point over the past two to three years, you’ve probably read of dark alley hand-offs, whispered exchanges and early morning farm raids, of obsessive consumers on either side of the issue, and health officials confiscating thousands of pounds of contraband dairy. Those stories are all true – trust me, I’ve been there – but that’s not where this article is going. Because to frame a discussion of raw milk in such a way, to couch it in the language of speakeasies and drug busts, is to discredit the simplicity of the food, and to lend legitimacy to the argument that milk is deserving of such heated controversy. Because when it comes down to it, raw milk is just milk – straight from the cow, un-fussed with, and pure.

When someone asks me what raw milk is like, I often liken it to the experience of apple picking. Most of us, even city dwellers, have probably been to an apple orchard at some point in our lives, picked an apple from a tree, and taken a bite, right there under the shade of the tree’s leaves. That just-picked apple tastes different, right? It makes all grocery store-bought apples pale in comparison. Milk, like most whole, super-fresh foods, is no different. I have stood by as a farmer milked his cows by hand and sipped milk still warm from the stainless steel bucket – it’s salty, sweet, and unlike anything you’ve ever tasted. True, most of you will never get the opportunity to sip the stuff in its purest form, within minutes of milking, but why not shorten the lag time and processes between teat and glass?

For raw milk converts, the real appeal lies in how little has been done to this simplest of foods. A cow is milked, the milk is bottled, the consumer buys and drinks it. It’s generally sold whole, though you can scoop the cream off the top and voila, you’ve got skim milk. Raw milk sours naturally in about two weeks (a healthy and natural process, completely unlike putrification in pasteurized milk), so you can count on it being fresher than what you typically buy in a store. And most farmers who manage to market raw milk maintain small herds of older breeds of cows – Jersey, Milking Shorthorn, Guernsey, etc, rotationally grazed on pasture. Hand me a glass of raw milk from one of their cows, and I’m in heaven.

Hand me a glass of raw milk from a grain-fed over-bred Holstein, however, and not only will I not be impressed, I probably won’t drink it. You see all raw milk is not created equal. The modern Holstein cow, responsible for the vast majority of our milk supply, has been bred to produce unnaturally large quantities to milk, and often exists on an unnatural diet of corn and soy, foods that are not only not meant for a cow, they actually make her sick. As a result, she is injected with antibiotics, and to keep production up, often rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone). Milk from a cow like that is not milk I want in my body. Already, we’re talking about a product that is no longer coming to us as nature intended, and this is before the processes that take raw milk and transform it into an entirely different product.

That same modern Holstein’s milk is pasteurized, a process which destroys naturally occurring and healthy enzymes, denatures milk proteins and destroys important vitamins and beneficial bacteria. It’s likely homogenized, breaking down butterfat globules to prevent the cream from rising to the top of the milk. By the time it reaches a consumer’s lips, it’s a far cry from what emerged from Bessie. I’m not anti-technology, I just don’t believe that such a pure and simple food needs to be treated in such a way. And history has my back.

Humans have been drinking milk for thousands of years, safely. Until the 1900s, most of us still drank raw milk from farmers we knew by name. We didn’t really start pasteurizing until the early twentieth century. At its advent, pasteurization was meant to make America’s milk supply safer. Dairies near cities and large towns were becoming increasingly crowded and unclean, and poor animal nutrition was translating to a poor milk supply. A supply that was making people sick. Tuberculosis, diarrhea, fever and other diseases were prevalent, and easily traced to raw milk from these “swill dairies”. Industry’s solution was pasteurization. 

And while it was a solution, greatly decreasing illness and disease, it was also a means to cover up poor quality milk from sick cows on filthy farms. Pasteurization may have been the most cost-effective way to deal with the milk supply, and may still be necessary to keep our industrial-scale milk supply safe. But it’s important to note that further technological advances, such as careful (and fair) farm inspections, modern stainless steel tanks, and better refrigeration, combined with more traditional and clean farming practices, make the case for pasteurization a lot less convincing. If a farm is carefully maintained, its cows graze on plenty of fresh pasture in the summer, hay and silage in the winter, the milking and bottling process are clean and efficient, and I trust in the farmer that this is all true, why not drink the milk as it is?

As has become painfully, and life threateningly clear, our modern food system has serious issues. The key is what we informed consumers choose to do in the face of the food system that is in place. An informed consumer, for example, did not stop eating spinach altogether after the E. coli scare of 2006, he or she booked it to the local organic market, the farm stand or the CSA drop-off, boosting business for small-scale sustainable farmers, and keeping themselves in good food. It’s not a bad way to think about all of your food purchases, and its really quite simple – just know your farmer. This is probably not the first time you’ve heard the phrase- it’s become something of a mantra for the local food set – and well it should. In terms of raw milk, it’s the number one thing to consider before you take a sip.

At this point, you’re probably asking, “But isn’t raw milk illegal?” In many states, yes. And there are convoluted and incomprehensible laws and restrictions in other states that limit availability of raw milk, and just as many ways to get your hands on it, legally. In New York State, farmers can only sell raw milk on-farm with a license. But farmers are increasingly opening “farm stores” right on the property where consumers can purchase nicely bottled and labeled raw milk within the familiar construct of a grocery store. I’ve also personally ladled milk out of a bulk tank into my own mason jar and the stuffed crumpled bills in a jar as payment. But then, I’m a bit of a rebel when it comes to raw milk. There are buying clubs emerging, and growing at an amazing pace, throughout the country, and yes, within New York City and Brooklyn as well.

In the meantime, the debate rages on.

On one side you have health department officials, and some consumers, mystified at the lack of understanding of the pro – raw milk crowd. On the other, you have small-scale farmers, and raw milk consumers, mystified at the lack of understanding of the anti-raw milk crowd. Case in point – two responses I received when mentioning writing this article:
1. “Before you do that, you might want to consider why we started pasteurizing in the first place, it was for a reason, you know.”
2. “Oh, Great! You know, I don’t think either of my boys (ages 2 and 4) have ever had milk that wasn’t raw. Isn’t that terrific?”

I’m not sure how it will all play out, but for now, I’ve got a gallon of raw milk from an Amish Farmer in my fridge. It’s delicious, and I’m willing to fight for it.

Resources

Pro:
www.realmilk.com
www.westonaprice.org
www.traditionalnutritionguild.org

Con:
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/504_milk.html

Anne Dailey is a writer and locavore who grew up in Maine and now lives in the Hudson Valley where she writes about food and farms, grows a little garden and runs a small farmer-to-consumer food co-op.  She maintains a blog, Raw Milk & Liver and loves doing yoga by the Hudson River. 

Paul O’Hanlon is photographer with a love for fresh local food and the people who make it possible.  He and partner Kelly Kingman relocated to Beacon, New York in 2008, from Brooklyn.  They encourage everyone they meet to follow suit, until Beacon becomes overrun, at which point they will deny having done so.  They work together on hudsongrown.com, a site celebrating local food and the restaurants that serve it.  Paul’s work can be seen at pdofoto.com.

Copyright Last Exit 2009