Conventional milk, pasteurization - not the healthy foods you thought

So many industrial foods have been marketed as "health foods", through advertising or marketing campaigns, no one doubts anymore about the fact that they are so healthy and good for them.

And as Mark Twain said, "it is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled".

My only goal is to educate and give people some food for thought. I would advise everyone to not just believe in what I am saying, but to do their own research and dig it out by themselves.

1. What is dairy?

What we call "dairy" is anything made from milk from cows, goats, sheep... EXCEPT BUTTER.

So we think of milk, cheese, cream (cottage cheese, cream cheese...), yogurt, buttermilk, ice cream...

"Conventional" dairy is any type of dairy that is NOT FROM grass-fed, organically raised animals.

2. What is pasteurization?

Most dairy today is pasteurized. It basically means that it is "cooked". Once collected, it is raised at very high temperature (about 65 degrees C) for 30 minutes and then rapidly stored at a temperature lower than 12 degrees C.

This is done to substantially reduce contamination risk.

The problem with pasteurization, is that it kills almost all beneficial nutritional benefits from milk.

Pasteurization:

• -kills naturally occurring probiotics
• -kills essential nutrients like vitamin C, A and B Complex
• -denatures milk proteins
• -destroys 20% of milk's natural iodine
• -transforms lactose sugars into more rapidly absorbed sugars, leading to blood sugar spikes, insulin waves and energy swings
• -Calcium in pasteurized dairy is USELESS to the human body. It is a mistake to think that it is a healthy source of calcium and vitamin D. If you are looking to increase your calcium intake, think of dark leafy greens instead, like broccoli or spinach for example.

So yes, you get it. Pasteurization transforms milk into a very unhealthy and even harmful food. Because of all those negative consequences, pasteurization has been linked to neurological disorders due to a high level of neurotoxicity.

3. And what about homogenization?

Homogenization is a process developed so that the "fatty" cream of the milk does not separate anymore. This is done chemically, and as you can imagine, it alters the milk in quite a bad way. It has been shown to increase oxidative stress, as well as risk of cardiovascular disease.

4. Pasteurization: a bit of history

In the 1900s, the conditions of milking were quite disastrous. City-milk cows were kept in dirty, filthy, small, confined places close to houses. They were fed very poorly. The milk containers were reused, not cleaned, not washed...

Because of those bad sanitary conditions, most of the cows were sick, and all this led to rampant contamination of milk, making people sick. This is why pasteurization became necessary and was developed to sterilize THIS kind of milk.

5. Conventional dairy health and sanitary problems

Conventional dairies feed cows unnatural, inflammatory and sickening diets. Many times, animals are kept in dirty, cramped conditions, making actually pasteurization... necessary. Those animals are sick, and need antibiotics, are injected with growth hormones, to make production more "efficient". Because of all of this, conventional dairy is far from being safe nor healthy.

Low-fat versions of those conventional dairy products make it all even worse, depleting the "resting milk" of its naturally healthy fats, and making it even more sugary, therefore even more unhealthy...

6. Raw Milk: a potent health food

Raw Milk is basically milk that comes straight from an animal that is organically raised and grass fed. It is NOT PASTEURIZED, NOT HOMOGENIZED. No hormones, no synthetic substances are added. It is unadulterated milk.

Raw milk is basically milk in ITS FRESH NATURAL STATE. It should be called milk. Pasteurized or conventional milk should be called "processed milk".

Raw milk is a powerful healing food meant to sustain life. In its all natural state, raw milk is nutritional, and helps naturally boost your immune and digestive system, because it is full of living components such as enzymes, probiotics, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats.

Studies show that children drinking raw milk have less asthma or allergies and less tooth decay than children fed with conventional pasteurized milk.

So yes, if you want to go on eating or drinking dairy, go for raw, organic, grass-fed sources.

As I said at the beginning, BUTTER is not considered a dairy food. This is because during its fermentation process, milk proteins are enzymatically modified. Many lactose-intolerant people can eat butter with no side-effects. If you don't feel well with butter, ghee should be your solution. Raw Butter and Ghee are an exceptional source of healthy protective fats.

Margarine is NOT A FOOD. So you can forget about it.

In Health and Happiness,

Stephanie