A question from a reader:

Would Healthy Holly drink raw milk?

Yes, indeedy, Healthy Holly would — and has.  It’s delicious and makes me feel sassy.  (Don’t be put off by the word “raw”: vegetables, sushi and carpaccio are all raw, and normally just fine.)  Do I exclusively drink raw milk?  No.  I drink the best milk available at any given time.  How does one determine this?  Let’s milk a good/better/best list.

Got Controversy?

Before we get to the good stuff, we should address some of the controversy over dairy: certain studies have linked high milk consumption to prostate cancer, although it’s unclear if the the culprit is the milk itself or the way we raise dairy cows these days (with added growth hormones, etc.).  Vegans would prefer we none of us ever drink milk, and the soy, almond, oat, coconut and rice milk industries would love for us to switch our allegiances to their aseptically packaged products.

The first animal product I had after my Vegan Year — the one that finally broke me — was a full-fat yogurt.  Huge moment.  For the first time in months, I felt satiated, and after a few more weeks of dairy, my lethargy and skin problems abated.  Once I discovered milk from grass-fed dairy cows, and especially raw milk from sustainable farms, I finally understood why people want to chug entire glasses of the stuff.  It was delicious, and wholly unlike the insipid stuff I’d grown up drinking.  (The first time my friend Shannon Hayes made me ice cream from raw grassfed milk from her cows, I nearly made out with her.)

We started drinking cow, goat and sheep milk about ten millenia ago. (When I say “we,” I’m being specific to my ancestry.  If you are of Asian or African descent, you’re more likely to be lactose intolerant.)  Ten thousand years makes more sense to me than ten years, which is one reason why I don’t reach for the newfangled flavored soy and other milks in the dairy section.  Furthermore, milk from grassfed dairy cows has been shown to contain more CLAs (a good fatty acid), vitamins and overall nutrition than that from grain-fed cows, and I find that my body takes to it well, although it’s a good idea for each of us to experiment.

I personally drink milk in moderation, mostly by putting a bit of it in my tea in the morning.  I often make my own yogurt, too, and sometimes cheese, so a good milk source is vital.  Here’s what I’ve learned to look for in milk:

The Best Choice:

Non-homogenized milk from a local farm where single-herd cows graze on pasture.

Either raw (if the source is pristine) or low-temperature pasteurized.  No added growth hormones.

As we’ve discussed before, cows are meant to eat grass, not grains (which acidify their systems, making them more susceptible to E. coli).  They are supposed to graze and follow their natural rhythms, not stay hooked up to milk machines all day.  And milk, in its natural state, is not homogenized: the fat separates and rises to make a cream layer. (Skim it off and you have skim milk.)

But these days, we mechanically homogenize the fat globules, forcing them under high pressure to decrease in diameter and blend into the rest of the liquid.  Some studies show that this makes the milk more difficult to digest.

We also nuke the heckoutta milk.   Raw milk proponents claim that nuking it at ultra-high temperatures (UHT-pasteurized) leads to sterile, “dead” milk.  An unappetizing image, but low-temperature pasteurization is fine with me, as I’m more concerned about the cows’ diet and living conditions than whether the milk has been heated. When I can get pristine raw milk, I do so, but when I can’t, I look for grassfed milk from a single-herd farm that hasn’t been nuked beyond recognition.

I have never become sick from raw milk, but I choose my sources with care.  If you’re interested in learning more about unpasteurized milk (from an admittedly biased, pro-raw source), check out the Weston A Price foundation.  They agitate for consumer choice and can help lead you to your very own raw milk pimp.  ;)  (Note that there is just as much persuasive copy written about raw milk as there is about organic and conventional milks: be skeptical; it’s not necessarily the panacea some claim it to be.)

The Better Choice:

Milk from a single-herd, one that hopefully grazes at least part of the time on pasture.  Organic feed, from local farms if possible.  No added growth hormones.

Most of the milk you buy at the grocery store — even the organic kind — comes from tanks containing the output of several hundred or even thousands of different cows, all mixed together.  I am more comfortable with a single herd because you can track their lifestyle and diet.

This week, I’ve been drinking a local Texas brand that comes from a single herd which feeds largely on pasture and silage.  This milk is not certified organic, and there is grain feed, but there are no added growth hormones and the milk is very fresh.  Good enough for me.

The Good Choice:

Milk labeled rBGH-free.

Natural hormones are already present in milk, which is one of the reasons I don’t O.D. on it.  But rBGH — or Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, something that dramatically increases milk output and that is present in most conventional milk — is something one generally wants to avoid.  The problem isn’t so much that it’s a genetically engineered copy of a naturally occurring bovine hormone; it’s that it is too much for the cow’s system to handle. Research shows that cows treated with rBGH tend to display, among other effects, an increase in mastitis (udder infection), sores, lacerations and other issues that often then require antibiotics.  The USDA says antibiotics can’t be present in milk for sale, but even if high amounts don’t pop up in the milk itself, the overuse of antibiotics in the cattle industry is something we should avoid: it has been linked to the rise in antibiotic-resistent superbugs.

A word about Organics:

Horizon and Aurora Organic (which makes the private-label milk for Costco) have been blasted recently because their cows only had “access” to grass — meaning they pretty much looked longingly at grass from inside their confining milking pens.  The requirements for USDA Certified Organic milk were nebulous, which is how those companies still gained the organic seals.  But now the government is requiring that Certified Organic milk comes from dairy cows that graze during season, for a minimum of 120 days.  Marketing can still be a misleading force, but at least this one loophole is being closed.  On paper.

The bottom line?  If you can do so, find a local farmer who will sell you milk from grassfed, sustainably raised cattle.  When in doubt, grab organic, and when that’s not available, avoid added growth hormones.

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Check out yesterday’s post: How to Love Your Body.

I’m submitting this post to the fabulous Real Food Wednesday, generously hosted over at Kelly the Kitchen Kop.