What thoughts come into your mind when you hear the word milk? It's amazing how one word can cause such a ruckus these days. We all know that breastmilk is best for both mom and babe, but when it comes to consuming milk from an animal, the controversy begins. Regardless of whether or not you drink milk from a cow or an almond, it's very difficult to buy good quality milk. Here's why I don't by any milk from a store.
DAIRY: I am a big fan of dairy products. Clean, raw milk from grass-fed cows is a very healing, complete, and balanced food. Did you know that you could live exclusively off milk? Unfortunately, access to good quality raw milk is limited in most parts of North America, with many people having to resort to procuring it illegally. This is really unfortunate because people are more likely to get sick when they have to access much needed services and goods illegally. So, when it is in season and available, I get raw milk from my goats or a local farmer. I really try to avoid buying milk from the store, even if it is organic because the milk has been denatured. Store bought milk is skimmed, pasteurized, homogenized, and fortified with synthetic vitamin D. Not to mention the unsavoury living conditions of a dairy cow, most of who are kept in intense confinement, in individual stalls, on hard cement floors, hooked up to milking machines and forced to produce milk ten months out of the year. These same cows are usually fed GM corn and soy instead of their natural diet of grass or hay. Let's not forget the antibiotics and hormones that are given to cows who live in these un-natural conditions. Ok, so they don't use hormones in Canada, but you can bet they do in the US.
Pasteurization: Is a type of heat treatment that destroys much of the goodness in milk and makes the components of the fat less healthy. Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamins, kills beneficial bacteria, and promotes pathogens.
Low Fat Milk: Milk and dairy products like yogurt and cheese can be very healthy food, but only if the milk contains all the fat. The butterfat in milk provides important vitamins like A, D, and K2, which are needed to help you absorb the calcium, phosphorus and other minerals in milk. The butterfat in milk also makes it much easier to digest and also less likely to cause illness.
- synthetic vitamin D, known to be toxic to the liver, is added to replace the natural vitamin D complex in butterfat. Non-fat dried milk is added to 1% and 2% milk as well, but unlike the cholesterol in fresh milk which plays a variety of healthy roles in the body, the cholesterol in non-fat dried milk is oxidized and it is this rancid cholesterol that promotes heart disease.
Homogenization: Is a process that breaks up the fat globules and evenly distributes them throughout the milk so they they do not rise to the top. This process unnaturally increases the surface area of fat exposing it to air, which causes oxidation and increases susceptibility to spoilage. Homogenization has been linked to heart disease.
You can start to see why the junk they are selling at the store is a bit of a turn off for me right? So what can you do if you want to drink milk, but only have access to the conventional store bought stuff?
1. Reduce your consumption of conventional milk. Find other ways to get your protein, calcium, and good fats from nuts, seeds, dark leafy greens, and free-range eggs. Include mineral rich bone broth into your diet daily. Supplement with Cod Liver Oil to get vitamins A & D as well as essential fatty acids.
2. Focus on cultured dairy. If raw milk is unavailable, you can still include cultured dairy products in your diet. The culturing of milk provides many of the benefits that the pasteurization removes from milk. Cultured milk products have added bacterial cultures which promote good digestion and a health intestinal tract, and are not associated with the same problems as drinking regular cow's milk. Your best bet is to make your own though, especially yogurt, because most commercially available yogurts contain skim milk powder and other thickeners. If you really look hard, you can find a few companies producing yogurt from unhomogenized milk and cultures only.
3. Look for organic un-homogenized milk. This is as good as it gets at the store. Hard to find, but it is out there.
NON-DAIRY MILKS
You may be one of the millions of people who prefer to just buy non-dairy milk, whether it's coconut, almond, soy, rice etc. Almond or other nut milks are fairly good options. They offer some good protein, fat, and calcium, along with other nutrients contained in nuts. One problem is that commercial nut milks are not made from soaked or sprouted nuts or seeds, which makes these products difficult to digest because they contain phytates which inhibit mineral absorption.
Non-dairy alternatives I do not recommend include soy and rice milk products. Soy disrupts sex hormones and is known as a phytoestrogen. This means that it contains natural compounds that mimic estrogens in our bodies. Soy also has known goitrogenic effects on the thyroid, which means it depresses thyroid hormone production. Soy also contains protease inhibitors, which frustrates the body's digestion of protein, and it contains phytic acid which prevents minerals from being absorbed in the body. Rice milk is pretty much just sugar water, and unfortunately most of these packaged milks usually contain poor quality, hard to absorb calcium, synthetic vitamins A & D, and other supplements to give them a nutritional profile similar to that of dairy. There is also the carrageenan found in most boxed non-dairy milks, which is associated with inflammation of the digestive tract. They are also usually loaded with unnecessary flavourings. sweeteners and thickeners too.
So what do I drink and cook with when I can't get raw milk? I make my own almond milk from organic raw European almonds. I also like to use canned coconut milk, which I often dilute with some water so it isn't so thick. I take fermented cod liver oil and drink homemade broth all year as well.
HOMEMADE ALMOND MILK
1 cup raw European almonds (unpasteurized)
4 cups water
2 organic dates, pitted
Method: Soak almonds over night in enough water to cover. In the morning, drain and rinse. Add almonds to a high speed blender with the 4 cups of water and dates. Blend on high for about 1 minute. Strain through cheesecloth or a nylon nut milk bag. Refrigerate.
