Raw Milk Question
 

I recently became informed about the benefits of drinking only non-homogenized milk as well as non-pasteurized milk (raw). Some believe the process of homogenation creates a product that the human body cannot effectively digest, thus high levels of blood cholesterol result.

I found a source of this milk at a local whole foods market. But the cream is clotted at the neck of the bottle. So my question is what is the best way to get this cream dispursed back into the milk? Shaking doesn't seem to work. The cream is too solid.

Also, how do you feel about buying raw milk from the market? The milk I bought is pasteurized as I am not comfortable with raw milk from an unknown source. The warning label on the bottle regarding the hazards of unpasteurized milk led me to put the bottle back and grab the one that was pasteurized. I will try to find a local farmer who sells raw milk and if I feel the operation is sterile, I'll buy from him. I only use a quart a week.

Thanks for your responses.

You need to have enough room to shake it good. As far as health issue , the grocery store milk farmer still has to have inspections. I would not have a problem buying it. We all drink raw milk. My kids think its bad when we have to buy some :)

We drink raw milk, from our own goat. When the goat is dry I buy raw cow's milk from a farmer. We have never had a problem. In fact, my dd will have allergy trouble if we use homogenized, pasteurized milk. Just check the source and you shouldn't have any trouble.

Cheryl

Dip that cream off the top and put it in your coffee, whip it, make it into butter or ice cream... I would NEVER buy raw milk at a market. Heck, I wouldn't even buy pasturized milk at a market. I hate buying it at the store but I do occasionally when I'm desparate. I buy from a local farmer after seeing how clean his setup is and talking to him about what he does (but more importantly what he does not) put into his cows. I used to milk my own but found it was way too much work esp since I have such a great source close by. Do be aware that not everyone can handle raw milk. If you try it and start having digestive trouble, you might want to start pasturizing again.

Raw milk is natures way of keeping us healthy with natural antibiotics galore.Pastureized is worse than not drinking any!It seems people that are alergic to milk and or lactose intolerant do very well on the raw milk.
Chas

Skim the cream off and make butter out of it. After removing the butter fat you will have left is what we use to call blue john. Add a culture to the blue john and let it ferment and then you will have buttermilk. You get 3 products out of the milk!

I've drunk gallons of farm fresh raw milk, and can't say it ever negatively affected me. Now I wouldn't go around saying I'm not a little different, just I've yet to suffer from fresh food poisoning.

Wow!! I can tell you're not in your golden years yet!! lol My goodness, when I was little we only had pasteurized milk -- didn't have homogenized -- and didn't like homogenized much when it came into vogue, still don't.

So, you have a "clogged" milk bottle, huh?! Well, here's how you fix it. First of all everyone is correct that you can take that cream off the top (THAT's how you tell it isn't homogenized!) and use it in coffee, or whip it, make butter, cheese, cottage cheese, clotted cream, etc., if you have enough "top milk" to do it.

But if you just want to mix it up, take the cap off the bottle, take a table knife and stick it in the top of the bottle and kind of stir the knife around in there until you loosen up the heavy cream and it begins to blend in with the milk. THEN put the top back on the bottle - tight! - and turn the bottle upside down and shake like crazy (it's good exercise!). You might want to stand over the sink while you're doing this until you get the hang of things. It's just like shaking up a mixed drink; or frozen juice concentrate in water. I've known how to do this since I was less than 3 years old! You young'uns sure missed out on a lot when you were growin' up!

Have you checked the label on the "raw" milk to see if it says it's "certified"? In some states there are some dairies whose cleanliness apparently ranks right up there with godliness and they are certified by the state and allowed to sell raw milk - usually at a health food store or co-op or some such outlet. I think a few may even sell it right from the farm. Anyway, if the raw milk is "certified", it will say so right on the container.

Wish I could find a source around here! Good luck with unclogging the milk bottles!

MaryNY

I got a real kick out of the thought of finding someone with a sterile farm..... Heavens! I wouldn't drink anything from a sterile farm. I want clean as in not dirty. If it is sterile, you might as well go ahead and buy the pasturized milk. LOL!!
Tana Mc

Notwithstanding the fact that humans are the ONLY species that drinks milk after they are weaned - a completely unnatural and unnecessary practice that has been instigated for decades by the dairy industry. And notwithstanding the fact that there has been a lot of evidence floating around for a long time that the calcium in milk is totally bound up in casein thus making it completely inaccessible and unusuable by the human body. And notwithstanding that it has also been shown that HOMOGENIZED milk contributes significantly to arteriosclorosis. If I ever even considered drinking the stuff, it would most definitely and assuredly be raw milk, nothwithstanding the fact that you can't buy raw milk in Missouri, thanks to well-meaning but clueless politicians who have made it illegal.

Ah American Freedom - don't you just love it?

donsgal

Clean milking operations
 

Who doesn't want a sterile milking operation? The dairy farmers I grew up with thought it was very important. The only time I saw one of the old farmers get upset was when I tracked cow manure into the milk house. At least I think he was upset....he chased me with a milking strap. (The wide strap which goes over the cow)

Sorry, but I have to disagree, although I know this is a common belief.
Lots of animals will consume milk after weaning age if its given to them.
They just don't have the opportunity to get it for themselves.
It seems more likely that nature "weans" animals for the benefit of the lactating female who is building up her body for the next reproduction cycle.
Milk doesn't just suddenly become bad for them at a certain age.
And Life saving dairy foods have been keeping our ancestors alive long before there was any industry. The family cow or goat was a life or death precious thing.

Well Said
 

I hear this "humans are the only species that drink milk" argument from time to time and am always mystified by the logic. Since we are the only species with the intellect to procur food and keep it, not to mention opposable thumbs to be able to do so many of the things we do, would they advocate that we revert to living hand to mouth off of the day's kill? If not, then the reasoning seems specious.

By the way, ants milk certain varieties of bugs and take that back to their groups. I also believe they don't bother to pasteurize it.

---------------------------------------
hmmmm... not legal?? that's not how I understand it. I think the state involvement is aimed mainly at **GRADED dairies**, not individual farmers with a few milk cows... I know EVERYONE around here that has more raw milk then their own family can use, sells it off the farm (along with butter, cream ect.) Not a drop of store bought/pasturized/dead milk ever comes into my kitchen.

from www.realmilk.com
(((hummm, just read the second part of the below laws. Sounds like you can even have it delivered!)))
MISSOURI
Summary:

Raw milk sales are legal, both on the farm and by delivery from the farmer to the consumer. Farmers must obtain a permit from the state in order to be able to sell raw milk and must have state approved bottling equipment on the premises. Customers cannot bring their own containers. In addition, farmers must comply with state labeling regulations for retail raw milk and raw milk products.

According to the Missouri Department of Agriculture, there are no licensed retail raw milk producers in the state at the present time.

Missouri Statutes
TITLE XII PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
Chapter 196 FOOD, DRUGS AND TOBACCO
FLUID MILK AND FLUID MILK PRODUCTS

196.935. State milk inspection required on all graded fluid milk or milk products pasteurization required, exception.

No person shall sell, offer for sale, expose for sale, transport, or deliver any graded fluid milk or graded fluid milk products in this state unless the milk or milk products are graded and produced, transported, processed, manufactured, distributed, labeled and sold under state milk inspection and the same has also been produced or pasteurized as required by a regulation authorized by section 196.939 and under proper permits issued thereunder. Only pasteurized graded fluid milk and fluid milk products as defined in subdivision (3) of section 196.931 shall be sold to the final consumer, or to restaurants, soda fountains, grocery stores, or similar establishments; except an individual may purchase and have delivered to him for his own use raw milk or cream from a farm.

Missouri Regulations
Title 2 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Division 80 State Milk Board
Chapter 3 Production and Distribution of Grade A Retail Raw Milk and Milk Products

2 CSR 80-3.030 Permits

1) Every producer-distributor producing and distributing Grade A retail raw milk under terms of these regulations shall secure a permit from the state authority. Only a person who complies with the requirements of these regulations shall be entitled to receive and retain such a permit. Permits shall not be transferable with respect to persons, locations, or both.

2 CSR 80-3.070 The Grading of Milk and Milk Products

PURPOSE: This rule provides standards which Grade A retail raw milk and milk products must meet. This rule was previously known as Section 7.

25. Bottling and capping. Milk and milk products not for pasteurization shall be bottled on the farm where produced. Bottling and capping shall be done in a sanitary manner by means of approved equipment and these operations shall be integral in one (1) machine. Caps or cap stock shall be purchased in sanitary containers and shall be kept in a clean, dry place until used.

2 CSR 80-3.040 Labeling

PURPOSE: This rule provides regulations for the proper labeling of Grade A retail raw milk or milk products. This rule was previously known as Section 4.

(1) All bottles and other containers enclosing milk, skim milk or cream as defined in 2 CSR 80-3.010 shall be plainly labeled with the name of the contents as given in the definition of these regulations; the word raw; the grade of the contents; and the name and address of the producer-distributor.

(2) The label shall be in letters of an approved size, kind and color, and shall contain no marks or words which are misleading.

You obviously have not met my pig, Spammy Jo; my dogs, Duke, Indy and Lucy; my cats (too many to list by name) or my Holstein cow, Twister, who, if given the opportunity, will drink her own milk!

The 'milk' that ants get from aphids isn't exactly milk. :eek:

The 'humans are the only creatures that drink milk after weaning' is valid. Digestive systems change as an organism ages. Just because you can eat something and feed it to your critters doesn't mean it's GOOD for you or them.

The logical thing is for you to do what works for you. If milk upsets your innards, don't drink it. :clap:

SNORT. Oh my, I just spit coffee on the computer screen. LOL.

Sadly, no. It's illegal in many states. :confused: In Maryland, you can't sell raw milk for human consumption at all. Supposedly, you can't even sell it for animal consumption, but I can't find that in writing anywhere. Same with any dairy product, cheese, yogurt, butter. Nada. Can't do it legally. It stinks.

You must have missed the post with a picture of a Tamworth hog stealing milk from a Holstein in the field. Most animals will happily drink milk if given an opportunity. Here on my place, that list includes chickens, ducks, goats, dogs, cats, pigs, and my horse when she can get to it before the pigs do.

homebirtha...I'm so sorry you live in a no sale state. I know there are MANY of them, with laws just like yours. Donsgal mentioned it was prohibited in Missouri. Part of our reason for our choosing to live here in the Ozarks were the more liberal laws concerning raw milk/farm fresh eggs and such. On the off chance I was WRONG, about my understanding of the MO. raw milk laws, I looked it up and just wanted to pass it on to Donsgal... :D

I remember my grandma telling stories about kids that died from drinking raw milk. It was fairly common in her day.

I've heard of some people dying too, but I certainly wouldn't say it was "fairly common". It seems funny that nowadays with all the "healthier" food we have, we have people dying younger and younger 50's, 60's. Some people still live into their 90's or 100's, but you also have to remember that back years ago, people used to live into their 90's and 100's too (even with all their bacon & eggs breakfasts and drinking all that raw "unhealthy" milk). :rolleyes:

Now here's a question I can really sink my teeth into. I've had a milk cow for years.....as soon as I have a fence up at my new place here I'll probably get another one. I would NOT drink raw milk that I didn't personally milk from my own cow. I've worked on several commercial dairies....there is a reason they have to pasteurized the stuff! Won't turn ya'lls stomachs, but just trust me there is. The main danger is that the cow has TB or a few other things that a vet could tell you about that are transferrable to humans through the milk. If you have your own cow you know she is healthy(because you took her and had her checked by the vet....you did didn't you?). Another consideration. Just how clean was the kitchen/milking room where this milk was strained/bottled? What methods did they use to strain the milk? I know my kitchen is clean and I know the proper ways of cleaning my milking equipment.......but I've been in the kitchens of other folks....one that was quite memorable that sold milk, butter etc. I wouldn't eat ANYTHING that came out of that womans kitchen! <shudder> As to the cream clogging the top of the bottle. Remove it with a turkey baster...this is the best and easiest way I've found to skim cream. If you aren't used to 'whole' milk then you will want to remove most of the cream. If you don't, I hope you have stocked up on toilet paper! You can increase the amount of cream gradually. By the way, if the cream is fairly dense with a bit of a skin formed over the top then it isn't very fresh. You want to look for smooth, very white(it yellows with age) cream that is still very liquidy even though thicker than milk. Someone suggested culturing skim milk to make buttermilk. Wellllll yes you get the stuff like what is in the store that way. To make the real genuine article you have to use the liquid that is left over from making butter.

Oh, COME ON BeesNBunnies, don't leave us in suspense!!!!!!!!! :rolleyes: You can't start saying something only not to finish. Please do tell, as I have seen cows milked at several farms and didn't see anything odd about it. Come on, you can tell us, and I think the public needs to know how some places are!

Well for one thing there is a lot of 'extra fiber' that gets pumped into the tank......yes it's what you are thinking(not while I was working but I've been in lots of dairies and watched). I worked for a dairy farmer that was 3 days from the milk company refusing to pick up his milk because his mastitis numbers were so bad(he was desperate or he never would have hired a woman). I got his mastitis count down by doing the job right...ie....throroughly emptying the udders, proper sanitation(using separate paper towels per cow and not one nasty rag for all of them), massaging and hand milking the really really bad ones out(sanitized my hands between cows, greatly improving the overall sanitary conditions in the milking parlor. Two months later a cousin of his shows up and I'm out the door. There's gratitude for ya! I know of some specific things that I won't post....they make me a bit nautious(sp?) to think about. Now having said all this horrible stuff. This is not true at a lot of dairies. Some of them are excellent! Unfortunately milk is pooled together from good and bad dairies alike.

I've read about it but I don't know if it's tall-tale or truth :
snakes that will milk a cow dry right in the field..... :eek:

Lots of fiber in the tank? Weren't you using a strainer sock or pad?

Using separate paper wash towels and separate towels for drying the udder before milking is definitely good practice -- wash rag is a no-no.

If his CMT and SCC were high, I'd guess that there might have been some chronic mastitis and probably very poor sanitation of the milking equipment.

As for all the sitting under the cow a long time, hand-stripping, in my experience that can cause cows to be slow milkers and lead to mastitis.

Yes, milk is pooled, but the hauler takes a sample from each farmer's tank at each pickup, and it is easy to establish milk quality for each farm. If it gets bad enough, the creamery can kick you off the route.

Yes they use a strainer....after all you don't see it floating in your milk when you buy it from the store. It's the fact that it went in in the first place that is the point. Yes using a wash rag is a no-no....doesn't mean it doesn't happen. As for hand stripping making the cows I was working on slow to milk.....you'd have just had to seen the cows. I had never seen mastitis this bad before....not to mention just general infection of the udder(outer weeping sores). Yep you're right they do check the milk from each farm....that's why he was about to loose his ability to sell milk.

Hi!

I wanted to comment on the lable on the milk at the market. Different states have different laws for their raw milk programs. Here in WA, raw milk for sale has to come from a Grade A dairy with a seperate Raw Milk Processors License. All the containers that hold the product have to have a lable on them (similar to the lable on bottles of alcohol), stating that the product has been know to cause illness and even death in small children and old people. It is part of the whole regulation system. I do know that the standards for a dairy that sells raw milk are much higher than those that sell to the big prossesors that pasturize all the milk. They are also tested at more frequent intervals. That being said, there are not many dairies in the state that have the raw milk processing license. There are also laws here if you want to sell "pet milk" and I think they are almost more elaborate than the raw milk for human consumption laws. The milk has to have the proper color dye put in it to distinguish it from other milk. I know if I want to buy raw butter from CA, it comes with a "for pet use only" lable on it! All that being said, I have my own cows and drink their raw milk!

Darlene

Just wanted to comment on the statement someone made about calcium in milk being bound and not available to us. That's true of pasturized milk, not raw milk.

I second everything John in LA offered above. I have on many occasions drunk raw milk from my own cows, but we pasteurize the milk from our cows for the family table. There are risks from drinking raw milk, but I would agree they are low -- that does not mean non-existent. You need to research this yourself rather than relying on our recommendations.

HomeBirtha, Certainly you are entitled to your opinions, and there are many, many different types of dairy operations and milking equipment used. I've hand milked, milked with surge buckets in a small stanchion parlor, and milked with a pipeline system.

Your comment: "If the dairy doesn't care that poop was in there in the first place, as long as it was strained out, then you know most milk had some feces floating in it somewhere down the line. Blech!" is completely misinformed, period. The second statement does not follow from the first. I cannot defend or comment on every dairy farm that sells milk, but in my setup, I would quite literally have to lead a cow into the milk room and raise the bulk tank lid and get her to poop in the tank to have feces in the milk. Beyond that, I would need to shovel up a pail of manure from the gutter and jam the teat cups down in the pail to get manure into the pipeline. If you would like direct proof as to how completely off-base your statement is, I'd be happy to send you the used strainer socks from several milkings.

Your likelihood of feces in the milk is much higher from a hand-milked family cow that poops or urinates while being milked (Remember this is an open pail).

Cows milk can be and is fatal to human babies under one year?????
Where in the world is that found? I study the subject extensively because I supply many families with raw milk. Sites pro and con tend to show studies that support their particular bias.But I have never heard it taken that far!Both of my parents grew up on farms drinking raw milk, and our families.That I can say has given us all a healthy immune system from the natural antibiotics. Which in lab tests was able to prevent many disease organisms from growing in the milk.
Pasturized being dead couldn't prevent anything from growing and just made a great growth medium!
As you might be able to tell my bias is toward healthy sanitary natural raw milk ;)
Chas

We hand milked into a bucket when I was a boy, and later when Herself and I had goats, then again when we bought our Jerseys over a year ago. I second what milkstoolcowboy says about open bucket milking. I never realized how much cleaner the milk would be with a machine until we bought ours. I've always been as clean as I could be but with a half ton of barn lounging cow standing directly over the bucket "that which is not good to eat" does find it's way into the pail, and strain as we might "it" was in the milk for a while at least.

With the milkng machine's cups squeaky clean teats equals squeaky clean milk.

As for drinking raw milk, we do and always did, but a person ought to do what makes them feel comfortable, and not try to dissuade others from their choice. It's a personal choice practice: some pasteurize, some don't, others don't care, still others had rather drink kerosene than milk in any presentation.

What I'm talking about is the somewhat cavalier attitude that as long as the feces is strained out, it's all ok. (Something to the effect of: "Well you're using a strainer, right?") You're the one that said that, not me.

If a foot or poop get in the milk bucket, I throw the whole thing out. I'm guessing commercial dairies wouldn't want to throw out a whole batch of milk.

I dunno. When I asked the local cow guy who sells cheese if I could buy raw milk from him he said the only way that he could do it legally is either as pet food or as a commercial additive for some other product (i.e. "milk bath") and he had to make sure it was labled "NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION". That's where I got my info from. Maybe his is a graded dairy.

The other people that I have spoken with locally say they sell their milk to big companies and their contract prohibits them selling anything to anyone for any reason.

I guess I just need to make friends with a family who has a couple of milk cows that don't sell to some big commercial milk producer.

donsgal