The Day the Cows Came Home

I'm fairly blissing out right now and said as much to my daughters. Having spent most of their young lives participating in our homesteading efforts, a lovely dairy cow and little bull calf are just logical, albeit exciting, additions to our operation. For my husband and I, the event marks a very solid anchor in truly living a Whole Life. I suppose I should take a big breath and begin somewhere more near the beginning of this moment.

We've been ardent fans of raw milk for several years. Two books, The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND and The Milk Book by William Campbell Douglass II, MD were among our first major myth busters when we began our journey off the beaten path. At a family birthday celebration, we brought milk to go with the cake we'd baked. My nephew asked if it was "regular" milk to which my daughter enthusiastically declared, "Yes! It's fresh from the cow yesterday - her name's Dinah - and there's lots of cream on top." The young man took a step back and responded, "Well, what's regular to me must be different than regular to you."

The most jarring aspect of this common attitude toward raw milk is that pasteurization itself is actually the true new kid on the block, becoming standard dairy practice only because of federal regulation in the early to mid 1900's. It's very strange to me how many of our "modern" (less than 100 years old) definitions of normal, regular, or standard practice are really very radical deviations from the way we have lived our lives for centuries. I've listed several links for more information about the diverse benefits of raw milk at the end of this post. The point for now is that we became loyal raw milk drinkers because of its superior nutrition.

Jeff has had the great good fortune to apprentice with a local raw milk man. Three mornings each week, he helps milk, filter, and bottle white gold for on-farm sales. It didn't take many mornings to realize that our bottle of fresh milk was only a small part of dairy on the farm. In addition to making value-added dairy products like butter, yogurt, kefir, and cheese, the farm utilizes extra milk and whey to ferment grains, making their nutrition more available to chickens, ducks, pigs, even the dogs and ducks. Truly, not a drop was wasted.

This Spring however, there was a hitch in the giddyup. The Holstein Jersey cross who was supposed to calve on May Day didn't. Nor did she a week later, or even two weeks after that. Turns out she had never actually been successfully bred. Jeff's boss decided to have his other milk cows checked for pregnancy. Nary a baby in the bunch. A cow's gestation period is approximately nine months and breeding through Artificial Insemination can take several cycles before successful . For a small dairy with a tight production schedule (Oregon rule allows owners of three dairy cows or fewer to sell milk from the farm), this was a serious glitch.

While some quick cow trading resolved the issue, the whole story really got me to thinking. It just doesn't seem right, especially in these uncertain energy times, to rely on transportation and technology dependent practices for farm fertility. Why didn't anyone have a dairy bull? Survey showed that dairy bulls have a terrible reputation for extremely aggressive behavior. While it is quite normal for me to mouth off about "someone" taking on the challenge, it was still a surprise when our good friends responded, "Well now, we've just had a beautiful bull calf born yesterday. When should we deliver him?"

In the next post, you'll hear the rest of the story. Here are some great links to get you started busting some mainstream milk myths:

"Back in the 20s, Americans could buy fresh raw whole milk, real clabber and buttermilk, luscious naturally yellow butter, fresh farm cheeses and cream in various colors and thicknesses. Today's milk is accused of causing everything from allergies to heart disease to cancer, but when Americans could buy Real Milk, these diseases were rare. In fact, a supply of high quality dairy products was considered vital to American security and the economic well being of the nation. What's needed today is a return to humane, non-toxic, pasture-based dairying and small-scale traditional processing, in short . . .A Campaign for Real Milk." http://www.realmilk.com/

The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized Nathanael Johnson’s article for Harper’s Magazine

"When I sat at Schmidt’s breakfast table early one morning, glass in hand, I understood the possible consequences of my choice. All the competing science was there, along with the stories of epic sickness I’d heard. And I have to confess, the thought crossed my mind that if I got sick it would make a hell of a story. But when it comes down to it, here’s why I drank the raw milk. The sun had just come up, and we’d already finished three hours of work in the barn. I was filled with a righteous hunger. The table was laden with eggs from the chickens, salami from the pigs, jarred fruit, steaming porridge, cheese, and yogurt. Although dairy isn’t for everyone, I come from the people of the udder: my ancestors relied so heavily on milk that they passed down a mutation allowing me to digest lactose. For many generations my forefathers sat down to meals like this after the morning milking. It felt unambiguously right.

This, of course, is the very definition of bias: the conflation of what feels right with what is scientifically correct. But as it was, I could only hope that my biases were rooted in something more than nostalgia. Perhaps they were. The way a place feels won’t tell you anything about whether bacteria have breached the wall of sanitation, but it does reveal something about the overall health of an ecosystem. Humans have relied on such impressions to assess the quality of their food for most of history. Someday the uncertainties of dietary science will fall to manageable levels, but until then I will rely on my gut. I drained my cup and poured thick clabbered milk and apple syrup on my porridge. If any bacteria disagreed with my body, the conflict was too small to detect."

"People have been drinking raw milk from animals for thousands of years. Really, the term "raw" is a misnomer because it implies that all milk should be cooked, but that's a topic for another page! Onward..." http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/milk_history.html