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THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF MODERN MILK
"In the whole range of organic matter, milk is the only substance purposely designed and prepared by nature as food."
For thousands of years milk and its products have nourished mankind allowing for generations of strong, healthy humans.
All of this on raw milk. Mankind would have died out or at least have turned away from milk long ago if it had been unhealthy.
Why has raw versus pasteurized milk been such an issue only in the last hundred years? Here is the story as related in
Ron Schmid;s book "The Untold Story of Milk" (New Trends Publishing, 2003)
MILK TAKES A PERMANENT DETOUR
As America grew, immigrants flocked to the cities making them crowded. They wanted milk, which was a staple, especially
for their children.
When the cities were small there was room to keep a family cow. Common pastures in the heart of town had been set aside
for this. Boston Commons is one example. But as cities grew, pasture was lost, yet the milk demand grew.
While pastures shrank another industry grew- the whiskey industry. The process of fermentation and distillation of the
alcohol produced a side product. This product was an acid refuse of chemically changed grain and water known as distillery
slop, or swill. This waste product was then fed to cows by individuals who cared nothing about the animals or the quality
of the milk produced.
Distillery owners started housing cows next door to these distilleries and fed the hot slop directly to the cows. This
was known as the swill milk system. This system grew especially as the distillery business shrank. Pressure was put on the
distillery owners to make more profits from the milk side of the business. It soon became a huge industry.
Slop is of little value in fattening cattle. It is unnatural food to them and makes them diseased and emaciated. Bit
it made cows produce a lot of milk. The milk was so defective that it could not be made into butter or cheese. But they
still sold it. Three quarters of all milk sold in New York in 1852 was slop milk.
A reformist wrote a series of articles criticizing the state of the milk supply. He gave eyewitness accounts to their
crowded and dark buildings. He described the cows as being sick, crowded, dirty, poorly nourished and forced to spend their
milking career chained in one place. The people who hand milked into dirty, open containers were often sick themselves and
had no thought as to sanitation measures. The cows died at unusually high rates.
Distillery dairies continued to sell milk up into the 1900's. The last one closed in New York in 1930. Even though reformers
and medical groups called for an end to this practice of selling milk not fit for human consumption, the government did nothing.
So called "milk trains" were an attempt to get clean, fresh milk from traditional dairymen in the countryside
into the cities. Yet compared to the high volume distillery dairies this was nothing but a trickle.
A well known fact even at that time is that the cow's diet determines the healthfulness of the milk. If fed a diet unfit
for cows then they can only produce milk that is unfit for human consumption. Many people knew this but the swill milk industry
thrived because it was plentiful and cheap.
Slop milk was bluish in color and very thin so dealers added different things to make it look like white, whole milk including
starch, sugar, flour, plaster of paris, and chalk!
People knew that bad milk could lead to disease. "Nothing can be more certain than that the quality of milk is greatly
influenced by the state of the health of the animal producing it". So said the reformer Robert Hartley in his book
on the state of milk production at that time in 1842 (pg 38).
Not much has changed in 160 years. While the worst of the distillery diseases are gone, today in America cows live in
confinement dairies, living in stalls they never leave, stalls sometimes welded shut, where they are fed "scientific"
diets devoid of fresh grass, diets designed to maximize milk production with little thought to quality. These diets are high
in grains, soybeans and "bakery waste" (bread, cakes, pastries- even candy bars) and citrus peel cake loaded with
pesticides. These cows are not producing the kind of milk America's children and adults need and deserve.
The unclean environment of that time produced what was known as the "milk problem". Infant and child mortality
was soaring, reaching up to almost half of all deaths reported in some larger cities. Water quality was also bad at this
time with no central sewage system or clean water supply. Many people added water to their milk to make it last. Also, lack
of refrigeration deteriorated a bad milk product often into a deadly one. In the heat of summer people in the crowded tenements
got their milk in the early morning then stored it in the least stifling spot possible until used.
How to save infants and children dwelling in these large cities from dying by the thousands from infectious disease was
one of the great national issues at the start of the 20th century. Two ideas of health were at play. One- the traditional
medical outlook- was that good nutrition produced a healthy body that could ward off disease. The second was the new emergent
science of microbiology that saw germs and microbes as the cause of all illnesses. The traditional way of warding off illness
was to feed the body well with healthy food and create a healthy interior. The second approach was to kill microbes and thus
prevent illness from occurring.
These two ways of thinking set the stage for the two movements that changed milk in America. One was led by medical doctors-
mainly pediatricians- whose goal was safe and optimally healthy raw milk for the treatments of disease. They wanted to make
it safe by controlling how it was produced. This led to the certified milk movement which fought to keep available a supply
of clean, raw milk from certified producers.
The other approach, named after the famous germ scientist, Louis Pasteur, called for pasteurization, or heating, of all
milk in order to make it free of any potentially harmful bacteria, no matter how it changed the quality of the milk. These
two groups were and still are at odds with each other. Yet even these early proponents saw pasteurization as a stop-gap measure
to the current problem at the time. It was seen as a temporary remedy until milk could be clean again. Raw milk was assumed
by all parties to be the preferred and healthier alternative.
With the advent of pasteurization came also improved water quality controls and the ice box. The mortality rate of children
plummeted and pasteurization was hailed as the miraculous answer to a stubborn and scary problem. While the pasteurization
campaign was ramping up distillery dairies (the source of most problems) were still allowed to operate. The focus was on
heating dirty milk rather than producing healthy, clean milk.
Human tuberculosis was originally thought to be the same as bovine TB and that it was contracted from cows. Even after
this was proved incorrect people pushed for pasteurization as a way to protect against this dreaded disease in humans.
The media jumped on the bandwagon and for the next 40 years, through tinted perspectives and outright falsehoods convinced
the American public that raw milk was deadly and pasteurized milk was the only acceptable form of milk. This legacy of media
spin on milk persists to this day with most people believing that raw milk, even certified, is dangerous.
As the media and governmental spin continued, dairies found it easier to go with pasteurization than to clean up its act.
They aggressively backed the notion that raw milk was dangerous (they certainly knew that raw milk from some of their dairies
was unsafe). Misleading studies were performed that were quoted and re-quoted and found their way into medical textbooks
that convinced a new generation of doctors as to the harmfulness of raw milk, abandoning their traditional role of advocates
for certified raw milk as treatment for disease.
While the distillery dairies have finally vanished their legacy of producing high volume, low quality milk to the American
public has led to the current dairy crises. Milk has been so adulterated through pasteurization, homogenization, and making
low fat versions (powdered milk, high in free radicals, has been put back in) that the body no longer recognizes it as the
healthy food milk should be. Many people now have milk allergies (almost none to raw) and other allergies and ailments, and
some pediatricians are now advising against giving it to children. What have we come to when we can't even give milk to our
children? The dairies across America have been operating at a loss and are closing one after another and their farms are
sold into developments. Thus is passing a way of life.
We have come so far down this road that virtually all milk producers are stuck in the same rut. By the government insisting
on America's access to cheap milk they have put a price lid on the dairy man that keeps his milk prices at 1940's level while
his expenses keep abreast with inflation. The only way he can keep operating at all is through sheer volume. Higher volume
means lower quality milk. He knows what it takes to make high quality milk- cows on green pastures- no antibiotics for continually
concrete-worn feet, and no high volume producing scientific "fake" feed. He knows people would pay more for quality
but he's stuck in the high production game. People spend less on basic food items than ever before, even while spending more
on convenience food. Americans don't mind shelling out five bucks for frozen cardboard pizza but think they shouldn't pay
as much for a gallon of milk. The reality is that gallon of milk does not pay a livable wage to the farmer and perpetuates
the cycle of low quality, high volume milk production. If we were willing to pay a decent price then we might get decent
milk. We the consumer must demand a change.
We have traded away quality for a false sense of safety. Modern milk is neither- high quality nor safe.
Finally, much of our understanding of modern pasteurized milk is what we read on the carton- Pasteurized, Homogenized,
Grade A Skim Milk. We see the picture on the front- cows grazing on green pastures. We don't think beyond that. We've been
told it's good, it's healthy, and because it's been pasteurized, it's safe. Raw milk, however, is scary, unsafe and unclean,
or so we've been told. We don't think beyond that either. This misinformation has deep roots and much of the history of
milk and the debate around it has passed out of cultural memory.
But many people now are remembering that raw milk is nature's perfect food and are fighting hard to get access to it.
Small, raw milk providers and consumers alike are banding together to counteract the years of negative spin and at the minimum
make it legal for a person to buy milk on the farm if not actually in their own grocery store. The rise of raw milk (or natural,
vs. adulterated) could spell a resurgence in the family dairy farm as people are willing to pay a decent price for decent
milk and high volume is no longer the goal but high quality. Good food means good nutrition for our bodies, making them strong
and sound, immune to most diseases. For thousands of years mankind has depended on this kind of health coverage, and good
clean milk is one food that lies at the heart of it. Although our culture has taken a detour from it there are hopeful signs
that we are returning to that which we forgot. We won't forget this time.
For more information contact the Campaign for Real Milk at Realmilk.com.
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