What would I buy if I didn’t have the privilege of buying raw milk from a local farm? I was thinking about this the other day when I poured myself a glass of milk. Luckily, we have another small local dairy that has pastured cows and they use low temperature pasteurization for their milk, no homogenization. When the cows at the local farm are dry in the winter and I have no raw milk (yes, they’re 100% natural let the cows go dry in the winter), I purchase cream line milk from Hartzler’s Dairy in Wooster, OH. I also love that their milk comes in glass bottles, I return these to the store when I get more milk. It’s not as good as my raw milk, but it’s better than regular old grocery store milk. If I didn’t have this dairy to purchase from I’d probably buy Smith’s milk at the grocery store, they’re a larger dairy, but still fairly small and local. A lot of their milk comes from small local organic farmers, and they sell milk without antibiotics, hormones and other baddies. But I’d use this milk sparingly if ever because it’s pasteurized at high temperatures and homogenized.
You might be wondering why I wouldn’t purchase organic milk instead. All the organic milk available locally is ultra pasteurized and homogenized, neither of which I like. Most of it comes from huge dairies and I don’t know how the cows are treated, I’ve heard bad things about the cows from Horizon Organic. I’d rather not drink milk, than drink grocery store milk. Once you’ve tasted the goodness of raw milk, you’ll never be able to drink regular milk easily again. The cream line milk we get is good, but it still tastes boiled to us. It also lacks the depth of flavor our raw milk has. You may not realize that raw milk from pastured cows is kind of like wine. The flavor changes throughout the season depending on what the cows are eating, how much rain there is, and other factors. When the grass is growing lushly in spring in fall, the milk is sweet, the cream is extra thick, as yellow as the sun and there’s a lot more of it. When the cows are eating hay in late winter the milk is mild, lighter, there’s less cream and it’s almost white. There are times of the year when the milk has a slightly grassy taste, in the fall I notice that it’s extra sweet and the cream makes superb butter.
The truth is that I would go way out of my to find raw or lightly pasteurized cream line milk and would drive quite a piece to get it if needed rather than purchase a homogenized milk product. And of course, I always drink my milk whole since milk fat contains so much healthy goodness, especially from pastured cows! This is one area where I will seek out the BEST, sometimes if needed I’ll settle for BETTER, but GOOD doesn’t even cut it for me in this area.
So what are some Good, Better, Bests you can think of? Are there any areas you’ll settle for Good when you can’t get the Best?
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Interesting post! I buy Hartzler’s when I can. If I can get to their farm, or the Mustard Seed Market, which also sells it. Neither is conveniently close, but I try as often as I can. Otherwise, our corner store butcher sells Smith’s and we buy their whole milk.
I have never had the opportunity to purchase raw milk – how long does it store in the fridge? I recently came across an Amish family not far from us that does sell their raw cow milk when they have more than they can use up.
We like to buy Hartzler’s from their store in Wooster when we do, although it is an hour away for us – but my parents live in the area so we buy when we visit them. We also go to Local Roots Market in Wooster for veggies & other goods.
The raw milk stores much longer than any other milk since it’s unprocessed, it doesn’t go bad it just sours. If it does sour you can still drink it a it’s not bad, just kind of becomes buttermilk/yogurt. I have only ever had one half gallon go slightly sour in the fridge after a month – we used it to make a Colombian peasant cheese because you want soured milk for it and it was perfect.
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And I should also say, as you can tell the difference from Raw to Hartzlers to Smiths, we can tell the difference from Smiths brand whole milk versus any other brand. I also found this website very interesting! http://whereismymilkfrom.com/
I started drinking raw milk after reading a post of yours some time ago and now agree with you wholeheartedly about not being able to deal with other kinds of milk. One thing I wonder about though is this. I am able to get raw milk with cream, but not the cream separately, so I separate the cream from the milk to be able to make butter, so what I’m drinking is essentially skim milk. Is this what you do as well when making butter or are you able to get cream separately?
I usually use the skimmed milk to make cheese; 30 min mozzarella from Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses. You can drink it, you’re getting the fat from the milk via the butter so you’re still eating all the fat. We can get milk from our farm, or butter too. But I prefer buying the milk, making butter myself and using the milk for cheese or I make yogurt and feed it to our pets.
Oh, ok! So you get some milk which you drink whole and then some more that you separate into cream for butter and milk for cheese. That sounds good, I’ve always wanted to try to make cheese, I’ll have to check out that book. I don’t mind drinking the skim milk, especially since I know I’m getting all the fat anyway in the butter and buttermilk, both of which I use in making some delicious pancakes often. Thanks for the advice!
Bread. Ever since I started baking all our breads and refusing to buy sliced cardboard, I’ve been so much more in love with bread and simply can’t imagine life without baking my own (hubby agrees, and professes his love for me and my bread very regularly). If, however, I couldn’t, I’d begrudgingly buy Friehofer’s 12 grain bread (I like the seeds). If I couldn’t get that I’d likely stop eating bread, save for restaurant sandwiches. I don’t even like walking down the bread aisle at the grocery because it just smells…. wrong.
Unfortunately I have no raw milk options where I live- at least not any I know about. There is the option of grass fed/low past temp. which I buy when the budget allows b/c it’s crazy good! But lately I’ve been wondering– if you had no other options– what would be better? Regular grocery store milk or big name organic like Horizon or one of the other brands? I don’t like the ultra-past. stuff b/c i feel like it kills any goodness that’s there– but would that big name organic still be healthier/better for you than regular grocery store milk?
Actually I wouldn’t buy big organic or regular milk. I’d make sure I got more bone broths and herbal teas in my diet to make up for the different (vitablend mix from Mt Rose Herbs is a good one) . In reality though, because we follow the Weston A Price ideals, we spend the bulk of our grocery money on: good healthy pastured dairy/butter, pastured organ meats, fermented cod liver oil. We then save money by eating only seasonal vegetables, which means lots of zucchini and green beans in the summer and winter squash, cabbage, and potatoes in the colder months. We grow our own to supplement and to fill in the gaps; we focus on growing the vegetables that are most expensive in our area: spinach, lettuce, beets, peas, carrots, etc.
I personally believe that investing in good food is one of the best places to spend your money (which is why we do without a lot of other things in order to have the $ to buy good staples in above listed areas). Since we started drinking raw milk 4 years ago we have had no sickness or medical issue: no colds/flu, no other medical issue, fewer headaches, stomachaches and other maladies, we’ve only purchased one bottle of white willow (a natural aspirin alternative) and we have had no cavities or other dental work needed. Investing in food healthy nourishing food will save you a bundle in the are of medical/dental care, not only now but in the future (eating healthfully now is much cheaper than paying for cancer treatment later in your life).
As I’m sure you do, we do without many things in order to have the funds for good food, we have no cable TV, no smart phones, we keep our house a frosty 55 in winter and a balmy 80 in summer, we wash dishes by hand, dry clothes on a line, we never eat out and never buy prepackaged, pre-made convenience or snack food. We don’t buy soft drinks, bottled juices, bottled water, and only on occasion beer and wine. I bake all of our bread here and make everything I can from scratch. Interestingly enough though, we still spend less than most of our friends on our healthy, pastured, local diet.
And before someone retorts “If I had TIME I would do all that too” let me say that I don’t have kids but I am currently am working 70-80 per week for my various jobs and still find the time (not having TV certainly helps), I believe it really comes down to priorities.
We ran out of non-homogenized, low pasteurized milk from the CSA, so my daughter picked up an organic brand from the grocery store. I could not believe the difference in taste. The grocery store milk has a sharp, thin flavor, and further, it’s got a use-by date SIX WEEKS from date of purchase, which is just unnatural.
Also– I stopped using all non-, reduced- and low-fat meats and dairy last year, to the horror of my doctor. Lo and behold, my cholesterol dropped 15 points. Can’t pinpoint cause and effect, but it obviously didn’t hurt.
Recently I told our physician during a well-child check-up that I was considering having our family start drinking raw milk. She quickly said “That is not safe!! Milk that is not pasteurized is not safe!” I told her that there were a lot of things about grocery store milk that did not seem good for our bodies… Well, we got interrupted and were not able to pursue the conversation, but she didn’t seem very open-minded so I probably would not have received an informed response from her. What is your understanding of the issue that non-pasteurized milk may not be safe? I would love to switch to raw milk, but need a little more information before I do. Thanks!
First I’d advise that you find a different Dr! When I told my Dr about drinking raw milk she said, “Great, so you’re getting good quality dairy and lots of vitamin D, no need to worry about taking extra vitamins or anything else, that’s really great”. It’s sad that Dr’s will advise you against drinking raw milk but prescribe you the latest greatest pharmaceutical that is much more likely to cause you harm than raw milk. I have a friend who’s Dr went crazy when her son mentioned they were drinking raw milk, yet he would have said nothing if the child had mentioned they were going to McDonalds after the appointment. It is important to find a Dr who is not going to be prescribing you dangerous pharmaceuticals and one that will support decisions you feel to be best for your family. It may be tough, but once you find one you will breathe a sigh of relief.
I won’t reiterate the benefits/afety of raw milk here you can find much better in depth information from the following sources:
Great websites:
http://www.realmilk.com/
http://www.westonaprice.org/thumbs-up-reviews/untold-story-of-milk
Books:
The Untold Story of Milk, Revised and Updated: The History, Politics and Science of Nature’s Perfect Food: Raw Milk from Pasture-Fed Cows
The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats
Cure Tooth Decay: Heal And Prevent Cavities With Nutrition