Excerpts:
Milk is truly one of the oldest, simplest whole foods – and we certainly drink a lot of it. According to the USDA, Americans consumed an average of 1.8 cups of dairy per person, per day in 2005.
But is the milk Americans are drinking today the same milk our ancestors drank thousands of years ago? Is it even the same milk our great-grandparents were drinking a hundred years ago? By and large, the answer is no.
Like many other modern foods, most of the milk sold today has been altered, stripped, and reconstituted. Once minimally processed, milk now undergoes a complicated and energy-intensive process before it ends up bottled and shipped to grocery store shelves.
When all is said and done, the product is a far cry from the milk that actually comes out of a cow. And, depending on whom you ask, each step along the way might carry its own risks.
Homogenization
“Homogenization is not good,” says John Bunting, a dairy farmer who researches and writes about dairy for The Milkweed. “The milk is pumped under high pressure which smashes the milk molecules so hard. Homogenization splits and exposes the molecules.” The hard science goes like this: A raw milk molecule is surrounded by a membrane, which protects it from oxygen. Homogenization decreases the average diameter of each fat globule and significantly increases the surface area. Because there’s now not enough membrane to cover all of this new surface area, the molecules are easily exposed to oxygen, and the fats become oxidized.
Milk solids
Critics believe that milk solids, which are sometimes added back into the milk, contain oxidized, or damaged, forms of fat and cholesterol. Nonfat milk solids are created through a process of evaporation and high heat drying which removes the moisture from skim milk. Exposure to high heat and oxygen causes fats to oxidize.
Read the Full Article Here: http://www.grist.org/scary-food/2011-09-12-not-your-grandmas-milk
The Raw Milk Revolution
Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
by David E. Gumpert
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