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Showing posts with label grass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grass. Show all posts

Monday, May 10, 2010

And All the Cows Said Moo, TWO!


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In March I wrote a blog called And All the Cows Said Moo! about eating raw, organic, grass-fed animal products, and how Eat Wild is a great website and resource for finding raw, organic, grass-fed farmers in your neck of the woods.

Well, via Dr. Mercola and then via Organic Pastures, I found a website that focuses on raw, organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised cow milk. Yay! Eat Wild is great, but they list independent farmers who sell meat as well as farmers who sell pasteurized milk, which I don't drink anymore, and which I don't advocate, and fortunately, I have a credible doctor to back me up. I was going to quote only a few lines, but as I continued to read, I realized there's a lot of good information that you all may be interested in reading. If you want to read the details later, the website for finding good, raw, organic, grass-fed milk in your area is RealMilk.com.

Here's the valuable information from Dr. Mercola's website:


Did you know there are two types of ‘raw milk’ in America?
As Mark McAfee explains, there’s the raw milk intended to be consumed raw, and then there’s the raw milk intended to be used for pasteurization, and contrary to popular belief, they are NOT the same.
When buying raw milk, it’s very important to make sure you’re buying milk that has been produced with the intention of being consumed raw, and not just raw milk from conventionally-raised cows that hasn’t gone through the pasteurization process yet.
There’s a vast difference between the quality and safety of milk from organically-raised, grass-fed cows, and conventionally-raised, grain-fed livestock.
How Can You Identify High-Quality Sources of Raw Milk?
Right now, only six states permit the retail sale of raw milk:
  1. California
  2. Connecticut
  3. Maine
  4. Pennsylvania
  5. Washington
  6. Arizona
However, it’s important to realize that each state sets their own standards. California, specifically, has its own special set of standards for raw milk for human consumption, in which farmers must meet or exceed pasteurized milk standards, without pasteurizing.
You can find raw milk retailers in California by using the store locator available at www.OrganicPastures.com, and for other areas, check out the Campaign for Real Milk Web site.
You can also look here to find out the legal status of raw milk in the U.S. state or country where you live.
However, since many raw milk producers are very small farms, and the standards that do exist vary from state to state, how do you go about identifying solid, high-quality producers of raw milk if you can’t just buy it in a store nearby?
This is a complex question since the environmental conditions will vary from location to location, and from season to season. However, there are a few general conditions you should look for, including:
  • Low pathogenic bacteria count (ie does the farmer test his milk regularly for pathogens?)
  • The milk is quickly chilled after milking
  • The milk comes from cows raised naturally, in accordance with the seasons
  • The cows are mainly grass-fed
  • The cows are not given antibiotics and growth hormones to increase milk production
  • Cows are well cared for
If you’re thinking about purchasing milk from a small farmer, it would be very wise to visit the farm in person. Look around and ask questions, such as:
  1. Does the farmer and his family drink the milk themselves?
  2. How long has he been producing raw milk?
  3. Are the cows clean?
  4. What conditions are the cows raised in?
  5. Are there any obvious sanitation questions?
If a cow is covered in filth and manure, stinks, is wet and cold and doesn’t look particularly comfortable, that could be a warning sign that her milk is less than ideal for raw consumption.
Only Healthy Grass-Fed Cows Produce Healthy Raw Milk
Naturally, fresh grasses for foraging are not available year round in many areas of the US, so it’s also important to take a look at what the cows are being fed during winter months. According to McAfee, acceptable winter feed includes dried alfalfa, timothy grass, and other cut pasture or forage that has been dried.
A key point to remember is that cows that are fed a lot of grain and raised under substandard conditions will likely produce milk that is unhealthy to drink raw because grains, antibiotics, growth hormones, and filthy living conditions change the pH balance and the natural bacteria present in her gut, which in turn affects the natural bacteria and pathogens present in her milk.
This is particularly problematic because so many Americans have depressed immune function, leaving any pathogen introduced into your gut free to wreak havoc.
Says McAfee:
“So, as an American citizen going out and finding raw milk, if you have a depressed immune system there is an exceptional challenge there, whereas somebody who is searching out raw milk in California, who has been on raw milk before and their immune system is in pretty good shape, it’s less of a problem.
But if you got a really depressed immune system and… find some bad milk from somebody who is intending their milk to be pasteurized… that’s kind of a marriage made in hell. That’s not a good thing at all.
And that’s where I think a lot of the outbreaks happen.
You see people doing research on the internet saying, “Oh, I have a really depressed immune system. I have common cold. I get irritable bowel syndrome. I got asthma. I got allergies. I need to fix that and they say raw milk will fix it.”
But they don’t have raw milk in their area that’s safe. [Milk] that is intended for people, so they go out and find a local dairy that takes pity on them, and they buy raw milk that is intended for pasteurization, and that’s where you start seeing real problems.”
Like McAfee says, “when you work with cows to produce raw milk, you can’t cheat!”
 The Many Health Benefits of Raw Milk
Organically-raised, grass-fed milk naturally contains hundreds of healthy, “good” bacteria, including lactobacillus and acidophilus. There are also several coliform families of bacteria. It’s important to realize that there are over 230 different kinds of E. coli., and only two or three of them are actually pathogenic and will cause you to get sick. The rest are actually beneficial for your gut.
Raw milk also contains vitamins, which are virtually eliminated by the pasteurization process of commercial milk. But it’s the presence of beneficial bacteria are what make raw milk such an outstanding food source to promote the growth of healthy bacteria in your intestine, which in turn has a significant, beneficial impact on your overall immune function.
Other health promoting ingredients in raw milk include:
  • Valuable enzymes that are destroyed during pasteurization. Without them, milk is very difficult to digest. So if you have lactose intolerance, it may very well disappear once you start consuming raw dairy products. It also contains phosphatase, an enzyme that aids and assists in the absorption of calcium in your bones, and lipase enzyme, which helps to hydrolyze and absorb fats.
    Enzymes are deactivated when you get above 120 degrees. By the time you get to 150, 160 degrees, almost all of them are completely inactivated, which is why you will not get ANY of these benefits from pasteurized milk.
  • Natural butterfat, which is homogenized or removed in pasteurized milk. Without butterfat, it becomes very difficult for your body to absorb and utilize the vitamins and minerals in the water fraction of the milk. Butterfat is also your best source of preformed vitamin A, and contains re-arranged acids with strong anti-carcinogenic properties.
  • Healthy unoxidized cholesterol
  • Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which fights cancer and may help reduce your body fat.
  • High omega-3 and low omega-6 ratios, which is the beneficial ratio between these two essential fats
Pasteurizing milk, on the other hand, destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamins, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12 and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, and actually promotes pathogens.
In my opinion, there’s no reason to drink pasteurized milk, ever.
Unfortunately, the FDA and other health agencies do not acknowledge the inherent differences between pasteurized milk and raw milk.
They claim raw milk and pasteurized milk have precisely the same kind of nutritional values, completely disregarding the value of enzymes, the probiotic value of beneficial bacteria, and the importance of healthy fats.
It truly is imperative to recognize that nutrition is a holistic thing.
You cannot take bits and pieces of nutrients and think you’re going to end up with good health. It is in fact the food as a whole that makes it good for you in terms of nutrition.
Says McAfee:
“When you look at the complete assessment of food, raw milk is a rock star when it comes to dietary meaningfulness.”
I agree with McAfee when he says that hopefully, someday, the FDA will come around and acknowledge the fact that we should look at the whole of the food instead of just pieces of the food. Right now, their assessments on most foods are partial and woefully incomplete, and unfortunately, this is having a major, detrimental impact on your health.
Should Humans Drink Cow’s Milk?
Some people believe that cow’s milk is food for calves only, and should not be consumed by humans to begin with.
However, this may be too simplified a view. As McAfee explains:
“Cows have four stomachs, so they can eat grass… They are literally that animal between us and the sun. They are solar sun convertors. They take sunshine expressed as grass on the ground (because the grass obviously grows when the sun hits the ground and [with] water the grass grows).
We can’t eat the grass but the cow can eat the grass, and then we can eat what the cow provides… [which] is very, very nutrient dense and very digestible by humans.”
I believe that’s an important point, and it’s an area of nutrition that few pay any attention to -- the area of biophotons.
But biophoton research explains the underlying principles of why it’s so vital to eat a diet of mostly RAW food, including raw milk.
As you know, without the sun it is virtually impossible for most life forms to exist. For example, we now know that without appropriate sun exposure, you will become deficient in vitamin D, which will have very far ranging consequences for your health.
Vitamin D influences at least 2,000-3,000 genes (that we know of), and without sufficient amounts of vitamin D, your body becomes susceptible to a staggering amount of diseases. But you can absorb sun energy via your food as well as through your skin (although this should not be confused with being able to alter your vitamin D status).
Every living organism emits biophotons or low-level luminescence, and the higher the level of light a cell emits, the greater its vitality and the potential for the transfer of that energy to the individual who eats it.
Hence, the more light a food is able to store, the more nutritious it is. Naturally grown fresh vegetables, for example, and sun-ripened fruits, are rich in light energy.
The capacity to store biophotons is therefore a measure of the quality of your food, and a very strong reason for making sure milk producing cows are allowed to forage for the healthiest, freshest grasses.
 

Katie Strand again...
I hope this helps to inform anyone out there curious about raw milk and why I've been so enthusiastically posting about it and drinking it for the last year and a half, and what I drank as a child post-breast-feeding. I didn't even realize that I drank raw milk as a kid until I met Marcus and he told me he only drinks or eats raw dairy and animal products (from pasture-raised, organically-fed animals). When he told me that, a light-bulb lit up in my head. I told him, I think I drank raw milk as a child. I called my parents to ask them and sure-enough, the farm we used to visit once a week to get milk when we were children sold us raw, grass-fed milk. Both of my parents were into feeding our family healthy, wholesome, and natural diet, but my mother read Weston Price's book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration - A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects, and in addition to growing up in a home where meals were home-cooked, Price's book convinced my mother that raw milk, and a diet consisting of foods closest to their natural state was the way to go for herself and her children.

Please post your comments. For those of you who are lactose intolerant, the above information from Mercola helps to shed some light on that, and I was lactose intolerant once I started drinking pasteurized milk around age 8 or 10 (the farm where my parents got their raw milk closed and my mom relaxed on some of her health practices - she's back on raw milk now and doing fantastic), but I have no issues with raw milk and dairy and I feel better than ever physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Plus my hair and skin look better than ever. My hair is shinier and thicker than ever (I'm told it's because of the healthy fats I'm getting from the raw milk, cream and butter - it helps protect the hair shaft better than any hair treatment ever could-from the inside out!), and it's not just my imagination! I have strangers commenting on my hair - asking what diet or supplements I take because my hair is shiny. Proof's in the shiny hair, I guess. Anyway, try it and let me know how it goes.

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Friday, April 23, 2010

Dr. Mercola recommends raw milk!

While I don't know enough about Dr. Mercola to agree with everything he says, I do appreciate that he recommends raw milk. He was also recently on Dr. Oz, and while he was cut of prematurely (in my opinion due to the his being mostly anti-business-as-medicine and anti-pharmaceutical), I'm glad he got a little bit of air time. I am thrilled that there's an M.D. with a national following recommending raw milk. Fantastic! He also seems to be fighting the good fight as an M.D., as he's very into nutrition and lifestyle solutions to the most pervasive and chronic diseases we're seeing in the U.S. and increasingly worldwide (as a more processed, fast-food diet invades the rest of the world). Also, he seems very into natural foods - so no artificial sugars or crazy processing in our food. All things I really appreciate.

So, I'm including his recent write-up on raw milk, different kinds of cows, and important nutritional information that, frankly, I could never write myself with another 4 years of school (and those who know me know I'm already over-schooled!).

Enjoy and please leave comments.

Link to the article on Dr. Mercola's website here and at the end.

First of all, please understand that I do not recommend drinking pasteurized milk of any kind – ever. Because once milk has been pasteurized it’s more or less “dead,” and offers little in terms of real nutritional value to anyone, whether you show signs of intolerance to the milk or not.
Valuable enzymes are destroyed, vitamins (such as A, C, B6 and B12) are diminished, fragile milk proteins are radically transformed from health nurturing to unnatural amino acid configurations that can actually worsen your health. Finally the eradication of beneficial bacteria through the pasteurization process actually ends up promoting pathogens.
The healthy alternative to pasteurized milk is raw milk, which is an outstanding source of nutrients including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidophilus, vitamins and enzymes, and it is, in my estimation, one of the finest sources of calcium available.
Raw milk is generally not associated with the health problems linked to pasteurized milk, and even people who have been allergic to pasteurized milk for many years can typically tolerate and even thrive on raw milk.
However, some people may still experience problems, such as upper respiratory congestion, when drinking raw milk, and the difference between the breeds of cows the milk comes from appears to hold the answer.

Different Cows = Different Milk

This is an issue you may never have heard of unless you’re familiar with the bovine industry, or have done a fair amount of research on milk. But there are actually distinct differences in the milk produced by various breeds of dairy cows.
So-called A1 cows are “newer” breeds that experienced a mutation of a particular amino acid some 5,000 years ago, whereas A2 cows are the older breeds that do not have this mutation.
As Thomas Cowan, MD, a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation explains in his article Devil in the Milk, milk consists of three parts:
  • Butterfat,
  • Whey and
  • Milk solids
The milk solids consist of a variety of proteins, lactose and other sugars. One of these proteins is called beta-casein, and this is the protein of interest when comparing A1 and A2 milk.
All proteins are long chains of amino acids. Beta casein is a chain of 229 amino acids. A2 cows produce this protein with a proline at number 67, whereas A1 cows have a mutated proline amino acid, which converts it to histidine.
The proline in A2 milk has a strong bond to another small protein called BCM 7, which helps keep it from being released.
Histidine (the mutated protein), on the other hand, only weakly holds on to BCM 7, so it is liberated in the GI tract of animals and humans who drink A1 cow milk. Now, BCM7 is a powerful opiate that can have a very detrimental impact on your body.
As discussed in the article above, it is likely the cause of increased phlegm production in your digestive- and respiratory tract, which can worsen upper respiratory problems.
This confirms previous findings, discussed in Keith Woodford’s book Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk.
In it he writes that BCM 7 selectively binds to the epithelial cells in mucus membranes and stimulates mucus secretion.
But that’s not all. BCM7 has also been implicated in other far more serious health problems, such as:
  • Type 1 diabetes
  • Neurological impairment, including autism and schizophrenia
  • Impaired immune function
  • Autoimmune disease
  • Heart disease
For those of you who want to investigate this at greater depth, betacasein.net offers a comprehensive list of published scientific studies of the differences between A1 and A2 milk and their health ramifications.
You can also pick up a copy of Keith Woodford’s informative book, Devil in the Milk: Illness, Health and the Politics of A1 and A2 Milk.

The US Raises Mainly the “Wrong” Cows…

A1 cows include the black and white breeds like Holsteins and Friesians. Unfortunately, Holsteins are one of the most popular breeds in North America.
The older breeds, such as Jersey’s, Guernsey, Asian and African are primarily A2’s. Goats and sheep also produce the healthier A2 type milk.
“Our issue in America is that we have the wrong cows,” Dr. Cowan writes.
“When you take A1 cow milk away, and stimulate our own endorphins instead of the toxic opiate of BCM 7, some amazing health benefits ensue.
One saving grace, as expressed in The Devil in the Milk, is that the absorption of BCM 7 is much less in people with a healthy GI tract... BCM 7 is also not found in goat’s or sheep’s milk, so these types of milk might be better tolerated.
… We now have one more thing to put on our activism to-do list. Dr. Woodford explains that it is fairly straightforward to switch a herd to become an all A2 herd. No genetic engineering is needed, no fancy tests, just one simple test of the beta-casein and it can be done.
Hopefully, when this becomes widespread we will end up with a truly safe and healthy milk supply.”
Naturally, getting America’s dairy farmers to start switching breeds would require a massive campaign, but in the meantime, just being aware of this inherent difference between A1 and A2 milk can prove to be invaluable for many, especially if you have tried switching to raw milk and still experience problems with it.
You may simply be drinking milk from an A1 breed… Switching to milk from an A2 breed could make a significant difference.
This is also an important point for dairy farmers everywhere to at least consider, as A1 cattle may still not be producing the healthiest milk for human consumption, even when grass-fed.

How to Find Truly Healthy Milk

Depending on where you live, A2 milk may not be that hard to find. In fact, herds in much of Asia, Africa, and parts of Southern Europe still produce primarily A2 milk.
If you live in the United States, New Zealand, Australia or other areas of Europe, however, you’ll need to look a bit harder since the majority of cattle in these areas are A1 breeds.
As you know, I advocate getting your raw milk from a local dairy farmer that raises cattle organically, letting his livestock graze on fresh grasses. So to ensure the milk you’re getting is A2 milk -- the type that has not been associated with illness and instead appears to have numerous health benefits – you’d just have to ask what kind of breed he raises. (Remember, A2 breeds include Jersey, Guernsey, Asian and African cows.)
Buying retail (in those states where raw milk sale is legal) would require just a little more work, since you’d have to get the contact information of the milk supplier and then call or write them to find out what breeds are used.
Fortunately, grass-fed, raw milk almost always comes from small dairy farms that do not co-mingle their milk with milk from other farms, so this makes ensuring you’re buying A2 milk quite a bit easier.
You can start you search for raw milk retailers in the US by going to the RealMilk web site.
www.OrganicPastures.com also has a store locator for California.
(You can use the following hyperlinks to find out the legal status of raw milk in the U.S. state or country where you live.)
Yet another option is raw goat- and sheep’s milk, as neither of them contains the harmful BCM-7.

Link to article & Dr. Mercola's website.

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Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Food should be As God Intended or Why isn't everything we eat organic?

Buckle-in, folks. This one’s a bit of a long and bumpy ride...but well worth it.

This morning while making my morning shake, which consists of the following:
Eggs - organic, raw, never refrigerated (3 eggs)
Milk - organic, unpasteurized, Amish (grass fed cows, no antibiotics) (1 cup)
Honey - raw, unheated, organic (1 Tbsp)
Orange Juice - organic valencia orange, fresh squeezed (this ingredient varies from day to day, and can even be omitted - today I wanted an orange julius style shake, but the following also tastes great: organic berries (your choice); cinnamon, nutmeg & all spice (for an egg nog experience); banana, and almost any fruit or spice that would taste good in a milkshake works great, but please only use organic, fresh ingredients (or organic dried spices).
Other optional ingredients: raw butter (softened); raw cream; bone marrow - all from organic, grass-fed cattle - Amish dairy and meat is usually raised grass-fed, organically and humanely. (See more at the bottom of this page on Grass-Fed Beef.)

Anyway, while making this delicious shake, I got to thinking...

Why isn’t everything we eat organic?

I don’t mean why don’t we all buy organic, because I think I know why that is and here’s the breakdown:

  • Organic is not always accessible or available for most people
  • Organic is usually more expensive (which is actually ridiculous because it costs less to grow organically, but the “conventional” growers are heavily subsidized by the government - which happens because the pesticide and pharmaceutical manufacturers (they are usually one and the same) lobby congress to maintain subsidies for pesticide and antibiotic-ridden meat, dairy and produce, aka “conventional.”
  • If the first two points don’t exclude any given consumer, the others simply don’t believe organic is really any different or more beneficial.

Please weigh-in if I’ve missed something. And believe me, I can relate to all of the above, though at this point my research has convinced me towards organic (I'm about 90% organic). But back to what I mean when I ask, “Why isn’t everything we eat organic?”

Why are we even using all of these unnatural means of producing food? It doesn’t actually make sense when you think about it.

Firstly, think of human evolution:

Human evolution is slow, to make a gross understatement. It takes thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years for the human being to evolve. This includes our digestive system. So think about this: we’ve been using pesticides for less than 50 years. Prior to Rachel Carson and her groundbreaking book Silent Spring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Carson farmer’s primarily used natural means of “pest” control including peppermint oil, manure, herbs, salts and lemon - all perfectly safe and edible, obviously). So we’ve only used synthetic pesticides for about 50 years. What does this mean for the human system? Well, the human digestive and immune systems have no idea what to do with pesticides or genetically modified organisms (GMOs), because they don’t occur in nature. So our bodies processes and stores these chemicals as toxins. No wonder we’re more disease-ridden and medicated than ever before!

Secondly, think of toxic exposure:

It’s testimony to the resilience of the human being that we’re all not getting sicker, younger. Oh, wait, we are! But still, we are doing remarkably well considering the following. Fossil fuels have only been around for about 100 years. From polluting the air we breath to polluting the soil, to contaminating the oceans and ocean-life we rely on for so many things (fish-eating being only one of the many gifts our oceans grant humans), fossil fuels have exponentially increased the toxins that we take in on a daily basis. This is not about global warming, which is currently under debate, this is about TOXINS IN OUR ENVIRONMENT. Our bodies, though doing an amazing job of handling all of these toxins, are not really equip to handle all of these toxins...hence there’s more cancer, diabetes, heart-disease, obesity (which given how modified our foods are, should not be blamed solely on the individual since it has reached epidemic proportions). So what do the powers that be do? Add to this fossil fuel toxicity with more toxins in the form of pesticides and antibiotics in our food!

Think about it. Do you really think they’re feeding livestock a) organically and b) what they naturally eat? Cows aren’t meant to eat anything but grass. It screws up their digestive system and makes their meat and milk way more unhealthy for us. Here’s an excerpt from John Robbins’ website:
Cows, sheep, and other grazing animals are endowed with the ability to convert grasses, which those of us who possess only one stomach cannot digest, into food that we can digest. They can do this because they are ruminants, which is to say that they possess a rumen, a 45 or so gallon (in the case of cows) fermentation tank in which resident bacteria convert cellulose into protein and fats.

Traditionally, all beef was grass-fed beef, but in the United States today what is commercially available is almost all feedlot beef. The reason? It's faster, and so more profitable. Seventy-five years ago, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter. Today, they are 14 or 16 months. You can't take a beef calf from a birth weight of 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little more than a year on grass. It takes enormous quantities of corn, protein supplements, antibiotics and other drugs, including growth hormones.

Switching a cow from grass to grain is so disturbing to the animal's digestive system that it can kill the animal if not done gradually and if the animal is not continually fed antibiotics. These animals are designed to forage, but we make them eat grain, primarily corn, in order to make them as fat as possible as fast as possible.

And if this isn’t horrific enough, consider the affects this corn-fed beef has on humans who ingest the meat. When cattle are fed a corn or soy-based diet, their meat and dairy have only short and long chain fatty acids, which clogs arteries and the meat also oxidizes (goes rotten) faster. The medium-chain fatty acids (from grass-fed beef) are more stable, encourage our bodies to burn calories, and actually work to unclog your arteries (they’re the “good” fats). Predictably, there are currently no chain restaurants that serve grass-fed beef. (link to source - wikianswers)

Here’s more on the health benefits of grass-fed beef from author Jo Johnson (link for more), and an easy-to-read chart on why grass-fed beef is healthier:

Consumers have been led to believe that meat is meat is meat. In other words, no matter what an animal is fed, the nutritional value of its products remains the same. This is not true. An animal's diet can have a profound influence on the nutrient content of its products.

The difference between grain-fed and grass-fed animal products is dramatic.

First of all, grass-fed products tend to be much lower in total fat than grain-fed products. For example, a sirloin steak from a grass-fed steer has about one half to one third the amount of fat as a similar cut from a grain-fed steer.

In fact, grass-fed meat has about the same amount of fat as skinless chicken or wild deer or elk. When meat is this lean, it actually lowers your LDL cholesterol levels.


Because grass-fed meat is so lean, it is also lower in calories.

Fat has 9 calories per gram, compared with only 4 calories for protein and carbohydrates. The greater the fat content, the greater the number of calories.

A 6-ounce steak from a grass-finished steer has almost 100 fewer calories than a 6-ounce steak from a grain-fed steer.

If you eat a typical amount of beef (66.5 pounds a year), switching to grass-fed beef will save you 17,733 calories a year [approx 15 lbs. of weight loss per year] —without requiring any willpower or change in eating habits. If everything else in your diet remains constant, you'll lose about six pounds a year. If all Americans switched to grass-fed meat, our national epidemic of obesity would begin to diminish.

Additionally, most of the issues with diary including lactose intolerance and it’s increased toxicity can be avoided by proper handling (of the cattle and the dairy in non-porous containers) and by simply not-pasteurizing! Oh wait, the government requires pasteurization of all dairy unless live in one of the three states where it’s legal or if you buy privately from a local farmer. For more, please link here to: Marcus Lovemore’s blog on Raw Milk FAQ.

Whew. I’m exhausted from this rant. Let me get back to the original question and bring this to a close.

Why isn’t everything we eat organic?

The answer is, I don’t know. It doesn’t actually make any logical sense. It seems the answer is simply political. Conventional farming is heavily subsidized, so it tilts the playing field in the pesticide- and antibiotic-using farmer’s favor. If subsidization were ended, it would level the playing field and organic would actually be CHEAPER than conventional farming because raising organic produce is less expensive.

So that bodes the question, What can we do?

Well, the first few seem to be a mantras among organic and natural-minded folks, but here’s my list thus far:

  • Buy local - from farmer’s markets where the farmer’s practice organic or pesticide-free farming. (Some small, local farmer’s can’t afford the “organic” fees so just ask them if they’re organic and they’ll usually say “pesticide free” and just watch them as they say this - you’ll know if they’re being honest.)
  • Let your representatives know you want a level playing field or an END to SUBSIDIZATION for pesticide and antibiotic farmers, aka “conventional” farming.
  • Let your representatives know #2: No crossover between corporations and the FDA. In other words, absolutely no one who worked for any sort of pesticide-profiting or pharmaceutical/agricultural company (e.g. Monsanto, Pfizer, Dupont, Cargill, etc.) should be allowed to work for the FDA - seems an obvious conflict of interest.
  • Educate yourself. Read The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan and see the Academy-Award nominated documentary film Food Inc. They both will blow your mind.
  • Become a food investigator. Ask a lot of questions of the restaurants and markets you frequent, eat organic produce, and meat and dairy from livestock that is grass-fed (or in the case of chickens, worm-fed - that gives eggs the natural Omega-3s.) Also, ideally eat only raw, unpasteurized dairy which you can usually find by asking a local organic market or co-op. Start asking questions.
  • Share what you’ve learned with everyone you know, but especially your loved ones.
  • Please, when entertaining friends, serve only organic, humanely-raised food.

What else? If you want to hear one of the more extreme people talk about this kind of thing and more, listen to Alex Jones on iphone apps or on InfoWars.com. He’ll blow your mind even more than The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food Inc.

It’s funny that all of this is really the way we used to treat our crops and livestock 75 to 100 years ago and had been practicing for thousands of years. I love technology as much as the next blogger, but some things were meant to stay the way they were, or as some of my bible-belt friends might say, “as God intended.”

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