My wife came home from the market with a very special treat today: Crooked Creek Non-Homogenized Milk!

It's not raw milk, but it's a step closer! It inspired a look into the process that milk goes through before making it to the shelves at the grocery store.

Raw Milk is Illegal in Michigan

Our family would really enjoy drinking raw milk, but in Michigan the only way to drink raw milk is to own your own cow and milk it. It's illegal to sell raw (unpasteurized) milk in Michigan.

The Michigan Legislature reaffirmed this important food safety principle in 2001 when it continued the prohibition on the sale of unpasteurized (raw) milk to consumers through a rewrite and update of the state's dairy laws. FDA banned the interstate shipment of unpasteurized (raw) milk to consumers in 1987, garnering the United States worldwide recognition as having the gold standard for milk safety and reducing the annual number of raw milk-related illness outbreaks by about half.

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Yes folks. Our state has dairy laws. And Michigan is the "gold standard" for milk safety. Sadly, this makes it very difficult to acquire any real milk except homogenized/pasteurized milk, usually with Vitamin D added.

Transporting raw milk in Michigan is treated as a crime on the scale of drug trafficking.

If you are caught transporting raw (unpasteurized) milk that you do not own, meaning it didn't come from your cow for your own consumption, you are committing a crime in Michigan.

A delivery truck from Standish, MI-based My Family Co-Op was making its run south on Interstate 75 to Macomb and Oakland counties with products also from High Hill Dairy when it was stopped by state agricultural inspectors. Once they discovered what was in the truck’s load, they seized it, requiring the driver to dump 250 gallons of raw milk and smash about 100 dozen organic eggs. All totaled, about $3,600 in raw and organic products were destroyed.

State agriculture inspectors said the eggs were not clean, and butter, cream and buttermilk were not properly labeled and some were from a business that closed two years ago. The Michigan Department of Agriculture also wants the co-op to obtain a retail license

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So if you sell unwashed eggs and not properly labeled dairy products and do not possess a retail license, the authorities can legally destroy your property.

Processed Milk

The process: pasteurization, separation, homogenization.

1: The Milk is Separated

When the raw milk comes from the cow it's put into centrifuge. It separates the milk fat solids from the skim milk liquid. The milk-fat is used to make butter or is sold as cream. For "whole milk", 3.5% of the fat is put back into the milk.

2: The Milk is Fortified

Vitamins A and D are added to the milk. The thought process is that adding these vitamins to our milk supply will help offset vitamin deficiency diseases such as rickets.

According to Organic Valley Milk:

Vitamin A: We are required by law to add vitamin A to all of our skim/fat free/nonfat milk, lowfat (1%) milk, and reduced-fat (2%) milk. This is because vitamin A is "fat soluble," so you lose vitamin A content when you reduce fat in fluid milk. We do add vitamin A to some of our whole milk products also. For confirmation, please reference the ingredient label.

Vitamin D: We add vitamin D to all Organic Valley fluid milks, with the exception of some specialty milk products. Vitamin D is naturally present in milk, but it can be low due to several factors like cow breed, seasonal exposure to sunlight, diet, and lactation. For confirmation, please reference the ingredient label.

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3: The Milk is Pasteurized

The milk is then heated to 161 degrees F for 15 seconds. This essentially "cooks" the milk, killing any harmful microbes that may be present. This also destroys the entire array of probiotics, and most if not all all enzymes. At this point, the milk is no longer "raw".

When milk has been heated to 165 degrees (higher for UHT milk) and pasteurization is complete, the enzyme phosphatase is 100 percent destroyed. Guess what? This is the enzyme that is critical for the absorption of minerals including calcium! Phosphatase is the third most abundant enzyme in raw milk and those who drink raw milk enjoy increased bone density. Several studies have documented greater bone density and longer bones in animals and humans consuming raw milk compared to pasteurized.

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4: The Milk is Homogenized

The final step is homogenization, a process where the milk is put under high pressure (2500 - 3000 psi) and forced through a very small passage. The "shearing" effect of being forced through the tiny opening breaks down any remaining fat particles so they will no longer separate from the liquid. There are some health concerns with this:

Cow's milk contains an enzyme of large molecular size called xanthine oxidase (XO). XO is normally attached to the fat globules in milk. However, when these fat globules are in their natural large-sized state prior to homogenization, they are not easily absorbed by the gut wall. After homogenization, the milk fat is easily absorbed, and the attached XO gains much greater access to the bloodstream.

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What ever happened to good old fashion milk?

Have you ever tried raw milk? How is it different from processed milk? Let me know in the comments!

Benjamin Turner: God fearer. Rooted in Messiah. Husband of @lturner. Father of four wonderful children. The guy behind the camera. Steemit enthusiast.

Bless the Most High!