"....Eating her curds and whey"!

OK fellow raw milk drinkers, help me out with this one.  I had two jars of Jenny Johnson's grass-fed raw milk from back on May 6th that we never drank. I left it on the shelf in the garage figuring I'd feed it to the farm cats sometime. We never got around to that and pretty soon it started to separate or "clabber".  I've heard of clabbering milk for a week or so but what is this that we have three months later? I brought the jars inside to pour down the drain today and discovered this most interesting site.  The top layer is gold, dense and greasy, just like butter. As I opened the jar I was braced for a horrible smell but surprisingly it was mild and pleasant.  I actually stuck my finger in it for a taste and it is VERY sour, but not foul or putrid.  The smell reminds me of kefir. 

The second layer is pure whey. But after all these months can I strain it off and use this whey? Is this the fluid that the pioneer women used to preserve and ferment?

The bottom layer is what has me stumped. Is this cottage cheese curds? Is it milk solids? And again, after all these months, can it be used for anything? Fats rises to the top, protein sinks to the bottom?

Gosh, for anyone who ever asks, "how long does raw milk last?".....just depends on what you want to use it for.  I sure wouldn't try this with a carton of milk from the grocery store!

Maria Yoder

I'm finally getting to the subject of Maria! Maria Yoder is 18 years old and the second oldest of 12 children!  I met her family in the fall of 2001 when we purchased our first side of grass-fed beef from her parents, Paul and Colleen.  That was the beginning of a most interesting relationship..... one that would change my life forever!  Shortly after the beef, we tried their fresh raw milk. After making the hour drive once about every six weeks (and freezing the milk), I convinced about five other families to share the drive and bring fresh milk back every week.  The next thing you know I was coordinating a "Farm-To-You" co-op with over 150 families picking up farm fresh foods at 7 different locations around Akron and Cleveland!  Oh and did I mention all of this was illegal?

I thought we could just find a nice senator to sponsor a bill to change the law so I led a state-wide raw milk legislative initiative through the Ohio House and Senate.  Silly me....how was I to know that "Big Dairy" powers of Ohio had a much stronger voice than a bunch of farmers and health-conscious mothers? It was not in their best interest for people to start buying milk directly from farmers, especially the kind of milk that caused a person's health to improve!  After the bill failed, we were later thrilled to walk away with a court ruling which recognized our right to drink the milk of a cow we own.......and the "herd share" contract was born.  Here in Nebraska it is legal to buy fresh milk on the farm but in Ohio farmers and consumers still walk on egg shells waiting for the next attack on their rights to consume the foods they choose.

After moving to Nebraska, I've stayed in touch with the Yoder family (you tend to grow close to people on the "front lines") and that's how we were blessed with the opportunity to have Maria come help us out for five weeks!  You can meet the rest of Maria's family at http://www.yoderfarm.blogspot.com/.

Maria's sister Audrey made Nyla this adorable baby gift......a dress to match Maria's!

Got "Raw" Milk?

With the recent release of the movie Food Inc., I'm feeling good about our efforts to consume locally produced, fresh, unprocessed foods. Many of you already know that our family consumes fresh, unpasteurized milk straight from cows raised on organic pastures and fed their natural diet of green grass. We've been drinking this type of milk for about 8 years after being introduced to its health benefits by the Weston A. Price Foundation. In fact, all of our children were weaned from the breast straight on to raw cow's milk shortly after their first birthdays!

This might sound crazy to some of you and that's understandable because most people are not aware of the fact that there are two types of raw milk produced by farmers. One type is "raw milk intended for pasteurization" and those cows are normally found in larger numbers in confinement dairies and rarely have access to fresh green pastures. The animals are given antibiotics and hormones and live a short and stressful life being pushed to produce as much milk as they possibly can. Their milk is collected by a milk processor and taken to a pasteurization plant where it is cooked to very high temperatures (which is absolutely necessary to make it "safe") before being bottled and delivered to your grocery store shelf.

The problem raw milk advocates have with pasteurization and ultra pasteurization is that cooking milk to such high temperatures kills off not only the bad bacteria which may or may not be present, but it also kills off the beneficial bacteria, protein and enzymes. There is also a lot of controversy over just how many vitamins and minerals are destroyed by pasteurization but the very fact they they have to "add back" to the milk ("vit. D enriched") should tell you something.

The type of milk we drink is "raw milk intended for human consumption." This type of milk is carefully collected from cows consuming their natural diet of green grass, grazing freely on organic pastures, never given any sort of antibiotic or hormone, and enjoying a stress-free, long life, often only being milked once a day. Grass-fed cows are also much less likely to contain harmful pathogens in their gut compared to grain-fed cows. A Google search on "grain-fed cows and e coli" will reveal solid science on how the corn-based diet acidifies the cow’s digestive tract. Under normal circumstances E. coli O157:H7 is killed by stomach acids. But the increased acidity in the cow’s stomach allows for the more acid resistant E. coli bacteria to survive and thrive. When these acid resistant E. coli enter the food supply, it is especially dangerous because a person’s primary defense against E. coli, stomach acid, is now useless.

After thoroughly researching the safety and health benefits of fresh, unprocessed, unadulterated milk, we decided this type of milk was clearly the better choice for our family. The next step was to identify a "safe" raw milk producer. Using criteria provided by the Weston A. Price Foundation and Raw USA Standards, we set out to find safe, raw milk in Nebraska!  RealMilk.com has a listing of raw milk producers in our area and we choose to buy milk from the Branched Oak Farm in Raymond.

Shaking The Hand That Feeds Us

There was no school today so the kids rode along with me to pick up milk. Our winter milk source, the Divino Nino Family Farm in Palmyra, Nebraska is about an hour and fifteen minutes from our house. Either I or our friend, Sue Briggs drives to this farm every Friday to pick up fresh, whole, unpasteurized, unhomogenized whole milk from grass-fed Guernsey cows. These pastured cows are never given antibiotics or any type of hormones and are fed a natural diet intended for cows, GREEN GRASS! YUM! You can see the whole role of film from the day

HERE.