Within the last couple of weeks several people have been asking me questions about raw milk. I like to provide folks with several online resources so that they can come to their own conclusion and give it a try when they are ready. So while looking at the Weston A. Price Foundation for some good info, I came across a raw milk dairy just down the road from me! (25 miles down the road..) I don't know how I didn't notice it before as I had done such an online search when I first moved here, but better late than never!
MooJesus combines a raw milk dairy with organic produce with yea, you guessed it, Jesus. This really fascinated me because I wanted to know how the connection was made between religion and whole foods health. So I had to see for myself.
My friend Liz, who is positively the most up-for-anything-even-if-it's-totally-weird kind of person that I have met in the last ten years, said she would go with me. We went on Saturday afternoon and drove along the long country road out of Seguin into the picturesque Texas cowlands. To get to MooJesus (aka: Everything Jesus) we had to go through two private gates and past a several ominous out buildings.
We knew we had reached our destination when we saw the giant cross looming before us.
Liz and I parked the car and got out, surveying the scene. There were two houses that both looked equally inviting and non-inviting, so it was a fifty-fifty chance we would walk into the appropriate one. Somehow we made the right choice and I entered the one story house. I opened the door and froze. A roomful of smiling faces stared up at Liz and I as we stood motionless in the doorway. Had we interrupted bible study? Was this an exclusive party? No and no, they were just a jolly and welcoming bunch of folk.
The room consisted of several tables filled with folks slurping on smoothies. There was a chalkboard in the front of the room with a picture of a cow and some words about Jesus. The bookshelves and tables were laden with educational material about nutrition, organics, and religion.
We sat at a table with a sweet grandmother type and a mother of a couple of the kiddos running around. We were given a menu that had a huge variety of farm-grown produce, dairy products including housemade cheeses, grass-fed beef and pork, bean sprouts, and organic staple foods. We were on a bit of a time frame, with dinner planned at a friend's house before country dance lessons down at Cowboy's, so Liz and I started filling out the order sheet.
Oh how to describe what happened next... Well I'll start by saying that they are on country time or Jesus time, whichever moves slower! We shared a delicious organic fruit and ginger smoothie and watched with awe and horror as the farm staff moved about with such high energy and speed and yet somehow got so little done! We tasted their signature Nutzola, a cabbage slaw, agave-sweetened buttermilk, and housemade bread with a big ol' dollop of fresh butter. We took a short walk outside and marveled at the beauty of the farm. We thumbed through the available literature and attempted small talk with the patrons and staff.
An hour later, we received our bag full of milk, cheese, onion, a sweet potato, and grass-fed ground beef. We laughed the whole way home about what a quirky, interesting place it was! I lamented that I did not even have a moment to ask the pastor the questions I had about involvement in the Weston Price chapter and about how she made the link between religion and healthful foods, but that if I had asked such questions, we would have been there all night!
Alas, we missed dinner, but still made it on time for the dance lessons. I jested that they may have the power to slow down time on the farm, but that it puts the rest of your day on frantic fast-forward!
Sunday I drank a quart of milk. It was delicious. I compared it side by side to the Central Market (HEB) brand milk and here are my observations: the raw milk has a creamier taste, texture, and appearance whereas the Central Market milk is very white and hits the pallet twice. Both taste good, but here are my perceived benefits of raw vs. pasteurized and homogenized:
1. Nutritionally - Raw milk provides intact enzymes and bioactive compounds that aid in the digestion and absorption of milk nutrients. Cows that eat grass give milk with more omega-3 fatty acids than conventional milk and is therefore less inflammatory. And don't forget the idea of xenohormesis, the idea that by eating food that are unhealthy and lived a stressed life, we ourselves become stressed and unhealthy.
2. Environmentally - Treating milk to kill bacteria encourages the evolution of heat-resistant bacteria, just as antibacterial medication encourages antibiotic resistant bacteria. The waste and methane produced by cows on conventional lots is unsustainable and damaging to our ecosystems.
3. Morally - Raw milk dairies are small, family run operations in which the income from charging fair prices can sustain the farm and support their family and communities. The money from conventional milk is falsely cheap and does not provide a fair income to the dairy workers.
4. As a creature of this Earth - Raw milk is created the way nature intended, free of tampering from large corporations that rarely have our best interest in mild. Raw milk has been consumed by generations of peoples whereas conventional milk has been around for a little over a hundred years and only popular within the last couple of decades as small dairy farms become uncommon and people are filled with fear about the microorganisms that share our world.
Everything stated above is my opinion, based on my education, life experiences, and understanding of the history of our food systems. I highly encourage you to do your own research into the matter and use your own common sense when deciding how you wish to navigate these controversies around food and food activism.
Pasteurization became necessary as farms became larger and combined the milk of hundreds of cows into common pools for distribution across farther and farther reaches of land. If the pasteurized milk on the stores shelf was sold as raw, you better believe that food-borne illness would be running rampant because the cows are not likely to be eating grass and milking practices are very unlikely to be as sanitary as those on a certified raw dairy farm.
Raw milk is a luxury that not all of us can experience throughout all of our life changes. Raw milk is not a safe choice for folks who are unable to find a trusted source of raw milk and is not a safe choice for individuals who are immune compromised. In the immune compromised person, introducing any new bacteria, even beneficial bacteria, may not be safe.
Ok, enough for now! Have fun out there finding what works for you in your life! It is all an adventure.. Sometimes down weird and quirky little roads..
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