So Coca-Cola is getting into the milk business. Not the milk business as commodity milk, but the milk business as super-adulterated, premium-priced, healthy milk.
The Coke marketing people looked at their deteriorating sales in an increasingly health-conscious marketplace, and didn’t like what they saw. They looked at the changing composition of the milk shelves, with the reduced space allotted to commoditized ultra-pasteurized Dean Foods type stuff, and the growing space going to locally produced pasteurized unhomogenized milk along with fancy containers of almond and soy milk, and said, We want some of that.
No doubt they were also influenced by the nearby shelves full of protein powders and low-fat-natural-everything, in coming up with something called Fairlife. It is milk that has gone through additional processing beyond pasteurization and homogenization so as to add protein and remove sugars and fat.
And in making super-processed Fairlife twice the price of regular processed milk, maybe they were influenced by the burgeoning sales of raw milk, which is typically sold for at least twice the price of the supermarket stuff based on its perceived health benefits.
You have to respect Cokes marketing acumenit takes smart people to regularly sell billions of $2 cans of fizzy sugar water to the masses. And you have to wonder if Coke really understands the healthy food marketplace–despite the pretty photos of healthy active young people on the Fairlife web site–and the growing desire of more people for real food instead of real processed food.
In connection with all this, theres some intriguing data out of Penn State Extension suggesting that people who seek out raw milk do so because it goes through no processing. When researchers at Penn State Extension asked nearly 500 raw milk drinkers earlier in the year whether they would take their milk pasteurized but not homogenized, 86.5% said they would reject that option. Only 13% said they would even consider that possibility, with just 1% saying they welcomed the option. They really want raw, said Ernest Hovning, a professor at Penn State who presented the results at a recent day-long extension program sponsored by Penn State and The Raw Milk Institute. And the most commonly cited reason (by 90% of respondents) for preferring raw milk: Its better for me than pasteurized milk.
Not to suggest the raw milk drinkers are oblivious to safety concernsnearly two-thirds either dont serve raw milk to guests, or do so only after informing the guests.
When it comes to assessing safety, the raw milk drinkers seemed to feel confident, with the respondents about evenly divided over whether twice-yearly state-mandated testing should be increased. Similarly, about half of respondents dont bring along a cooler or ice packs for storing their milk on the drive home from picking up raw milk at a farm.
Is the raw milk drinkers confidence misplaced? The Penn State researchers did basic tests of milk quality from 40 permitted Pennsylvania raw dairiescoliform counts and standard plate countsand found the results very variable from herd-to-herd and often within (the) herd. There was room for improvement in some/many herds! Hovning reported. Indeed, the percentage of herds with less than 10 CFU/ml ranged from 30% to 70% of the herds tested. In other words, for some months, the number above 10 coliform was similarly from 30% to 70%. According to Hovning, this may indicate increased probability of pathogen.
I doubt any of this is of interest to Coke. Its been test marketing its new super processed milk in Minnesota, where a store manager reports its been tough to keep it in stock. Most of the buyers are young people, 20 to 40 years old, the manager saidthose influenced by health claims that include the higher protein and reduced sugar. He did note, however, that buyers have no way of knowing the milk is produced by Cokethere is no indication on the cartons, and the store isn’t talking.
The Fairlife milk is due to go national next year, and a Coke executive was reported to predict the new milk would be raining money for Coke. Maybe so. Coke can throw a huge amount of ad dollars at the new stuff. Or maybe not when people discover not only how unnatural it is, but that it is produced by a company with a long history of producing products that keep people unhealthy.
Ken
Coke isn’t the owner of fairlife. Fair oaks farms is more of an owner. Coke partnered with them and only does the distribution of product. Fairlife is it’s own organization with the backing of Coca-Cola.
Consumers will wake up and realize that Coke has once again duped them. A highly processed product is still highly allergic !! It is also not probiotic and it is not whole!!
There is a constant in truth. It is the truth!!!and it is not possible to fool
the physiology of your body otherwise. Coke is an opportunistic “Sin Stock”. A wolf in Sheepskin wool is still a wolf. The higher the price of a premium priced conventional product becomes the cheaper organic raw milk becomes as a consumer choice.
Ken, your remark reminds me that I didn’t originate the notion of Coke (and Pepsi) selling fizzy sugar water at high prices. Back in 1984, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, had the idea of recruiting the president of the Pepsi Cola division of Pepsico (John Sculley) to run Apple. Scully was playing hard to get, according to Walter Isaacson’s book, “Steve Jobs”. He quoted Sculley: “After a weighty, uncomfortable pause, he (Jobs) issued a challenge that would haunt me for days. ‘Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?’ Sculley felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. There was no response other than to acquiesce.”
P.S. Jobs regretted bringing Sculley aboard, and clashed frequently with him, even though Apple’s sales increased significantly during the ten years he was at Apple.
These are foreign things to Coke. Coke specializes in high margin & addictive ” diabetic starter kits”. When Coke truly starts being concerned about people….that will be a quantum leap from today’s reality. If Coke understood the dairy market, they would be trying to buy up OPDC or Clarvale. If they approached me….I would simple be flattered and tell them that they missed the boat years ago.
My relationship with 80,000 dear consumers is not for sale at any price!! Mark my words….Fairlife will fail miserably….give it time.
I could not help myself….a couple more things.
I spoke with a raw milk researcher on Friday. The latest research says that one of the most functional components of milk is found in the fat portion ( especially in the intact fat globules ) of the milk! Any destruction of the fat results in reduced activity for immune effects especially for asthma.
The lactose sugar and other sugars found in milk are also extremely important to the development of the infant and childhood gut and villi. In fact, none lactose sugars do not work to accomplish this same gut development! Removal of sugars also removes other oligosaccarides which are critical to bacterial colonization and protection of raw milk gut friendly probiotic bacteria and their immune function. This was research shared at this years International Milk Genomics Consortium meeting in Arhus Denmark.
So….Coke takes out the fat and also takes out the sugars and thinks they have achieved some wonder dairy food. What they have done is completely destroy it. They have removed the most essential components and want a premium for it. Idiots!!! Completely ignorant and stupid idiots. Do they listen to their food development PhDs? If they read the latest in dairy research, then they have also betrayed science and have sold themselves to the highest bidder. Truly a sad state of affairs. The Internet will expose Fairlife for what it is.
If they want market data, The best thing that Coke should do is….stand behind a farmers market table and listen to 1000 consumers and Listen a little!! They can not and would not do this.
I hardly think so Mark. When it comes to manipulating human behavior and making money they no exactly what they are doing!
Man has set for himself the goal of conquering the world but in the processes loses his soul. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Ken
Raw milk consumers will not be rushing to drink Fairlife.
Fairlife represents the diabolic extreme of what organic raw milk represents and is. For the life of me…I do not know what Coke thinks that they are doing. All trends show that consumers want less processed whole foods with good fats, with everything intact and un-messed with.
Mark my words…this will be a disaster.
Coke thinks it is making the transition from being identified as a marketer of unhealthy foods to being identified as a marketer of healthy foods. It is doing that by hitting all the recent hot buttons around health–more protein, less fat, lower sugar, local sourcing….and higher prices. I agree with you, as the word gets around that this product is from Coke, people will begin to realize as well that the product is out of synch with evolving ideas about health, in particular the notions of good fat and less or no processing.
This product kind of reminds me of the margarine version of fluid milk.
David, I wanted to thank you for posting the slides from the Penn State presentation. What a treasure trove of interesting data! The data compiled about consumers is very consistent with what I observe here everyday as I interact with our herdshare members. We have a slightly different demographic, as we are the only farm to offer farm-direct milk of any kind, raw or otherwise, for 100 miles. So I’d say we probably have a somewhat higher percentage of members who come here because they want locally produced milk, but not necessarily raw. But the majority do want raw, and what everyone wants is the nutrition of grass-feeding, the transparency, the relationship and connection with their farm, the reduced food miles, and all that good stuff.
Also, those who want to “reduce sugars” in their milk just make kefir! The bacteria and yeasts consume the lactose and leave behind a low-carb, protein rich drink with a bazillion beneficial probiotics that improve gut function, immune function, weightloss, etc.
Theyre not reinventing themselves! Its more like they are reinforcing their longstanding distorted, corrupt, twisted and depraved marketing philosophy. And they intend to do this not by reinventing fluid milk but rather, by continuing with the prevailing practice to pervert it.
Fairlife!!! It sounds to me that it should be called Basterdizedlife
Ken
The idea that the entire dairy industry is meeting secretly to try and invest hundreds of millions of Check Off dollars to save fluid white milk is extremely interesting to me. It means that they have looked at raw milk and gave up….yep, they surrendered and could not muster the intellectual will to do RAMP or other similar food safety program. That means that they failed to attend the International Milk Genomics Meetings and listen to the best science in the world. They failed to learn what real premiumization is!
I do think that they are trying to capitalize on Greek Yogurt however ….with its high protein.
They missed the biggie!!!! Fermented and packed with bacteria !!!! Stupid is as stupid does. They just repeat the same mistakes over and over again. UHT is a big loser!!! The gut is not a shelf.
Wearing my capitalist hat….OPDC is going to be safe from market encroachment for a long long time. Coke just sent even more consumers our way by increasing price point…they just said…organic raw milk is even cheaper now by comparison. All those extra dollars are going to Coke, not the farmer.
This is bad news. Now every raw milk enterprise using this term will receive one of those legal letters ordering them not to use it. 🙁
Widespread, demonstrable, prior use of “grass-to-glass” will invalidate any request to the USPTO to trademark “Grass-to-Glass” don’t you think?
Let’s call Jonathan Emord, shall we?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Here is something to really get excited about. Our friends at the Splash Newsletter ( the news letter that was sanctioned by the FDA ) have an article about MIT and breakthrough designs for breast milk pumps. The dairy industry has refined this process for millions of cows…but for humans we are not very advanced and for moms that must pump….this is a big pain in the boob. Hats off to the IMGC people at UC Davis. This is raw milk research in a very applicable technology that truly benefits moms and babies.
Here is something more from our PhD friends at UC Davis IMGC. The FDA ( anti-teaching, anti-learning, pro-ignorance world champions ) has forbidden this information from getting out so when I get this IMGC Splash newsletter everything month… I publish as far and wide as possible. This study is about a special protein found in cows milk…I will add that “this protein is only a protein in the raw form”…when pasteurized all proteins are destroyed and denatured!!!
This special protein found in cows milk is essential to the absorption and utilization of B12. It is no wonder that we as a country are all screwed up when it comes to vitamin B12….most all of our retail store available milk is becoming UHT ie.. Fairlife!!!!
A study done on African children that are from “pastoral tribes” showed that consumption of raw milk had dropped in the last decade and that this consumption had dropped in parallel with the ownership of cows. The researchers found that micro nutrients found in raw milk were not the same as those minerals or micro nutrients found in the other foods being consumed and that the general health of the populations had declined. By the way,….. the word “raw never appears in the study” or article. The IMGC would lose funding if it mentions the word raw….instead the IMGC uses “pastoral tribes and milk” as a code for raw milk!!! This is no such thing as pasteurized milk in the grasslands of Africa!!
All of this educational suppression is an FDA attempt to control the minds of the American Consumer!!
It aint workin!
Hormones found in breast milk initiate the healthy complete reproductive tissue development. Does formula feeding of infants have life long effects on fertility? http://milkgenomics.org/article/stop-slow-go-hormonal-signals-mothers-milk/? utm_source=Newsletter_December2014&utm_campaign=SPLASHdec2014&utm_medium=email
http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=11099
UC Davis big dairy research is in highs speed over drive trying its very best to find bio-actives in raw milk and then somehow add these elements back into dead milk to add value and healthful qualities.
Secret….we already do this at OPDC and every other raw milk dairy in the USA and Canada. We are years ahead by using 100 million year blessings of nature!!! We even have it figured out how to do it safely. Instead big dairy is going to spend millions to try and extract living components out of a whole food and try and patent that part to add value back into dead food!! They should take their lesson from Greek Yogurt!!
It is the enzymes and bacteria baby!!
Shawna, I agree, Penn State Extension offers a treasure trove of data. I found interesting the uneven test results (coliform and SPC) of a good number of the 40 Pennsylvania dairies tested. I am inclined to agree with Hovning that some of these could be playing with fire. All the more reason, in my opinion, for RAWMI to get the word out. Perhaps some of the owners of those 40 dairies were in attendance at last month’s Penn State/RAWMI day-long presentation.
A sucker born every minute….so true, but there is so much more to that.
How can a societies brain function if its gut is in full blown disbiotic dysfunction. By default or by evil design, Coke is directly responsible for the gut failure found in first world nations. Sugar based highly processed sterile foods are at the very base of immune depression, digestive dysfunction, Crohns, asthma and every other medical blight being suffered.
Yesterday, I received a Fed Ex package from the FDA. Included in the package was the 47 page FDA response to my Citizens Petition.
In summary…they denied practically every point. Even the points made about their own NIH science about the critical nature of the role of bacteria in our lives. If I said white….they claimed black, if I claimed the color was black, they claim and argued that the color was white. It was the most outrageous stack of papers I have ever seen. Blatant arguments that would never stand up in court. When the RAWMI data was presented showing very low risk raw milk production, the FDA referred to a study of conventional dairy bulk tanks stating that raw milk on farms ( as intended for pasteurization ) contains pathogenic bacteria. Bold faced blatant arbitrary and capricious writing.
I was in shock….the highest level director of food safety had written the response.
Can not wait to get that official FDA response in front of a court. It will be interesting to see what a judge does after reading his disingenuous corrupt piece of garbage. Our Citizens Petition included more than 500 pages of studies, RAWMI data, standards, EU studies, NIH studies, etc…all of it dismissed out of hand. Even the EU studies were claimed not to be about raw milk. Instead the FDA claimed that farm fresh milk was not raw.
An outrageous travesty for certain . I guess the silver lining is this…it is so blatant and so arbitrary and so capricious….that any reader can see it and smell it. 9 more kids died yesterday from asthma. 9 more will die today. All the while the FDA is sleeping with Coke and embracing Fairlife…which has had every bit of its asthma reducing value removed and instead…Fairlife is a highly processed allergic,UHT asthma trigger. A sucker is born every day….perhaps our country prays on the genetically and bio-genomic induced gut deficiency to create a nation of suckers!!!
Fair Oaks has had a very public profile for some time, and it maybe isn’t too surprising to see them marketing their own milk like this. Sadly, I haven’t been near their operation to take the tour (but it looks impressive on YouTube (assuming you are OK with big dairies, like me)).
John
Well the kids arent suckers are they?
They are pawns.
Maybe milk, cream, butter, cheese, and so forth are foods that by their intrinsic nature will put tens of thousands of small dairy farms into operation, revitalizing families (with kids), towns, and counties. The thoughtless touting of how few Americans work on the farm now could fade away.
It is impossible, I think, to discount Joel Wallachs point that unless the right minerals in the right combination are in the soil, then every food derived from that soil, whether animal or vegetable, will be proportionately deficient of nutritional value. It will have nutritional value, of course, but it will be incomplete, the first step in a form of starvation. If I understand him correctly.
Add to that the foolish component of the Medical Services Industry (MSI) that can only be interested in managing continued bad health (that is rooted in this form of starvation) until death (death, defined by: every possible last penny of your personal and insurance resources transferred to the Medical Services Industry, then, finis [check to see, in the Netherlands, how EASY it is today to have MSI personnel, all nice and legal like, finish you off][Euro this and Euro that, perhaps, should be swear words.] ), coupled with the mankind-hating theoreticians and academics that say 500,000,000 of men and women is their goal for the whole earths population, and here we are.
Packaging, refrigeration, transportation, communication, education and political activity are important tools at hand. And dont eat with your hands either.
Administrative Law nips at us, supplanting accountable government.
Heavenly Father, give us this day our daily bread.
Have a wonderful day,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
If, as Wallach says, a nearly defunct liver-transplant-list liver can return to full-size and normal functioning in a matter of weeks with proper nutrition, then, despite the multitudinous techniques of the MSI (which includes their incessant multitudinous propagandas) they should apologize for their euro-style dunderheadednesses.
Create-a-problem, solve-a-problem, pay up, sucker! Might be their secret motto. Eh?
—
About your comment of nutrition from the soil…..I fully agree….our industrial system ignores fixing this problem at its roots….instead they push “science”…..the almighty $$$$$$$$…to attempt to patch nutrition at the top…
An article from Food Safety
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2014/12/consumers-accept-nanotech-genetic-modification-in-food-for-nutrition-safety/
“New research suggests that most consumers will accept nanotechnology or genetic modification technology in their food if it will enhance nutrition or improve safety.”
—
“Forty percent of participants fit into the benefit-oriented group, which would buy GM or nanotech foods if they had enhanced nutrition or were safer.”
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground…”
Man is directly linked to the soil.
Destroy our soil…we destroy our health
Improve our soil…we improve our health
–bill
That might hold a grain of truth if there were actually any legit long term studies on the nutrition value or food safety of nanotechnology or genetic modification technology. So basically, they are asking random people theoretical questions that have no basis what so ever in truth or science, and pretending that their answers are of any value or merit. Call it grasping at straws, smoke and mirrors, misleading deception, or just plain garbage.
Now if they actually scientifically researched the effects of GMO and nanotech foods and made them public… nah, they go all out to prevent or discredit such research.
As for the people surveyed on drinking raw milk vs. drinking low pasteurized, non-homogenized, I only know of a few people who drink it raw. A couple of them milk their own cows (one is a dairy, the other has two head), but none of them are rabid raw milk drinkers where it is raw or nothing, and pasteurized (regardless of the temperature used) is evil. I do however, know of a bunch of people who don’t have a problem with low temp pasteurized, non-homogenized milk. I guess it must be the location.
“Rabid,” eh? Is it possible for any commercial farmer to come here and not insult us? We have treated you with respect, Duchess. It is disappointing that you think so lowly of us that you cannot respect us in return.
BTW, the options in my family are soy milk, almond milk, or raw animal milk. Try to console a child who is screaming from gut pains or who breaks out in head-to-toe eczema due to pasteurized cow or goat milk, and “raw or nothing” are indeed the only two options.
At every turn, the Dairy Duchess (DD) doth fairly scream her colors;
what might others of the Glass-to-Grass Pastoral Tribe think of the DDs rabid comment?
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
I got insulted by Pete who apparently thought I was not being genuine in wanting to know a few things (still haven’t gotten all the answers to those). Or, have gotten totally ignored when addressing certain people. I swear that some of these people (practically foaming at the mouth, hence the term ‘rabid’) who absolutely HATE pasteurized milk in ANY form, believe those who choose to consume it pasteurized are therefore BAD/EVIL. The majority of these comments come from FTCLDF Facebook page.
I’m not organic–so what
I don’t drink my milk raw–so what
Do I respect your choice in how you consume your dairy products? Hell, yes. If I didn’t, then why would I say I think it’s a person’s own decision? If you still don’t believe it, read my very first post.
You can’t have a debate if it’s one sided.
Did you perhaps mean to say “avid raw milk drinkers?” Or, if some others, some other place, are actually foaming at the mouth, perhaps it could be toned down from rabid to avid in the interests of promoting a civil, information-rich exchange as opposed to having a conflagration that becomes, ultimately, an information-poor, emotion-rich exchange?
“Rabid,” of course, is a severely pejorative term to use by one party of the other party if the two parties are attempting to have a civil discussion.
My judge of the comment world on the internet is that it is an environment of ulterior motives and affectations at play, and so often useless that you almost can’t go wrong ignoring comments altogether.
That would go for a lot of the Facebook world I’ve seen (less and less).
Professor Vallicella writes that “In my experience, to discuss religion with the irreligious and the anti-religious is a sheer waste of time. You may as well discuss logic with the illogical, music with the unmusical, or poetry with the terminally prosaic.” And then:
“To end aphoristically:
The best arguments against an open combox are the contents of one.”
I found these at: http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2013/10/why-i-rarely-allow-comments.html
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
“scream her colors”? Really? Like no one here screams their own (raw milk is THE only real milk). I commented to someone (elsewhere on the web) who tried to say that ALL dairy farms mistreat their animals. His response? “Go to YouTube, and you’ll see”. I told him I didn’t need to go to YouTube because I have a dairy farm. No response after that.
Questions: How many of you are dairy farmers (those who regularly comment here)? I’m not referring to Mark, or Shawna. And, how many of you have produced milk “conventionally”, that is, non-organic, non-raw for drinking, and ALSO where it goes for further processing?
My milk is traveling about 6 or 7 miles, and it IS being further processed. Low temp pasteurized, and going to their gourmet cheese shop. They will eventually make raw milk aged cheese, too. I don’t think you’d want to hear what their responses are on raw milk for drinking, or organic milk.
At least I know that y’all ain’t dead, because I surely ruffled some feathers on my comment. Try going to some of these blogs where they and their comment posters get beat up by animal rights hacks. They are beyond rabid, and if they came here, you all would get attacked for even thinking about drinking milk. I’m just sayin’.
Thanks.
FYI
We are starting a commercial goat dairy.
We will not be organic certified. There is no processor in our area that is asking for organic goat milk.
If there was a processor that wanted organic goat milk and paid accordingly, I would be organic certified.
We handle our goats “Organic Plus”. I intend on implementing many of RawMI procedures.
Hey Mark, are there any RawMI listed goat farms?
We do drink our raw goat milk. My wife and son get sick after drinking any kind of cow milk. That is why we have goats.
We make fresh/aged cheese & kefir with our raw milk.
Our processor will pasteurize our milk *twice* & homogenize it before their product is packaged and shipped.
I also eat pasteurized cheeses because I love many different kinds of cheese and I cannot get these cheeses raw/fresh or raw/aged. I do not eat a lot of this pasteurized cheese. [some folks have a soft spot for sweets….I admit I have soft spot for aged brick:)] (we do eat a lot of the cheese that we make raw) I get these pasteurized cheeses from small local factories…not from the large grocery stores.
We are in Wisconsin.
I like what Joel Salatin says ” I’m a Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic” farmer.
–bill
That’s great! How many goats do you plan on milking? I haven’t gotten around to answering J. Ingvar’s comment yet, so I’ll try to include some of it in here. My friends that are using the milk from my cows only have goats. They are husband and wife, so I will refer to them as ‘she/her’, ‘he/his’–because I won’t use their names. I’ve known them for a number of years, and a lot of discussions have come up on raw milk, organic milk, and similar subjects between the both of them. She once told me she thought raw milk people, and organic only people were nuts. Her words, not mine, so J. Ingvar doesn’t need to get upset with me over this. He just recently told me that they’ve had customers who’ve asked for organic cheese. He said he won’t have the conversation with everyone, but some of them are adamant, and he will ask them if they know what a ruminant that is full of parasites looks like. Then he will tell them if he has a sick animal, he is going to treat it, and, his goats will NEVER be organic. This guy grew up with goats, and has been around them his whole life.
There were some other things in that same conversation, but I’m unable to recall exactly how he said it, and can’t figure out how to paraphrase it. Like I’ve said before, to each, his own (probably not in those exact words). I have some of my own personal goat horror stories that happened this year, and they were problems (expensive ones too) I’ve never had in the 5-1/2 years I’ve had them. I’ve also heard from a few people that parasites this year killed a lot of goats (one person got this info from a vet).
There aren’t any goat milk routes around here, and the one that used to be around had some problems. Someone that was wanting to start a goat dairy said the person running the route didn’t do a good job, and mismanaged things, so it went under. My friends have asked if I’d consider transitioning over so they can use that milk as well. I asked, “How about both?” We’ll see what happens in the future. I only have a mother and daughter right now.
I just gave some to my dad the other day to test for me. I’ve given him some in the past, but for some reason, another member of the family will go to my parents’ house, and look in the fridge. If there is milk that can be identified as coming from my farm, it will be drank. I asked him tonight if he had any of it yet. He said he did, and so far, no problem. My sister says she will break out in hives from milk, but she doesn’t live in my state, so I can’t convince her to try it as well. She can eat butter, and likes the taste of half and half (who knows why she can drink that without a reaction). Maybe, one of these times she comes to visit, I’ll see if I can convince her to try it.
Not that you want to read anything vile, obnoxious, vicious, etc., but IF you do, check this blog out, especially anything pertaining to ‘animal rights’, and any of the videos they have posted on the web. It seems to bring in the trolls like crazy. Everybody here should consider themselves lucky not to be subjected to that crap. http://dairycarrie.com/
There are 4 things I get from raw milk that I cannot get from commercial milk: non-pasteurized, non-homogenized, pastured, and A2 genetics. You won’t get any of these from commercial milk here in BC. Remember that all our commercial farms producing fluid milk must by law send all of it to the processors. No farm sales allowed. Almost all have only Holsteins, And last I heard, the waitlist to get quota from BCMMB was 15 years (can someone confirm?) — or, you can buy it on the exchange for $40K plus per animal. So, given the cost to just milk one cow, and that you can’t market “grass-fed milk” commercially because it all goes to the same factory in huge tanker trucks, so no-one does it. Commercial dairies are all confinement dairies – why pasture cattle and let your production drop? And you’ve got to maximize production because quota and the infrastructure that by law you need costs so much.
So, remember, raw milk up here means a lot more than just “unpasteurized.” It’s the ONLY way to get it pastured, non-homogenized, non-GMO feed, and/or A2/A2 (e.g. highest rates of these genetics in Jersey, Guernsey, Canadienne, etc.) milk right from the farm. “Farm-fresh, unprocessed milk” as the BCHA calls it is the best description, not “raw.” Straight from the farmer, from an actual farm and not a CAFO factory, single-source, and hasn’t been either cooked or had its fat globules destroyed. If your commercial farmers are legally allowed to provide this type of milk straight to the consumer in your area, then the “raw vs. not raw” for you is a totally different issue.
Oh yeah, I’ve heard rumours that there is one organic dairy (and it does its own processing) in BC which supposedly sells some small amount of non-homogenized milk in health food stores in Vancouver and supposedly it sells out as soon as it hits the shelf.
I know quite a few people who pasture their cattle, and most of them don’t have pure Holsteins (a good deal of them are crossbreds–Holstein, and otherwise). A brother to the one I mentioned above has been breeding to New Zealand Friesian for a long time (started with Holsteins), and he milks around 250+ cows on pasture, supplemented with additional feed. I don’t know what he does as far as selection in A2 genetics, but a lot of the NZ sire catalogs have it listed in the bull’s data, although more and more of the US sire companies are showing this information as well. Keep this in mind, processors aren’t interested in knowing whether or not a person has A2 genetics in their herd, even though some farmers are starting to select AI bulls for that trait. I have one sire catalog that states the Guernsey breed has the highest percentage of A2A2 milk at around 78%, A1A2 at 20%, and A1A1 at 2%. This came from animals that were tested, but no way of knowing how many there really are unless DNA testing is done. Of my herd that is either in milk, or dry, about half are around 1/4 or so Guernsey. I have some heifers, but they won’t be entering the milking string until next year. Only one of them is a little over 1/2, and a number of others have a small percentage. Without counting everybody, I’d have to say at least 50% of my entire herd has some amount Guernsey in them.
Wow, THAT much for a quota??? I’m glad we didn’t have that here, but now, I don’t have to worry about it since my milk is going to a private party. Raw milk is not legal in my state, and from what you told me about quotas and such, I guess you really can’t blame the farmer for wanting high producing Holsteins, and confinement feeding, in order to cover costs of production. I’m surprised that a lot of them even bother to milk cows. I know I wouldn’t.
There is a farm about an hour away from me, and he milks a small herd of Jerseys. He bottles the non-homogenized, ‘cream line’ milk, and sells it on his home delivery route, plus some other locations, including in the shops of my friends who make cheese out of my cows’ milk. It’s the same thing with him in that it usually sells out in a short amount of time (costs about double what it does in the grocery store). The big dairy co-ops and processors JUST DON’T GET IT. And they wonder why fluid milk is in a state of free-fall (I know that’s not the ONLY reason).
I know we may not see eye-to-eye on a few issues (you’re not the only one, though), but if you knew me personally, you’d find I’m more closer aligned to you than you’d think. But, alas, it’s the internet, so we don’t get to interact in person, and things tend to blow up from time to time.
You gotta wanna.
As to parasites, I am a firm believer you **can** control parasites in goats without chemicals. I am a believer because we do this on our farm. My son learned how to do fecals and we do them regularly on our goats to monitor parasites….so we can see how the numbers go down when we “treat” our goats….Reference: Pat Coleby….(do not assume we have zero parasites…I do not believe zero is possible without killing the animal…but the counts need to be low so as not to endanger the animal)
Note: parasite overload is largely a management issue
Note: The chemical dewormers are quickly coming to end-of-life because the parasites are mostly immune to them….ask any vet….
Remember…you cannot manage what you do not measure………measure…measure….measure…
If anyone out there is concerned about parasites in their animals….either outsource the testing or learn how to do it yourself….and then be consistent with the testing….
–bill
I was talking to someone earlier today. I met her a few months ago, and she asked if she could come by, and watch what I do. She brought her infant son along, but there was no problem with him, and he did really good while they were here. She wants to get into agriculture, and named off a few things she’d like to start with. She’s not quite ready to go the cattle route, mainly because they are large animals, but would like to work up to that point. She wants to come back tomorrow, and we’ll pick up where we left off. So, I’m mentoring someone again. I have one guy that I talk to quite frequently. He got a bred cow from me last spring, and we usually talk on the phone at least once every month or two. He’s too far away to make a personal visit (roughly 90 miles), so a phone conversation works just fine.
The people I was talking about (friends with the goats who make cheese), have also shown their goats, but don’t have much time to do so anymore. They have a totally different outlook on things because they are concerned with disease, and other things their goats can pick up, especially when they’re in contact with other goats.
I’ve heard various things about goat dewormers. One woman told me to keep a single animal as a *control* animal, and the rest should be dewormed. How do you test, and what do you do once you find out the results? Also, what do you use to control/treat parasites? My knowledge on goats is fairly limited, even though I’ve had them for quite some time,and it wasn’t until this year that I started having problems. Thanks for the info!
As for testing, we invested in a nice microscope and use a process we found on the internet. Our vet has volunteered to help us and will be double checking our testing to make sure our process finds the same/similar results as theirs….we only started this process about a month ago…we decided that managing parasite load is one of the key components to herd health and we need to know how to manage them.
As for deworming, we use the method prescribed by Pat Coleby. We have had great results for sheep and goats. In fact, we bought some sheep from a neighbor years ago and could see worm segments in the manure….Using only Pat Coleby’s methods we were able to clean up these sheep and at that time our vet did the fecals and verified they no longer had a worm load….the industry seems to be terrified of using copper…our experience over the past 8 years has shown that using Pat Coleby’s methods work….and the industrial methods are seriously failing…(I believe the commercial wormers are failing because they use them indiscriminately….i.e. they do not know if the animal needs a dewormer or not…)
If you would like to know more, we should probably take this is offline….It is good to share this information on this forum so that others might learn also…because you cannot get healthy raw milk from sick animals…
–bill
As for taking this offline, I think it would be a great idea, I just don’t know how to go about it. Any suggestions? I’d be interested in what you are doing with your animals, even if I never decide to drink raw milk. That doesn’t matter to me, because, I’d rather know what to do just in case I want to drink it that way, or want it to be healthy for others. I’m all about the freedom to choose, regardless of my raw milk beliefs. I’ll leave you with another thought–Never trade freedom for security. I’m sure you’ve probably heard that before. It’s also one of my biggest beefs with dairy, or other inspectors, regulations, etc. I’d like people to know the truth about both sides (right now, I’m referring to raw vs. pasteurized milk), and let them decide for themselves. *They* like to sometimes say, “But what about the children?”. Well, you know, as awful or heartless as this may sound, sometimes, you have collateral damage.
http://dairycarrie.com/2015/02/17/the-truth-about-coke-milk-and-fairlife/