Great article on Raw Milk

This is being reposted from PureZing.com.

Pasteurized vs. Raw Milk
Information from ‘The Raw Truth About Milk’ William Campbell Douglass II, MD (pgs. 13-28)

Pasteurized Milk:

• Pasteurization may be used to mask low-quality milk
• Heat destroys a great number of bacteria in milk and thus conceals the evidence of dirt, pus and dirty dairy practices. To combat the increase in pathogens milk goes through ‘clarification’, ‘filtering’, ‘bactofugation’ and two ‘deariation’ treatments. Each of these treatments uses heat ranging from 100-175 degrees Fahrenheit. Dairies count on many heat treatments to mask their inferior sanitary conditions: milk filled with pus, manure and debris.
• Homogenization of milk causes leucocytes (pus) to settle as sediment in the bottom of milk. The milk industry calls this pus sediment ‘slime’: a grayish-oily sludge. This slime is removed by ‘clarification’
• Pasteurization destroys vitamin C, and damages the water soluble B vitamins diminishing the nutrient value of milk
• Calcium and other minerals are made unavailable by pasteurization
• Milk enzymes, proteins, antibodies as well as beneficial hormones are destroyed by pasteurization resulting in devitalized ‘lifeless’ milk. Milk enzymes help digest lactose and both enzymes and milk proteins help to absorb vitamins
• Pasteurized milk is more likely to lead to decay in teeth and interferes with the proper development of the teeth
• Infants do not develop well on pasteurized milk
• Pasteurization removes the stimulus to remove diseased animals from milking herds
• Pasteurization has contributed to an increase in allergies
• Pasteurized milk can be held for as many as four to five days in holding silos. The date on the carton is calculated from the time of bottling, not the date of milking
• It’s cheaper to produce dirty milk and kill the bacteria by heat, that to maintain a clean dairy and keep cows healthy
• Consumer Reports found 44% of 125 pasteurized milk samples contained as many as 2200 organisms per cubic centimeter (fecal bacteria, coliforms)

Raw Milk

• Raw milk may contain no more than 10 coliforms per cubic centimeter
• Raw milk is usually bottled and sold within 24 hours, and yet can be held safely for four to five days because of the strict standards required of the raw milk dairies. The milk is also clean because the natural enzymes in raw milk eat and destroy any pathogens.
• Raw milk is not homogenized. Homogenization destroys milk fat which releases lipase which turns milk rancid.
• Raw milk is filled with fat digesting enzymes (removal of these enzymes by pasteurization causes lactose intolerance)
• Raw milk is filled with absorbable calcium, vitamin C and minerals
• Raw milk does not have the cream ‘skimmed’ from it. Cream contains CLA (cancer fighting and immune boosting organisms). Absence of cream (non-fat milk) is called ‘blue milk’ in the dairy industry and is poured into the ground as it makes animals sick
• Pasteurization was originally used to clean up milk from filthy diaries at the turn of the century. Rather than cleaning up the diaries, pasteurization has enabled dairies to continue to produce dirty milk: cheaply. Raw milk does not need to be boiled, clarified, filtered, aerated and bactofugated. It is clean and healthy. It is the mainstream dairies that are dirty. Contact your state representatives concerning the legalization of raw milk. Demand that they not be swayed by the high paying lobbyists of the dairy industry who would rather produce dirty, cheap milk than spend the money on clean dairies and healthy cows.

Finally a raised garden!!!

After living in this house for four years, we're finally putting in raised garden beds!!! Yay! In the past, I've just had a small area for gardening in the landscape beds that produced "eh" results. Lots of strawberries, some zucchini, etc. Usually I supplemented with a weekly CSA delivery (love love love Community Supported Agriculture). CSA's force me to be creative with what's in the box...  but I've always wanted to experiment with lots of other veggies myself.  :)

So off to Home Depot I went to buy enough cedar for three large beds. NOT....... Holy cow! Sticker shock! So after talking with the HD guy for a bit, he explained that fir would be fine for about 4-5 years. Cedar (at triple the cost) would last more like 8-9 years as a garden bed. Decision made! So I bought enough lumber for three raised beds. All were built with 1x12's and 4x4 posts in each corner. The largest bed is 10'x4', then 8'x4', then 6'x4'. It actually looks really pretty staggered in size like that for the sunny area we chose.

I got the design idea from Anything Pretty. Fun website for doing various DIY type projects to make your house pretty! Once I saw how simple it was to build the beds, I knew I had to build some right away before we got too far into spring.

And then of course, right AFTER I built them and we spent all afternoon FILLING them with soil... my mom says, "Oh look at the latest Sunset Garden magazine I bought this morning! It has a whole section dedicated to raised garden beds!" OF COURSE! :) The website shows the same design I did, but the magazine itself has several extra ideas I definitely wish I had done. So for you readers, here are some additional tips if you decide to build raised beds.

• Add remesh (mesh rebar) to the bottom of each bed so moles don't dig UP into your garden. We have lots of moles around here, so I wish I had done this.
• Add 1" pipes and pipe clamps (before filling it with soil) so it can easily be covered during bad weather or problems with animals.  With the 1" pipes clamped all around, you can quickly attach 3/4" pipe to make a canopy frame and throw a tarp or netting over the top.  I might add this next year.  :)
• Add 4x4 posts to the OUTSIDE of your project rather than on the INSIDE.  I made mine like Jenny from Anything Pretty for structural reasons.  I wanted to make sure the garden beds were nice and square.  And Sunset Garden did that too... but they had several other photos where the 4x4 posts were put on the OUTSIDE so a 1x12 could be placed on top as a bench.  LOVE this idea!  I could do that on mine now, but then it would cover up a small portion of my soil for planting.  

So excited to start planting!  My first project is to move my ENORMOUSLY overgown strawberry patch into the largest planting bed...   See there to the right of the bamboo?  That USED to be my garden area, but the strawberries smothered everything out.  To the right of the strawberries are five blueberry plants that I'm trying to grow.........  :)