How Raw Milk Changed Your Children’s Food Security

This 4-part article explores how the 1987 ban came about and what it means to your food security today

A “scientific” ideology banned raw milk and vilified mothers who chose it anyway. Behind this, was a wealthy philanthropist pushing his agenda and setting the stage for the demise of the small farmer and food security in America.

Part 1

In the opening scenes of the famous musical Fiddler on The Roof, our hero–Tevye–arranges his milk cart.

As the overture plays, drawing us into the scene and his inner musings on “Tradition!” he and his horse drive through the village serving his community with the milk from his cows and the cheeses he makes from that milk.

He is a farmer. A milkman. He is central to his community.

He dips his ladle into his milk can and pours the liquid into the waiting pitchers of the women. The activity of feeding his community is a small detail almost lost in the background of the plot–an illustration of a challenging time in 1905 Imperial Russia. It is lost in the background because of its normalcy. In this illustration of a time long ago, there was nothing unusual about a milkman feeding his community. It was what happened in many civilizations for millennia. The drama of the story unfolds as a controlling ideology comes closer into village life, destroying what they treasured and leaving them to ruin.

This is not a story about imperialism. It is about raw milk. It is about how this life-giving food has become a villain in modern America.

What Happened To Change How We View Raw Milk?

Raw milk–it is a food that is obscure to many Americans. Do you fear it? Despise it? Are you curious about it? We’ve been told that raw milk is dangerous. Is it?

Forgotten details of American history allow us to explore the topic and untangle our societal prejudice against it. Perhaps understanding the facts of our history will help us to understand how we got here and how we can make better decisions for the future.

The history is a tangled web of greed, deceit, and control.

Raw Milk Is a Significant Food for Civilization

Raw dairy is a perfect food–one of the two foods designed by nature to nourish the young (honey is the other). It is rich in nutrients humans need–filled with protein, fats, and sugars. It contains vitamins and minerals. It has vital enzymes that help our bodies absorb and use these nutrients. For example, lactase helps us digest the lactose (sugars), while the phosphatase helps us absorb phosphorus. Raw milk is probiotic, containing bacteria that help our own microbiomes thrive and that allow milk to change into other desirable foods.

There is nothing more basic between a mother and child than milk. Historically, a mother nurtures her child on the milk she produces. For the first few months of life, the child gets all the nutrients he or she needs from this wonderful mechanism our creator bestowed on all mammals.

We humans are not special in this regard.

For millennia, human civilizations have relied on a relationship between us and other mammals–most notably cows, goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo, and horses.

Not every civilization developed these relationships. But in those civilizations that did, milk became a fundamental ingredient in their food security.

There were 2 things that were true across the cultures that had dairy:

It was local.

It was primarily consumed raw.

In some lands, because these were warm climates, there was no way to keep dairy cold. It would immediately begin its fermentation process. Cow and water buffalo milk turn to clabber (drinkable yogurt), goat and sheep milk become yogurt, while camel and horse milk transform to a sour kefir-like drink.

These fermented dairy products brought life to the cultures that depended on them. They were often revered.

In time, cheese became a way we learned to preserve milk. All types of milks could be crafted into cheeses specific to their regions.

What happened that changed raw milk from a staple of civilization to something obscure, scary, reviled, and even criminal?

It all started with whisky…

Part 2 — The Entangled Relationship Between War, Whisky, and Milk