Organic milk

I've written before about milk -- about the risks of bovine hormones that boost production and the absurdity of our laws that require milk to be pasteurized (and the common misconception that "raw" milk is unsafe). You can usually find milk that is "homone free" or "rBGH" free and that's a good start. Additionally, organic milk has become widely available and will continue to be more available and more affordable (for better or worse is a whole other topic). Organic milk must come from "organic cows" just as with organic beef. This requires certification and compliance with USDA rules. Organic cows cannot be injected with hormones, and cannot be given antibiotics except sometimes in limited situations where the health of the animal is truly at issue (this is a point that has developed some controversy as without some flexibility a cow would either have to be left to suffer and die as an "organic cow" or given the necessary drugs and then perhaps sold to a factor farm now that it lost its organic status or separated from the organic herd for at least a year).

Additionally, organic cows must have access to pasture. They truly need to be able to walk around and eat grass when possible. This can be difficult depending on the season and geography, and certainly favors smaller farms as requirements of rotational grazing, herding, etc. clearly become more problematic when you go from 300 cows to 1,000 to 5,000. The good news is cows like to graze. It's in their nature. Farmers report that cows run to the pasture enthusiasm (for a cow) -- not unlike a dog that gets excited to go outside. And as I've discussed so many times, grass is what a cow is meant to eat. When you feed an animal its natural diet it will be healthier (thus the significantly reduced need for banned antibiotics, etc.) and it will produce healthier food for humans. Organic milk has been found to produce as much as 500x more beneficial fatty acids (particularly conjugated linoleic acid or CLA), anticarcinogens and vitamin E as conventional milk where cows are fed a "grain diet" (corn). Other benefits include 75% more vitamin A and 2-3x more antioxidants. And of course there are no traces of those hormones and antibiotics, which are significantly more dangerous to children than adults.

There are many concerns as the industry develops. The nation's largest producer of organic milk is Aurora Organic Dairy. They have been a center of controversy from the start, as chronicled in Samuel Fromartz's book Organic, Inc. And they remain representative of the problems in this industry. Aurora Dairy is huge. Unlike most organic dairy farms, they operate on a huge scale and use industrial-scale dairies more like massive conventional dairy farms. They are one of the primary suppliers to Wal-Mart, Target, Safeway and Costco, among others. Unfortunately, they have always had a problem with the grazing requirements. In 2007 the USDA found them to have "willfully" violated numerous USDA organic regulations. Earlier this month they made negative headlines again when The Cornucopia Institute filed a formal complaint with the USDA that Aurora was failing to comply with USDA organic guidelines in at least one dairy.

While perhaps technically in compliance, you may also want to avoid the largest brands in general. Horizon is owned by Dean Foods, and has been found to also represent much of what is wrong in the direction of organic milk today. They pioneered ultrapasteurization that heats milk to even higher levels to increase shelf life for distant transportation, but exacerbates the problems of pasteurization. Also at the bottom of organic milk surveys are most store brands (with the notable exception of Whole Foods 365, which has been deemed "excellent").

Raw dairy

If you talk to me about food for more then 2 minutes you'd probably think I'm a conspiracy theorist. This is because I basically believe the USDA (and the FDA, among others) is out to get us. They are tasked with making sure the food we eat is safe, but what they really do is promote policies with not food safety in mind, but trade, Big Agra and and public opinion. A perfect example of this is rBGH -- a bovine growth hormone that is outlawed in virtually every first world country due to links to various cancers and other health risks (not to mention making cows very sick) but the USDA seems to think it's fine. This could have something to do with Monsanto making the stuff (call me crazy). But that's a conversation for another day. Even when rBGH is not used (such as in organic milk, or one of the thousounds of milk and cheese processors that refuses to use it -- pay attention and you'll see "hormone free" or "rBGH free" on all sorts of dairy products) the dairy is still pasteurized. A movement has been growing, however, that appreciates "raw" milk products. This really just means unpasteurized (a/k/a the way dairy was consumed for thousands of years).

I won't get into the various arguments for or against raw milk, but suffice it to say that pasteurized milk is considered by many to be unhealthy, and it's only getting worse. To facilitate the transport and shelf life of milk, much is now being "ultrapasteurized" -- including the major organic milk brands like Horizon. This means the milk is now heated at even higher temperatures and therefore more dangerous -- depending on your view. The arguments essentially point out that pasteurization was implemented to help keep milk healthy as we started to produce it in great quantities and ship it all over. But if you drink milk locally, from someone who cares for their cows and the milk they produce, pasteurization is unnecessary. And with raw milk you get the health benefits of milk without the lactose intolerance and other health issues. More on that here.

I live in Chicago, and in the state of Illinois (and most U.S. states with California as a notable exception) it is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk (you can sell raw cheese but not raw butter). One way people get around this is by owning part of an animal. The logic goes that the government cannot (or at least doesn't) prevent you from drinking the milk of your own cow or goat however you want -- so people will be a 1,000th of a goat. These are sometimes called "dairy shares" and one such farm by Chicago is the James Family Farm.

Cheese is permitted to be raw -- and you can actually find raw cheeses in a lot of grocery stores in nice neighborhoods now (one or two at least), at Farmers Markets (a company may not be all raw but might have one or two that are), and then there are the cheese you can find in stores all over that don't advertise that they are raw but they are. Here I'm talking about types of blue cheeses which are not infrequently raw. Check the label -- if the milk is pasteurized it will say so.