by Kevin E. Abrams

The Untold Story of Milk, by Ron Schmid, N.D., could also be A Complete History of Milk in North America, possible material for a Michael Moore documentary. A practising naturopathic physician, MIT graduate, teacher at all four of America’s naturopathic medical schools, and past Clinic Director and Chief Medical Officer at the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine, the author sifts through the political, medical and corporate currents that swept us from green pastures and the healthy, certified, raw-milk dairies of yesterday, to the centralized collection, pasteurisation, homogenisation and distribution of most dairy products today. Cardiologist Doctor Kurt Oster writes, “Milk has been changed over the years by processing, into an unrecognizable physicochemical emulsion which bears very little resemblance to the original, natural, and nutritional milk.”

The story really begins with the American/British war of 1812, which resulted in the severing of America’s whiskey supply from the British East Indies and the birth of the domestic liquor industry. By 1814, every major [American] city had one or more distilleries, where grains were turned into whiskey. As cities grew, demand for milk and whiskey increased. The distillation process produced an acid refuse known as “distillery slop”, which was then fed to cows. For convenience, owners housed cows in confinement stalls next to distilleries, feeding hot slop directly to the animals as it poured off the stills. The (swill or blue) milk, Schmid writes, “was defective in properties (enzymes) essential to good milk,” and could not be made into butter or cheese.

The great debate in science and medicine during the latter half of the 19th century, was about microbes vs milieu (terrain) in the etiology (basis) of infectious disease. Initially, pasteurisation of milk was introduced as a convenient catch-all remedy to kill pathogens in swill and inferior-quality milk. But forced universal pasteurisation, then homogenization, gave rise to a basic contradiction in substance and form--the widely known health benefits of certified raw milk were lost, the popular white-milk mustache now a macabre parody plagiarised from the days of the genuine health benefits of raw milk.

The author writes, “Conventional Medicine is (today) fully committed to the use of drugs, rather than (healthy) food in the treatment of illness.” However, he explains, contrary to `informed’ opinion, “raw milk has been one of mankind’s chief protectors from the ravages of tuberculosis and other dreaded diseases.” Schmid asserts, “Misinformation has inculcated in most Americans (and Canadians) an irrational fear of healthy raw milk,” and that, “Raw milk is a movement whose time has come.” The Untold Story of Milk “will serve as a catalyst for that movement, providing consumers with the facts and inspiration they need to “embrace Nature’s perfect food.”

Additional Resources:
Keeping a Family Cow: www.real-food.com/
Campaign for Real Milk: www.realmilk.com/
The Weston Price Foundation: www.westonaprice.org/