Our Journey to Raw Milk

About three years ago I first started learning about raw milk and the incredible health differences between it and the pasteurized, homogenized milk most people buy at the store. At that time, I wrote a post with more details and included URLs to the most helpful sites I found in my quest for more information on this topic. You can find that here.

Two years ago, when we moved back west to a rural town, I happily thought, Maybe this way we can get 1) chickens and 2) a cow share! As you know, we reached goal #1 this spring and are now enjoying homegrown eggs. Goal #2 has recently been reached too, in a way... I found a generous family not far away who is getting too much milk from their cow and is willing to give us a few gallons a week. I can't tell you how excited that made me, when they first agreed to it! While this probably isn't a permanent situation (the family is trying to give up their remaining half cow share and I can't currently commit to the milking myself), it has been very fun to have this experience.

I have a cousin in Missouri who has been buying raw milk from a farmer for a few years now and here is what she has noticed about the differences in her family's health:

• Her oldest daughter's perpetual allergies are now gone.
• She and her husband both have more energy.
• Her third and fourth children never developed asthma.
• Colds went from 7 or 8 per person per year to 1 or 2. And when they do get sick they get over it faster.
• They all sleep better.

She acknowledges, "There are a lot of things that could affect all this, but I think it's safe to say that switching milk has something to do with at least some of them."

As for me, my family had never tried raw milk before these past few weeks and it took a bit of getting used to, but now I do think it tastes better than the processed stuff from the store. And I can do so much with it!

More about that in my next post...