Podcast 236 - Interview with Sally Fallon on Raw Milk

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Summary

Credit: Cassie Rauk


In this podcast Paul and Sally Fallon, co-founder of the Weston A Price Foundation, talk about Raw Milk.

The discussion first focuses on to the how pasteurized milk came to become commonplace in the markets and how raw milk is the ultimate super food. Raw Milk can help with behavior problems, asthma, allergies, constipation, digestive problems, and help people with immune system problems (like cancer). Paul's brother had an allergy problem until he started drinking the raw milk from his goats. Paul and Sally also talk about how important fat is your diet and the butter fat in full fat milk may give you the fat that you need.

Sally tells us about dentist turned food advocate Weston A. Price who studied healthy, isolated people across the world and what was it in their diets that made them so healthy.

Although there have only been a couple of deaths from raw milk that Sally can think of raw milk farmers are demonized more than other small farmers are. They discuss enormous PR campaigns and scare tactics that they use to make people scared of raw milk.

Paul and Sally move on to discuss fermented foods, washing dishes and green cleaners.

Sally mentions several resources that are listed below.

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Relevant Threads

Western A Price Foundation
Wise Traditions Conference
Raw Milk Thread
Fermentation Forum
Nourishing Traditions

Relevant Websites

Real Milk Website
Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund Website
Raw Milk Symposium Website
Canadian Consumer Raw Milk Advocacy Group


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I was very excited to listen to this podcast once I saw it come out, thank you Paul for another wonderful and free podcast! You're amazing.

I've been doing research into raw milk, and have always wanted to try it. Thanks to this podcast, I've gone ahead and added trying local MN Whole Raw Milk to my new year's resolutions. I checked out RealMilk.com and love it, what a great resource to help me complete this goal. I also checked out Farm to Consumer, and would love to support it once I can do so financially responsibly. Now, with a expired farm bill, would be a great time to make some changes in Raw Milk legislature. It's really tough to get Raw Milk in a big city.

Edit: I also want to thank Sally Fallon, she brought a lot of useful and powerful information to the table and made some really strong arguments. I'd love to hear another podcast with you two. Even if it's a paid only.

Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this podcast. I'm waiting for my young Nubian to have a kid, so I can start milking her. I decided to go this route this because raw milk is so difficult and expensive to obtain. After listening to the podcast, I want to go out to the one health food store in my 50 mile area that sells raw milk, just so I can have some now and support the dairy farmer.

It's funny, but I learned a lot about the power of raw milk to protect itself from pathogens when I researched pumping and saving my own milk for my baby. Freshly pumped human milk can sit at room temperature for quite some time and still stay safe.

I think raw milk is potentially great, I've loved raw milk cheeses, but as a denizen of "the dairy state" it's really hard to find raw milk--anybody have a reference for me in Wisconsin? (I'm closer to Madison than to Milwaukee.)

That said, as a pediatrician I urge people to exercise a little caution before giving raw milk to their kids. There have been some sad cases of kids getting sick from raw milk. Reading about those cases, one boy who got sick was a kid with asthma and allergies. His mom had read about how raw milk helps those things and was able to buy raw milk in a store (in California). Somehow a bad version of e.coli (O157H7) had got into the milk. Kids who had been drinking raw milk from this supplier for some time did not get sick, but this boy, who was having it for the first time, got very sick.

My read on that is that the raw milk had small amounts of e.coli in it previously, but not the evil 157 subtype. The kids who had been drinking the raw milk for a while had a good immune response built up for e.coli (in general) and thus their immune systems smacked down the evil e.coli when it showed up. Sadly, this one boy, already ill with allergies and asthma (and possibly with his immune system inhibited by the use of steroids), got hit with the evil e.coli in his first drink of raw milk, and it put him in the hospital. I did not take care of that boy, but I have cared for little kids sickened and hospitalized with e.coli (157) and it's a bad scene. (The little girl I took care of got it from Odwalla unpasteurized apple juice in 1996 or so--anybody remember that kerfuffle?)

My plan, if I find a source of raw milk, is to start small and probably start with fermented raw milk, like making yogurt or kefir from the raw milk. I plan to start with small amounts and work up to larger amounts, just to be safe. My kids are both over 5, but again I would go very slow with a kid less than 2 years old and maybe just stick to fermented products until age 2.

Used to get it as a kid from a farm down the road, not near where I live now unfortunately. Have never found another farmer who would for fear of a) liability and b) loosing their production quota herein Canada. Gog that was great milk!

I love the Weston Price Foundation and the Price-Pottenger foundation. There is one thing Paul talked about that Sally really didn't go into. Let me elaborate here.

I learned in the www.soilminerals.com and then in the Neil Kinsey book Agronomy and the William Albrecht books on soil minerals and animal health, that increasing the proper balance of the soil minerals (in a nutshell- Calcium 68% to magnesium 12-20%- those are your big ones- all the others - the micros all should be there and the overemphasis on NPK causes problems all by themselves, for example- "grass tetany" meaning high nitrate grass killing your animals- vs real amino acid balanced grass which will tend to have enough Ca and Mg to keep the animals healthy.

Balancing the minerals combined with composting will make your plants virtually immune to insects, make them more tolerant of frost and heat and the subject addressed by Paul, he said real food rots and the fungus like it. But in reality, when the soil minerals are available, and the plants get their nutrition, they not only are ABLE to make vitamins for us, and our animals, but they increase the refraction (called BRIX testing) meaning there is an increase of the nutrient density, and these types of produce don't rot so quickly, rather they dry out. And more immediately, they handl the strss of being pulled from the plant or the ground for a longer period and stay fresher longer. We had a home grown purple cabbage that was used in small amounts, and stayed in the fridge for over a year and when I was ready to throw it out, (feed it to the rabbits) it just had dried leaves on the outside and on the inside had began to devlop new shoots of sorts on the stem that had been cut. Now my soil mineral balacing plan has just begun last year, so I am still working on it, but in our compost boxes, we were only low on ca and sulfur- so I added gypsum to my boxes, several times to the potatoes as they need more calcium, and root vegetables need more calcium. The potatoes were more hardy to cold, and they never got their usual hornworms and we saw a few "true" bugs on the leaves, but there was no damage- no holes. I have had virtually no insect damage to my lettuce, peas, strawberries, carrots, turnips, radishes. The corn had some aphids at first, but there were some predatory tiny flies that were on those quickly, that I may have attracted with marigolds, and caledula and allyssum. And here's the interesting part- I got 4-5 ears on most of the stalks, plus producing suckers, 2-3 per stalk. And the corn was sweet. All heritage organic do i need to add?

So we must extend this to the raw milk argument. Weston Price did a study of the soil minerals all over the US, and his map was very similar to the William Albrecht maps. When Dr. Price cam back to the states, he found the most mineral dense soils and went to dairies on these soils and had them make him a special butter for his patients. And this butter was glowingly orange, and it made his young developing patients physically change. He even worked with a Down's child and made changes to his teeth and fed him his special raw butter, and the young man was still developing and he normalized to a point, which tells us our suspicions, of Down's being what Price called a "Maternal exhaustion" symptom. Meaning the mother was nutrient deficient.

So I think this says loads about Weston Price's view on soil minerals. Albrecht found arly in his carreer that Mg deficint soils caused high calf mortality and high pig and chicken mortality, mastitis, tumors, and a number of malfunctions in the animals. When the minerals were corrected, the animals thrived. So know the pasture based method MUST include soil mineral balancing. The test i got from logan labs was $20 so that's not bad. you caN'T THROW YOUR ANIMALS ON SAGEBRUSH AND EXPECT THEM TO MAKE MILK ON IT. SAGEBRUSH BY THE FACT OF IT BEING THERE IS A SIGN OF DEFICIENT SOILS. We have sagebrush, the goats are clearing it and our plan is to use their manuring and we have to import some more minerals- we feed kelp so that helps the soil (it appears they hold onto their calcium and we must correct for that and sulfur). and we have been researching high elevation especially Peruvian plants for our short season, and cold, and desert dryness, and are looking at what to best grow for our animals. And ourselves.

Very important information in this podcast. Thanks all.

Also understand this, having had raw cow milk and raw goat milk and raw sheep milk, cow milk is different from the others in that it naturally separates. It isn't fun to drink because it won't stay homogenized. It is really better for making butter. Most people have concern over taste. OK, know this, if you are using the Meyenburg store milk as an example of the terrible taste of goat milk, there are some factors that contribute to that awfulness-

1. the caprylic acid and perhaps other factors in their milk is very sensitive to pasturizaton and makes it bitter. Commercial goat butter is bitter and awful. it is ruined. If it sits too long, I can also get this flavor. But like the high brix produce, when the goats and sheep are fed high dense nutrients the milk shold be sweet and stay sweet for about 2 weeks.

2. wash your hands, wash your equipment, get stainless steel equipment without edges to hide bacteria, and don't get your fingers in the milk, don't touch the edge of the bucket that you pour from, the trick is cleanliness. There used to be a picture on the meyenburg website of a vat of milk and a staff member had her hand in it. Very, very bad.

3. Watch the dust. I keep a paper towel soaked in H2O2 over the bucket edge (it has a half moon lid) between squeezing and pouring, as dust is our worst enemy- i need to redesign my milk room to keep it out.


And watch the goat nutrition- we fed kelp free choice and were feeding rice bran until they found it was contaminated (yes human rice too, organic too) with arsenic. And we haven't yet found a comparable replacement, until we can get the pasture in shape.

If you look at the edge of the Meyenburb carton, it says "shake well" why does it say that? Hmmm? if you don't shake well, and pour it off carefully, there is a 1/4 inch layer of darker scum in the bottom. Cream rises and it is white. When i read the Milk Book by William Douglass MD, he mentioned pus in pasteurized dairy cow's milk. Perhaps, the cow milk people are better at pouring so their pus stays in the tank and not going into the cartons. If your animal is making a thin layer of pus in the bottom of the jar after it sits for a bit, I recommend a product from franklampley.com, called Vitamix. If you fed them this by the teaspoon (some will demand more- I let them have it- they seem to know best what they need). They vitamins in there lack D and E so know that, but it has very absorbable minerals that are aminoacid chelated, which is more concentrated than any human vitamin i have seen- Human vitamins are cut with fillers. And their magnesium is often an oxide, even one of my favorite green ones.

I have found bulk vitamin powdrs to add D and E online, there are a few companies that sell thes for very reasonable. In the winter and kidding time, these are pretty important. e is a lifesaver and makes the difference between a weak, floppy non nursing kid or lamb and a smart jumping around kid or lamb that found the teat on his own and will be completely taken care of by his own mama. There is also selenium in the trace mineral block as well as copper, and the kelp, we use both, we are deficient in everything here, even the sheep need copper.

I enjoyed this podcast. There was a lot of good information. I already am eating raw milk cheese and using raw milk and cream instead of pasteurized. I live in CA and can buy these things in my local market. I do have to comment on Sally telling people they can go to their local WAPF Chapter leader to learn of local, non-commercial sources of raw milk. I am a WAPF member and participate in our local chapter's email list. Our Chapter Leader has posted several times when new member s have asked for these sources that she is concerned about infiltration by members of The Department of Making You Sad who are trying to shut down these producers. She will not give out the info to new people. She cautions the members of the list not to. She checks their background (membership in other WAPF local chapters) or tells them they must become known and establish themselves (by posting on the list, demonstrating knowledge about the WAPF and attending the monthly potlucks). She is especially suspicious of folks who are told they can purchase raw milk at Oliver's (the local market) and who are still insistent about learning about the local producers right away.

Julie

Thanks, Paul! That was one of your best podcasts so far. I don't see a way to pay/donate for specific podcasts, so I bought the one you did with Art Ludwig. Maybe if you put a $1/show optional payment button people would start paying for the podcasts they really enjoy. It might give you some useful feedback, too. Chris Gallo/Laingsburg, MI

Paul mentions corn is subsidized by 80%, as part of his argument that chem ag is more expensive once the hidden costs are considered. I'm not sure where this number came from but it's inaccurate at best. Subsidies are a bit tricky to figure out, but unless corn prices fall through the floor and price guarantees kick in, it's subsidized by 28 cents per bushel which would be 4% or so. There's other subsidy for insurance, etc. but it will never add up to 80%. I'll link an explanation of subsidies below along with a list of how much was paid to who, which will definitely scare you (look at how few farms get most of the payments.

http://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php
http://farm.ewg.org/pdf/dcp2008.pdf

Subsidy database: http://farm.ewg.org/

Paul touched on dish detergents in this podcast: a subject that I have troubled over somewhat. Today I found a promising solution: http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/Makekefir.html#potash-lye

Kevin Anderson wrote:Paul mentions corn is subsidized by 80%, as part of his argument that chem ag is more expensive once the hidden costs are considered. I'm not sure where this number came from but it's inaccurate at best. Subsidies are a bit tricky to figure out, but unless corn prices fall through the floor and price guarantees kick in, it's subsidized by 28 cents per bushel which would be 4% or so. There's other subsidy for insurance, etc. but it will never add up to 80%. I'll link an explanation of subsidies below along with a list of how much was paid to who, which will definitely scare you (look at how few farms get most of the payments.

http://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php
http://farm.ewg.org/pdf/dcp2008.pdf

Subsidy database: http://farm.ewg.org/

In 2000, subsidies made up 49% of farmers income:
http://www.academia.edu/403705/Subsidies_and_Specialty_Crops_An_Analysis_of_the_Current_State_of_U.S._Agricultural_Policy

Our new spiffy banner for this podcast:

Hi Paul and everyone. Newbie here. I listened to the interview and thank you so much for all the info. I have been drinking real milk in Iowa for about 13 years now. My supplier (sounds like a drug deal doesn't it) went organic about 3 years ago. Since that time I have on a regular basis kept milk sweet for around a month. I drive 25 miles to the farm and get three gallons at a time in a three gallon bucket. When I get home I divide it into quart milk jars with narrow necks. The cream rises to the top and creates a sort of seal. Once in a while the top 16th of an inch of cream is discolored and bitter so I throw that little bit out but what's underneath is just fine. once the seal is broken on the older mild I have about 3 days to drink it before it goes "over". I should also comment that this is illegal in Iowa. So why did I wantonly break the law? Because I have Fibromyalgia Syndrome and the Wulzen factor in the raw milk helps with pain control. Plus all the things that you and Sally talked about.

Well, I agree with: raw milk is best,it' the only milk. I'd hate to drink or eat cheese, and butter from anything but. I'm not suprised to hear that the goodness of raw milk is understood here. I've posted because I'm pleased to hear the truth spoken.

We have a spread in Nevada also, the LAW is so against the selling of raw milk there, it's hard to believe.

Richard

Bump just to add my voice to the chorus proclaiming the excellence of Sally Fallon's work and insight.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sally at Sustainable Settings in Carbondale, Colorado some years ago. She is a visionary in the world of human health and nutrition.

Raw milk from grass-fed cows is REAL MILK. That simple.

Julia Winter wrote:It's funny, but I learned a lot about the power of raw milk to protect itself from pathogens when I researched pumping and saving my own milk for my baby.  Freshly pumped human milk can sit at room temperature for quite some time and still stay safe.

I think raw milk is potentially great, I've loved raw milk cheeses, but as a denizen of "the dairy state" it's really hard to find raw milk--anybody have a reference for me in Wisconsin?  (I'm closer to Madison than to Milwaukee.)

That said, as a pediatrician I urge people to exercise a little caution before giving raw milk to their kids.  There have been some sad cases of kids getting sick from raw milk.  Reading about those cases, one boy who got sick was a kid with asthma and allergies.  His mom had read about how raw milk helps those things and was able to buy raw milk in a store (in California).  Somehow a bad version of e.coli (O157H7) had got into the milk.  Kids who had been drinking raw milk from this supplier for some time did not get sick, but this boy, who was having it for the first time, got very sick.  

My read on that is that the raw milk had small amounts of e.coli in it previously, but not the evil 157 subtype.  The kids who had been drinking the raw milk for a while had a good immune response built up for e.coli (in general) and thus their immune systems smacked down the evil e.coli when it showed up.  Sadly, this one boy, already ill with allergies and asthma (and possibly with his immune system inhibited by the use of steroids), got hit with the evil e.coli in his first drink of raw milk, and it put him in the hospital.  I did not take care of that boy, but I have cared for little kids sickened and hospitalized with e.coli (157) and it's a bad scene.  (The little girl I took care of got it from Odwalla unpasteurized apple juice in 1996 or so--anybody remember that kerfuffle?)

My plan, if I find a source of raw milk, is to start small and probably start with fermented raw milk, like making yogurt or kefir from the raw milk.  I plan to start with small amounts and work up to larger amounts, just to be safe.  My kids are both over 5, but again I would go very slow with a kid less than 2 years old and maybe just stick to fermented products until age 2.

This is very educational for me as someone who is finding out about raw milk recently (literally last week). Thank you for mentioning your anecdote about e.coli, I will exercise caution when recommending people to try raw milk.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:Our new spiffy banner for this podcast:

This is what got me to click on it. I must have missed it all the previous months because it looked like an ad haha

Delia Reed wrote:Also understand this, having had raw cow milk and raw goat milk and raw sheep milk, cow milk is different from the others in that it naturally separates. It isn't fun to drink because it won't stay homogenized. It is really better for making butter. Most people have concern over taste. OK, know this, if you are using the Meyenburg store milk as an example of the terrible taste of goat milk, there are some factors that contribute to that awfulness-

1. the caprylic acid and perhaps other factors in their milk is very sensitive to pasturizaton and makes it bitter. Commercial goat butter is bitter and awful. it is ruined. If it sits too long, I can also get this flavor. But like the high brix produce, when the goats and sheep are fed high dense nutrients the milk shold be sweet and stay sweet for about 2 weeks.

2. wash your hands, wash your equipment, get stainless steel equipment without edges to hide bacteria, and don't get your fingers in the milk, don't touch the edge of the bucket that you pour from, the trick is cleanliness. There used to be a picture on the meyenburg website of a vat of milk and a staff member had her hand in it. Very, very bad.  

3. Watch the dust. I keep a paper towel soaked in H2O2 over the bucket edge (it has a half moon lid) between squeezing and pouring, as dust is our worst enemy- i need to redesign my milk room to keep it out.


And watch the goat nutrition- we fed kelp free choice and were feeding rice bran until they found it was contaminated (yes human rice too, organic too) with arsenic. And we haven't yet found a comparable replacement, until we can get the pasture in shape.

If you look at the edge of the Meyenburb carton, it says "shake well" why does it say that? Hmmm? if you don't shake well, and pour it off carefully, there is a 1/4 inch layer of darker scum in the bottom. Cream rises and it is white. When i read the Milk Book by William Douglass MD, he mentioned pus in pasteurized dairy cow's milk. Perhaps, the cow milk people are better at pouring so their pus stays in the tank and not going into the cartons. If your animal is making a thin layer of pus in the bottom of the jar after it sits for a bit, I recommend a product from franklampley.com, called Vitamix. If you fed them this by the teaspoon (some will demand more- I let them have it- they seem to know best what they need). They vitamins in there lack D and E so know that, but it has very absorbable minerals that are aminoacid chelated, which is more concentrated than any human vitamin i have seen- Human vitamins are cut with fillers. And their magnesium is often an oxide, even one of my favorite green ones.

I have found bulk vitamin powdrs to add D and E online, there are a few companies that sell thes for very reasonable. In the winter and kidding time, these are pretty important. e is a lifesaver and makes the difference between a weak, floppy non nursing kid or lamb  and a smart jumping around kid or lamb that found the teat on his own and will be completely taken care of by his own mama. There is also selenium in the trace mineral block as well as copper, and the kelp, we use both, we are deficient in everything here, even the sheep need copper.  

Hi - on the matter of the rice being contaminated with too much arsenic, I have read that the Lundberg brand has much less, something with their practices and on purpose to deal with this arsenic issue. I don't know if this is with all of their rice or only their organic, I didn't research further as I don't eat a ton of it . So, I buy their brand primarily for my rice and gluten free rice pasta as I'm allergic to gluten. I order from Vitacost online as I don't make it to those towns often enough, with time to shop ( I am all for shopping locally ) but I do know of some stores not far from me here in western Wisconsin which carry some of their products. The article I was reading on the ( arsenic in rice ) topic only said that one should limit the amount that they eat of it, especially addressing those for whom it's a staple. Do your own research, obviously ! I'm just saying that folks don't necessarily have to give up rice completely.

Great podcast.  

I'm a big fan of raw milk when I can get it.  But not easy here.

One of the brands sells unhomogenised milk in the stores and it's much easier to digest the the regular stuff.  A compromise.