Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #70: Your Health Questions Answered: Is Raw Milk Safe & Which Type Is Best?

Transcript

Episode #70: Your Health Questions Answered: Is Raw Milk Safe & Which Type Is Best? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: When the milk is pasteurized, not only are many of the nutrients in that milk destroyed, and/or the bioavailability of those nutrients are destroyed, like vitamin C, calcium, folate, other B vitamins, vitamin A and D, some of the minerals, levels of iodine are lower in pasteurized milk.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: The list goes on and on, right?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you you're basically destroying the micronutrient composition of this milk that God so beautifully designed.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're also destroying what they call microbes, right?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: These are the probiotics, such as the bifidobacteria.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: These are largely killed when the milk is pasteurized.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And bifidobacteria can help the body, as I said, digest the sugars and other large molecules in the milk.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: It can also help fight off possible bacterial infections like E.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: coli.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you kill off that bifidobacteria, you're actually making the milk more likely to carry an infectious organism.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome everybody to the Beyond Labels podcast with yours truly, Joel Salatin, the farmer, and Dr.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Cena McCullough, our favorite researcher.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today's uh podcast, we're gonna focus on one of our listeners' questions.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We love we love questions, uh, and because that helps you talk to us.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We know what you're interested in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the question today is about uh raw milk and babies.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so Cena's gonna read the question and start a response, and we'll we'll talk about it here for the next uh 30 minutes.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Great, thanks, Joel.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this question comes from Dominic Trust.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Dominic says, Hi, Cena and Joel.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I just recently subscribed to your podcast, and I'm totally enjoying the wealth of information you both have given me in such a short time.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: My question is, if you guys can give me some deeper information on feeding raw milk to newborn babies under six months old.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have some great experience to share from your research or your own experience.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be very pleased to hear from you.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks and have a great day, Dominic.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right, I love this question.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is a very complicated question.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'd like to do is talk about different facets of raw milk, um, including this, you know, everyone's first question about it is the safety of raw milk.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd like to cover the safety of raw milk, benefits of raw milk compared to um pasteurized milk, and also discussed how not all milk is created equal.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So not just raw milk versus pasteurized milk, but not all raw milk is created equal.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's certain things I look for in raw milk.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope to cover all of that.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Does that sound good, Joel?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds good.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: That was a little more than I was uh expecting, but that's that's more so yeah.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, as I said, it's very complicated.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so um I I think the scientific consensus, without a doubt, uh promotes uh breast milk over cow's milk or goat milk or any type of non-human milk.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's say that out at the at the beginning of this.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Breast milk is going to be superior to any other option, okay?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, particularly if the mother is consuming um a clean diet, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Food that has been organically or regeneratively grown.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: So no GMOs, no glyphosate or other toxins, and not in taking um heavy metals from you know the water and stuff like that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So mother's diet is also very important and determines how healthy the human milk is.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now there are some situations where it's not possible to feed your child breast milk, um, you know, from yourself, for instance.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I went through a situation like that.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, Dominic, yes, I actually have a personal experience with feeding my baby raw milk from actually goats and then later from cows.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a whole nother story.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but sometimes women aren't able to produce enough milk for their babies, so you look for an alternative.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to use formula, of course, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's just processed food for for babies.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I did feed um my my little Trinity.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: She did she did consume raw milk, and what I did was I created a recipe.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't just give her raw milk straight.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I started with Weston Price's recipe for um raw milk uh formulation for babies.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: They they Weston Price actually has a published recipe that they use.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's one recipe that you would use for cow's milk, raw cow's milk, and there's another recipe you would use for raw goat's milk.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I did try both of them.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, as I said, I modified this recipe based on my baby's individual needs and how her development changed.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: So what stage of development she was in.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And um, happy to say she thrived on it.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like she every time I went to the pediatrician for one of those well checks, the pediatrician was amazed.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: She'd be like, She's only six months old, but she looks like she's 12 months old.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's so developed and healthy and robust.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: So it did work for us, okay?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now uh Cena, for those who may not be uh aficionados with Weston A.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Price Foundation, um, maybe it'd be good to give a couple of the basic foundations of that homemade formula because I know that is a huge thing within the Weston A.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Price Foundation context.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it has certainly it has certainly liberated um many babies from either institute industrial formula uh or or just kind of you know colican concoctions.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so maybe maybe a couple of the basic ideas behind that homemade uh formula from WA from we call we call them whappers uh from Western Price Foundation.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, yes, and as to echo that sentiment, many babies have been reported to thrive based on this formula.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it is in so you can find it online.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can also find it in the Nourishing Traditions book of baby and child care that was written by um Sally Fallon and Dr.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas Cowan, um, one of you know, both friends of the show.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the gist of this is that you start with this raw formula, this raw milk, and obviously from a source you trust, we'll get into that later.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you start with this raw milk, and you're going to add things to it to try to get it to more closely mimic mother's breast milk.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: And this is mimicking mother's breast milk from decades ago when we were healthier.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So they looked at data from mothers from, you know, back like I think before the 1950s or something.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was before we ate an excessive amount of omega-6 fatty acids, for instance, and they tried to mimic the fatty acid composition for, for example, um, from that mother's milk.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start out with your raw milk, and then you're gonna add things to it, like like you're gonna add water to it, for instance, but you're also gonna add things like coconut oil and um and let's see, there's cod liver oil, particularly for the vitamin A.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You're adding um olive oil, sunflower oil.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: So you're adding all these good healthy fats.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're adding extra cream to it for more healthy fats.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: You're also adding bifidobacterium to help boost the you know, the microbiome, and and we'll talk about them a little bit, but bifidobacterium also helps to digest the milk, um, especially the carbohydrates in it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it and it also helps to um produce different nutrients in the gastrointestinal tract and so forth.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: They also add things like nutritional yeast to it, uh, particularly for B vitamins, acerola powder, this is for vitamin C, and um coconut oil, if I didn't say that one already, uh, things like gelatin and lactose.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: So they have this whole formulation.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I batched prepared it, so I didn't have to do it every day.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then like I said, I modified this based on what my my child needed and what stage of development she was in.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the foundation of this recipe that they've created.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's been very successful in helping babies thrive.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: That that's fair enough.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm assuming that this question is not either all raw milk or all breast milk.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It it's uh I'm assuming that this is a a question of when can I start with just unmodified raw milk.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming that's the I'm assuming that's the question here.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and uh so it's hard to tell.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Is it that is it partly because it's a safety, they're wondering about the safety of it for a baby under six months.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not quite sure.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just try to address both of those, okay?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um so yeah, yeah.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are able to breastfeed, then then the preference would be to breastfeed, you know, through maybe perhaps even two years.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is very personalized, you know, um personalized situation.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So my thought is two around two years would be a good point to continue to breastfeed the child.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Typically they say, well, nowadays they start saying introduce foods at around six months, you know, and you do it in various stages, introducing certain foods at different time periods.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's also controversial.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Some people like to wait until closer to a year mark.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if the baby is able to consume and you're able to produce the human breast milk, I would not introduce a cow's milk before the age of six months.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't have another option, right, from like what I previously described, then I would go to some kind of raw formula that you're making, a raw recipe, either from the cow's milk or the goat milk.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there's pros and cons to each of those, um, uh, which we can also get into, you know, based on the type of um of casing largely that's that's produced from the cow's milk versus the goat's milk.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, do you want to get into that before we talk about the um the safety issues with it?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I think I think that'd be fine to just uh differentiate cow milk from goat milk.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's uh in in general, I know um goat milk is a little more uh gentle.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and and so yeah, you you can go into that, and then yeah, then we ought to get into safety and probably just um uh I mean you you opened a little bit of a can of worms there by saying all milk is not equal, and uh we'd probably better touch on that a little bit.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead with the difference, the difference between cow's milk and and goat milk.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so let's let's group that in with this whole not all raw milk is created equal.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about the the difference in the casein.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So all milk contains a protein that's called casein.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's different types of casein.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: There's a1 casein and a2 casein, or at least those are the main types that we distinguish between, um, you know, typically.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So one of these forms, A1, is the form that has been associated with triggering autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the A2 casein has not been associated in the scientific literature with triggering autoimmune diseases.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Most milk in the US that's produced from cows comes from cows with the A1 genotype.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we call this A1 milk.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: These are usually like a Holstein cow, and they were a lot of them were originated in Northern Europe and they're brought to the United States for their high milk production.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: So this A1 milk actually usually contains A1 casein and A2 casein.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as I said, A1 casein has actually closely been associated with developing autoimmune and chronic diseases.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one example is in 2017, uh Nutrition and Diabetes Journal actually concluded that A1 milk is the primary causal trigger for type 1 diabetes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's also been associated in the literature with increased mortality from heart disease.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you have gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, A1 can actually be a problem.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And this comes into play when you're trying to decide uh what type of milk you're going to supplement your child with, you know, whether they're under six months of age or over six months of age.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you suspect that the child has gluten sensitivity, then you don't want to give A1 milk because there's a process in the body called molecular mimicry.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's where the body gets confused.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: It can't tell the difference between that A1 casein protein and a gluten protein.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when that happens, the body considers the A1 protein to be a foreign invader, like it would for gluten, and it initiates an inflammatory response.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that can actually trigger disease in the body.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you have gluten sensitivity and you've just consumed gluten, even though all you consumed was the A2 casein.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: So A2 casein carries with it now in the scientific literature this kind of shadow of I can create autoimmune diseases, I can exacerbate these chronic diseases, and I can um trigger disease in people, especially ones that have gluten sensitivity.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now A2, no, go ahead.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: You mean you mean A1, not A2.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, A1 on the group.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: You said A2 there twice, and I wanted to uh make sure that we're that we're on the same page.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry, sorry.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's A1, it's A1 that is the the trigger for the celiac and the autoimmune and the things.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not A2.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why in the raw milk, the raw milk movement right now, there is a push for raw milk dairies.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're they're aware of this, but this this development of of predominantly A1 milk has been many decades developing, and there simply aren't it it it takes time for farmers to uh get through the a the a the A1 you know milk and get the genetics for A2.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: There are now 100% A2A2 dairies, but uh um they're they're they're definitely uh pardon the pun, they're definitely the cream of the crop.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, in the raw milk movement, the 100% A2A2 dairies.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here, here at at our farm, uh we sell 100% A2A2 grass-fed um milk from a from a uh a Mennonite a Mennonite dairy about 30 miles away that uh that has tested all their cows, and their cows are not Holsteins, they're the old low-line Frisians uh genetics from New Zealand from way back in the you know 1930s, and uh they don't they don't give as much milk as a big old Holstein, but um it's all A2A2, it's good stuff.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, and A2, as we're learning in the scientific literature, they're kind of catching up that this A2 milk can have benefits.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for instance, as I said, the A1 casein looks like uh can look like gluten and initiate an immune response.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: We're thinking that A2 casein does actually not look structurally similar enough to gluten to initiate that immune response.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, is it theoretically possible that A2 casein can trigger an immune response through molecular mimicry?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but the chance is much lower, obviously, than with A1 casein.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that means people with gluten sensitivity may in fact be able to consume A2 dairy.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Also, A2 milk doesn't contain the same morphine-like compounds that A1 milk contains.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So A1 casein contains a subprotein known as casomorphine.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's released when the body digests the A1 protein.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And just like the name sounds, casomorphine looks and acts like morphine, it suppresses pain.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: So when you drink A1 milk, you tend to have a feel-good response to it, right?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so oftentimes when I'm working with clients and I'm telling them that dairy is one of the top triggers for autoimmune disease, they won't believe me because they'll say, no, because when I drink milk, I feel good, right?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, how can something that makes me feel good be causing me to be inflamed and exacerbate my sickness?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that casomorphin overrides the pain, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it gives you this kind of high feeling, which addicts you to it.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if even if so, even if it's causing the inflammation, it can actually override the pain, keep you addicted to it, so you keep drinking the very same thing that's causing you to be sick.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the the casomorphine compounds in A2 milk have totally different functions than the compounds in the A1 milk.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: So um, we know that the digestion of the A1 casein can actually contribute to diseases and aging.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, literature will show um associations between all different types of autoimmune conditions, autoimmune and chronic conditions.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we know that the A2 casein, when it's broken down in the body, it actually has antihypertensive properties and it has antioxidant properties.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you can consume the A2 milk and boost your level, for example, of glutathione, which glutathione is one of the most powerful antioxidants that we know of in the body.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it has a major role in things like immune response and defense against disease and gene expression.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: So um A2 casein can actually help protect you from disease, as we're finding.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: So these are very different, um very different functions that we see, even though they're both like cow milk that's A1A1 versus cow milk that's A2A2.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying they're not equal because they're both raw, they're both from a cow, but A2A2 milk can actually benefit you and lower your risk of disease in some individuals, where A1 milk can actually fuel disease in some individuals.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, goat milk is largely A2 milk.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that would fall under this, you know, this healthier categories of milk.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is that one of the reasons why historically, uh, Cena, is that one of the reasons historically why goat milk has has tended to be the preferred milk for um, you know, for for medicinal reasons and for babies as opposed to cow's milk, simply because virtually all goats' milk is A2 as opposed to cow's milk?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and but there's also, I mean, yes, that is true, but we also we didn't always know about A2, right?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So part of it was a size factor.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're thinking about other components that are in milk, one of the components is this insulin-like growth, growth factor.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: All right, and so a cow is much bigger than a goat, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Typically a dairy cow is bigger than a goat.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And while we also have, right, I don't want to say 100% of the time, there could be an anomaly, I don't know, but there they seem to be smaller.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and people are actually going towards like these dwarf goats, right?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because one reason is because um the level of insulin-like growth factor is lower.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is a concern in consuming too much of insulin-like growth factor.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: It has been associated in the literature with increased susceptibility to cancers, including childhood cancers.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so even bread, even human breast milk has insulin-like growth factor, but it doesn't have as high of levels as milk from a cow, for example.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you get down to like a dwarf goat, it's gonna have uh a lower level of insulin like growth factor, more closely associated with the human breast milk.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that so that is um a concern amongst some groups of some nutritionists.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I follow, I fit into that category.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I've researched insulin like growth factor in great depth when I studied.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Common at bovine growth hormone.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: The first genetically engineered hormone introduced to our food supply through cows to get them to be produce more cow milk.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: There was a problem with that hormone causing more insulin-like growth factor to be produced, right?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Made the cow sicker and it made the humans sicker who consumed it.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So there is an association there.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so my tendency would be go toward like a dwarf, um, a dwarf goat.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, interestingly, what we're finding is that there are people and babies that are having problems digesting the goat milk.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: So for instance, my little Trini, I started her first on a raw goat milk formulation.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: She couldn't digest it very well.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I and Weston Price notes this too in their book.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually had that's why I had to switch her to the A2, A2, you know, 100% regeneratively raised um cow milk that I then I then reformulated because she couldn't digest well the goat milk.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's highly individualized on you know what the baby needs.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and part of it's gonna be just trial and error, like I did.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Try them on the one that you think would be the best.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if that one doesn't work, then try the other option, you know.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: What I would not do is try an A1 milk.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like that, I would my family, we do not drink A1 products.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: If we're going to consume any kind of dairy, it's raw and it's from A2, A2 cows.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with the exception of I would never feed a baby or a human soft, unaged cheeses, whether they're raw or pasteurized.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's been deaths and miscarriages cited from soft, unaged cheeses.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Aged cheeses don't have that association of death and illness with them.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and either does the fluid raw milk.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I would just stay away from the soft, unaged cheeses.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I would stay away personally from all A1 dairy.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so and so if you're gonna consume it, I would consume the A2, A2 dairy from cows that are on clean grass and from a farm that you trust, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's really important.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that we echo all the time.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: Go to the farm and see how they're processing the milks, you know, see how they're storing it, how they're handling it, so that you have eyes on what they're doing and trust your instinct to know if if that's gonna be a source of illness for you or not.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I think on that, um Cena, that's a that's a great uh point because I know that most people are intimidated or don't feel uh don't feel competent to be able to go and visit and make that kind of a judgment.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: But my encouragement there is is um again, uh if you don't feel competent, just start.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, who who reads competently first?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Who who does math competently first?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so just like you've learned everything that you know in your life, um, good night.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who you know who who develops who develops a relationship competently first?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you um I just I just found out that there's a lady now charging$480 an hour to teach Gen Zers how to talk on the telephone.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: What so we you know, um our young people have lost the ability to talk on the telephone, and so now you can hire a tutor for$480 an hour to uh to get to uh teach you, you know, telephone etiquette.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you can get up.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: We are in the wrong business, Joel.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know, I know.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Man, oh man.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so uh what I'm I'm I'm just trying to encourage folks that when we talk about making these decisions and um uh and sleuthing out your provenance, um give yourself a lot more credit than you think.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: You've got eyes, you've got ears, uh, you've got noses, and uh you've got sensory perception.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't go don't go um um you know, like some sort of uh don't go looking for trouble, just go looking for um you know, for beauty, look for uh things that you know, and and once you visit three or four or five farms over the course of you know uh some time, um this vetting provenance is a skill just like any other.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so don't let your uh lack of competence or feeling intimidated or ignorant, or I just don't know.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I get that, you know, and and um and and you can you can you can sleuth a lot more than you think.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: That that's an agreement.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're almost out of time, Cena.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just talk about the uh let's just mention the whole uh safety factor uh from raw milk, the the fact that it it carries its own protective uh protective material in it, uh whereas pasteurization uh tends to kill a lot of the protective uh antibodies and bacteria that are in milk.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so let's let's just let's just close kind of with that with a with a short um uh dig into that issue.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, I love that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: So um when the milk is pasteurized, not only are many of the nutrients in that milk destroyed, and or the bioavailability of those nutrients are destroyed, uh, like vitamin C, calcium, folate, other B vitamins, vitamin A and D, um, some of the minerals, levels of iodine are lower in pasteurized milk.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: The list goes on and on, right?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you you're basically destroying the micronutrient composition of this milk that God so beautifully designed.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're also destroying what they call microbes, right?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: These are the probiotics, such as the bifidobacteria.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are largely killed when the milk is pasteurized.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And bifidobacteria can help the body, um, as I said, digest the sugars and other large molecules in the milk.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it can also help fight off possible bacterial infections like E.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: coli.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you kill off that bifidobacteria, you're actually making the milk more likely to carry an infectious organism.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now, just a few stats because the government, the large dairy industry, and the media want you to think that raw milk is dangerous to consume and that it's dangerous to give raw bear raw babies.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um they they actually say that it's quote, inherently dangerous.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and based on their own numbers, this is actually not the case.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, the CDC did a study and they concluded that there were 75 outbreaks from raw milk during 2013 to 2018.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: It sickened 675 people, and 48% of those were among people aged zero to 19 years.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so the CDC said that raw milk was, quote, inherently dangerous.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, they didn't list any deaths from raw milk during that time period, just sicknesses, and these were associated with the milk, right?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: They couldn't actually tie them directly to the milk, but they said these were from bacterial infections.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if we compare this to all cases of foodborne illnesses in the US, the CDC estimates that each year, one in six Americans or 48 million people get sick from foodborne illnesses.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: 3,000 of those people die.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: These are largely from foods like chicken, uh, certain lunch meats, fruits and vegetables, especially the lean, the green leafy vegetables and raw oysters, um, but they don't crack down on those foods, right?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: We're cracking down on the raw milk.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, these are not apples to apples.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let me just add that.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because what you need to do is look at the per capita numbers.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't actually know how many people drink raw milk for many reasons, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: In some states, you have to buy it for your pet.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in some states, like when I lived in Virginia, I had a um a cow share.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I got the cow share.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was counted as one person, but I have five people in my family.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the CDC estimates how many people drink raw milk, but I would submit that these are grossly underestimated values.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so when they calculate the illnesses, it's going to look, it's going to be inflated.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing, see, is the the reason the CDC always picks 2013 to 2018 is because I think I'm right on this.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: That uh I think it's in 2012 there was a huge uh several people died from pasteurized milk.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the C so the CDC, when they pick their sample years, they they skirt around years in which there's been big problems with pasteurized milk.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a it it it it it's it's like basically, you know, all the government uh reports and edicts, they're they're pretty suspect and they're politicized and uh agenda driven.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you, you know, I've um I grew up on raw milk when I was a kid, you know, we we and we hand milk, we didn't do the stainless steel milkers and all the sterilizations that we didn't do iodine on the teeth.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: We know I mean we had we had manure fall into the milk that of course came out in the little filter when we you know when we filtered it into our into our jugs uh to drink as a family.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But um boy, I'm I'm confident that much much of my robustness today, uh, which I'm grateful for, is still attributable to drinking, you know, uh half a gallon of of raw milk uh you know a day.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I still drink it, not not as much because we don't have cows anymore.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I have to buy it.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm a little less uh um less guzzly now than I used to, but boy, my my glass of raw milk every morning is still like foundational to my I haven't started a day until I've had a glass of raw milk.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh it's just foundational.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the so the qu the yeah, so the qu the question about uh feeding your baby, you know, raw milk after six months, I think I think if we can cut to the chase, what we've what we've said is um it's if if you can breastfeed, uh extend that for a longer period of time, introduce gently, introduced A2, A2 only, and um and and introduce it after you know after six months, maybe after eight or nine would even be better.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and and introduce it gently.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, I think that's great.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I'll just let me close to give some peace of mind, perhaps, to some people who are wondering still about the safety.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um the CDC, using the CDC's numbers, they're saying that um about 3% of the population consume raw milk.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And they used um a reference range of 1999 to 2010.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: So an 11-year period where they were claiming that an average of 42 illnesses per year from the raw milk, that would mean the rate of illness would be 0.00044%.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the rate of illness from raw milk consumption would be 0.00044%.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you use CDC's numbers that I had quoted to you of 48 million people getting sick from you know all food causes, if you add if you estimate the population is roughly 300 million, the rate of illness from all foods is actually 16%.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: That means based on the CDC's number, you're 35,000 more times likely to contract illness from other foods than from raw milk.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yet raw milk is inherently dangerous, right?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now I will add, can you get sick from raw milk?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you can get sick from all raw milk.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they don't report any deaths from it, but you can get sick.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: But you can also get sick, as Joel mentioned, from pasteurized milk.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: In the 1980s, pasteurized milk killed dozens of people.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: It killed three people in Massachusetts in 2007.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, in 2003, pasteurized mother's breast milk killed four infants, and pasteurized cheese killed seven people in Europe in 2009.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, but but they're not trumpeting that on their website.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have to dig to find that information.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, there's definitely a there's definitely a prejudice within the orthodoxy about it, and it's just important to uh to appreciate that.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, people people have been drinking uh raw milk in in actually uh questionable sanitary conditions uh for millennia.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh and and the you gotta realize that the the new development is not raw milk.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: The new development is pasteurization.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's the experiment, not the raw milk.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the standard.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everybody.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for the question, and uh, thank you all for joining us on another Beyond Labels podcast, and we look forward to seeing you next week.