Got Milk?

So...we drink raw milk.  For a number of reasons that others have taken lots of time to write about so I won't bore you with my inadequate summary of their words...I'll just send you to the latest article that explains it all in good amounts of detail.  What started us on this path was my realization that pasteurized milk made my eczema flare up...badly.  At the time I'd been doing research on how to help my husbands asthma and had found several sources saying pasteurized milk was to blame for that and that if you wanted to you could just drink raw milk instead and that often all side effects would vanish (for both asthma and eczema).  Whoa!  Really?  So I tried it, and was surprised to find that I could go from drinking 2% and skim all my life to very happily drinking whole raw milk and feeling great with my skin issues clearing up completely!  By the time I found raw milk, my hubby had already given it up and has never really gone back to drinking it...and that's fine...more for me!

My oldest LOVES it and will drink it even after it's been frozen and thawed, which changes the consistency slightly (I find that the cream never completely mixes back in and leaves bits of butter in it).  We freeze a lot of it because the closest place to get it is in a neighboring state, so when we buy, we buy in bulk and freeze.  It wasn't till we started doing this that I found out how easy it is to freeze in glass...some will just stick a gallon jug directly in there and freeze it that way but we just don't go through it that fast when it's been thawed...I'm a fresh milk snob you see.  If it isn't fresh, I probably won't drink it and will just thaw it, a quart at a time, for the boy to enjoy happily.  Freezing in regular mason jars helps me do this...just make sure to leave some headspace so that the milk has room to expand while freezing.  My jars have never burst because I always leave room.

Without going into MORE detail, as I said others have done so much more eloquently than I, the main reason drinking raw milk resonates with me is because it is a pure, unadulterated food.  It hasn't been tampered with.  It came from the cow, was filtered, tested, bottled, and sold to me within days of it's exodus from the udder.  It wasn't cooked to death first and it didn't have synthetic vitamins added to it. I like eating as close to the source as I can...the less a food is messed with, the better.