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March/April 2004 Alternative Health
The Untold Story of Milk by Ron Schmid, ND

A Review by Keith Post, ND

Ron Schmid is a Connecticut-based naturopathic physician with an obvious passion for his topic. The basic thesis of this book is that raw, unpasteurized and unhomogenized dairy products have been consumed for centuries by societies all over the world. And, they have done so with remarkably few problems, as long as the animals were cared for humanely and fed their natural diet of fresh green grass in the warm weather months and mostly hay in the cold weather months.

Pasteurization is basically a tool of large food conglomerates to sell high quantities of inferior milk products without having the consumer get deathly ill. The cows are bereft of their natural diet and kept in abysmal conditions. They often live out their lives in what are referred to as "confinement dairies", with very little room to move about, sometimes knee-deep in their own muck and standing for long hours on concrete floors, leading to many painful cases of laminitis [this is a cow’s version of plantar fascitis]. Cows kept in captivity tend to have shorter lifespans and are immediately slaughtered for meat, once their usefulness is over. To say that this is an inhumane system is an understatement.

As a practicing naturopathic physician, I had already known that most cases of recurrent ear, nose, throat and sinus infections in both adults and children could often be treated by simply eliminating all dairy products except for butter from the diet. I would allow butter simply because it is 100% fat, so there is no protein component present to trigger an allergic reaction. I had not reasoned it further until reading this wonderful book.

Large dairies have such high rates of mastitis that they often inject Penicillin G, which is a mold, directly into the affected animal’s teats. Obviously, this residue ends up in the milk tanks, along with lots of dead bacteria. So, what many people may actually be experiencing, in the case of a sensitivity to pasteurized dairy products, may actually be a sensitivity to the antibiotic or other residues present in the milk.

Another of the many adulterants present in U.S. milk is recombinant bovine growth hormone or rBGH, which is legal here, but was outlawed in Canada due to a huge grassroots public outcry. It is injected into dairy cows to cause them to yield milk year-round and in larger quantities than they would normally do. I suspect that this hormone, which is present in both the milk and beef that we consume, is a possible cause of the alarmingly early sexual maturation we are witnessing in our adolescent females, as well as the abnormal growth of mammary tissue in some of our overweight adolescent boys here in the U.S.

It is also interesting to note that there are no known cases of lactose intolerance reported from drinking cow’s milk in its unpasteurized form. This is simply because there is plenty of lactase present in unheated milk to digest the lactose in the milk, whereas pasteurization destroys the lactase. By the way, did I mention that raw milk from healthy cows is actually anti-bacterial against harmful organisms, while building up your helpful microorganisms? Yes, you read that correctly.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this book was its detailed history of dairy farming, the political landscape in the U.S. that led to universal pasteurization as well as an overview of many of the world’s great dairy-based indigenous societies. These range from the nomadic cattle herders of East Africa to the mountains of Switzerland, and everywhere in between it seems. I also appreciated the wealth of scientific information, which was, at all times, clearly referenced.

The main problem I had with this book was that the author was greatly in need of a seasoned editor. Whole sections of text seemed to be repeated almost verbatim, which was quite tedious and annoying, at times. Yet, the author’s enthusiasm was truly contagious, so after a while you forgave him his repetitions. For some readers, this repetition might actually be helpful.

Raw milk sales are currently legal, albeit with many legal restrictions, in only 25 states, including Oregon. Interstate shipments are completely illegal, however. For those of you wanting more information on this amazing topic, the following websites contain plenty of useful information. There is also information as to how we can support the movement to make raw milk legal everywhere, once again, as it was in the past.

www.westonaprice.org
www.realmilk.com
www.price-pottenger.org
www.organicpastures.com
www.naturalmilk.com

The Untold Story of Milk, Ron Schmid, ND (New Trend Publishing, $19.95 407 pages) www.newtrendspublishing.com

Keith Post, ND is a board-licensed naturopathic physician practicing in SW Portland. He can be reached at (503-244-5708. To request his monthly newsletter e-mail him at keithp@pcez.com. All of his writings and previous newsletters are archived online at www.pcez.com/~keithp/page5.html.