It was a medical breakthrough. Before the wide scale institution

of pasteurizing milk, dirty food production methods and food-borne illnesses were rampant in America. Children were getting tuberculosis, bouts of diarrhea and undulant fever just by drinking a glass of milk. In fact, in 1938, milk-borne illnesses made up a quarter of all the food-borne illnesses in America.

Today, that figure has lowered to one percent, and for that, Louis Pasteur must be applauded.

However, while pasteurization is known for eradicating bacteria through various heating processes, it saps milk of a number of health promoting properties in the process:

- Destroys both vitamins B6 and B12.
- Diminishes iodine by 20 percent and renders much of calcium insoluble
- Promotes pathogen activity in milk
- Diminishes phosphorous content
- Diminishes milk’s natural creaminess
- Kills “good” bacteria (i.e. lactic acid fermentation)

And, ironically enough, studies reveal that pasteurization may actually cause a number of diseases resulting from food-borne illnesses.

USA Today published an article recently regarding the ground swell of support for raw milk, or to be more accurate, real milk. The campaign stems from a number of studies indicating how raw milk is more nutritionally sound, and furthermore, far safer today than in the early to mid 1900s. Twenty-five states have laws on their books that ban its sale, including South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky and Nebraska. And if public health officials have anything to say about, they hope those states’ laws remain that way. One health official called drinking real milk “like playing Russian Roulette with your health.”

But what public health officials fail to point out, among other things, is that pasteurized milk is the number one food allergy in the country, leading to a number of serious side-effects such as diarrhea, cramping, bloating, gas, osteoporosis, tooth decay, heart disease, type 1 diabetes and leukemia, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola. Raw milk on the other hand has not caused any such symptoms.

This finding was hammered home in California. Supporters of raw milk sales convinced the Los Angeles County Board of Officials to legalize its sale after comparing raw milk food-borne illnesses to pasteurized milk food-borne illnesses. A 2001 article from the Weston A. Price Foundation reported the group’s findings, which included the following:

- In 1997, 28 cases of salmonella were linked to pasteurized milk, while there were no food-borne illnesses of any kind linked to raw milk consumption in the same year in California

- In 1985, 19,660 cases of Salmonella typhimurium were found in people consuming “properly pasteurized milk,” while there were no illnesses linked back to raw milk consumption in the same year in California

- In 1983, 49 Massachusetts residents became sick with Listeria, which was later linked to consumption of pasteurized milk; there were no cases of food-borne illnesses from raw milk consumption in the same year in California

This is not to say that you still can’t get sick from drinking raw milk. There have been cases of people getting sick from consuming raw milk as recently as December 2005. As you can see, however, pasteurized milk is not immune from breeding diseases.

As long as you know that the milk you’re consuming is from a farm whose cows eat a clean, grass-fed diet and are kept under clean conditions, there should be no question as to what is the better option for you and your family’s health.

You can find out where credibly clean sources of milk can be found in your area, if your state allows the sale of raw milk and if so, the names and addresses of farms selling it, by visiting http://www.realmilk.com