? for parents who use raw milk

[Edensmomma]

Oh I can't tell you if there has been a difference in Eden because she has only ever had raw milk. For me though, I noticed that it digests easier for me and the taste is so good. I never used to just drink a glass of milk with dinner but I do almost every night with raw milk.

[NATTYBATSMOM]

Hey, if there are any Wisconsin moms on here, drop me a PM because I got an email recently from the farmer we got our milk from and there is some legislation being set up to get raw milk legalized in Wisconsin. If there's any interest, let me know. I think they're also trying to get funds together to pay the lobbyist or something? I'd have to look at the email again. But they are trying to get it legalized in Wisconsin, not just through a herd share deal.

[sisterof10]

Thanks to the gentle push from this thread, I finally made the leap to raw milk this past weekend. It's soooooooooooooo good!!!!

We had been drinking non-homogenized, gently pasteurized milk from Whole Foods (that was freakin' expensive). The raw milk provider I swapped to is a small dairy farmer about 2 hours from us who delivers within an hour of us for a dollar more per gallon, making it $6/gallon. As an added bonus, we found an organic you-pick farm along the way where I can get all my veggies for pennies on the dollar of what I was paying Whole Foods.

Woohoo! Thanks, ladies!

[lydiamom]

Originally Posted by flutterbabies I am not sure if it is legal here or not, but the farmer I go to just thinks evryone that wants it should have access to raw milk with out having to pay a ton. So not only do we like getting it for health reasons but it is cheaper than the other. $2/gallon woohoo

I pay $10/gallon here from a local farm! In GA it can be sold for pets... but of course everyone just drinks it themselves.

Originally Posted by NATTYBATSMOM It is MORE likely for pasteurized milk to become contaminated. Think about it, raw milk is like breastmilk, it has antibodies in it to fight infections. Pasteurized milk does not have this, all of those things are killed off. So if the milk is contaminated by something after being pasteurized, there's nothing in the milk to fight it off whereas there is in raw milk. We drank raw milk for over a year and I know a family who only drinks raw and they haven't had any issues except maybe when the fridge died and then it was nothing serious, just a stomach bug. The concern with listeria can help with both raw and pasteurized milk as well as deli meat and soft serve ice cream. Not to mention, all kinds of food can be contaminated. Meat can as well as veggies. Unless you just don't eat, there's always a chance of something being contaminated.

Just wanted to add that another difference in raw and pasteurized milk is that those farms who sell raw milk are generally small farms and make sure their cows are VERY clean and healthy. Farms that sell pasteurized milk do not have to clean their cows and can still use sick cows because they just give them antibiotics and will be pasteurizing the milk anyway. So there is more nasty stuff going into that milk.

For those who make their own yogurt and cheese... how do you do that? Is there a website you could direct me to?

[sunnymommy]

Making yogurt is super easy. Put 1/2 gallon of milk in your crockpot. Turn it on low or high until it is heated to 190 degrees - use a candy thermometer. Low is about 2 hours, high is about 4 hours, depends on how hot your crockpot is. Then turn it off and cool it to 115 degrees. I leave the lid off mine to cool and it takes about 2 hours; with the lid on is about 4 hours. Then stir in about 1/4-1/2 cup yogurt from the store as your starter - make sure it has live and active cultures in it. Put the lid back on and wrap the whole thing up with a towel to incubate it. You want to keep the temp between 110-115. Mine takes about 4-5 hours to thicken up! Then I put it in the fridge and it thickens even more and in the morning it is awesome! I stir in honey and vanilla or sometimes pureed fruit. You can google crockpot yogurt. Or you can make it on the stove or however you want really as long as you hit the right temps. I think the crockpot is really easy. The heating is really just pasteurizing so it kind of negates the raw milk point. Some raw milk people only heat it to 110 and then incubate. It just leaves other strains of bacteria and enzymes in there, which are good for you, just isn't true yogurt which is defined by the bacteria strains you use so the end product is just a little bit different texture etc. Still good though. Hope that makes sense!
For cheese I love Ricki the Cheese Queen. Made her 30 minute mozzarella with her starter kit. Fun.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/
I got this book from the library.
http://www.cheesemaking.com/HomeCheeseMakingbook.html

[jennym91005]

quick question... what does raw milk taste like? I personally hate milk,but can tolerate skim milk in my cereal if i dont think about it, so this is just a curiosity question. does it taste like whole milk or something totally different?

[kezoo]

Originally Posted by jennym91005 quick question... what does raw milk taste like? I personally hate milk,but can tolerate skim milk in my cereal if i dont think about it, so this is just a curiosity question. does it taste like whole milk or something totally different?

Ummm, it kind of tastes like whole milk, but way better. It's much creamier and sweeter, IMO. I don't really enjoy pasteurized milk at all, but I LOVE a huge glass of raw milk. If you drink skim (sorry, but skim milk makes me feel funny in my tummy just to look at it - milk should not be blue LOL!!), them I'm sure it will take you awhile to get used to raw. It'll probably taste like straight cream.

[jennym91005]

Originally Posted by kezoo Ummm, it kind of tastes like whole milk, but way better. It's much creamier and sweeter, IMO. I don't really enjoy pasteurized milk at all, but I LOVE a huge glass of raw milk. If you drink skim (sorry, but skim milk makes me feel funny in my tummy just to look at it - milk should not be blue LOL!!), them I'm sure it will take you awhile to get used to raw. It'll probably taste like straight cream.

thanks for the repy!
lol about the skim comment, milk shouldnt be see-thru either, lol.

[Mommy2JJ]

So all my kiddos have had issues with dairy, all GI though, I wonder how they would do with this? We do rice and almond milk.....newest babe isn't tolerating any dairy either. Hmmm would love to hear from other Mama's who have had dairy problems with store bought dairy, but not raw.

[tallanvor]

Originally Posted by jennym91005 quick question... what does raw milk taste like? I personally hate milk,but can tolerate skim milk in my cereal if i dont think about it, so this is just a curiosity question. does it taste like whole milk or something totally different?

If you are used to skim, you can skim the cream off the top of the milk. It will still have more cream in it than the skim you buy at the store, but it's definitely thinner than shaking it before pouring. The cream you can then use to make butter or ice cream. My MIL loves to pour the cream on frozen blueberries. She says the frozen blueberries make the cream kind of slushy and the berries thaw pretty quick and it's divine.

If you just drink the milk with the cream mixed in it is so amazingly good. Well, it should be anyway. It just tastes more alive than the stuff from the store. To me, there's not really a good comparison.