Here are the preliminary results (June 3), as reported by Michael Schmidt:
Raw milk fed calf
To understand the results of our raw milk experiment it is important to tolerate the so called scientific demands. That means in order to get accepted and being taken seriously by the scientific establishment you need to have 100 or 200 or 300 or may be even 1000 calves to make a scientific valid point .However the simple fact that the so called experts have not yet entered into a joint research project as proposed by me already in 1994 has given me even a greater confidence that the results we have seen with these two calves are credible and significant. They are in fact supporting the findings of Pottenger’s cat study, which as well has been ignored and ridiculed.
Calf fed on pasteurized milk diet
The experiment was costing us over 5000 dollars just in milk. This is a significant amount for us, since we did not get any support from corporate sponsors.
The weight of the two calves was basically equal at the beginning of the feeding trial.
At the end the raw milk calf weight 200 kg and the pasteurized milk calf weight 115 kg.
They gained weight almost equally for about 8 weeks and then the pasteurized milk calf started falling back.
A significant difference during the 4 month trial was always the different smell and the consistency of the manure. The raw milk calf had mostly a well formed manure and normal smell you would expect. Contrary to that the manure of the pasteurized calf was runny and the color mostly grey or almost white during the feeding trial.
We did not treat either of these calves for any condition. We would have if there would have been a life threatening situation.
The hair on the raw milk calf was shiny and solid on the pasteurized calf dull and easily pulled out.
The alertness in the two calves was a major difference: the pasteurized calf seemed very uninterested with a clear lack of movement.
After nearly 5 months we could see that the pasteurized calf would have had difficulty to survive without medication and supplements.
Below are some of the pictures to show the obvious visual differences.
Livers: Pasteurized on the left, Raw on the right
A tale of two stomachs -- in the cart raw milk stomach with solid contents, and on the floor the stomach from the calf which was fed on pasteurised milk, with very bad smelling runny contents
Raw kidney
Kidney from pasteurized milk fed calf
Testes of pasteurized milk fed calf
Testes of raw milk fed calf
The Bovine 
In the photos it appears that the first calf, fed out on raw milk appears to be a Brown Swiss cross, whereas the second calf was a Holstein cross…were two different breeds of calves used or is it simply the lighting that is causing the difference in cosmetic appearance ? (other than the obvious muscular/skeletal physique).
It may be a good idea to link to the first photos of the calves when the experiment began.
I love the photos of the organs…especially the difference in stomach content…I will definitely show my teenage son the photos of the testes!
LOL!
Many thanks for taking the time AND the money to conduct this project.
p.s…..anyone want to eat the meat of the pastuerized milk fed calf?
~Mary
at LoveTree
lovetreefarm.com
Yes the two calves are different breeds.
Dear Bovine
these calves are the same breed. Please any fact issues should only be answered by Glencolton Farms. Thanks
Pasteurized waste milk is good for calves, if it is pasteurized properly.
Read this:
http://www.farmwest.com/node/1220
In reply to Wiser, the article at farmwest.com still does not deal with the comparison of good quality raw milk and pasteurised quality milk. The article deals only with waste milk that is pasteurised which is certainly a step up from feeding diseased and compromised raw waste milk. We still need to see a real study on the subject. However, the above comparison is certainly an eye opener and a very good start.
Who said that everything has to be exactly the same for a test to be legit?
Us, raw milk lovers?
No.
The FDA, who doesn’t conduct test of any sort for anybody on anything? They don’t even have their own lab, at least not the last time I checked.
No, not them.
So who?
Ahhh, scientist and other “professionals” who like to keep things complicated.
I like things simple, you get 4 lab rats, give 2 regular water, give another a little rat poison in his water and the last one a lot of rat poison in his water.
Now, which ever ones get sick or die will prove that the rat poison is dangerous, because the 2 that got plain water will live and be just fine.
You don’t need 1000’s of test subjects to prove a point.
One thing I’ve always hated about formal Human clinical trials is just that, they are using live people. People who die, become infected, disabled, have strokes, heart attacks, commit suicide or suffer from all sorts of horrible ailments, all in the name of research.
You test 50,000 and at least 10% will die and different percentages of the others will be harmed.
The few remaining may not suffer immediately or obviously but they will be affected in some way or other.
And this is good news for the FDA.
They have a rule that as long as the substance being tested helped even 1 person, although it may have killed 50,000, this substance is still good enough to be used on the rest of the population.
How crazy can you get?
It doesn’t matter how many are harmed only how many are helped despite those that are harmed.
And even then they will only demand that a “warning label” be attached.
This is not what the FDA was created to do, to allow acceptable civilian casualties.
And these are the people in charge of everything we eat, drink, bathe in, slather on our skins, wash our bodies and clothes and cars with.
All we have been asking for is some practical, open and honest testing to be done to prove either we are wrong or companies are wrong.
And Michael Schmidt is doing just that, giving us what we asked for fair testing and open proof. Testing that can be easily repeated by anybody.
Years of fighting, arguing and denying farmers the right to produce what they want could have been avoided if the FDA or the dairy associations had done this test themselves.
Remember the KISS principle.
Well, yes, you do need repetition for an experiment to be valid to the bigger picture. I cannot extrapolate greater effect from one small experiment-I must rule out other factors such as genetics and environmental effects such as infection, housing differences, or stress. This is why the experiments are done with larger numbers multiple times.
This experiment is valid, however, in that it points to the necessity of doing more research. That in itself is vital. The organ pictures especially are startling.
I do believe both calves are holsteins. It would have been better, although less dramatic, to have posed them both the same. One is posed in a show pose with head pulled up, the other is just standing there head down.
Interesting experiment, I hope someone picks this up and does more rigorous trials.
KISS is good, but… the problem with this experiment as it was run is that it was not double blind. The people caring for the calves knew which was getting raw milk and which pasteurized. Even if you’re not intentionally setting out to get the result you want, if you have a hypothesis in mind you may do something that skews the results if the experiment is not blind.
Jen true if you were only looking at one part of this issue, say the conformation of the cows. They both obviously have different conformations/growth…you could easily say that it was due to it’s genetics blah blah blah, but the rotten stomach contents, the whitened kidneys, the small liver PLUS the poor conformation…all of it combined makes sense and with no underlying conditions leads you to see that diet was an obvious factor here.
It’s all about who has the most money to pay under the table to get something past the FDA.
Your analogy is really stupid, What if some other factor (disease) killed one of the two rats on just water. Did you accidentally prove that water is worse than water + rat poison?
I’m glad that you have thought of the rat poison experiment. Maybe you can figure this one out too. 1 patient is 7 years old, male, autistic, with Leukemia. 1 patient is 5 years old, female, non-autistic, cerebal palsy. 1 patient is male, 9 years old. The last patient is 10 years old, female, with a rare blood disorder. All have severe epilepsy which leads to a seriously diminished quality of life. A drug that appears to ablate severe epilepsy in rodents is being proposed for clinical trials. Design an experiment to assess whether this drug is safe, effective, and appropriate for use in children using these 4 patients.
The FDA has labs all over the country.
“They have a rule that as long as the substance being tested helped even 1 person, although it may have killed 50,000, this substance is still good enough to be used on the rest of the population.”
This is grossly inaccurate. Please cite your source.
Please refer to the following ethics in research documents.
http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/guidelines/index.html
“One thing I’ve always hated about formal Human clinical trials is just that, they are using live people. People who die, become infected, disabled, have strokes, heart attacks, commit suicide or suffer from all sorts of horrible ailments, all in the name of research.”
All studies are fully consensual. To break that code of ethics results in severe penalties–even charges of manslaughter.
Once you read these documents in their entirety, have developed an understanding of designing clinical drug trials or any other complex trials, and can discuss the role of the FDA in assessing safety and efficacy correctly I would love to hear your opinions on the above milk study. It is very intriguing.
I would like to see this recapitulated in more subjects. It would also be interesting to see this in other organisms. For example, if mice are fed with unpasteurized vs. pasteurized mouse milk what happens? Rats? Pigs? What if human babies were fed pasteurized breast milk from their mothers (this would be completely unethical and I would never actually want to see this done).
I apologize if this critique offends you or upsets you. I think it is very, very important to have ALL your information and ALL your facts well known in order to engage in effective discussion. The FDA can be a great asset. Well-informed, non-reactionary citizens who can address extremely complicated ethical issues are much needed to help steer the researchers, ethics committees, and government agencies that make decisions on our food and our health. I am an advocate of whole, organic, locally produced food. I feed my child pasteurized, organic, grass-fed, pasture raised milk (and meats). We are advocates for holistic health and healthy lifestyles in our community. We support farmers. I am also a scientist. “Professional”. I believe what I do is valid. I believe I am not evil, I am not corrupt, I am not in the pocket of any Big Pharm or government agency. I enjoy working to help make the discoveries I find a reality for people. Balance, ethics, objectivity, and safety are my ultimate goals in drug design and discovery. I’ve never met a scientist who doesn’t operate on these principles, and I have had the privilege to work with many.
Thanks for reading this.
Cheryl,
Are you serious? 4 rats is enough? 1 person benefited? Do you know that it isn’t until 10,000 to 30,000 patients – depending on the patient population that a drug has the potential to cause drug induced liver disease? The average Phase 3 trial is under 5000 patients. We test on cell lines, then mammals, then on more mammals, then on ourselves. You see you know nothing of pharmaceutical research except what the conspiracy theorists have fed you. You know nothing of population variation. You know nothing of good experiment design.
Please get educated before you poison more minds with your ignorance and fear-mongering.
The pictures tell the whole story.
Look at the liver of the calves, one is deep red and the other is pale and has several strange discolorations on it.
If the liver isn’t deep red, that is full of blood, it isn’t functioning properly.
If the liver isn’t functioning properly then the whole body will suffer. All the body systems are dependent on the liver functioning efficiently.
Look at the contents of the stomach, how could the calf digest that mess?
This is the same thing that happens in our bodies, imagine that in an infant trying to live and grow.
Just makes me really glad I haven’t drank milk in years. Moving to a off grid ‘farm’ in the next few weeks. Will have all the raw milk we need there. Looking forward to it.
I have been telling my friends and family for YEARS to keep away from pasteurized milk. This pretty much proves it to me.
Hello everybody, all 124 of you! Talk about a hot topic!
As usual, there are 3 groups to divide the comments into, believers, non-believers and those are unsure, but don’t object, the slightly confused because of common myths about raw milk and still somewhat afraid that maybe, just maybe mainstream is wrong about the dangers of raw milk but still hesitant to give it a try but want to.
We all have our reasons. Blame it on Gobbels and Hitler.
“A lie told enough times will be accepted as truth”
It’s not so much that common knowledge is wrong, it’s that its over a century out of date.
NO testing is ever done, no studies to debunk either view, that raw milk is good or bad. Just more repeating of the same old horror stories about how raw milk was killing babies and only pasteurization saves them.
No mention that if mega farms cleaned up and stopped overcrowding, stopped feeding corn and chicken manure, stopped locking cows in barns and never letting them see the light of day, that there would be no danger of raw milk being contaminated.
But again, those things cost money and wreck the bottom line.
Better to promote fear and distrust then fix the problem. They proved it was easier and cheaper to pasteurize the milk a 100 yrs ago, than to stop feeding cows discarded whiskey slop and keeping them penned up knee deep in their own waste. Just like they do today, nothing has changed.
Also these methods are backed by the dairy industry, who’s only goal is to keep down cost and up profits and cut out the competition.
They keep a stranglehold on farmers and customers, giving neither much choice in what to buy or what to produce. That makes it easier to control everybody and the best method is propaganda, constant ads, booklets, endorsement from the FDA, CDC and USDA and my personal favorite, the horrifying news story about people who get sick and die from raw milk drinking!
I applaud Mr. Schmidt for his efforts to enlighten the public with this experiment and spend his own money to do it!
To all the critics, where, after all these years, are the tests run by the FDA, CDC, USDA? Where is the proof that all pasteurized milk is actually safe and disease free? What reasons do they give for the hundreds of cases of PASTEURIZED MILK causing food poisoning, like the 800+ outbreak a few years back. People died in that outbreak but it was kept quiet and you have to search to find it. Not to mention that this outbreak spanned several states.
But let 1 case of SUSPECTED raw milk illness come up and the media is all over it like white on rice.
What I found most interesting in the doubters and the unbelievers is all the criticism on the make up of the test, as though there is only 1 valid testing method.
Hey, if you stick your hand in a fire and get burned but stick your other hand in cold water and don’t get burned, isn’t that proof enough for you that fire will burn you?
Who said that a “valid” test had certain parameters?
It would seem that those so-called experts would have long ago ran some valid testing and put the entire issue to rest once and for all, wouldn’t it?
But it hasn’t been done, so what are they basing this belief that raw milk is dangerous on?
Where is their proof?
The FDA has the authority, but not the testing facilities, but they get to decide?
They haven’t asked for a single test to be done, ever!
They get hysterical at the mention of legalizing raw milk sales.
Are you basing your beliefs or doubts on outdated and biased information?
Hello the scientific information with study links can be found at the Weston A Price Foundation — wapf.org and the cookbook which uses the data is Sally Fallon’s NOURISHING TRADITIONS.
You can even find the information about Milk truths… The DATA on the box is done with raw fresh milk and THEN it is pasteurized ie cooked just like what happens to vegetables, there is a HUGE CHANGE in the actual nutrition.
What we need is science-based info! This is the start. Do your own food videos, join each other, hire a doctor to document your findings! But please ASK if anyone knows, give us some hope. WE know the truth.
No one had pasteurized milk for many many centuries.
Best of health for all,
*J
PS hear-say info:
Recently the information came through that actually NO ONE has ever died or gotten seriously damaged by eating RAW MILK! Certainly not true even if the only case were ones mentioned online.
In the end both cows were murdered as a trial to show someone or someones point that cows are not suppose to drink altered milk. Are we even suppose to drink milk in the first place. Spinach–calcium, the Sun– Vitamin. D Quinoa or chia seed or hem seed–complete food source. Let the cows live, stop turning them into science projects. The gas emissions alone from the cows causes enough green house gases to make Chernobyl a play-land.
Try reading the China experiment after beef was introduced to them disease went YEP up. Less cows, more ozone.
Less cows, more greenlands. Less cows, more rainforest, Less cows, more oxygen from the rainforest.
Who is the “them” you speak of? The China Study looked at many different populations with many different diets. And the conclusions made by the study authors are mostly crap. Look that up.
I’m sorry you feel this way about bovine. I suggest that for your own personal satisfaction you do some more research on where good, nutrient rich topsoil comes from. It NEVER comes from crops which have to be tilled in, even if they are organic. Properly managed herd of hooved animals (now days cattle,ages past bison and deer herds) move through a territory depositing compost which creates soil. The cattle type you are referring to are feedlot cattle, fed on grain which must be trucked across country. Soy crops do far more damage to the soil than a herd of properly managed cattle.
Also, “greenlands” as you are referring to are NOT a standalone product. They must be managed (grazed or mowed) or else they will not properly complete all of their natural cycles. Mowing with a petrochemical powered machine would not be my choice.
Why would anyone want to eat the flesh of another sentient being PERIOD. Shame that these two animals were killed for a useless experiment to satisfy human curiosity. We should not be drinking the mammary secretions of these animals nor should we be eating their decaying flesh ( flesh does start to decay at the moment of death, ask any forensic pathologist). There is no such thing as humane flesh, eggs or dairy. If you would not want it done to you, it is likely NOT humane.
Lol, the vegan troll strikes again. Seek help! There are any good therapists
humans are omnivores. they eat both meat and plants. the cows were probably slaughtered for their meat and they took a look at all the parts in the process. get used to being at the top of the food chain, or get eaten.
These photos are astounding! THANK YOU for doing this and for publishing the results. The world needs to see this.
I don’t get it. The first calf (raw milk) is skinny & has dull hair compared to the 2nd one (pasteurized) who is just fat. So why does the text say that the raw milk made it fatter? Besides who wants to get fat? Seems you are promoting pasteurized milk? Unless I’m missing something or you switched photos by mistake?
PS: a WARNING before the organ pix would have been nice particularly the open stomachs.
Did you confuse the two pictures? The first calf appears leaner, but has a nice shiny coat. The second calf has a more bloated appearance, but apparently weighs less (possibly due to less muscle mass?). While I have to agree that the organ pictures were a little hard to look at, the information they provided was critically important!
There must be some confusion here.
The first calf is the raw calf with more weight.
The second has the big belly.
No we do not promote pasteurized milk, we promote the opportunity to compare and you make your judgment based on that.
The first calf is not skinny in the least, he is LEAN, the second calf is not FAT at all, he is BLOATED.
The raw milk made the first calf, HEALTHY and GROW, it made the other calf, listless and weak and as you can see his organs were not functioning properly, a small liver, white kidneys, putrefied stomach contents.
I agree with above that someone mentioned the cows should have been also shown together and perhaps a similar pose as well.
and eh, what’s so big about the organs, you eat meat don’t you?
@ Seraite:
The first calf is much healthier than calf #2. Much more solid, and he has dense muscle. He looks healhy.
The second calf, even though it is at a different angle, does not look nearly as healthy. He does have a “pot” belly, but that does not equate to health, it points to protien deficiency, that is a classic sign in any creature, human or animal.
I have some amazing photos of 2 jersey bull calves, one is 4 months, and is one of my milkers calves,raised on mama’s milk, and the other is a nearly year old jersey bull, raised, very ineffectively on milk replacer. Even though they are nearly 8 months apart in age, they are nearly the same size.
I do agree that making sure both of the calves were in basically the same position when photographed would have been better, and perhaps, even having them together in the same photo.
Unless some wealthy person/business wants to fund a study, they will never be done.
I don’t think the raw milk calf looks fat, he looks healthy, with his weight evenly distributed. The second calf looks bonier around his legs, but his stomach looks fat. Reminds me of a lot of people I see walking around.
Is it any wonder that our population is plagued with diabetes, crohns, and various cancers/diseases of the digestive system. Does anyone know what their liver and pancreas look like when their doctor does exploritory surgery and cuts out diseased bowel leaving the patient with a colostomy bag? Think about what we are doing to our children, when we without thinking plop down that jug of pasturized milk for them to guzzle down, day after day?
We all need to become informed, and be responsible for what we feed our children and ourselves. Because, of what I personally observed working on a large dairy industrial farm I quit consuming store bought milk products years ago. I don’t care how much the processers cook it – bacteria from manure, residue of antibotics, hormones, and other drugs should not be put into our digestive track. I don’t need a 1000 to 2000 calf scientific study to see that the small study done on your farm is absolutely true. The fact that the authorities refuse to conduct a study is evidence to truth as well.
Michael, I accidentally found your website when I was researching another passion of mine, vaccinations. It did not surprise me to read of the injustice perpetrated against you and it serves as a warning to all of us to be careful in the falicy of thinking that those in authority over us have our best interests at heart.
I thank you, Michael for your courage, your personal sacrifice, and commitment to this cause. As more people become informed of the truth your support will grow. I will do my part.
The very best to you, your family, and the many others involved .
Thank you for the experiment and information you provided us. I have been aware for some time of the dangers of non pastured meat products, but in my state, Arkansas, you cannot buy raw milk. I desperately wish that were not the case.
Well said, thank you.
There is some indications that Crohns in humans is triggered by Johnnes infective in the dairying ruminant…raw milk producers test every animal, factory farms get a financial hardship wavier (the test is twenty to thirty dollars an animal) so they selectively test only the “sample” animals they know will pass. JOHNNES IS NOT DESTROYED BY HEAT, IT IS A PRION.
Johne’s is a bacteria, not a prion. It IS killed by heat.
GO Veggie ~ 2 fold question and answer ~
A} love of animals
B} steroids ~ chemicals ect.
thanks for sharing ~ makes my values even more real.
Heidi
Wow! Thank you for sharing this. It is VERY powerful and also disturbing. Thank you for the work and resources that went into it!
So it’s true… drinking raw milk gives you huge cojones.
LOL!
😀
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Here is a link to our earlier post about the start of this study: https://thebovine.wordpress.com/raw-vs-pasteurized/
We’ll be following up with a report about a taste test comparison of the meat between the two animals.
Here was the advance notice of that taste test comparison between the two animals:
Great one, congrats!
This confirms for the n-th time that pasteurized milk is unhealthy and people consuming it are asking for trouble.
I hope that more people will wake up to this truth if they see this.
No, it doesn’t. Not scientific proof at all. Calves not = at start, too many variables
Well the wonderful thing I can say now: proof the opposite my friend.
I have so many times tried to convince Government and the Marketing board to conduct jointly a study with no success.
There is no doubt in my mind that these results can be repeated over and over again.
Would you agree if you would withhold water from one animal and gave the other water, that guarantied the one calf will die?
You would not need a greater number of animals to proof your point.
The difference between pasteurized and raw milk is so significant that a study with a limited number of animals can give a pretty good idea. However we have currently another trial running with rats which contains a much greater number than two calves . So keep yourself informed on this blog for further details.
inc123 is quite correct. This is just one small observation, not proof. Need greater numbers to offset natural variability. And need to control for confounding factors. Differences need to be measurable, statistically significant, and reproducible. Anyone on this blog who suggests otherwise does not know what they are talking about.
Ahhhhh…. what did we ever do before the Scientific Method was devised? This may well NOT be enough proof for you. But it is enough evidence for me….
Thank you very much to Michael Schmidt!!!!!. 🙂
Evelyn, before the scientific method our perception of truth was based solely on beliefs and faith. The problem with this is the “perception” aspect – neither side is wrong. So if two sides are in dispute, how do you find the real truth?
For observable phenomena in the natural world, the solution is to rigorously apply the principles of the scientific method. By following this method, measurable evidence can be gathered in a systematic and reproduceable way. It provides an objective way for people who propose a new idea to meet the philosophical burden of proof.
If the observations made by Michael are enough proof for you, that’s ok, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I’m not judging. But please understand that your acceptance seems more about “faith” than it is about real experimental proof.
In the law biz, we do a balancing act. Evidence, that proves beyond a reasonable doubt, is required when the result will deprive one of Liberty; which we prize very highly in our society. A mere preponderance of evidence, is required, when we will just deprive one of cash. Two difference standards, because the result is different.
The law is derived from logic. In business, we call it a cost benefit analysis. Using logic, I do the same cost benefit analysis in my daily life. What’s the ROI? What’s the risk? In this case, the risk of not believing the anecdotal evidence (I believe it is certainly a preponderance) shown in this ‘experiment’ is that we loose our health. What is the risk if we do believe? Do we have outside evidence that reinforces or disputes this ‘experiment’? Seems to me that the ROI gives me good cause to think it’s better to believe than not.
So long as I take part in ensuring that the raw milk my family partakes of is captured in a healthy, clean manner, from healthy animals & stored in the same manner, the risk is low.
The human race has been drinking raw milk for a very long time, w/ little ill-effect. Is pasteurized milk safe? As far as I’m concerned, it’s still in non-clinical trails. They may be wide spread trails, involving most of the population of our country. But, trials none-the-less. I am grateful to those who will put their children in these trials, so that my grandchildren might know whether pasteurized milk is safe for their own children. I’ll wait for the result of that, larger, ‘properly designed’ experiment.
Thank you for putting your own children at risk, to prove that pasteurized milk is safe. I presume that you have your children drink that stuff. I don’t want my children drinking something that hasn’t yet been proven safe. I’m the same w/ grain fed milk & meat. We don’t eat that either. I had to go buy a farm so we didn’t have to eat it anymore. The BigAg marketing dept (aka USDA) says it’s better than grass-fed/finished, but I don’t believe what Madison Ave. has to sell me either. 🙂
All very interesting Evelyn – does seem that proof in law is not dissimilar to society’s pre-scientific method perception of truth. After all, a good lawyer can manipulate the “facts” to fit whatever circumstance will get their client off the hook – regardless of what the actual truth might be. Similar analogies can be found in business.
But anyway, it is obvious that I am looking at this experiment from a purely scientific standpoint, not a courtroom or a business perspective. And what must be emphasized is that these observations by themselves are not nearly sufficient to establish the causal relationship. Plain and simple.
As I said before you are entitled to believe whatever you want… …however misguided it may be.
How backhandedly patronizing of you.
Sorry, I guess I should have added a smiley face 🙂
Enjoy your pasteurized milk then, lad.
Raca, like most clinical types, seems to believe that the scientific method is trustworthy. It isn’t. And that before that was the standard, that intelligent people were powerless to arrive at conclusions through trial and observation. They did so.
We were not ignorant, primitive people, driven by “beliefs” without sound basis, prior to 1800s. Consider the early flight machines of the Nazca people or Egypt. (see the Pyramids Decoded, and others), and proof of brain surgery among these civilizations too. Not very backwards, whether or not they had religious motivation. That criticism is irrelevant and “backhandedly insulting”.
As a psychology research student, I can say that studies are driven by the interests of those funding them. THERE is your bias. If I want to keep plugged into the money, i cannot rock the boat of established practice or contradict authority – in this case the APA, ACA, and FDA. Or any other special interest psychology group with political power.
That forces me to set the studies up to prove what I tell them i believe will happen, and which fits within the framework of what they accept as professional standard – even “ethical”. Both are rubber rulers of behavior. They mean to say, go with the flow and you will not get hurt. Truly independent study tends to be out of pocket.
I am sure scientific inquiry in other areas is the same. Power means control via money and threats, such as sending pet investigators to cause trouble, or losing your data. As we have seen, refusal to grant publication – or any media coverage – is a real problem. censorship is prospering in America. You have to get political lobbyists on your side to make progress against the other such titans, like the American Dairy Council, say. A Washington lobbyist is a must to get things done, or you are not in the right ballpark, playing their game. You are an ant.
I support freedom to buy raw milk, even without “official” studies. Why should I tolerate the government making my choices for me? Ditto on mandatory vaccinations for me or the kids. Whose body is it? Are we now government property?
Yes, “even” a farmer is capable of empirical observation and independent thought. Sheesh.
It’s those sold out to the scientific system who are often blinded by their own “religion”, never accepting that it is as corrupt as any area of megabusiness. They are all the same. But it’s a nice ideal.
I think the calves would have been better posed together as well as shown from other angles. Probably the pasteurized one was too listless to hold the show pose. Making it lift its head would have been misleading. Maybe a video would be more accurate? Poor coordination, low energy, disinterest in surroundings could all be observed.
I’d also have liked a cell image, comparing the two. And a blood profile – but i realize vet bills get expensive, and these people did this much out of pocket. Glad they did!
I am going to pass it along on FB.
This info is COMMON KNOWLEDGE to those of us that home dairy! We see it any time we have to raise a calf without benefit of raw milk. I’ve personally seen it verified every year for the past 15 years.
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Wow. The organs really tell the story. I don’t think I’d want to eat any of the pasteurized milk-fed cow.
And yet…. the majority of the population eats beef raised on worse than what the pasteurized steer got. They eat beef raised on milk replacer (not even real milk), GMO grains & dead chickens!
Thank goodness some of us know enough to eat (& feed our children) meat that’s raised in a healthy, happy & humane manner! (I won’t say that some of us CAN…. everyone CAN. It takes a drive to the country to visit someone that you’ve found on any of the many Internet sources available.) I only wish I’d known enough to do this sooner! I can’t help what I fed my children when I didn’t know any better. But, I can give them the best available now, for them & their children.
Evelyn,
I live in Australia.The population is much smaller.
It’s not as simple as a drive to the country.Mush of this stuff, such as buying raw milk, is illegal here.
Organic beef hamburger is something like $17.oo a kilo.For a family of 6 , that is a luxury.
Desalie-
I sympathize with your situation. Depending on where you are, it can be markedly more expensive to buy natural products.
One suggestion I’ve read before is to simply consume less animal products. If you were to cut your family’s meat consumption in 1/2, for instance, maybe you could buy the other half as organic…and eat rice&beans and the like as other meals… Just an idea. 🙂
Desalie,
You could also find a farmer who will raise your animal for you. Find a good dairy farmer who will raise & milk your cow & raise her steer. I’m sure there are many dairy farmers who would be happy to lease you a cow, breed & milk her for you, and trade you a steer for a heifer if the heifer fairy visits your cow (as she’s done w/ 8 to of my 10… I’m ready to sit out w/ a shotgun for the next delivery!!! Blast that fairy right outta the sky!) A heifer is much more use to him, I’ve got people wanting to trade me, but I only want meat that drops on this farm. So, I’m stuck eating heifers/cows.
There are lots of ways to do it. You have to be creative. I am raising a few animals by subscription. Their owners paid a full grown price for them & I’m raising them to full grown. The owners can come visit them anytime (so long as they observe basic sanitary precautions.) We’re hoping to set up webcams soon. That way, the owners can be many miles away & visit their meat from their computer. The cams would cover the pastures, so they could find their calf/lambs.
Or, you could buy a farm. You can do it…. I live in Los Angeles & my farm is 1705 miles away. I make the time, because it’s worth it. I started saving for my retirement when I was 9 yrs old & saw some old people who were down & out, even tho they’d made a lot of money, but didn’t save any. Scared the bejeesus outta me! Even if you didn’t save, you can start now, w/ that goal. It’s a choice & you make it… no one else makes that choice for you.
Evelyn,
I am sorry to say but in Australia what you suggest is not possible. Our government does not allow us to have any of our milk leave our farm unless it is in the milk tanker being sent to a registered processor. If we did what you suggested you would have the farmer fined and shut down. Buy a farm is unrealistic too. Our cost are not subsidised by the government like yours are. Our cost to function is also much higher. I lived in the US for 2 years; you have no idea how good you have got it. Here is an example – a raw chicken here cost us 8 to 10 dollars. Our milk per litre in the shops sells for approx $2.80 (differs slightly in each state) the farmer gets $0.47 ave/L. Now don’t forget to do the conversions – gallons vrs L and then convert the money to find out what it cost in your terms. You are right it is our choice but we are confined by our government too.
Great work Michael! Thanks so much. If people wanted to contribute to your work, where can they send it?
blessings
nancy (met/talked with you in Viroqua at the B&B Max had for us)
Great work Michael. If people wanted to donate to your work, where can they send it?
blessings
nancy (met/talked with you at the Viroqua B&B max had for us in Dec.)
Just think; this is what happens to cows fed on processed milk. What do you think is happening to the millions of children who’s mothers refuse to breast feed.
Hmmm…I think a lot of mothers (like myself) don’t breastfeed (or wean early) not because we refuse to breastfeed, but because we can’t – for physiological reasons, psychological reasons, medication reasons, etc. I cried each time that I had to wean my sons, but that said – I had to feed them something, and formula was the next best thing available. It’s unfair make generalizations about formula-feeding moms.
I was nursing babies back in the ’80s. Then, le leche league had documented that 0.5% (yes, 1/2 of 1%) of women couldn’t nurse their babies themselves. That being the case, I think that generalizations are OK. I’ve met many women who say they couldn’t. But the reasons have always been a bit strange. “Because the baby gets hungry at the strangest times & it’s inconvienant.” I’m sorry, I don’t see inconvienance as a ‘reason’ to give MY child an inferior food product as their only source of nutrition. Y’ll can be just as selfish as you want.
(Yes, I’m very outspoken & strong willed. More over, I’m staying that way. I had Stage IV Ovarian Cancer for over 6 mos before I was diagnosed, I beat it in under 3 months, because of my will & attitude. I like my attitude, it’s served me well & I’m keeping it!! I’m even growing my hair back. 🙂 )
When I found out what the commercial meat chain was like, I had to decide if we were going to keep eating meat. We like meat, so I bought a farm. No, I wasn’t lucky to be able to buy a farm. I started saving for my retirement when I was 9 yrs old, I’ve never had a new car, my children grew up asking, “Can we afford?” Not, “Can I have?” I haven’t bought clothes anywhere but a thrift store for over 40 yrs & did work in attorney’s offices, so I had to dress nice. I’ve put every dime I have into the farm & had to sell off a lot of things that were important to me. But…. they weren’t as important as my children’s health.
Anyone can do it, you just have to adjust your lifestyle to reflect your goals. My children are grateful that I raised them to be frugal. They’re achieving much more financially than their peers & they don’t give up anything they have a desire for to do it. They just have no desire for fancy clothes, a new car every year & 56″ plasma TV/monitor for games. Two of them want to take over the farm when they’re out of school. One has revised her career goals to be a large animal Vet, because we need one w/ this many large animals! 🙂
Here in the US, it’s illegal for me to sell the healthy meat from my farm for human consumption. It’s illegal to sell raw milk (for the most part). I sell the meat for pet food, what people do w/ it is strictly up to them. I buy milk for my dog, she never has tasted a drop. 😉 Y’ll can do it, you just have to want to enough.
I could not breast feed my son because I was on medication for MS. Please DO NOT look down upon those who cannot breast feed. I feel guilty every single day for the choices I had to make.
He was raised on formula, and it was my choice. I was told that I could order breast milk, but sorry, I’m not that rich. I’m not the only woman who could not breast feed. I know several people who couldn’t do it. It isn’t fair for anyone to look down on those who can’t. Unless you have walked in their shoes, keep your mouth shut.
As for this study, this is exactly why I am vegan.
I’m sorry you couldn’t continue breastfeeding your children, it’s a hard thing to deal with. You want the best for your children, yet you are forced to deviate and give them something you’d rather not for lack of choices.
I was wondering if having been breastfed yourself has anything to do with the ability to breastfeed?
There have been so many generations of babies formula fed, I got to wonder if that could be a factor in successful breastfeeding.
Plus all the garbage we were fed for so long, most of our lives. How could we make good milk for our kids if we, mothers and fathers, were being fed on phony food for nearly every meal?
The pasteurized milk calf couldn’t even make to an age where it could possibly breed, what does that say about us?
Are the problems with fertility and pregnancies the fault of what we have been eating all these years?
Is the rise in Autism, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, and MRSA, a part of this constantly malnourished syndrome?
Yes, most of today’s people are malnourished, no matter how much money they can spend on food.
If the food isn’t packed with the vitamins, minerals and nutrients to maintain optimum levels in our bodies for growth, repair and reproduction then there will plenty of sickness, all kinds of ailments and each generation will get weaker and weaker unless changes are made in the food itself.
The whole situation is mind boggling.
The pictures of the calves are amazing, and proof of everything good that has been said about raw milk.
Melinda,
I guess it just sucks to be you. If it didn’t, you’d undoubtedly have noticed that I said there were indeed some women who truly couldn’t. You may well be in that 0.5%! I could believe that!
As for your being Vegan, too bad a calf being raised on pasteurized milk is the ONLY reason you can find! There are SO many more! When I found out how commercial meat was raised, I gathered up all my nickels & dimes & bought a farm. No, I’m not lucky to be able to do that. I’ve worked hard my entire life. I’ve never had a new car, and very few new clothes, jewelery? you’ve got to be kidding! I don’t have money for such things. Anyone who can afford to buy a new car (& take the hit), or clothes not from a thrift shop. Anyone who can’t be bothered to pick that penny up off the ground… y’ll throw so much money away… no wonder you don’t have money to ensure your children’s health! It’s about CHOICES! I made choices, that’s not luck, it’s forethought & planning. I’d say that being Vegan is a pretty poor choice, if a calf getting the wrong milk is your reason!!!
Go find a farmer who’s raising his the right way & support him! In the mean time, your children will be healthier & you can feel good that you are part of the solution to this problem, instead of running away from the issue!
Approximately only <2% of the world's female population CANNOT breastfeed for physiological reasons. Most of the women who claim they "couldn't" were the victims of bad advice or a lack of true help. (and of course there are those who don't *really* care and just say they couldn't)
"Women who wish to breastfeed their babies but cannot – because of inadequate support from family or health workers, constraints in the workplace, or misinformation from the infant food industry – are oppressed and exploited."
–Penny Van Esterik
As far as meds go, there's almost always an alternative medication that can be taken that is safe while breastfeeding. Also, doctors tend to tell patients that they can't breastfeed while on X medication even if it IS safe. I encourage mom's to contact Dr. Jack Newman if they have questions about medication and breastfeeding – or just breastfeeding in general. drjacknewman.com
It's sad indeed, that most Western babies are formula fed. What's even sadder is, formula is still foul even when it is "needed". It's not suddenly good because there's "No other choice".
According to the WHO, formula is 4th best. And the only way donor milk could be more available to mom's who need it would be for more women to actually breastfeed…
Cheryl – I was completely formula fed as an infant and I had no problem nursing my two kids for a total of 4.5 years… with no help and no support. All it took was my and my child’s instinct to get going.
your costs of milk for the experiment are not close to accurate. I feed raw whole milk to my calves, ad-lib, they drink from 2-4 gallons per day. Assuming the extereme of 4 gallons/day for 4month, which is highly unlikely. That would be over $10/ gallon. I would like to see better facts please!
Hi Jeremy
If you buy the milk in the grocery store in Canada you pay almost 10 dollars a gallon. If you do your calculation right you in effect will be over 5000.- dollars not included our vet bills to look at the calves and the time we spent,
Regards Michael
Try buying it in Los Angeles. IF you can find it… you’ll be glad to pay $16/gallon! There’s only 1 store (that I know of) that even sells it!
Then, you can look at the whole A1/A2 thing! I’m looking for A2, raw milk!
That would be one question about this study that I’d ask. Was the milk known to be A1 or A2 for both sources? That would be important.
Evelyn,
IDK about for A2, but you can do much better than that in LA! My sister lives there. Organic Pastures has a “hub store” in Glendale at which I believe she pays around $6 per half gallon. She also gets significant discount on butter, cream, and even meat (which is excellent). Don’t know if this is close to you or not, but it might be worth a drive. http://www.organicpastures.com/hubstore_la_rossyln.html
Also, OP milk and Claravale milk are not that much in the stores at retail prices (I pay regular prices, unfortunately). Find more stores at http://www.organicpastures.com/. On the right-hand side of the page, enter your zip code. There are LOTS of store in the LA area and you should expect to pay just under $7 per half gallon.
Michael, I think you might be wrong.
If 1 gallon=~4L, most places in Canada sell it for well less than $5/gallon. Unless your farm is in Nunavut…
Natalie,
Thanks for the info. That is where I got the raw milk @$16/gallon. It was supposed to be less, but they weren’t much interested in what it was supposed to be. “Oh, that was an old price list!” I don’t like dealing w/ people who do that.
As for the meat, it’s dairy calf meat. I can do so… way much better!!! I raise Irish Dexter cattle on my farm. The meat & milk are outta this world! We’re 100% pasture based, no grain. Our cattle don’t give as much milk as those fed grain, but the nutritional profile is much better. We do quality over quantity. We don’t know the casein status of our herd yet. We have 9 cows, so a few are certain to be A2! Those will be the foundation of our milk ‘program’.
The problem is that several of my children live in the Los Angeles area & I’m stuck there a good portion of the year. I can freeze the raw milk, but I’m straining my carrying capacity w/ the meat I carry now. This year, I bought a trailer to carry the two 12vdc chest freezers that I bought last year. They’re 8.1 cu.ft. each & I have another 17 cu.ft in ice chests (that was all I had before.) But, we raise beef, lamb, ducks, geese, chicken & rabbits. That’s a lotta meat to be carrying back to L.A. I’ll also be carrying a 55 gal drum of eggs from our chix, suspended in Water Glass.
I’m planning to experiment w/ freezing the milk & cheese, to see how well it transports. I’m hoping I can add good, A2 milk to what I’m able to provide my children & grandchildren.
Joanne, past milk is much better than old pastries, bread and ethanol slop. Imagine eating on of those calfs fed on that?
I have a few questions about the two calves and the experiment:
1. Did both calves get raw colostrum in the first 24 hours of birth or did the “pasteurized milk calf” get pasteurized colostrum?
2. What was the breeds of the two calves? Have you considered doing the experiment again with two identical twins? This would show the effects on two genetically similar animals and remove this variable.
3. Were the calves allowed forage? If so, what types.
4. The differences in the kidney and liver of the two animals was extremely notable. The content of the “pasteurized milk calf’s” stomach looked very odd. Do you have any explanation of the differences in the stomach content? Did you inspect the testes to see if the sexual organs of the “pasteurized milk calf” were normal or atrophied?
5. I did note the first calf was being held in “show” position and the second calf was not. It would be better to have both calves in show position so this factor is the same of both animals.
I do not know if you are planning to do the experiment again but using two identical twin calves, one on raw milk and one on pasteurized milk, would be a better experiment. Having a picture of two identical twin calves together, held in show position, to compare size and shape after this feeding experiment would be a very powerful statement. The organs of these genetically similar animals, if notably different, would tell a strong story. Of course, many people in city’s do not know what healthy organs looks like but they can understand differences in growth and development if explained to them. Maybe having a vet look at the organs and give a professional opinion on the health of the animal would be useful to the naysayers.
Excellent suggestions for better control of the experiment.
Caroline and Katherine ~
The twin calf idea sounds good, but to the best of my knowledge, twin calves are quite rare. In my 25+ years in ranch country, I’ve only heard of a few sets of twins. There may be more instances among dairy cattle.
Twinning in cattle is not desirable for several reasons, so the twinning gene is not terribly common, and nothing like it is in sheep and goats. Also, if twins are born with one a female and the other a bull calf, there is a very high percentage of probability that the female will be sterile.
So, finding twins for a study may be possible, but not easily done.
~ G
Cows don’t twin very often…BUT…twin goat kids or lambs would be excellent, and less expensive options…and you could very likely find a pair of same-sex twins for better results…I know, I’ve had plenty of twin boys from my milking goats…maybe I should try the experiment…
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Thank you Michael for an eye opening experiment. I’m not sure if too many of us get to see these type of direct results in such a graphic way if we don’t live on a farm.
Although I feel it is teaching & preaching to the choir on this blog. So how do we take control and galvanize our combined expertise, knowledge & experience to challenge the systems placed against us in place, and not be dumbed down and told this is ‘anecdotal’ evidence! WE are the living evidence & proof. It seems like we have enough support, but not a united front…yet.
Evelyn, I admire your dedication & prioritization in life and was contemplating many of these decisions myself in life right now to literally ‘walk the talk’ more than I have. It makes me think of Thoreau.
Omg!! Thanks for the awesome experiment.
The fricking FDA needs to wake up!!
To Raca Macuait and Jeremy
Does the argument how much we spent on the project has anything to do with the outcome? I simply wanted to highlight the facts that doing an experiment like this is not cheap which is very often the deciding factor why there are only limited feeding trials done in regards to a very unpopular subject.
WE get so easily side tracked by issues which are not the crucial issues
Reg . Michael
In all honesty, folks, you also need to consider the time put into the experiment. Time is money – the $$ signs add up. Michael is right – the critical issue is not the exact dollar amount, but the effect that the pastuerized milk had on the calf. Milk, in its natural state, is best for all animals. In hospitals, they don’t pastuerize the blood before it is given to the patient – that would kill them. We need to be cautious with what we ingest and Michael’s study proves that. Thanks for all the hard work Michael – keep it up!
You are right. Didn’t mean to offend anyone. Doesn’t really matter how much the milk costs. This is not a significant detail.
What is more troubling is that people seem to believe that this is proof. Michael is right in his original message about what would be needed to make this a valid scientific point. This experiment is a step in the right direction, but be wary of calling it proof.
This is stunning! I wonder what would happen if they tracked human babies and monitored things such as their weight gain, alertness, hair, and health when comparing breast milk and babies who are formula and pasteurized milk fed…
Thanks for putting your $5,000 and effort into this project to give us a visual understanding of the ramifications of milk choices.
I’m also working to educate people about this important choice: http://sono-ma.net/80/exploring-the-benefits-of-a-family-cow-and-raw-milk/
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When we see truth and know truth we are not only responsible for it ourselves, but, also for those whom we associate with daily. When we as consumers realize that the closer we come to the source of our food (the producer) the safer our food will be and healthier we will be individually and as a society.
Thank you Michael for performing this experiment so that we could see the graphic result. May you be greatly rewarded for your efforts and cost. This gives us a visually disturbing look at what is likely one contributing cause to all of the digestive disorders/diseases plagueing our society.
I am grateful that I grew up on a farm where we consumed raw milk products daily. Since that time, personal experience led me to believe that processed dairy from some industrialized farms could not be healthy. It has been over a decade since I last consumed milk products, but, I know many who do so daily and now I have something tangeble to reveal to them.
Please subscribe me to this site.
I love raw milk, have always believed in it, even if I couldn’t always get it.
I spent 3 months on Orcas Island is Washington, this winter/spring. It is a nourshing traditions paradise with grass fed pastured beef and lamb. Range chickens and raw milk.
Love it. My health improved being there.
Thank You
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“We did not treat either of these calves for any condition. We would have if there would have been a life threatening situation.”
So was there a non-life threatening condition present in the pasteurized milk fed calf that went untreated? I would love to see the histopathology report on the organs shown in your photographs, as well as a full necropsy report. Are these available for review somewhere, or were those tests not performed? Are we to blindly accept your assertions and assumptions? After seeing someone suffer with disease attributed to Listeria tainted raw milk, there is no way I would recommend this practice.
Please let me know about the histopath, will you please?
Gracie;
My goodness… rather demanding… aren’t we? I, personally, think Mr. Schmidt has spent quite enough $$ on our behalf. I’m sure this report could have easily been done, if you’d have offered to pay for it! I don’t mind looking at the calf & looking at his organs to tell me what I want to know.
Why don’t you replicate the experiment & improve on it. Then, get back to us w/ the results of your, improved, experiment. I’m sure we’d all love to see what happens when your enquiring mind wants to know! Do you just sit back & whine (if so, I’ve got some nice pastured cheese for you; to go w/ that whine.) Or, do you contribute something to the world, in exchange for the air you breathe?
We butchered a nice, grass-fed bull (who didn’t make the cut to become our herd sire) yesterday. His organs were beautiful. I’ve got people lined up waiting for the liver. Actually, they’re not just waiting, their bidding for it. We have it in such limited supply & they say it’s so much better than store bought liver, worth well over what they’d pay for store bought liver. Mmmmm, wonder why it could be that a 3 yr old bull would have a better liver than a calf (which is what they sell at the store.) Isn’t calf’s liver supposed to be all that’s really edible? Or could it be that, on a commercial beef diet, calf’s liver is all that isn’t condemned? I know all our livers, along w/ the rest of the organs of our Certified Naturally Grown, 100% grass-fed (for the beef & lamb), mama raised meat is wonderful & the organs beautiful. We had some happy pigs yesterday, lemme tell ya!!!
Evelyn,
Please tell me you have a blog or website of some sort.. You have been cracking me up this whole thread & I’m dying for more. I think I’ve agreed with pretty much everything you’ve said although I am much to mild mannered to ever put it quite the way you do!
Thank you Michael for this fascinating study.. I can’t wait to see all the “new & improved” studies by all of your ^ methodology critics ^. However did anyone make up their minds about anything before the scientific method?
Sorry to disappoint… no blog or webpage. I used to have a page, many moons ago. But, it got boring. Now, while I do have a farm, there really isn’t much to blog about. We just had a calf a few days ago. That cow’s last baby was October 15th & I don’t understand how she’s doing it. She & the bull must’ve gotten VERY busy!!! lol but, that’s all that would have been worth mentioning this week. I just hate it when I go to a blog, faithfully everyday & there’s nothing new for weeks. 😦
I guess I could mention that the partners left & I’m looking for new partners. I can only carry a small part of what my farm produces. If anyone thinks they could brave the Missouri Winters/Summers… you could email me. OurFarmMO at g mail dot com
We try our best to really lead a quite boring life…. that would be the cattle, sheep, turkeys, chix, ducks, geese, rabbits, dogs & I. 🙂
I agree Gracie! Were the calves ever tested for disease? If one calf got sick and was untreated the experiment is completely invalid.
Lisa and Gracie, you’re really not much of farm people are you? Calves don’t just walk around getting sick. We raised cows when I was growing up till I was about 12 or so and I never ONCE remember them EVER treating them for ANYTHING. They were always healthy. Now my dad did use grain in the winter time and hay, but he was just doing what everyone else did. Point being, you are trying to make an issue out of nothing, They were healthy calves. Even if they had intestinal worms or an ear infection or something acute that would possibly even heal itself like an ear infection or a cut on the leg, those minor things would NOT cause the pasteurized cow to have rotten/putrified matter in his stomach, remember cows regurgitate their “cudd” and chew it again and swallow it again to digest it further. See the raw milk cow’s green healthy stomach contents? the stuff in the other calf’s stomach is rotten like fecal matter, could you imagine him plunging that back into his mouth to chew on later?! This is because the pasteurized milk killed all the enzymes and bacteria needed for his body to digest it, and if it was homogenized as well that would cause even more trouble for the calf to digest the fats properly, so instead it just sat there and putrified in his stomach. The liver and kidney is especially telling, he was probably suffering from iron deficiency and his organs were likely working overtime trying to detox and process all that milk. I would have been interested to see their hearts as well.
Again, you both miss the whole point trying to find a flaw, while dismissing ALL the other OBVIOUS signs right there. There is no “illness” that would go unnoticed in a calf that would cause all this damage, other than the simple fact that he was malnourished BECAUSE of the PASTEURIZED MILK. Sheesh how hard is that to see!
>>>>Lisa and Gracie, you’re really not much of farm people are you? Calves don’t just walk around getting sick. We raised cows when I was growing up till I was about 12 or so and I never ONCE remember them EVER treating them for ANYTHING.<<<<
Well, Emilee, you obviously didn't raise bottle calves from the dairy, because they are looking for an excuse to get sick!
And I still think that calf looks suspicious enough to test for Johne's…
Evelyn, which area of MO?
Emilee- I will argue on one thing you mentioned, if one of the calves did indeed have a worm load it would in fact alter how the calf grew and it’s condition!
Don’t miss our followup post on the taste test comparison of meat from these two calves:
Pingback: A Tale of Two Calves –The Taste Test « The Bovine
WOW…it is amazing that a single farmer/family took on this study by themselves even in this small and controlled capacity. THANK YOU for your commitment and willingness to share MICHAEL!
I live in the US and do not have a clue what Raw Milk prices are in Canada. I see lots of prices posted that are much lower than anything I ever see at the store, the best price I can get where I live (Seattle) is $9.00 US/gal plus glass bottle deposit and that is not retail, but private farm. The only retail location that still sells Raw Milk within 20 miles charges $6 US/half gallon in a plastic jug (several chain stores have stopped selling Raw Milk in the US, just in the past month due to pressure about “health concerns” and litigation).
Whatever the price was that Michael and his farm payed for the raw milk AND pasteurized milk needed for the study, I have no doubt that it was a significant investment for a small, non-subsidized farm – THANK YOU MICHAEL!
Gracie does have a legitimate question, just not stated in the best of ways. This test is a huge eye opener and provides enough evidence that the governmental bodies/FDA should conduct a much larger and comprehensive study.
THANK YOU MICHAEL!
Having left the farm many years ago, I see these two calves and wonder about something you have not mentioned.
When a cow dropped a calf, the ideal is to have the calf cared for by the cow. We did that when we were able. But if we milked a cow, the calf was sometimes bottle/bucket fed. Yet, other times we allowed the calf to have one teat after the cow had been hand milked but then rushed to “save” the other three teats for ourselves once the cow dropped her milk!! 😀
I noticed then the calves bottle/bucket fed – even though they were given only raw milk – didn’t do nearly as well as the calves that had the teat or anytime access to its mother. A pot belly was one of the differences in the bottle/bucket fed calf.
All of this is said to ask if the first calf was bottle/bucket fed or was it allowed to suckle its mother? That could be something to consider when factoring outcome.
Wow! Thanks for sharing this! I will pass on this information.
As of today (Wednesday June 9, 2010) this is now the most popular post of all time on The Bovine. Read all about that here:
Does anyone know what is typically fed to veal calves? Last time I was helping on a conventional dairy, they were feeding “milk replacer”, which I believe is based on milk powder.
But perhaps someone knows better what the current standard practice IS for feeding veal calves. Anyone?
Last time I was at a veal farm, the milk replacer smelled a lot like soy based baby formula. I’m not sure what it was, but it gave the calves “Scours” (diarrhea).
Any processed milk, including but not limited to, Soy formula gives my kids diarrhea (the acid, instantly eat the skin off your butt, kind). The only milk my kids can drink, is raw. Processed stuff is changed to where it digests differently… either needing more stomach acid, or causing belly-aches and diarrhea (and I’ve seen that repeated on 7 different subjects, all of similar genetic make-up… LOL).
My problem now… we are moving to southern WV… I need a new source for raw milk… not seeing one yet…
Often, what is fed to the veal calves on a conventional farm, is the milk not fit for human consumption, that milk which is from medicated cows or those going through the withdraw time to clear the drugs from the system.
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Welllll…. to y’ll who don’t think the calves in this ‘experiment’ were identical enough:
Soon, we’ll have cloned calves. Then, y’ll can buy a couple – twenty identical calves… try this yourselves & let us know how it goes.
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One detail about this experiment I was wondering about: What type of pasteurized/homogenized milk was used? Was it skim, 1/2% or whole/D milk? It would make a huge difference in the health of the calf to get plenty of fat regardless of processing.
Something else that could be worth considering if further experiments are done: If a calf is fed processed milk and is in ill health, could its condition be reversed by being fed whole milk?
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This explains why my testes look the way they do. What can I do to get my testes looking like the pics?
That pasteurized milk cow doesn’t look good. But I don’t see the point. Human milk for human babies! Cow milk for cow babies. Straight up, unprocessed. 🙂
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Very interesting and quite the eye opener as well! Thank you for doing this experiment, well done I say. Considering the costs of the experiment with calves…I am wondering if one wanted to conduct more studies of this if using lambs or goats would provide the same type of data with lower costs for the experiment? Of course it would depend on what someone has available to them. The pictures did not bother me at all, (other than the disturbing differences of course) I found them educational and interesting.
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Powerful blog entry. You definitely know what you are talking about here. Im so happy I was able to find this site. I look to see more great writing from you. Keep up the excellent work.
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I am a dairy farmer.my family and my dogs,cats and calves drink raw milk.
I agree with Michael if we start feeding calves cooked/pasteurized milk now we will have cows with no immunity just like people.
my friends then vets,drug companies, pasteurizing equipment makers and sellers will get rich .once again farmer will loose and public will also loose as the milk from non raw milk raised calves /cows will be full of antibiotics. people who recommend not feeding raw milk are the ones who sell milk replacer or ones as mention above who have some thing to gain.
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Glad I found this site. I was just wanting to see if there were any actual studies to help confirm what I suspected.
Here what happens in my country(btw I am a small dairy farmer)
they got our milk and at first pateurize it with UHT method and skim all of the milk. Then add hydrogenized vegetable oil and animal fat around intestinals of culled animals to prove that fat in consumer milk is from livestock. Then apply press about 2000 tonnes per liter of milk so milk is homogenized with those oil and fat. And it is advertised on TV how healthy UHT milk in TetraPak packages is. I learn that they add gels and starch in yoghurts to prolong its usable period. Also they make cream for top of youghurts with soda and hydrogenized vegetable oil and animal fat. Consumers think it was from fat in milk, but all of it was skimmed at first to be used as butter products which are much more expensive than margarine(hydrogenized vegetible oil) and animal fat around intestinals of livestock. I say butter products because they are not usually pure butter animal fat and margarine and some colouring used to twice the product mass.
One word: WOW !!
To believe the Government or to believe your eyes, that is the question.
Is there anyone noticing a trend?
Think about this:
We, as human beings, who at first foraged for food, until we became sedentary, and began the concept of farming, survived on raw milk long before either refrigeration or pasteurization.
The first concept was sound; the second, less so. At this point, pasteurization brings milk to a level where it just doesn’t kill one outright…and yet, it’s a grave crime to provide raw milk.
Does that make any sort of bloody sense to you?
Your statement makes no sense to me. I did not know humans survived on raw milk. Did humans consume other foods also? I did not know pasteurized milk kills people, do you have any scientific references to this?
are you serious?? how did you get here? 84-85
Did the calf fed pasteurized milk receive store-bought “whole” (3.25% milkfat) or mother’s milk that was pasteurized?
The second calf looks an awful lot like a Johne’s calf, and the “symptoms” fit as well. We’re these calves tested? With Johne’s present in nearly 22% of dairy herds, it could easily explain this calf’s look.
Johnes does not effect until a couple years old. But you would be right to question the differences, I don’t trust anything in this study.
Well, the wasting part of Johne’s starts at about 2 yrs, but they are generally infected in utero or as calves. Since it is a bacterial disease of the intestinal tract, I’d sure think that some signs could show up sooner.
This “study” would be awful easy to skew in the slant you wanted.
I’m sure you dont. its obvious you are opposed. you are taking it personally like you have something to gain or loose. I hate to state the obvious but damn is your company stock gone go down or something
I’d like to see a comparison between 3 calves, one on raw milk, one on pasteurized, and one on milk replacer. The calves I feed are all on milk replacer and are healthier looking then both of the two calves picture. They have more meat and coats are good. They are not skinny, nor fat. I have not seen their internal organs but I believe they would appear normal. That is something I would be interested in.
I scarcely dare to mention other dairy species, but it would be easier and cheaper to do more controlled experiments on sheep or goats, which have a lot more twins, eat less, and wean sooner (2 months). Goats would be easiest because they produce more milk.
If you have a doe that doesn’t have milk for some reason (I have ewes with important genetics that had damaged udders, that I keep to breed knowing I’ll feed the lambs), and she twins, then you leave the twins with her and feed each one a different ration. That way they have the same nurturing and environment, only different feed. If one gets sick and the other doesn’t, in the same environment, that’s probably because of immune system problems due to the poor feed.
It would be good to photograph the animals side by side, to have the lighting the same as well as size comparison. But from what I know of sheep, you can’t make a debilitated animal stand in what you are calling “show position” which in the pictures is just how a healthy, vigorous animal stands. The posture of the pasteurized milk fed calf itself is a symptom…hunched back and hanging head just as I’d see in an anemic lamb.
We’ve raised hundreds of goats on pasteurized milk — and have multiple Top Ten milkers and nationals placings with them. We’ve also butchered a number of them (or had a necropsy done if they died) NONE of them had stomachs/organs/intestines like the calf shown here.
Tracy
the issue is here that one calf was raised on store bought homogenized milk and the other on our farm milk.
You are right you can tare the study apart as not scientific which I never claimed anyhow. This was a simple demonstration of cause and effect.
I have raised probably over a thousand calves in my farming days and never had this effect on any other calf.
This study inflames a lot of people because we did not dare to provide the blind study and a big enough number of calves.
Well before any one criticize this interesting experiment get of your bum and proof me the opposite of our findings.
What is really interesting in this experiment is the fact that the vet present at the time we slaughtered both animals considered the pale organs totally normal. That says a lot doesn’t it????
Thanks for your input. I am working on a follow up report to address most of the concerns here on the blog.
Michael,
trying to prove the opposite is like trying to prove a negative, such as prove to me that Einstiens theory of relativity is false – can’t be done.
good point Ray.
For me it is an interesting fact that studies on this topic are not done .why???
Not hard to figure out I guess.
Thanks for your input
Michael,
I think for about $50 you can send milk to a lab and get a complete nutritional analylsis on it. For example, I am sure the same lab that I send my hay into for testing can also test milk. Testing would be a good place to start and would be necessary to give your study any creditbility because right now we have no idea what the differences in the milk are.
I am a supporter for the right to buy and drink raw milk. That being said, if these two calves were being fed identical milk with the only variant being pasteurization, i.e., this experiment would mean so much more to me. It is not merely pasteurization that is the problem here. Store-bought “whole” milk isn’t whole at ALL. Of course it doesn’t have the nutritional value of raw milk for a calf. It has been mixed with the milk of many other cows, heated, separated, stripped, and put back together. This experiment’s results are not surprising at all. It’s like comparing Apples and Oranges.
There are many more variables to consider regarding this experiment, most importantly that a calf’s digestive system is not designed to process pasturized milk. A ruminant digestive system is designed to use raw milk in a way that is most beneficial to the calf, including feeding and replacing the flora in the rumen. Of course pasturized milk is not going to fill the biochemical mechanics of the rumen, reticulum, omasum, and abomasum ( the four chambers of the ruminant digestive system. )
Also, human beings are simple stomached animals, like pigs and dogs, and are designed to work at their optimum with an omnivorous diet. Pasturization is neccessary because humans don’t have a rumen, although we do have our own digestive flora, eg lactobacillus. So this study is really comparing apples to oranges, and two poor calves lost their lives over it.
I agree, you can’t expect anything feeding a calf pasturized milk, it is stupid to think this poor calf could perform well. Also there is no description of how these calves were fed and where the milk came from. This a pure propaganda designed to bash agriculture, not research. The study needs a design to eliminate bias, replication, a description of material and methods – i.e. milk test should be published, and results including measurements and weights, not pictures.
One hears repeatedly from official opponents of raw milk that there is NO difference nutritionally between pasteurized and raw milk. I’d say this study shows otherwise.
Not to say a more extensive study wouldn’t be a good idea, but even this study would have to raise serious questions in the mind of a thinking person as to whether raw milk and pasteurized milk ARE functionally equivalent.
I would not think the issue is whether or not one is more nutritinal, I think it would be pretty obvious that raw, non-homogenized milk would be more nutritionally dense then pastureized store bought milk, that is why the calf fed pastureized milk would not be expected to perform well. I doubt however that pasterized milk is detrimental in that it will kill you or cause serious illeness and nutritional deficiencies.
i knew i knew it. i knew you were so opposed to this study for some reason.
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It appears fom the organs that the calf fed pasteurized milk could not absorb iron due to the destruction of the lactoferrin?
@ Raca Macuait price payed 2day at grocery store in ottawa canda for 4 litres of milk. $6.29
Hi Michael, it would be a valid experiment if you could do a similar study in several environments, ie on several farms. But with no interest of course by USDA or Ag Canada and a cost of $5,000 per experiment, you may need to ask for contributions from raw milk aficionados. That shouldn’t be too hard to ask or get, I imagine.
John
Alexandria, Ontario
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I grew up on a farm so we had good stuff. A garden, chickens, rabbits, ducks, raw cows milk, homemade bread, homemade root beer, of course good tasting eggs, most all things were homemade. We need to support farms and farmers that are truly organic.
My daughter, and I buy, raw goats milk, and raw cows milk. We are going back to nature. Using real butter, instead of oleo, canola oil, corn oil, and veg. oil. Canola oil is made out of the reep seed oil, used in factories to loosen bolts, washers etc. that have become rusted etc. So someone thought, refine it… and use it for people food. That is just an example of our government and what they think is good for us. Anyway, back to raw milk. Of course, it all depends on what the cows eat, or goats. But it is so much better to drink and taste so much better. It is so much healthier has so many more vitamins.
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I don’t know anything about the people that did the testing or published the results on this website. They seem rather biased. How do I know that their motives are honest or that they are not kooky?
Biased ?? may be.
I was sure that the calf in fact would not survive 6 weeks. It did not. It did still well after 6 weeks. After that it slowed down and never came back despite additional hay and grass.
Motives???
Honest you ask.
This study has simply confirmed what has been done before as studies in this field.
I would love to see more work done in cooperation with others.
A joint research project would be ideal.
If you can find an institute or research station let me know.
So far I have not been lucky finding somebody to support a joint study.
Thanks for asking
they are going to criticize but they dont want a joint study. they want control
I sure wish you would quit calling your little trial a “study.” A study would have controlled parameters and certainly more than one subject per category.
Several things I see here…
Regardless of what anyone says, the two calves are not the same breed. The first calf has either a beef breed or brown swiss in it. That cross will create a larger animal. The second animal is a Jersy/holstein cross (the shape of the head gives it away). Jerseys and Jersey crosses will be much smaller.
I am a livestock nutritionist. The second calf had some sort of bacterial issue…possibly something like a coli infection. You could argue that it was caused by the pastuerized milk. However I frequently see two calves the same age fed the same diet and one will develop a bacterial issue. If unchecked it will only get worse unless treated. And no you don’t need to use antibiotics to treat it. To not treat this calf simply to prove a point is cruel…shame on you.
I have a friend who raises calves. He feeds all whole milk but it is always pastuerized on the farm to take care of Johnes problems. His calves are healthy and large.
Regardless what you are thinking:
we have done the last 20 years line breeding and inbreeding. Our genetics are not at all influenced by different crosses anymore. The majority is Canadienne with some 2% left of Holstein.
Both calves same father and related mothers.
Both calves have been regularely supervised by a licensed vet. Fecal testing did not reveal e-coli infection. In fact the better calf had cocsitiosis but was not affected by it.
My detailed summary report is coming out soon. What should be noted; farm pasteurized milk is very different to store bought homoginized milk, therefore the effect much different I assume.
Thanks for the moral cruelty advise.
I agree with you that what we do nutritionally do to our children forcing them to drink store bought milk of poor quality is cruel.
I certainly invite you to come and visit.
Today’s animal nutrition might not be what animal health is all about.
We are on a very interesting back to basics programm.
Good writing here I really really like the way you write your blogs. I will continue to visit your site in the future to read more great blog posts like this one! This is an awesome post here.
Quote from a learned individual above as shown below:
Start quote…….
For observable phenomena in the natural world, the solution is to rigorously apply the principles of the scientific method. By following this method, measurable evidence can be gathered in a systematic and reproduceable way. It provides an objective way for people who propose a new idea to meet the philosophical burden of proof.
end quote….
Being an engineer by trade and working for a health study firm with contract obligations to HHS, etc I know quite a bit about these methods whereof you speak. Unfortunately, I’m also keenly aware that the level of diseased, dying and walking dead in this country (US) is pathetic. As far as I’m concerned no amount of brilliance has helped the cancer and other health issues in the least. And it sure isn’t helping the Japanese out of their present nuclear situation and there’s a lot smarter people working in the nuclear industry then at HHS. So give us a break about “science” already.
Michael,
This is a wonderful experiment. Never mind the idiots who say it doesn’t prove anything. There’s plenty of “scientific research” out that that is so flawed it doesn’t really prove anything.
I have a question – was the pasteurized milk from a different source (the grocery store?), so there could conceivably be a difference in the mineral and vitamin content of the two milks in the raw state? I’m interested in the issue of food quality related to the declining mineral content of our soils, because few farmers are paying attention to proper remineralization of the soil.
I grew up on a New Zealand farm – 100% grass-fed animals, calves drinking mother’s milk and family drinking 100% raw milk. When I was 9 we moved to the city. The schools were provided daily with 1/2 pt. milk for each student to drink at morning break – pasteurized. I could not tolerate it. Got a note from my mother that I did not have to drink it. Never drank milk again! Now, back in NZ, cannot buy raw milk, just like in OZ. I did, however, recently buy some A2 milk for my husband. I am a strong believer in A2 vs. A1, but the dairy conglomerate which controls 95% of the country’s milk products is not because they have no idea if their cows are A1 or A2. Heaven forbid that we should deal with the pasteurization issue.
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The cow fed pasturized milk almost looks bloated in the picture. Thank you for doing this “study”. Very fascinating and a great incentive to be even more vigilant in our diet.
I’d like to see pics of their hearts. There is some research about how pasteurization breaks down fat into molecules small enough to enter blood stream and so people who drink it have the fat build up in arteries and heart. Can’t find it now … but it mentioned how they noticed it autopsies of Viet Name veterans.
I am sorry I just don’t see the 100% correlation between what happened with the calves and humans. I wish I could…because I am a supporter of raw foods and organics. My issue is simple. Cows are not human. I would EXPECT to see a baby cow (who relies on cow milk for nutrition) to be sickly if we pasteurized his milk and took out vital nutrient for the growing baby cow; however, a human who is only drinking milk to supplement their diet I would HIGHLY doubt to see any issue. I would hope there is no one out there trying to live off of pasteurized milk, or just raw milk either! A diet should be balanced.
What this does show to me is this: Raw milk is more nutrient rich and more easily digested. So if you drink raw milk you are getting more bang for you buck in the nutrition department; however, I would not expect to see any harm to people drinking pasteurized milk as long as they were not using it as their main source of nutrition (which they shouldn’t be).
Um. What are human babies, Alex (aka Tara)?
I don’t know who Alex is or what that means? And human babies are human….not cows. Exactly my point. A human baby should not be trying to live off of any milk other than human milk. No one for that matter should be attempting to live off of solely cow’s milk, raw or pasteurized. That is all I was saying. I do agree that Raw milk is more nutritious and all together better for you. However, I do not agree that a human that drinks pasteurized milk will have the ill effects that this calf did (because the calf’s main source of nutrient was the milk). Basically what it boils down to is this. I think raw milk is better for you, but I do not think pasteurized milk alone will cause ill health effects. It is just not as nutritious of a choice.
You can’t see the forest for the trees! You do get it, but you’re looking for something else instead of the answer right in front of you.
Raw milk is a complete food, in some places in the world it’s the only food people have to live off of for several months of the year.
The calf and people can live off of straight raw milk with no harm, and more benefits.
The Milk Cure was simply raw milk and daily mineral baths and bed rest. It would take about a gallon of milk or more daily, sipped throughout the day, an hour or more in the mineral bath and bed rest for the remainder of the day, sipping as much milk as a person could drink. It was generally warm milk and nothing else.
You didn’t need anything else, no water, no food. If a person needed to gain weight, they did; if they needed to lose weight, again they did. High blood pressure, diabetes, dental problems including cavities, heart conditions, TB, muscle problems and a host of other ailments were cured with a this method. It did take time, around 2 weeks to be healed. The benefits would last a lifetime.
Our world believes that healing should be immediate and waiting for healing is old fashioned and unacceptable.
Pills are faster.
Google Dr. Porter’s Milk Cure
I do agree with you. What I am saying is that there are people on here saying your liver could look like that calf’s from drinking pasteurized milk. Which is simply just not true UNLESS you were relying solely on the milk as your main source of nutrition. In which case YES it would look that way.
I agree raw milk is a better choice. However, I do not agree that someone that uses pasteurized milk as a supplement to their regular diet they will see any harm.
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It seems that History has been redacted, again. People have had cows milk for thousands of years, and no really big problems with it. Until the Dairy Industry wanted to corner the market. Our grandparents would have laughed at all this. If the cows are clean, the milk will be good. Once a corporation gets control of something that was good, like bread, they will turn it into a monster. The US congress wanted to outlaw white bread in 1911 because it caused so much illness.
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Evelyn – I could not produce enough milk for my son. I nursed 14 times a day (including middle of the night) AND pumped 10 times a day. I got about 3 ounces from pumping. I woke up in the middle of the night to nurse and then pumped – in the middle of the night. I just didn’t have enough glandular tissue to produce enough milk. The lactation consultant told me I had to supplement as my baby was losing weight. There were times I felt I would have given everything I owned to have been able to nurse him exclusively. I went on like that – nursing, pumping, bottle feeding for 7 months, until my baby finally refused the breast. I cried for days. DON’T make assumptions. 1/2 of 1% is 1 out of every 200 women. That’s not that rare. I agree many women “choose” not to breastfeed, and I think that’s unfortunate. But they may make other parenting choices that are good – and not all breastfeeding mothers do everything right. We all are imperfect.
That is down right scary! The differences between the two calves are so amazing. The raw milk cow looks so healthy and the other pasteurized cow looks so sick. How can it be ok to feed our kids pasteurized milk when we can see how in four months the cow was so affected by the milk? Recently I wrote about how a company in America got arrested because they were selling raw milk.
Now I can see why – we would all be too healthy if we all drank Raw Milk and the big companies would not get the benefits of our money for when we get sick on the Pasteurized Milk.
Thank you for sharing this story. I am now considering what my kids can drink instead of Pasteurized milk!!!
Cheers
Lisa Wood
http://www.newlifeontheroad.com/is-big-brother-watching-you/
Angela try drinking fresh raw green coconut milk, it worked when my wife lost her milk. 😉
Michael Schmidt you are a legend!!! God Bless you.
We definitely go along with this however it is difficult to obtain raw milk, UK law says it can effectively only be sold over the farm gate by the actual farmer.
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Common sense says: When you feed an infant a watered-down form of it’s only source of nourishment, it will not thrive. Was this “test” really necessary? I wholeheartedly support the purchase of raw milk, but I don’t think we can equate what happened here with what happens to a human who drinks pasteurized milk. Cow’s milk is NOT the exclusive food of a human…but it is that of a calf. As far as I’m concerned, you took an infant and exclusively fed it microwaved breast milk. We already know that a baby will not thrive without proper nutrients. I don’t think you did anything to promote your cause.
The calf didn’t get a watered down version of milk, it drank common, store bought pasteurized milk in plastic jugs. Nothing added or taken away. They were fed the same amount, at the same time. The point is the bottled milk calf was nowhere near as healthy as the raw milk calf. The liver being the most obvious difference.
I don’t think you looked over the information very well.
Human adults have thrived for years on nothing but raw milk with no ill effects. Check “Dr. Porter’s Milk Cure” on Google, you can download the entire file. You should also Google Dr. Pottenger’s Cat study. Kittens fed exclusively on pasteurized cat milk failed to thrive and eventually died. It was an extensive study that covered several generations of cats that tested both fresh cat milk and pasteurized cat milk. The results were startling.
Look around at the babies and kids you know were bottle fed and compare them with those who were exclusively breast fed. There is a marked difference that is easily seen by anyone who looks. It doesn’t matter if the formula is supposedly supplying all the vital nutrients needed and has been fortified with this and that. And adding solid foods too soon is not good for babies either.
It still doesn’t compare with breast milk or raw milk. Just like artificially lowering the blood pressure and cholesterol doesn’t make a person healthy. It’s an illusion that defies common sense.
Living beings are not ruled by numbers but by the needs of the body moment by moment. It’s all about balance and getting it right.
Dr. Porter claims that raw milk provides whatever the body needs right then, and increase in weight or a decrease in weight, high blood pressure lowered and low pressure raised, but mainly there was no need for any other substance, not even water, was needed by anyone on the Milk Cure.
It would heal whatever was wrong with the patient all on its own.
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Thank you, Michael for your struggle and your experiment. I hope you and all of us will win and stupidity and corporate greed will be defeated. I had no idea that drinking milk could be illegal. And the amount of clerks and officials involved, not to mention the paper they used, and how much they got paid for that. Unbelievable. We do live in Orwellian world.
I don’t need a proof or a study to know that raw milk from a healthy cow is better than pasteurized milk. As a child I had a mild form of lactose intolerance, or perhaps I was allergic to pasteurized milk, and the only milk which did not give me a stomach pain was raw milk, preferably warm, milked straight to my cup…yummy! During summer vacation on a farm the evening cup of raw milk was my favorite treat and I used to show up in the barn with my cup, and waited for my uncle to milk the cows, together with several cats, which were waiting for their treat – a bowl of foam formed in the bucked during milking the cows. Later on I used to buy raw milk for my children from a farmer and it was amazing, it got sour only before a thunderstorm, otherwise it was fine outside of the fridge, even on a hot day, had amazing amount of cream on the top, tasted wonderfully and was suitable to be boiled or to be drunk as yogurt if left in a room temperature, or to make cottage cheese. This crap which is offered in a grocery stores does not boil, you can’t make yogurt or cottage cheese out of it , it just gets sour after a while, it stinks and tastes awful. Should I add that I don’t like it? Of course, the more containers are used before the milk reaches the consumer the more possibility of contamination, so the milk offered in the store should be pasteurized, but it still should smell and taste like milk, should boil and be suitable to leave it for yogurt or cottage cheese; unfortunately that’s not the case. If I had a choice I would be buying raw milk from a farmer in a heartbeat. Regrettably, this is not an option for the city dwellers, and if we won’t fight it it won’t be an option for anyone, ever. What a shame.
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Here’s a hint folks……all calves drink raw milk from birth, pasturised milk is for humans. This so called experiment is about as valid as giving ice creme to an eskimo and him complaining that it isn’t cold.
If ya want raw milk live in the country and buy a cow. If ya live in the city buy a cow share and bring your own milk can.
If you’re trying to be funny, you failed.
If you thought that was a smart remark, again you failed.
If you just have a bad attitude and needed to vent, mess with somebody who likes that kind of drama. If you want friends and to be part of a community, try to be pleasant.
My advice, have a reason to be here or at least support what we are fighting to preserve, the right to food freedom and freedom to farm without government dictatorship.
By the way, no one here believes that pasturized milk is for any living creature! The results are obvious to those who would see with unbiased eyes.
It’s also obvious to the blind, who could tell the difference in coat texture by touch!
The only thing proven by this non-experiment is that cows are made to drink unprocessed milk. Pasturized milk was developed for humans not cows. I checked my coat just a moment ago and it is just fine.
Even the author of this article acknowledges the unscientific nature of this article and just for the record, I raise grass fed beef and am quite familiar with cows. The article proves nothing other than it is not a good idea to feed calves pasturized milk. All of the results of the unscientific exercise are much the same as feeding a motherless calf powdered supliments. The exercise presented was biased and is in no way representitive of science and does not stand up to anything resembling objective review. As I mentioned in my first comment, if you want unprocessed milk you can have it, I drink it as I see fit and no government prevents me from milking any of my cows, just present information untainted by unscientific and emotional bias.
Hi Moooo
The determination what is a scientific experiment or a non scientific experiment would interest me.
What is interesting in this debate again and again that I have not seen a scientific or non scientific experiment disproving my what you call biased experiment.
It was in fact a surprise for me that the outcome was so extreme.
During my 17 years of battling the so called bias anti raw milk movement nowhere could they in fact provide me with a a comparative study about the differences of raw versus pasteurized.
You can slam this experiment as much as you want in regards to it’s scientific validity.
The intention of this experiment was a curious exploration of the much Government and industry proclaimed non existent difference between the two milks.
Mooo having no intention to disprove my non scientific experiment with a scientific experiment adds absolutely no credibility to the debate at all
Regards
Michael
The only thing the CDC has admitted so far, after over a century of propaganda against raw milk, is that NO ONE HAS DIED FROM DRINKING RAW MILK!
But hey, that’s a lot coming from them! That is amazing in and of itself!
We have at least cracked the wall!
Hang in there, stay strong, know we keep up the fight, even at 4 in the morning.
Peace
Actually Folks the general guidelines for a valid experiment are taught in every major university. As far as the claim that noone has died you need to read further. The need for pasturization came about because of deaths and even today several studies show that between 1 and 12 % of unpasturized milk contains harmful bacteria.
A major organic raw milk supplier in california was shut down last month after five children became ill………. While it is true that even raw milk can be treated in a more effecient manner than 100 years ago it still has it’s problems.
There is no conspiracy folks……..just things to be understood and balanced and the ‘experiment” presented on this site only proves that calves shouldn’t drink commercial milk.
If anyone here would like to look at a human liver after a lifetime of drinking pasturized milk go to a morgue and put in a request. If you want to feel the coat of someone that drinks pasturized milk ask someone how much milk they drink and ask to rub their head.
If in fact the “experiment” did cause the damage to the calf drinking pasturized milk it is of little importance other than possibely angering peta members that consider it animal cruelty.
My cows will continue to nurse from their mothers and my children will continue to drink processed milk unless they are milking a cow and need a squirt of moo juice.
Mooo,
You’re facts are wrong. I hope I am getting closer to what is correct.
read: http://lisabarger.typepad.com/today_in_food_safety/2011/11/organic-pastures-raw-milk-recalled-quarantined.html
Additionally, the above link is not the final conclusion on the situation.
The dairy, as far as I know, has not been closed.
There have been many many illnesses caused by pasteurized milk (check out FDA statistics). Let’s explore one example. Year: 1985; Country: United States; Event: salmonellosis outbreak in milk; Company: Hillfarm Dairy; Number of persons infected: 5,295; Deaths: 9; Additional Notes: Largest foodborne salmonella outbreak in milk. What should we do about pasteurized milk, Mooo?
Do you think such dairies should be closed? How about Maple Leaf meat?
Hi Moooooooh
“The guidelines for valid experiments are taught in every university. ”
interesting way to put the validity of science into the university which is nicely funded by corporate Canada or corporate America.
Corrupt yo the core is the name of the book which describes the approval process for safe drugs in Canada based on Monsanto interference.
We all should Moooooooh -shining.
yes there have been problems with “regular dairies precisely because the product was not properly pasturized. If you want to put the 5000 some odd illnesses up against five for raw milk be my guest. Now divide the population of the market by the 5000 illnesses……. and understand that the illnesses came about from improperly pasturized product. Now do the same with the customers of the california dairy and divide by 5.
So now we have the Corporate University skewing of science conspiracy to deal with. Use a private University or just purchase books on scientific method and present an article worthy of honest review.
Sure seems to be a hibit of several on this site to quote the supposed validity of FDA studies when they believe the studies support their conclusions yet discount FDA studies when they disagree with the results.
Guess the conspiracy only works if you discount objectivity.
Moooooooh
Just get one study done to prove your point. preaching and endorsing Government policy will do nothing to endorse any credibility of your arguments.
This is not about you are right and others are wrong. This is about individual educated choices and informed decisions.
Michael…I am not trying to prove a point you are. Quoteing selective information and provideing questionable quasi scientific info is your method not mine.
I am neither pro nor con raw milk nor pro or anti govt. I simply suggest that information can be provided in an objective manner and your method is flawed. So now I will go get a glass of raw milk and wait for some objectivity. As far as scientific studies, I have participated in many and the first rule is design something that is not flawed from the start.
I’ll say it again, pasturized milk was never ment for cows, it was ment for humans.
Why do you put so much faith in “scientific” studies and trials when time and again they have been caught cooking the numbers, cherry picking the subjects, lying and cheating on the information and results of very important, policy-changing data?
A very famous man summed it up like this:
“Oh ye of little faith who swallow a camel and strain at a gnat.”
I guess you would ask him for the trial results and say that he didn’t use a valid method for his work too?
You have no proof that all the food you eat and have eaten all your life is safe, is properly tested, and prepare or that all the claims made about that food was true or valid.
How do you know that everything is as it is claimed to be?
The books that are cooked could not be discovered without peer review…….a necessary step in the scientific method. I put the faith I have in my God and the rest of the human race has to prove their theories. As I have stated before…….calves drink raw milk and pasturised milk is for humans. All that was proven by the test as shown here is that someone killed a cow and that is exactly what happens to calves when they do not get raw milk.
Humans have been drinking pasturized milk for over a hundred years and their livers are just fine.
The same results would have occured if the calf was given water. have you ever bottle fed a calf that has had no colostrum……..dead in thirty days, Their stool becoms runny , their coat becomes dull……….
The “experiment” that was presented here is meaningless. You may as well exume my hundred year old grandmother and look at her liver. The woman ran a dairy yet drank pasturized milk………blameing her death on either milk product would be just as valid as the results of the “experiment” presented here.
Good heavens all you sceptics who talk about double blind and skewed tests – bloody well open your eyes folks.I trust the people who ran this trial were honest and unbiased – that is as unbiased as you could be knowing that it is common sense that of course milk from nature unadulterated and untouched is better for the calf not to mention humans.How many humans are walking around with livers,stomachs and kidneys like the poor calf fed on the equivalent of milk from the store.How much is the consumption of processed milk contributing to the chronic disease picture in humans?
Oh and by the way I have been consuming raw milk now for 3 years post rescetion of colon cancer and I must say I am thriving
The scientific or unscientific nature of the test makes little difference as the test itself had a false premice from the beginning. Common sense may be an interesting idea….ask any vet if giving a calf pasturized milk for five months will lead to death of the calf. I have asked several Vets and the answer is yes. Back to more common sense, calves need raw milk to survive, not water, not cola, not heated milk, not even a good stiff gin and tonic. So go ahead and ask a vet the outcome of giving a calf anything other than “raw milk” or is a vet part of the great corporate conspiracy?
Moooooooo
I wonder if you in fact understand the issue.
Your simplified approached to the complexity of the debate for sure might cloud your understanding of the nature of this experiment.
Since you are a Moooooooh, without any reasonable expectation of human intelligence just begin grazing the greener pastures of your world.
I grant you the right of not liking what you read and as well I am not telling you what to think or where to graze, because a Moooooooh has no doubt a mind of her own if not fed in the Moooooooh -way.
You have your Moooooooh
I have my milk.
As a Moooooooh you might know where does it say that raw milk is for calves and pasteurized milk is for humans?????
Have a wonderful day, just keep grazing your greener pastures and open your eyes and ears and may be one day you might understand why in fact people like any Moooooooh like milk as pure and raw just like your calf.
Blessings and big Moooooooh hug
Well Michael…….. pasturized milk was developed for humans over a hundred years ago and has been sold to humans in developed countrys since then. Please take my suggestion and ask a vet about the negative affects of giving a calf pasturized milk before you kill another calf needlessly. One thing I have learned thru this forum is that objectivity is at a minimum. crowd
Crowd?……….?????.
What do you mean with that.
According to expert advise pasteurized milk is as good as raw milk but has no pathogens in it. So if this expert advise from Health Canada is right it makes no difference to the calf. Come on Moooooooh. A good debate has a real face and not only a Moooooooh.
Michael….crowd should have been this crowd. The pathogens in raw milk are EXACTKY what the calf needs. The pathogens not present in pasturised milk are the same pathogens that will make humans sick in many cases. pasturization came about due to the need to supply a large population with product that would make a minimum amount of people sick. dairies of the day had individuilized handling methods and the product was inconsistant. many dairies even rigged tests to avoid oversight and make the sale.
The fact that the pathogens that have been removed is why your calf died……the fact that the pathogens have been removed is why humans do not get sick from mishandled milk.
Moooooooh
Guess what, the calf did not die.
Guess what, we had a veterinarian supervising the experiment.
Guess what, many farmers pasteurize their milk for the calves because the milk is so bad.
Guess what I actually thought you would know more about these things considering your expert criticism
See it is hard to judge unless you know the whole story.
Regards
Michael
After nearly 5 months we could see that the pasteurized calf would have had difficulty to survive without medication and supplements………….So ya killed him Michael.
A Vet supervised the “experiment”? Not much of a vet if the vet watched the animal suffe r.
Not a single farmer that I know of gives their calves pasturised milk. As I had mentioned earlier, I have spoken with five vets and all said pasturised milk will harm a calf. Five michael………….of course you can claim that they were corporate shills .
Guess guess guess Michael………if you had conducted an experiment and made the results public from the start, as is done with any valid experiment worthy of peer review you would not be able to add information after the initial report to bolster your case. You had a vet oversee the slow withering of an animal to prove a non-point. Not very humain animal care now is it Michael. I will say it again……….calves drink raw milk, humans drink pasturized milk………. your non-experiment only proves that cows don’t thrive on pasturized milk.
Moooooh
I think the best thing to say is, you are right. I should have asked you first.
So let’s agree on one thing. I let you have what you think is best and I will keep what I think is best.
Let’s not impose one or the other milk on each other.
Nothing more ,nothing less.
Have a great week
Hope yo find soon some greener pastures
Regards
Michael
While an anonymous Moooooo could even have a few good points…I’ll never know. Why would I take the time to read them if the author cannot bring themselves to stand behind their own words?
Michael, here’s to your real voice and the very real issues we are facing with government intervention in our personal life choices.
So……ya want raw milk, you can get raw milk, there are raw milk dairies……..just how does the government prevent you from getting raw milk Montana. I can drink raw milk as I please Montana and haven’t seen a single government employee on my farm or snooping in my refrigerator.
Montana cheers to you for your real response
Warm regards
Michael
I remember reading, many years ago, that raw milk contains some wonderful anti-cancer agents in it,.. These agents are destroyed by heat. The agents also increase significantly after a cow’s third lactation, and continue to climb. Yet how many large dairy farms keep older, less productive cows around? I know of a few small farms that do have 10 year old cows– but the larger farms, with over 200 cows– nothing is over 5 years of age.
I’m not trying to be negative here but I read this and was a bit confused. I understand that a cow not getting raw milk would be affected negatively but how can that be the same for a human. Any infant mammal would need raw milk from it’s mother or a proper formula to survive and thrive properly. I think this study would work with any mammal species that was surviving purely off of milk. BUT humans do not drink only cows milk to survive. We need other foods to satisfy our nutritional needs. I think this study proves that if you don’t give an infant animal all the nutrients needed it will not thrive, but I don’t understand how it is a black and white study. Now if both calfs were being supplemented with the proper vitamins and nutrients needed, and then were fed the different milks, it would better show if the cows were affected by the pasteurization process and not just a lack of needed nutrients…. I have a newborn baby and I breastfeed, so he gets all the nutrients he needs from my milk. Now if I pasteurized my own milk it would lose some nutritional value and he wouldn’t thrive BUT if he was older and could eat other foods he could cut out milk completely and be just fine. I think this study really just shows that infant animals need ALL the nutrients in their mothers raw milk to survive, it doesn’t really show that people should stop drinking pasteurized milk.
BritnyLe if you want for your child to thrive and be healthy when you stop breastfeeding get him or her to drink raw milk and you’ll see the benefits. All my friends have children that like to eat and have diet consisting of different foods only my son was the pickiest of them all and still is. He doesn’t eat meat, fish,eggs etc. (list is huge)Guess who is the healthiest? In last 2,5 years he had only one small cold recently that lasted 2 days so small that I shouldn’t even mention it.. So for me that is proof enough to believe in the benefits of the best drink on Earth and possibly Heaven, if there is one it sure has raw milk.
I learned in microbiology that all animals need to be exposed to bacteria viruses etc in order to build an immunity. And correct me if I am wrong but pasteurizing is in essence the removal of any or these ‘contaminants’ so it seems perfectly logical these are the results the got and would continue to get were a big company fund more research. They won’t because they know the answers already. The more important questions I think we need to ask ourselves is why we drink milk beyond infancy and why we do so from another species? We are the only species that does either of these things… Ew!! Ew!! Ew!
Thanks so much for doing this project! I have found the comments quite interesting as well to see the extreme differences. Projects like this are often featured in the news saying “Limited research shows… but more research is still needed to confirm the results.” I think everybody should be able to agree that this SHOULD be the launching of further research and studies, since it potentially impacts health so significantly.
Because doing this study would not make anybody rich or provide anything to sell (potentially quite opposite in fact), then money won’t be found for it and this project will be buried as quickly as possible by most people unless people like you and me keep it posted.
In regards to the people who say that this has no human correlation, I say that this is NOT about mothers who could or could not breastfeed their child. It is an attempt to show the results for cows with a hypthothesis that there may be a carry-over effect for humans. YES, further evidence is required to state that as ‘scientific fact,’ but hopefully it makes people start to question why this study has not been done.
That being said, studies HAVE been done showing the babies fed on formula are just are healthy as babies fed on store-bought milk. Which might raise a set of different questions for possible implications with this project.
Thank you for doing this project and letting people learn from it what they can and raising other questions for every question that it doesn’t answer!
I know that I experience bloating when I drink pasteurized milk and when I visit California and drink raw (real) milk, I feel fine. So I know I would be the bloated cow in this study if it were done on humans! =)
were they both pail fed calves or was the one on raw milk a sucking calf ? that alone makes this type of diffrence in appearance of the live animals on our farm .
The cynical brainwashing of university students in North America I believe started in the 1930’s . It is now so deeply ingrained in the culture that you can not help getting these odd creatures (often claiming to be credentialled ) showing up and destroying a good “heart to heart ” discussion and brainstorming session. I now call them the “GOON SQUAD ” (affectionately of course ) ! Which is all this humble blog can be. There is no government or corporation that meets the lofty standards that these GOONS claim is the bare minimum standard before any human being dare discuss anything to do with life , health or science or food . And if you do not meet that standard they are perfectly entitled to abuse and humiliate and curse and swear and embarass you (anonymously of course !) . It is a sign of their deep courage and faith in themselves ! Where has that belief system gotten us ? And why are we in such a mess ? And why is the US the MOST messed up country if this way of doing things is so perfect and divine ?
I guess we add the GOONs to the corporate monsters and the dastardly scientists…………..and the annonymous accusation is quite humerous since your name is ansent from your post.
Diversion from reality seems to be the means that are used to skirt a valid discussion on this blog. I live in Texas and while many here carry on about the dastardly government intrusion on the raw milk crowd there remain 80+ raw milk dairies in Texas. When science is mentioned it is with a sneer yet scientific methods are hinted to when trying to sell an idea. So now annoninity is a crime when many here do not use their names. I am sure that the monitor of this blog can determine the identity of any poster by looking at their e-mail address which is needed to post a comment. Sell your product but refrain from the drama. Raw milk is simply another product on the shelf and a rather good choice……… not a political football or the food of the anti corporate bad guys. If you make a claim that seems scientific on its face back it up with scientific data collect by accepted scientific methods in an objective manner. Otherwise, just claim that raw milk will cure ignorance and lead a revolution for the good of livers everywhere.
As a person with a 4 year science based degree, AND as a person who has watched certain things come and go, I am both familiar with “The Scientific Method” and with anecdotal evidence. It takes a lot of anecdotal evidence to trigger a ‘valid’ research project. There Must be a proven demand for ‘science’ to prove or disprove the ‘stories’.’ Sadly, any scientific research done is often biased-in favor of whoever is providing the funding for the research. The other sad thing is this– food handling practices have changed over the last 100 years. We have ways to double check the health of our animals, to make sure we do not contaminate the food supply, etc. With this in mind why is it we are still not permitted to make our own food choices/decisions? I WIll tell you why– it is all in the name of control. When the food supply is controlled, when all health issues are controlled, when access to education is controlled, the people are then controlled. It is our duty to educate ourselves as to how different laws and practices affect us, and start speaking with votes and wallets..
Well Terry………..seems that anecdotal “evidence” is biased to fit the agenda as much as you believe scientific evidence is biased in favor of the persons doing the study. What is an objective person to do other than perform a study that is open to peer review and let the peers, and the world in general look at the study and clear up any questions. Valid experiments can be repeated with the same results if in fact they are valid……….eliminateing variables will tighten the scientific data and bingo…….. ,akes little difference who does the study if they information is published for all to see and is open to review. What we do not need is someone whineing about the big bad boogieman having an agenda. An agenda will become very obvious as the data is verified……………..and that is science.
Wow what a great discussion, but what I think what needs to be realized is that most of us are educated people here, but not all of us are necessarily scientists. Just because someone makes an passionate statement doesn’t mean it always needs to be followed by facts and research data. My passion for raw milk is fueled by the health of my family. I am a 46 year old finance manager that has a 55 hour/week job sitting at a computer. I didn’t notice all the pain I was in gradually going away, when we first started drinking raw milk, but what I did notice when the Amish family that was supplying our group moved away, was the return of pain a couple weeks after we stopped drinking it. We have been back on pasteurized milk now for 3 months while I have been desperately searching for a new source and for the last 2 months everyone has been sick. I have a 5 children and 4 grandchildren ages 26 – 1 year and we can’t seem to kick the cold that is going around. Yes I know it is the season for colds and I know that colds last about 2 weeks and we are probably getting new strains brought home by the kids from school. I know that if we started drinking raw milk tomorrow that I would probably start feeling better right away and some of that would be in my head because I believe in it so much. I know all the “scientific data” that we have been fed by doctors and the scientific community that should have me rushing out to get vaccinated with the latest flu vaccine, but sometimes knowledge comes by experience. If I burn my hand on the stove do I need a study done with 100 other people willing to get paid to burn their hand just for you to believe me when I say that the stove is hot? I know that my family didn’t get sick as much with raw milk, I know my pain was less with raw milk, I know that my family’s skin looked better, and if I don’t have a scientific study to back up my knowledge it doesn’t make it any less true. Please realize that sometimes what come across as a sneer at the science behind all the studies, is our own frustration at not having easy access to a food that we know to be healthy. We are frustrated with a government that wants to tell us what is “good for us” when common sense tells us that most of the things they say are good for us are not. We know we can’t go back to the stone age and live in a time without machines belching out pollutants, and most of us don’t have the time to grow and home can all our food, but don’t make me have to watch my children slowly wither while eating yellow broccoli, processed antibiotic full chicken served on a melted Styrofoam plate with a side of hormone and antibiotic full, processed vitamin enriched dead milk and tell me it is the nutritious lunch your are going to give my child at school. Trying to eat and feed your family organic whole foods is expensive and frustrating, so if a few of us speak passionately and not scientifically you’ll just have to overlook it.
Susan Harder
Do cows with owners that happen to hold European passports have some kind of special immunity to E.Coli, Salmonella or listeria ? No, of course not ! It is ,first and foremost , a POLITICAL , economic and legal problem (here in Canada ) . This blog is obviously slanted towards counter-balancing the hopelessly backward Canadian government perspective . Some European institutes and universities are indeed picking up the football that Michael Schmidt has left here and doing rigorous studies. This will take some time . I am confident that not only will his results be confirmed but more discoveries will be made in that arena about the benefits of grass-feeding , soil fertility and other natural farming methods. But what difference will it make ? In Canada there will continue to be for the next while an ever increasing grassroots that embraces not just raw milk but organic farming in general while the official Canadian government line continues to be totally out of synch i.e pro Monsanto, pro GMO, pro herbicies, pesticides and fungicides. So this blog serves an arena or catalyst for some of those ideas that are accepted at the grassroots level. Need i remind you that the governments control the big research dollars for university funding here and in most countries. Michael Schmidt has a right to run a small research project , on his own terms, to start the ball rolling . He spent $5000 to do that plus time. Given the budget and time constraints it was actually quite good and useful. Most of us are grateful he did that and made his research so available. If it were published by some university most of us would not know where to look for it or bother .
How many farmers would it take to do this research together to get someone to pay attention to it at a major University? Does anyone know? Could the milk from the mother of the calf that is being fed pasteurized milk be pasteurized on the farm before feeding time? I’m wondering if it would be possible to recruit a group of farmers in the US and Canada who would be willing to do this same research again on different farms, with perhaps different breeds of cows but using the calves own mothers milk boiled for a specified length of time. I’m not a scientist. Does this make any sense to those of you who are familiar with the way research studies are done? Would it be doable?
Wow, Mother Nature knows best. After all the hand of the Creator set us up with perfection…..we are the ones messing up His designs.
Also, I forgot to add:
THANK YOU to Michael, your family and everyone who helped you with this. It’s a really interesting study and really, really admirable that you would take this project on independently. I really wish you could find someone to collaborate with so you could get the money you need to make this work publishable!! Have you tried to contact any academic scientists? I don’t know where you are, but I bet SOMEONE at an academic institution would love to collaborate on this, even if they were interested in something outside of raw milk vs. pasteurized.
I recently visited an organic cow dairy. They separate their calves from the mothers very quickly, to be sure they do not pass on Johne’s disease. Colostrum is fed from known clean cows. Real milk is fed via bottle, to all calves. All calves are treated the same.
The dairy has fed pasteurized milk to their calves, and has fed raw milk. They did not document evidence as Mr. Schmidt collected for us here. But, for that dairy farmer, the difference is clear – the calves fed whole, pasteurized milk do not thrive. The calves fed whole, unpasteurized milk thrive.
Hi,
I have not read all these posts. I am wondering though, were both calves given colostrum in the beginning, or just one, and would that make any difference? For human babies, prior to 12 months, cow’s milk is not advised by health authorities ….it is recommended that babies who are unable to have human breast milk, to have infant formula. Human babies cannot digest pasteurized cow’s milk. Would this be the same for calves or not (being a different animal) ? Have babies been given raw cow’s milk rather than formula before
6 months of age, or is that not digestible as pasteurized milk is not?
I am not trying to tear anything down. I drink raw milk and I support farm shares….but I am wondering.
how many babys get colostrum ???
COW MILK (raw or not) is not a good substitute for breastmilk
only maremilk can compeet, it it the most resemblend milk to human milk,
it is welknown in EUROPE and MONGOLIA
Interesting experiment. As a matter of fact, researchers at Lund University have identified a protein in milk that protects against cancer. Of course the action of this protein is destroyed by pasteurization.
Non-pasteurized milk contains Immunoglobulins that protect against infection. It appears that the calf fed pasteurized milk did not have a normal gastro-intestinal bactererial flora, which could have led to the changes in the other organs.
MOOOO- you missed the point– anecdotal evidence will often trigger research using the scientific method.. Some will be done to prove the anecdotal, some to disprove it– think of the TV series “fact of faked” where the ‘original’ video is the anecdotal evidence, and the simple trials they run, the proving/disproving methods. And there is an agenda out there– ever notice that a former HSUS employee is now USDA?
Unscientific methods are not scientific no matter how scientific anyone wishes them to be………… many here have already ranted against the scientific methods in general…….many here digress to their anti corporate anti govt anti anecdotal dogma………… I will stand by my earlier comments. Present scientific data that can be tested and repeated in an unbiased fashionuseing scientific methods………… Even crazy king ludwig did better than this non-experiment.
“What we do not need is someone whineing about the big bad boogieman having an agenda. An agenda will become very obvious as the data is verified……………..and that is science”
You are a true goon, determined to sabotage everything good about Michael. On other blogs you’re also known as a Troll. Nothing anyone says will sway you, you are the “true” authority and science is your god. But you see, the rest of us are far smarter than you, we tolerate your silliness and self centered obsession with being right. You show your weaknesses and shortsightedness for all to see and invalidate yourself.
Truth will stand, science has failed so many times it’s not taken seriously by the public anymore, kind of like listening to a commercial and ignoring the message and doing what is best for us.
The fact that another dairy farmer has tried feeding both raw and pasteurized milk with the same results is proof enough for me.
The fact that science is killing tens of thousands of people and pets with theories of wrongful nutrition and medications, that they announce in January that something is BAD and another thing is GOOD and then turn around six months later to completely reverse what they said because of some new findings has become so common that they have no credibility anymore, they have become a sad joke, not to be trusted, not to be taken seriously. Just like you.
And you stupid notion that raw milk is for calves and pasteurized milk is for humans is just that STUPID, unscientific, unproven, based on wishful thinking. I don’t feel like being polite anymore, don’t want to be bothered with even reading your drivel anymore, it’s obvious that you are stuck in your own ignorance and refuse to just shut up and let other people be in peace.
Mr. Schmidt is such a gentleman, you should be glad and thankful that he cares so much and does so much good for the benefit of so many. He doesn’t need to be nagged by trolls like you.
In my book he is a hero who stands up for food and health freedom against great odds, fights against tyranny and injustice daily. He could have caved in years ago and let the “authorities” dictate to him, but he didn’t, He gives hope to the rest of us fighting against the system.
Oh goodie..now the personal attacks………. so you don’t have the cash to properly present a proper study. I suggest that rather than bad mouth others you devote time and energy trying to raise cash to conduct proper scientific analysis. Perhaps a government agency may even help or even loan you the info that has already been collected. But then again.the govt is the boogieman and their science isn’t your science…………and now I will drink my raw milk and munch a few cookies………Happy New Year.
HOW MANy calvs do you want to test ? before you accept the result ?
IS 10 enough ? that will be 50.000 then, I can provide them and you wire me the money OK ?…. the thing with people who need HUGH evidence ,
is that they don’t provide the money….. another reason why studies don’t take place !
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“HOW MANy calvs do you want to test ? before you accept the result ?
IS 10 enough ? that will be 50.000 then, I can provide them and you wire me the money OK ?”
The number of samples you would use in a study needs to be sufficient to show that the difference BETWEEN treatments is greater than the difference WITHIN a treatment. So, it’s not impossible that 10 would be enough if the difference is as great as you claim. However, it’s not up to others to pay for your rantings. If you can’t afford multiple samples, you simply don’t get to make the claims. It’s as if you took a smoker who liver to age 80 and compared him to someone who dies in his 50s–Hey! You “proved” smoking is better for you! But, in my other reply, you chose to address it with yet another rant and a complaint that it’s too expensive. Well, fif it’s too expensive to prove with a real study that has statistical significance, don’t make the [false] claim.
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I can see the benefits of raw milk, but I have to say that this experiment is just not proving that to me. First of all, calves are suppose to drink raw milk, that is what they would be getting from their mother, if they had not been seperated from her. So the idea that the calf fed pasterized milk, wouldn’t be as healthy makes sense. What kind of milk were they feeding the pasterized milk calf? Unless it was a pasterized milk, that was as close to what the raw milk was, then this experiment is flawed. Where they giving the calf whole pasterized milk or skim or 2%? Does that contain the same amount as fat molecules as raw milk does? Should they be feeding it something like pasteriazed heavy whipping cream? I think the claim to raw milk is that it contains good bacteria and things in it that pasterizing takes out. So this study is to reflect that taking out those things makes you not as healthy. So unless they can give the cow the same type of milk minus the bacteria etc., it just doesn’t hold water to me. What else bothers me, is that calves are suppose to get this kind of milk from their mother, until they are able to eat grass. This seems more like a breast milk vs formula experiment.
my thoughts exactly, pasturized mike has all the cream skimmed out, cream is where all the stuff babys need is located, in other words they starved that poor baby cow, for nothing, how cruel!!!~!!
Pasteurized milk does not all have the cream removed. Full fat pasteurized milk is about 3.5% fat which is about right for holstein raw milk as well. Humans are “supposed” to drink raw milk too otherwise nature would have “put a pasteurizer on the cow” as one of the farmers I know said. We need this research and the research done in the 40’s with rats done again at a modern University and we need Health Canada to do this research in light of the resent research that shows that farm kids are less prone to allergies and asthma than town kids and the research teams both saying that the raw milk may have had an effect. Instead of sticking to the “raw milk is a dangerous substance” that 3/4 of the rest of world disagrees with, lets do some serious research to find out what raw milk actually does do for the body. If Health Canada won’t do it then find me an appropriate researcher who will and what it will cost and we’ll do our best to come up with the money. This research is very important! Our kids deserve the best chance at health so instead of playing an old broken record that more consumers are not listening to these days, lets do something productive and look at this issue from a neutral place and do the research without bias. I don’t know what Michael fed this calf with but I can’t imagine he bought all that pasteurized milk to feed it with. I would like to know so hopefully he’ll comment. It seems to me that if the mothers milk was pasteurized, that is about as close to perfect as this kind of research could get.
why drink milk ? its not ment for us, its for the calf !
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Raw milk?Is it milk that comes straight form the the cow??Where can 1 find it!!
Hurrah, that’s what I was exploring for, what a data! existing here at this weblog, thanks admin of this web site.
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Thanks for some other great post. Where else
may anyone get that type of information in such a perfect means of writing?
I have a presentation subsequent week, and I am at the look for
such information.
Very interesting comparison of raw milk diet vs. pasteurized milk. Clearly a difference. Hardly scientific, but I like to see studies like this to learn more. I know I feel better on raw vs. pasteurized. Would love to see possible blood tests that may show potential immune benefits as well. Thanks for putting in the time and effort to share this!
This kind of research is the key! Thank you Michael Schmidt and Glencolton Farms for the work you’ve done here.
Well I know raw milk would make me stronger…but sadly I can’t drink milk. I am lactose intolerant. Trust me you do not want to be around me when I drink or eat anything w/ milk in it that isn’t treated some way.
Thank you for this very interesting study. I wonder if you could comment on the different types of pasturization that are used. For example in France there is non-heat based pasturization which is done with micro-filtering instead of heat. How would that compare with raw milk and conventially pasturized milk?
This is from http://www.deliciousobsessions.com :
Types of Pasteurization Posted on October 25, 2010 by Jessica •
One thing many people might not realize is that there are several different types of pasteurization. While unpasteurized milk is still far superior to pasteurized milk, many of us don’t have access to or can’t afford raw milk. So, I thought it was important that people know what the different kinds of pasteurization are. There are three methods that are most commonly used. 1. High Temperature, Short Time (HTST) method – This method requires that the milk be held at 161 degrees for 16 seconds. This process, also refereed to as continuous flow pasteurization, requires the milk to be forced through metal pipes that are heated from the outside….
2. Ultra-Pasteurization (UP) – This is the type of pasteurization that you will most commonly see on cartons of milk, half-and-half and heavy cream. It produces a product that has a stable shelf life of up to two months! The UP method requires that the milk be held at 280 degrees for 2 seconds. Most commercial milk brands use this form of pasteurization since it is the quickest and cheapest….
3. Vat Pasteurization – Vat Pasteurization is the most gentle type of pasteurization. If you can find milk products that have been processed using this type of pasteurization, they will be your best bet if you can’t get raw milk. The vat process requires that the milk to be held in a heated vat at 145 degrees for 30 minutes…. It is then quickly cooled to 39 degrees. This type of pasteurization is more expensive, which is why products that have been produced using it are difficult to find….
Read More at http://www.deliciousobsessions.com/2010/10/types-pasteurization/ © Delicious Obsessions
Regarding micro-filtering:
It appears that Canadian producers that may microfilter milk still have to pasteurize the milk as per Canadian law. It sounds like one would almost lose all the beneficial bacteria in the process of filteration ? Even if it was not pasteurized , Why would drinking a ‘sterile ” but raw product be any better than drinking “DEAD MILK” ?
Here is more info from http://www.cooksinfo.com :
Micro-Filtered Milk
Micro-Filtered Milk is milk that has been treated to a very fine filtration process. It removes more bacteria than pasteurization. Producers say it removes 99.5% of bacteria present in milk. It also gives milk a longer shelf life, of up to 30 to 45 days.
The filters used have incredibly small pores in them, about 1.4 microns, though most producers are keeping their exact techniques secret.
The process appears to be common for most producers, though. The milk is separated first from the cream to make skim milk. The skim milk is then forced through the filters. About 95% of the skim milk comes through filtered. The other 5% of the skim milk is used to carry away the filtered-out bacteria; this can be pasteurized to be used in other dairy products.
The filtered skim milk, in North America, is then pasteurized as is required by law. But, the filtration means the producer can pasteurize at a temperature closer to the legal minimum, rather than higher as they often do for the sake of caution.
The cream that was removed is then pasteurized, and added back to the skim milk to make up the desired fat content for that product.
Micro-Filtration of milk is not approved in Canada or America as a substitute for pasteurization, because while it may filter out bacteria, health scientists are still questioning what effect it would have on any viruses in the milk.
Read more: http://www.cooksinfo.com/micro-filtered-milk#ixzz2RRPAPB7q
Was the pasteurized milk, whole, 2%, skim??? To make it as equal as possible – I would think it should be WHOLE, and un-separated pasteurized milk (NONE of the fat removed)… what was it?
Shanna–It’s a lot more poorly thought out than that…one sample of each type? If one of the cows just had a congenital defect, this “study” would attribute it to one of the factors studied. You usually expect better out of a Junior High Science Fair project.
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I was just curious if the pasteurized milk was also homogenized. That has many different affects on bodies as well. Also, possibly conduct this on twin calves next time, ruling out differing genetic factors.
Before you read too much into what they’ve presented here, do keep in mind: The calf here is not anything like a perfect analogy to the human body. Calves are adapted to thrive on unpasteurized milk directly from the teat, and that’s it. If you adulterate that milk in any manner which degrades its nutritional content, and that milk is the only thing the calf ingests, of course you’re going to see developmental deficits. However, humans are not calves, and we do not subsist solely on milk. We tend to have variety in our diets which would compensate for any nutritional deficits brought on by consuming pasteurized vs raw milk.
This “study” isn’t saying what the authors here are trying to make it say. Drinking pasteurized milk does not degrade or shrink your organs, give you small testes, etc. I think the way they’ve framed this whole article is very irresponsible and dishonest, even inflammatory. I’ll take controlled, blinded scientific studies before I’m convinced of anything.
“To understand the results of our raw milk experiment it is important to tolerate the so called scientific demands. That means in order to get accepted and being taken seriously by the scientific establishment you need to have 100 or 200 or 300 or may be even 1000 calves to make a scientific valid point. However the simple fact that the so called experts have not yet entered into a joint research project as proposed by me already in 1994 has given me even a greater confidence that the results we have seen with these two calves are credible and significant.”
I don’t understand the outright contempt for good scientific methodology displayed by the author of this article. The reason you need such a large population to test a hypothesis like this is simple: your results must be repeatable! Even if your hypothesis was remotely valid, you still cannot rule out any of a million spurious variables with a population of two! The calf could’ve had a genetic abnormality, could’ve come into contact with any of a thousand pathogens, could’ve demonstrated abnormal feeding pattens, and the author hasn’t controlled for any of this! The results here could easily be entirely anomalous and irrelevant, and are consequently useless. I mean, seriously, this is basic science here.
If you can’t convince a review board of rational people to take on your hypothesis at the scale necessary to produce useful data, it’s because your experimental design isn’t good enough, plain and simple. This guy decries his awful treatment by the scientific community because they won’t accept his farmyard “science” as equivalent to a properly designed and executed pilot study, and then tries to get his readers to listen to him over the people who actually know what they’re doing. Stop. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t know how to design a controlled study, and you clearly don’t know the meaning of the words “credible and significant”. Please, stop intentionally malnourishing defenseless animals in the name raw milk.
But what’s even worse is the people taking this at face value and going “Yup, raw milk’s what I need. Gawd-damn FDA deprivin’ mah children uh alluh dem nutrients!” Sure, a valid study might conclusively demonstrate that the health benefits of raw milk for humans far outweighs the risk of foodborne illness, but for right now, no such study exists. What this guy needs to do is make a credible case for such a study to be performed, a case which demonstrates that the cost of performing such a study will be worthwhile. If he’d done that, we wouldn’t be here, and poor ol’ baby Bessie here wouldn’t have her organs laid out for us to gawk at.
@Tyler
I agree with your comment in more than one way. However, I would like to point out that funding research that could uproot the whole dairy industry (pasteurization) would be a bit challenging. Unfortunately, politics does play a role in our scientific community. I would love to see quality & “unbiased” research testing raw versus pasteurized dairy products effects on “health.” However, I think it may be a while before we see any significant amount of studies doing so.
I found this little “experiment” very interesting and definitely needs some additional research. However, this experiment simply raises questions. It cannot possibly draw any conclusions, especially ones relating to the human body and diet. It lacks many of the necessary components needed in any study that can somewhat accurately draw conclusions. Yes, the scientific community and research is far from perfect, but it provides us with more than just anecdotal and subjective information (which does have its place, but is not the end all be all for drawing conclusions).
With all of that being said, I am not surprised by the observations seen in the calf on pasteurized milk. 1) it is the calves’ only source of nutrition 2) milk from the mother provides the necessary beginnings for the bacteria in the GI tract – which the pasteurized milk is going to lack (therefore, decreasing the culturing of the GI tract, the ability to absorb nutrients and fight infection).
Human diets do not have just a diet of pasteurized milk. Therefore implying the above results could possibly happen to adult humans is hardly a conclusion you could come to.
I am being critical of this “experiment,” and not because I am against raw milk. It is because the experiment could be so much better and provide so much more insight and information if done properly. I think raw milk and cultured milk products are wonderful and their benefits far exceed those of pasteurized (especially ultra-pasteurized) products. But this experiment does not in anyway give us what we need to conclude that pasteurized milk products are “harmful.” As far as I am concerned pasteurized milk products are simply inferior. However, I cannot emphasize enough that more research needs to be done.
So I don’t know anything about raising cows, but they fed the cows milk? Cow’s milk?
Interesting blog in regards to raw milk that includes some links to research. http://thecompletepatient.com/article/2012/july/15/new-reminder-positive-research-results-wont-change-views-anti-raw-milk-camp
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So, my government “allows” me to choose cigarettes, alcohol, koolaid/soda, and whether or not to wear a motorcycle helmet, but it won’t allow me to choose to drink raw milk??? Something fishy here!
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People how can we even make this sort of connection to humans and drinking pasturized milk vs. unpasturized? This has no correlation on how humans would be affected compared to cattle? All this proves is that cattle need a natural flora in there bodies for better feed conversion, improved health and so on. DUH due to being ruminants. HUMANS ARENT RUMINANTS. And genetically very different, just like giving micotil for respritory issues in cattle, give it to a human and well…Not a pleasant ending. This carries very little actual scientific relevance to humans. By removing natural flora, this decreases natural bacteria needed for digestion and natural flora also reduce the possibility of infestation due to competition for resources. So of course these animals are sicker and have a lower immune system and don’t grow as well. Microbiology at its finest!!! Maybe people should be more concerned about not using anit-biotic soap in their homes and making super bugs and people using antibiotic prescriptions correctly first
okay, the gov’t supplies needles to drug addicts so they can destroy their bodies without the added complications of aids or hepatitis, they are thinking about licencing recreational drug use, they do not restrict the sale of cigarettes which are full of toxic chemicals, except to minors, they do not stop fast food chains from selling stuff that causes liver damage if consumed regularly….but I am not allowed to drink raw milk?????????? Because very very rarely some doo doo MIGHT get in the milk or I might get sick? Oh, the hypocrisy of it all. Especially when people have died from consuming supposedly safe food products and they don’t stop them from being provided to the consumer.
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I feel this experiment is not correctly justified… one calf may have been suseptible to parisites which perhaps the other one wasn’t… even two calves mama suckiing, one can be more infested than another. That alone would chnge the condition of the liver and kidney etc. It would also say why the hair was rough and easily falling out. For an experimemt to be justified these isues need to be also considered.
I guess I understand why some people would rather drink raw milk than pasteurized, but personally, my family doesn’t drink any milk at all. We gave it up because my son kept getting life-threatening sinus infections, and he has not had another one in five years. My asthma has cleared up, and so has my skin. I miss cheese though. All this really proves is that raw milk is better for CALVES.
Valarie, thank you for adding in an important factor; sometimes NO milk is the best option. I would add though, that many people who have directly seen milk is a problem actually may not have that problem with real, honest milk (meaning raw). I know of two cases of infant colic that were cured, quickly, when the diet was switched from commercial cow’s milk over to commercial goat’s milk. Yet another variable in the discussion on dairy ..
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Very interesting indeed. A lot of people already know that raw milk is way better for you than the pasteurized stuff. The real reason why commercial milk is pasteurized is because the cows are over milked and their teats leak puss into the milk, which contaminates it.
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I don’t know about this. Is it not true that raw milk is full of micro-organisms and parasites. Surely at least it ought to be boiled?
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I have 6 year’s nutritional education both mainstream clinical and holistic and have taught in several colleges. All that doesn’t matter, though, because I simply can’t digest pasteurised milk in any quantity greater than a 1/4 cup. raw milk, I have consumed up to a litre at a time, with no ill effect. In fact, I feel wonderful on raw milk. God bless Michael Schmidt and honest farmers like him producing honest and real food.
I am interested in the colostrum the calves received. I’m assuming the raw milk calf got raw colostrum, but what about the pasteurized calf? Heat treated colostrum? Colostrum replacement? Or did he get raw colostrum?
I have an issue with this and my reason being is that as a dairy judging student i can tell that the raw calf was staged. If you look at the first pictures you can see that the raw calf was cleaned, and clipped, and positioned correctly. The pasterised calf was not cleaned nor clipped which can alter what the calf can look like. I bet if shown both in the right position, clipped and cleaned they would look similar. Also The teste pictures you can see that the raw calf was cleaned and clipped because the hair is smooth and not wirey. Also nothing looks wrong with the pasturized calves testies. That is what they are supposed to look like. Also how can we tell that those are deffinitly the right kidneys and guts. Also the calf could have gotten scours and that could cause the watery poop. personally i wouldnt take this “study” with a grain of salt.
Thanks to Michael and his family for doing a study such as this. No it is not scientific proof but it is enough to make people think and question which is a good thing.
I switched to raw milk a couple of years ago, but the farm was an hours drive away. I couldn’t get there every week or sometimes even once a month so I tried to go back to store milk. It just tastes spoiled to me. I did start drinking the organic milk from the store. If you compare the expiration dates of organic and regular, you will see that typically the organic milk has a much longer shelf life. It also tastes better.
Luckily I have now found a co-op and now only have to drive once every 6 weeks are so and then it is fun to get out in the country and go to the local markets and other shops in the area. I would pay about $4 a gallon for regular milk at the store, or $7-8 a gallon for organic. I buy fresh raw milk for $6 a gallon straight from the farmer. The milk I get now is also “cared” for differently. The milk I get now separates but the fresh milk I bought did not. Don’t know why. I like that I can allow the milk to separate now because then I can skim the cream off the top and make butter (super easy) and my own half and half for my coffee. I want to try whipped cream but haven’t yet. I skim about 80% of the cream off of the 2 gallons of milk I get a week and mix the rest in.
I have a large number of people in my extended family that all drink raw milk in different parts of the country some places its legal, some its not. If you want something bad enough you can find it. My daughter in California buys raw milk at the store. I think it is in the neighborhood of $8 a half gallon. She needs to find a farmer!! Here is my point – no matter where we get our raw milk we all feel better since we started drinking it. Our digestive systems are happier, we get sick less, etc. Of course that is not scientific proof either, but it was enough to convince me.
So… I’m off to have a glass of good cold raw milk.
Moo
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Theres only 1000 other variables to account for. But yeah, it was all the raw milk.
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of dairies across the continent raising excellent heifers on pasteurized milk.
This is an absolutely useless comparison and a terrible impersonation of science.
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Is this the same experiment (?) that was performed years ago?
Overall, it seems to be a good effort at a study, but it would be far better if it would have been done with better scientific practice. Not the quantity as noted but more about parity of test subjects. As the animals are in fact so big and require such costly inputs it may also be more advantageous to go with a smaller animal such as rats. And perhaps easier to find more parity in test subjects as the have a bigger litter size and easier to limits genetic diversity as a conditional factor. May also be easier to include a blind componant.
Yes, it seems to have been done 5 yrs ago, as the article is dated June 4, 2010.
I fully believe that everyone should have the choice to drink raw milk or not. However, unless an official autopsy was performed by a CFIA Inspector and/or Veterinarian to confirm that the pasteurized fed calf wasn’t suffering from some disease or illness that caused it’s ill thrift…..I cannot wholeheartedly support this experiment as conclusive.
Hello! Interesting study! I am wondering at what temp was the milk pasteurized at and for how long and also was it homogenized as well or left non-homogenized? 🙂
If all that would be required to preserve most of the cystine in pasteurization is a lower temperature for a 30 seconds, why is there not a national program starting at FDA to require it in the requirements on industry.
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