The Germ in the Dairy Pail By Forrest Maready

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The Germ in the Dairy Pail: The 200-Year War on the World’s Most Amazing Food—Milk
By Forrest Maready
Independently Published

This captivating book tells of milk and its relationship to history and human health, start­ing with the blockade of New York Harbor in 1812. Denied access to rum, determined folks transported corn and other grains into the cities and fermented them into liquor. They disposed of the fermented remains (also known as swill) by feeding it to cows. This was much cheaper than grass and far easier because the swill was right at hand and piling up anyway.

To the severe misfortune of both cows and people, this change disrupted their gut flora, and the cows and people consuming the city swill products got sick. So many babies died that losing a child in infancy became common enough to eventually be written into statistical expectations. (As a side note, an MD speaking at a nutrition conference related how he’d been criticized as a resident because not enough of his patients died. Evidently, his applied knowledge of nutrition led to too many recoveries, which messed up the hospital’s odds ratios.)

Ancient practices such as Traditional Chi­nese Medicine and Ayurveda describe how seasonal rhythms afford subtle but significant changes in physiology, which in turn relate to similar shifts in nutritional needs. Dr. Price’s de­cade of on-site studies reflects the same aware­ness: living in accord with nature is fundamental to health. Health (an adjusted pronunciation of “wholeth”) is a matter of being at one—whole—with the world around us.

When families got their milk directly from a trusted farmer, they did so based on seasonal flow. In contrast to today’s blustering protests that “milk is just milk,” people in earlier times could sense the difference between milk from cows savoring the lush renewal of grass in the spring and that from less contented cows munching dry hay in the darker days of the year. However, when cows went from grazing on pasture to getting standardized feedstuff in tight, dark, confined enclosures, seasonal varia­tions no longer mattered.

As the awareness of wholeness and its importance was forgotten, consumer choices became more influenced by cost, convenience, promotion and sometimes outright deception. Possibly encouraged by their increasing ano­nymity, expedient producers devised ingenious ruses to improve the appearance of the thin, bluish, often toxic substance from sick cows on urban pavement passed off as “milk.” Dilution with water—not necessarily from clean sourc­es—or “whitening” with lime were common.

In addition to making people sick, these de­vious measures prompted the presumed neces­sity of legal intervention. After all, if you don’t threaten people with punishment for wrongdo­ing, what’s the incentive to do right? Thus, the stage was set for standardization and uniformity of the end product, regardless of seasonal or circumstantial aspects of production—fabrica­tion rigged to meet fabricated needs. Govern­ment regulations replaced farm-to-consumer relationships, engendering major economic and social changes. Gradual at first—and of course fully intended for the health and well-being of the populace (“yeah, right”)—the regulations soon burgeoned into numerous agencies with newfound importance and authority.

Eventually, this regulatory momentum had an enormous impact on how we think and conduct our lives, sadly increasing our disconnection with the seasonal and rhythmic changes inherent in the original life design. Political accommodations and rules gerrymandered to fit every situation (while actually suiting none) took precedence over common sense and trusted relationships.

At the same time, discoveries of microbes and specific nutrients, and other “scienterrific” developments, promoted quantification and measure­ment of pretty much everything, along with grand assumptions about germs’ roles and broader impacts. Satisfying official standards necessi­tated investment in increasingly elaborate high-tech equipment, pushing small farmers off the land while encouraging crushing monopolies. This further increased urban populations, while imposing Mephistophelian deals on large-scale producers who needed to keep increasing production to order to afford the equipment, and then had justify that purchase by producing more—and on and on.

The engaging descriptions in The Germ in the Dairy Pail create a vivid sense of being on the scene, amplified by well-documented technical and historical details. Author Forrest Maready already has a well-established track record in bringing to light the truth that “culture” is based on “agri-culture.” Even if you aren’t interested in the story of milk, this book will help you understand how seemingly unrelated events have shaped how we think and brought us to our current political state. I highly recommend this book and easily give it a thumbs-up.

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