Page 19 - Special Issue: Healthy Baby

cheese and sour cream, reduced-fat cheeses most American cities required pasteurization The modern
(search out those that are 50% fat reduced).” and by 1950 most milk was pasteurized. These
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“Because they are an animal source, dairy changes, coupled with homogenization, have books claim
foods can also contribute to saturated fat and changed milk from a health-giving food into a that in
cholesterol intake, so choosing lower-fat or fat- disease-producing substance. order to
free versions of these foods can help keep your In contrast, Dr. Price found several cultures
levels down.” They claim that “skim milk has that relied heavily on the whole raw milk from have healthy
all the important nutrients in the same quantity cows grazing on green pastures. The mountain children,
as low-fat or whole milk.” But skim milk has Swiss and the Masai are prime examples of a woman
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none of the fat-soluble vitamins in milk fat that healthy primitive cultures that depended on the nu- needs to get
Weston Price found so important to maintaining tritive value of whole raw milk products. Weston
superb health. Price observed traditional people going to great 45-65
A few of the books noted that some people lengths to obtain foods high in fat-soluble vitamins percent of
do not digest lactose (milk sugar) in milk well, so for pregnant women. “Among the primitive Masai her daily
they recommend getting calcium from soybeans, in certain districts of Africa,” Dr. Price wrote,
tofu, nuts, seeds, broccoli, dark leafy greens, soy- “the girls were required to wait for marriage until calories
milk and fortified orange juice. These authors do the time of the year when the cows were on the from
not understand that consuming milk in its natural rapidly growing young grass and to use the milk carbohydrates.
raw and/or fermented state allows many of these from these cows for a certain number of months
so-called “lactose-intolerant” people to digest before they could be married.” In the Swiss Alps,
dairy products. They also fail to mention rich the butter from cows eating rapidly growing green
bone broths, another excellent source of calcium grass was a sacred food, considered very import-
and other minerals used by many cultures that do ant for pregnant women. When cows eat rapidly
not drink milk. growing green grass, the butterfat they produce
One book, when discussing feeding children, contains the highest levels of vitamin A, D and
advised against all milk, saying, “Children do not Activator X, all important catalysts for growth and
need whole milk. They do not need that for the nutrient assimilation. Traditional societies always
developing brain. That myth is old, was never consumed their milk, cheese and butter raw and
true and has been discredited.” I can see how often cultured them, and they valued the bright
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someone could come to the conclusion it is just yellow butter from grass-fed animals.
an old myth that milk is healthy. In the 1920s doc- Some of the other nutritional topics the
tors were recommending milk for the treatment pregnancy books covered were the basic food
of many diseases, and milk has been viewed as categories, vitamin supplements and vegetarian
a healthful food far back into antiquity. But now diets.
you can find studies that link milk consumption
to asthma, frequent ear infections, diabetes and CARBOHYDRATES
a host of other illnesses. It would seem logical All of the books I reviewed encouraged using
to conclude that milk was never really a healthy carbohydrates as the primary source of calories.
food. However, this conclusion overlooks several Since they want everyone to limit their fat (and
important changes that happened to the produc- to some degree protein) intake, they have to rely
tion of milk during that time frame. on carbohydrates for the needed calories. Many
The first important change took place in the of them followed the food pyramid guidelines of
late 1800s and early 1900s, when people in cities 6-11 servings of grains and cereal per day. And
began confining cows into concentrated feedlots, while they do recommend whole grains rather
and feeding them cheap waste material instead of than refined flours, not one of the books men-
allowing them to graze on green pastures. This led tions that the digestibility and nutrient content of
to illness in the cows, and in the people who drank those whole grains would be greatly improved by
their milk. The second important change was soaking, sprouting or sour leavening. Traditional
instituted in order to combat the disastrous health societies used these methods in order to deac-
effects of these confinement dairies. Around 1910 tivate the enzyme inhibitors and anti-nutrients,

Wise Traditions 17