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Today our topic is milk, and we're going to talk about different kinds of milk, different processing in milk, and how you can pick the best milk for your family. What makes for great milk is freshness. You want it a few days out of the cow. You want to make sure that it's as minimally processed as you're comfortable with.
And that the cows are out on pasture, that they're not just eating grain all the time, which is not good for them. But they're getting exercise, getting sunshine, those are all absolutely critical to a healthy cow. It's always a good idea to start with organic and local. They don't have to be both.
Local is very good, especially if you know your farmer. You want to be getting milk from small to mid sized farms where the cows are treated well, where their lifespan is 10 to 20 years, and they're giving milk that whole time, and they're productive members of that farm. The big confinement dairies, the cows never get over about three years old.
And lastly, you want milk that's densely nutritional. That has to do, again, with how much processing is done. So let's start. At the top of the list, because there's no processing at all, is raw milk. Now raw milk is raw because it's not pasteurized and it's not homogenized.
It comes straight from the cow, into the bottle, into your kitchen. There's one caveat though. Raw milk has to be extraordinarily fresh and the farm you work with needs impeccable hygiene around milking and bottling and everything else. It's gotten better because now it is, regulated a little bit more and there are inspections and then milk has to get tested.
But still, you need to know your farmer. You have to have a very close relationship, looking them in the eye and knowing that they really are doing top work in terms of hygiene. So after raw milk, cream top, non homogenized, lightly low temperature pasteurized, is what I consider to be the gold standard.
This is from our dairy, Strafford Organic Dairy. They're about 20 miles down the road. Earl and Amy are really incredible dairy folks, and their sons do an amazing job on that farm. Their cows are Guernsey cows, so it's an older breed, which is good, much better milk, extremely fresh. This was probably roaming around on a pasture in the belly of a cow, four days ago.
Also, there's going to be no growth hormones, no antibiotics, the nutritional value of this milk is extremely high. this is the milk to get, especially with young children. When I talk to kids and they try this milk, their comment is, it tastes like a milkshake, which means they're going to drink it.
So next along the line would be whole milk that is homogenized and pasteurized. And if you can get it low temperature pasteurization from a local and organic dairy, that's even better. Again, you'll get a higher level of nutrition in the milk. However, the homogenization is going to make it harder to digest for many of us.
It might make you feel a little bloated and a little gassy. It might also cause some people to feel congested and get some inflammation and swelling. It's because when they homogenize milk, they're smashing together the fat and the protein molecules so it doesn't separate. There's a reason they do this, and it has to do with how close to being spoiled the milk was by the time it got to the creamery. And that is still the case these days. So when you're dealing with a dairy who's willing to do no homogenization and low temperature pasteurization, you know the milk is fresh. However, it's very difficult to do. So, the next best thing would be high temperature pasteurization and homogenization in a whole milk.
That is what this is, from a local dairy here. It's not organic. It's good milk. It is from Holstein cows, which are bigger, lower fat content matter of fact, they have to add cream back to this to get to the 3 percent or whole milk. I prefer the older breeds because there's already tons of fat.
In this cream top milk, sometimes you can get 5 6 percent fat and this much cream on it. So last, I'm going to talk about ultra pasteurized, either organic or non organic milk. You see this screwed cap? That's the sign that it's ultra pasteurized. Ultra pasteurized milk is sterile. as a result of its sterility, it's got almost no nutritional value left of traditional milk.
So that's something to keep in mind. It is also even harder to digest than either of these two milks here, too. So, this would be my last choice, and this cream top would be my first choice and recommendation for you. And you're going to notice it in the flavor also. So, when you're choosing milk, least processed, freshest, local and organic source, that's the key.
