A “scientific” ideology banned raw milk and vilified mothers who chose it anyway. Behind this, was a wealthy philanthropist pushing his agenda and setting the stage for the demise of the small farmer and food security in America.
An age-old food
In the opening scenes of the famous musical Fiddler on The Roof, our hero–Tevye–arranges his milk cart.
As the overture plays, drawing us into the scene and his inner musings on “Tradition!” he and his horse drive through the village serving his community with the milk from his cows and the cheeses he makes from that milk.
He is a farmer. A milkman. He is central to his community.
He dips his ladle into his milk can and pours the liquid into the waiting pitchers of the women. The activity of feeding his community is a small detail almost lost in the background of the plot–an illustration of a challenging time in 1905 Imperial Russia. It is lost in the background because of its normalcy. In this illustration of a time long ago, there was nothing unusual about a milkman feeding his community. It was what happened in many civilizations for millenia. The drama of the story unfolds as a controlling ideology comes closer into village life, destroying what they treasured and leaving them to ruin.
This is not a story about imperialism. It is about raw milk. It is about how this life-giving food has become a villain in modern America.
What Happened To Change How We View Raw Milk?
Raw milk–it is a food that is obscure to many Americans. Do you fear it? Despise it? Are you curious about it? We’ve been told that raw milk is dangerous. Is it?
Forgotten details of American history allow us to explore the topic and untangle our societal prejudice against it. Perhaps understanding the facts of our history will help us to understand how we got here and how we can make better decisions for the future.
The history is a tangled web of greed, deceit, and control.
Raw Milk Is a Significant Food for Civilization
Raw dairy is a perfect food–one of the two foods designed by nature to nourish the young (honey is the other). It is rich in nutrients humans need–filled with protein, fats, and sugars. It contains vitamins and minerals. It has vital enzymes that help our bodies absorb and use these nutrients. For example, lactase helps us digest the lactose (sugars), while the phosphatase helps us absorb phosphorus. Raw milk is probiotic, containing bacteria that help our own microbiomes thrive and that allow milk to change into other desirable foods.
There is nothing more basic between a mother and child than milk. Historically, a mother nurtures her child on the milk she produces. For the first few months of life, the child gets all the nutrients he or she needs from this wonderful mechanism our creator bestowed on all mammals.
We humans are not special in this regard.
For millennia, human civilizations have relied on a relationship between us and other mammals–most notably cows, goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo, and horses.
Not every civilization developed these relationships. But in those civilizations that did, milk became a fundamental ingredient in their food security.
There were 2 things that were true across the cultures that had dairy:
It was local.
It was primarily consumed raw.
In some lands, because these were warm climates, there was no way to keep dairy cold. It would immediately begin its fermentation process. Cow and water buffalo milk turn to clabber (drinkable yogurt), goat and sheep milk become yogurt, while camel and horse milk transform to a sour kefir-like drink.
These fermented dairy products brought life to the cultures that depended on them. They were often revered.
In time, cheese became a way we learned to preserve milk. All types of milks could be crafted into cheeses specific to their regions.
What happened that changed raw milk from a staple of civilization to something obscure, scary, reviled, and even criminal?
It all started with whisky…
The Entangled Relationship Between War, Whisky, and Milk
You are probably asking “What does whisky have to do with milk?”
We must understand whisky production in America to understand our history with milk.
In 1800s America, high taxes (to pay for the Revolutionary War) on imported spirits led to the rise of whisky distilleries in America. American farmers said “We can do this!” and they did. American whisky skyrocketed in popularity and production.
Whisky distilleries popped up everywhere. Even in certain cities. Transportation was a big cost, so putting the distilleries near the people seemed like a good idea. Disposing of the spent grain used to make whisky was expensive and cumbersome. This led to the concept of putting dairies right next to the distilleries and feeding the cows the spent grain from the whisky-making process. Spent grain is not a cow’s native food. Her native food is a diversity of grasses, while she roams the fields in the sunshine.
For those profiting from both the whisky and the milk, this seemed like a great idea. However, these abominations on agriculture led to disastrous results for cows and humans.
What ensued from this situation was predictable. The cows spent most of their short miserable lives indoors, in filthy conditions, unhealthy and producing milk that was of terrifying quality. There were no closed milking systems at the time. Workers hand milked into open pails.
This milk became known as “swill milk.”
It is not shocking that infant mortality was unacceptably high during this period. Sanitation was poor, there were no closed milking systems and no refrigeration. Public voices began to implicate the milk from the distillery dairies as a factor in the infant mortality rate.
This tragic situation had an easy-enough solution: stop feeding cows spent grain. Return cows to their native diets. Give them adequate lives out on pasture, and provide clean milking conditions. Have healthy workers milking the animals. Bring clean milk to the cities from the surrounding countryside.
But that was not the proposed solution.
A Wealthy Philanthropist “Saves” The Children
By the late 1800s, Nathan Straus, a wealthy philanthropist and co-owner of Macy’s department store, advocated for and then subsidized the pasteurization of all milk in New York City.
Several doctors spoke out against this policy noting that clean raw milk was highly nutritious and great for children. Leading the campaign for clean raw milk was Dr. Henry Coit. He saw the terrible conditions of the “distillery dairies,” and the health consequences that were blamed on the raw milk. He proposed an entirely different solution: establishing a “Medical Milk Commission” that would have doctors certify raw dairies outside the city. These doctors would ensure the farms had clean practices and produced healthy, safe milk.
His approach was a decentralized approach to feeding communities. Farmers remained in control of their own farms, the Medical Milk Commission simply became a certifying agent.
Many doctors participated in this endeavor and they had great results.
These doctors advocated for proper nutrition for children and proper animal husbandry. The results were a win-win.
But Straus’ argument against this was that certified clean raw milk was more expensive than Straus’ subsidized, “efficient” pasteurized milk. It was often double or quadruple the cost of the swill milk or the subsidized, pasteurized milk that Straus offered.
The obvious solution is a dual approach. But that is not what happened.
The “public health” campaign, backed by Straus’ deep pockets, prevailed. Pasteurization won out on the better “efficiency” although most all players recognized that certified clean raw milk was the better option. (One can only wonder what types of influence Straus’ “philanthropy” led to.)
What ensued was a decades-long battle. Many doctors advocated for clean raw milk. Those in Straus’ camp campaigned for “public health” and compulsory pasteurization without focusing on the underlying quality of the product.
The doctors who advocated for clean, certified farms were vilified, ridiculed, and bullied. The “public health advocates” who spoke about the dangers of raw dairy and pushed for mandatory pasteurization shifted policy in many cities.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.
