Fermoy Natural Cheese Co image
We had been looking for a supplier of raw unpasteurized milk and dairy products for some time and are delighted to have discovered The Fermoy Natural Cheese Co. (check them out on Facebook), who are now supplying us with raw milk and hopefully soon raw cheese, yoghurt and kefir. Anna Skrine who works with us as a naturopath and food intolerance tester is also an advocate of the benefits of raw milk and here’s Anna’s take on just why it’s so much more wholesome and beneficial than the pasteurized version:

Anna-Skrine-photoWonderful News – Live Raw Milk is now available in Only Natural!

Live Raw Milk is a wonderful food source, and delicious! It is how nature intended it to be, and is alive because the natural lactic acid bacteria are still in it; and it is they that help you both to digest the milk, and make it easy to assimilate (i.e. absorb) into the body and use the calcium in the milk. Live raw milk has natural probiotics, such as such as lactobacillus acidophilus. The fats in raw milk, which are in their natural form (and so again easy to use in the body), contain all the fat-soluble vitamins – Vitamin A, D, E and K. The milk fat also contains Omega 3, and CLA (Omega 6), which has anti-carcinogenic properties, and incidentally is often used in products used for slimmers. In fact, the fat is the most important part of the milk! Live raw milk also contains Vitamin C and B vitamins.

Milk that has been pasteurised could be called Dead Milk. This is because all of the bacteria in the milk, including the vital Lactic Acid bacteria and probiotics, are killed by the pasteurisation process, making it extremely hard to digest and use in the body. Also 90% of the B vitamins are destroyed, as well as all of the Vitamin C. With pasteurised milk the calcium gets locked up, making it very difficult for use in the body. In pasteurised cheese and fortified milk, I am told chemical calcium is often added, which is also very difficult to absorb and use in the body.
The Homogenisation of milk is a process whereby the milk is forced through tiny holes, breaking up the fats so that they become evenly distributed throughout the milk. As we all know, fats naturally rise to the top of water – but they obviously behave in a very un-natural way once they have been homogenised! It is my belief that the homogenisation of milk makes it even more difficult to use properly in the body – and at the moment all shop milk is routinely both pasteurised and homogenised.

Raw Milk picNutritionally, I have found that people who drink raw milk (mostly farming families) tend to stay very well, and rarely have what I would call associated Dead Milk problems.

In my experience of working for over 30 years both with nutrition and allergy testing, I have found very close links between Dead Milk and a variety of health problems. These fall into 3 main categories. The first is that it often creates a lot of mucus in the body; the second is that because the calcium is so difficult to use, it often gets either discarded or dumped somewhere in the body; and the third is that if the body becomes overburdened with either of these problems, it often detoxes through the skin, This is most obvious in babies and small children.

1) Mucus issues, including asthma, frequent colds, flu, earaches, conjunctivitis, frequent blocked nose, sneezing, coughs, rhinitis, tonsillitis, sinusitis, and even Hay Fever. Added to this can also be general sluggishness, headaches, depression and memory issues.
2) Calcium issues, including creaky knees, joint pain, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, kidney stones, gallstones, varicose veins, arteriosclerosis (furring up of the arteries or heart with plaque, as in kettles!), cellulitis, and even breast cancer (which is calcification of the breast) and similarly prostate cancer.
3) Skin problems, particularly behind the knees, inside the elbows, or on the scalp in children; teenage spots, general acne or eczema.

cow imageSo many clients that I have worked with have become well simply by taking pasteurised/homogenised milk products out of their diet. For instance, children in particular usually recover completely from Asthma and other mucus issues within just 6 weeks once the Dead Milk is removed.

Now in Wexford we have a great opportunity to not simply cut Dead Milk from our diets in order to improve our health, but to increase our nutrition by substituting it with Raw Live Milk.

Darina Allen from Ireland’s renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School is a great advocate of live raw milk. They have been selling it at Ballymaloe for a number of years now, and people travel miles to buy it! She has found with her visitors who stay for 3-month courses that their health appears to benefit hugely from drinking raw milk during that time.

Some questions I put to Frank Shinnick, the supplier of Only Natural’s live raw milk, who together with his wife set up the Fermoy Natural Cheese Company about 20 years ago:-

1) How safe is it?
Frank started making raw milk cheese over 20 years ago. Their milk is tested regularly once a month for salmonella, listeria, staphylococcus bacteria and e-coli. There is not as yet a test for TB in the milk, but his cows are tested twice a year for T.B. (instead of the regular once a year of most farmers).
Nobody over the last 20 years has ever had a problem from his raw milk products.

2) Is the milk fattening because the cream is left in it?
Quite simply – no! There are very important and good healthy fats in the milk, which contain Vitamins A, D, E and K. The milk fat also contains Omega 3, and CLA (Omega 6).

3) Is vegetarian rennet used?
No, because almost all vegetarian rennet is genetically modified.

4) Can everyone tolerate raw milk?
At the Fermoy Natural Cheese Company they have a lot of students coming for some months at a time for courses. Almost all drink raw milk when they are there, and even Chinese people (who are not ‘lactase persistent’, meaning as a race they tend not to have consumed milk products for generations) appear to be well on it.

5) How organic is the milk?
It is virtually organic, and will have its full organic certificate in 2017.
Their cows are grass-fed, and have been GMO (genetically modified) free for the last 3 or 4 years because they are no longer fed any feeds with soya in them. Roughly 98% or 99% of all soya is now genetically modified in order to withstand roundup; and as a result the soya contains glyphosate residue, which appears to lock in the minerals and make them unavailable. Interestingly Frank said that the conception rates of his cows have reverted back to what they used to be – they had dropped while the cows were fed any feeds with soya in it.

6) What about the milk protein?
The structure of whey protein is very heat sensitive, and becomes altered at a temperature of 41 degrees or over. Pasteurisation in Ireland is at 71 to 72 degrees for half a minute, thus altering the protein and making it difficult for the body to use.

Some more technical information about the live raw milk from the Fermoy Natural Cheese Company:-
1) The milk is high A2 milk, and will be fully so in 2 or 3 years time. It is much easier to absorb than A1 milk. Most milk in Ireland is A1 milk.
2) Raw Live Milk has a 4.4% fat content and 3.5% protein content, and a higher food value than Dead Milk, which has 3.2% fat.
3) TBC count (Total Bacteria Count).
The EU regulation is up to 200,000 per ml. Top creameries look for a total TBC of under 45,000 per ml.
The raw milk from the Fermoy Natural Cheese Co. has only 2,000 per ml which is the lactic acid bacteria, and that includes lactobacillus acidophilus.
4) SCC count (Somatic Cell Count), which is an indication of sub-clinical mastitis in cows.
The EU regulation is 400,000. Top creameries look for under 200,000.
The raw milk from the Fermoy Natural Cheese Co. is down to between
50,000 and 100,000.

Dr. John McKenna and Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride are two driving forces behind the renewed consumption of live raw milk in Ireland and the United Kingdom, along with the Weston A Price Foundation in the U.S.A.
Anna Skrine
Wexford
D.Th.D, Dip.A.E.T.