Raw Milk (and Butter) Ruckus

Bummed the FDA has been putting pressure on my farmer for selling us raw cow milk.  Not us personally, but anybody.  It is illegal in most states now, because of, they say, risks of contamination.  Of course, everything is at risk of contamination.  There are so many scare tactics out there about raw milk (I can't even go there, it would take me all week to write), you would think it was responsible for at least one death…nope.  I am more likely to win the lottery than get sick from raw milk, especially since I get the milk straight from a healthy cow within hours of the milking.  No processing plant.  No employees that may not have been trained well.  I am furious that the FDA is forcing a wedge between me and my farmer.  And since when has the FDA been enforcing state laws? Food and Drug Fascists. 

I love raw milk.  It is a living food.  I am all about living foods.  You are what you eat.  Living foods come from healthy colonies of bacteria and yeasts, they grow from living soil, they come unadulterated from an animal. They come from a living food system, not the industrial food system of irradiated and sterile food, full of preservatives and toxic crap.  Dead Foods from diseased places.  Living foods can not be part of the industrial food system, because the system kills them.  Corn and other grains are so bad for cows that they have to be shot up with antibiotics for their milk to even be suitable for human consumption.  And of course all the indigestion caused by eating what their bodies are not meant to eat creates some seriously gassy bovines, emitting tons of extra methane, a greenhouse gas. 

I tend to think that nature will provide for me perfect foods, not scientists who are still discovering vitamins that they never even knew existed (and still don’t know what they are for). Raw milk contains 8 amino acids and 60 fully intact and functional enzymes, pasteurized milk has none.  In fact, humans could live solely off of the milk of a healthy, pasture fed cow.  Or so they say (click here for a great article explaining raw milk nutrients).

I had heard that once you start to drink raw milk, you never go back.  Well, I now agree.  I have been drinking it only a little while, but my body knows that raw milk is good food.  It tastes better. There is no flemmy after effect, or bloated feeling in my belly.  Plus, we get make a cube of fresh sweet cream butter every week from the milk fat.  Sometimes, I make yogurt as well.

So now we are on a hunt for a new raw milk source.  One way to get raw milk legally here in California is to buy a cow share.  So that is what we are looking to do.  And I have invited some friends to join me. 

Butter is super easy to make...check it out

 Here is a beautiful 1/2 gallon of milk, with a big old head of cream, ready for making into butter.  This one has been sitting in the fridge a couple days...I usually make the butter the night after the morning of milking cause it tastes so fresh and sweet.  I didn't get to it on time this time.

Heavy cream from the top, sitting, beckoning me to make it into butter.  This is a quart jar.  1/3 full is a good amount.  More than half full will leave you with not enough room for the next part.

And she is off, shaking and shaking the cream.  You need to shake for a while.  It is nice to sit around, watching a video, passing the jar amongst a group of friends.  Or at least to have someone to talk to.  It seems to take less time if you are doing more than just shaking cream.  Keep shaking. Don't give up, the cream, very suddenly, seemingly in just a few shakes, will turn to...

This clumpy butter. The nice thing about letting the milk sit longer before shaking it is that there is less milk in the fat...thus less buttermilk leftover (real buttermilk isn't that stuff you buy in the store, its the stuff leftover after shaking the butter.) I don't drink the buttermilk, but you can. I try to cook with it.

With your hand you can remove the butter from the jar, then run it under cold water, while squeezing and kneading it until the water runs clear. Leaving milk in your butter will turn in rancid a little to quickly for my taste. I usually add salt (if I add salt) either after I cleaned it, or I knead it in right before.  I am not sure which is better.

After you have squeezed it clean, make a little cube.  Tah dah!