Eight Acres

I never realised that raw milk was so controversial until after we got our house cow Bella and I found out that we couldn't share her milk.  I know most people get a house cow BECAUSE they want raw milk, but we were just interested in milk in general, I hadn't really thought about the fact that it would be raw.  We were happy to drink it raw and make cheese with the raw milk.  It was until I started reading Nourishing Traditions that I realised the benefits of raw milk and how lucky we were to have our own house cow. If you are still trying to figure out what's going on with raw milk, this book covers everything.  I would be very surprised if there is a question that you have that is not covered by this book, although it is US-based, so there isn't any Australian specific information.  He covers the history of raw milk, the risks and benefits and making the decision to drink raw milk (he doesn't push raw milk, but advocates that everyone considers their indiv...

Raw milk is confusing.  I only realised that after we got our house cow Bella.  And found that we couldn't even share her milk.  I didn't know raw milk was such a big deal.  Here's my review of the Raw Milk Answer Book - over on my house cow ebook blog . Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on  Scribd ,  Lulu  and  Amazon , or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange delivery.  More information about the book on my  house cow eBook blog here . Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Cheese  (and The Greening of Gavin)

If you are interested in raw milk in Australia, please see the post on my other blog: Even if you are not personally interested in buying and consuming raw milk, this story has implications for  everyone's right to chose what we eat and drink . Most of the media show very little understanding of the complexity of raw milk and tend to portray it as “toxic” and those who would drink raw milk as “idiots”. Personally I have seen a huge amount of misinformation about raw milk in comments on news articles, and while I may be singing to the choir here, I’d like to take the opportunity to set the record straight. Read more here.... If you want to know more about making kefir, here's another recent post from my other blog: Most people have heard of yoghurt, but kefir, also made by fermenting milk, is less well known and just as tasty and benefitial for our health. The origins of kefir are shrouded in mystery, we may never know where it came from, but if you can get hol...

When we first got our cow, Bella, I had read “ The healthy house cow ” and really wanted to make raw milk yoghurt because Marja made it seem so easy and healthy, but every time I tried, I just ended up with a mess . mmm yoghurt If you need to catch up on how to make yoghurt, here are the different methods that I use, all methods use the Easiyo thermos to keep the yoghurt at fermentation temperature: • Easiyo packets • Powdered milk with frozen yoghurt culture (starter) or yoghurt from previous batch • Pasteurised Bella milk with frozen yoghurt culture or yoghurt from previous batch Pasteurising the milk kills all the other bacteria that may compete with the yoghurt culture, but it also kills any beneficial bacteria and denatures enzymes that may help with digestion of the yoghurt. Up until recently, I had accepted that raw milk yoghurt didn’t work for me, and that at least I was getting the benefit of the yoghurt bacteria, even if I was missing out on those other bac...

Last week I started to review the introduction to Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig.  This week I'll start on the first real chapter of recipes, called Mastering the Basics, which includes cultured dairy, sprouts, stocks, sauces and salad dressings. Cultured Dairy The strange part here is that we got Bella , our house cow, before I read this book and before I knew anything about the whole raw milk debate .  We drank raw milk sometimes when we visited our friends on a dairy farm, but we never really valued it as we should have.  My husband really wanted a cow because he liked the dairy lifestyle, and I couldn't see a problem with it, as I described previously , it will make it easier for us to get steers for beef instead of having to buy them locally.  Our friends told us they'd found the perfect cow for us, small, tame, already with a calf and used to being milked in the dairy, so even though we weren't totally ready , we brought home Bella...

Following on from my post from the other day about raw milk, a friend who works in the food regulation area sent me some great links from NZ. Firstly, NZ takes a risk management approach and allows farmers to sell up to 5L of milk directly to customers for their personal consumption.  This is a very sensible approach that allows farmers and consumers to get what they want, raw milk direct to customers, without unnecessary regulation. There was also a link to a study of the pathogens (disease causing microbes) that can be found in raw milk and how to minimise the risk of food poisoning.  From reading this report, my understanding is that the risk can be controlled by the following actions: Keep your cow healthy and free of mastitis - mastitis is most often caused by non-pathogenic bacteria, however there is a possibility of infection by human pathogens, which will cause tummy-bug/food poisoning symptoms.  I'll write more later about natural methods to keep your...

I had no idea that raw milk was so controversial!  It seemed simple to me at first, babies drink raw milk from their mums, calves drink raw milk from cows, every dairy farmer I know drinks raw cows milk themselves, so why shouldn't we all drink raw milk if we have access to it?  Unfortunately there's no simple answer, just more questions.  I've just read " The raw milk revolution " by David E. Gumpert (referred to here as  Raw Milk,  see also his blog ) and " Nourishing Traditions " by Sally Fallon, as well as lots of websites with varying opinions.  Please bear with me while I try to formulate all of this into a sensible argument! Buying our house cow started as a hobby, but now I have started investigating the issues surrounding raw milk ,it has become more serious What is raw milk? Raw milk is milk straight from the cow or goat.  Not pasteurised (heated to kill pathogenic (disease causing) bacteria) and not homogenised (...