Health Product Highlight: Natural By Nature Grass-Fed Milk

"Milk, it does the body good".
"Got milk?"

They should really be: "Grass-fed milk, it does the body good". "Got grass-fed milk?"

Those are the only two milk quotes I know, but thankfully they're all I need to make my point; if you're not lactose intolerant, you should probably be drinking more milk. However, don't drink skim milk that has been raised by cows who eat corn in CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations) because it's roughly the same thing as drinking sugar water. You get all of the calories with none of the benefits. Why you ask? Well the vitamins and protein in milk are fat soluble, so they need to be consumed with fat in order to be absorbed by the body. If you're drinking skim milk, you're just excreted all of the good stuff out.

So why am I advocating grass-fed milk? The same reason I advocated grass-fed butter (find post here). When cows consume a diet of grass, they're eating the way nature intended them to, and are therefore healthier. A healthy cow equals healthy milk. Healthy milk equals a healthy you. It's all connected. But why is grass-fed milk more healthy? I'm glad you asked, hypothetical person. Cows that eat a diet of grass have roughly five times the CLA of cows fed corn and other grain feeds. So, who cares? Everybody should, hypothetical devil's advocate.

According to scientists a lot smarter than me in this field, "Despite the high saturated fat content of dairy products, no clear association between dairy product intake and risk of myocardial infarction (MI) has been observed. Dairy products are the main source of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA; 18:2n−7t), which is produced by the ruminal biohydrogenation of grasses eaten by cows. Pasture-grazing dairy cows have more CLA in their milk than do grain-fed cows. Some animal models have reported beneficial effects of CLA on atherosclerosis. 9c,11t-CLA, which is present in meaningful amounts in the milk of pasture-grazed cows, might offset the adverse effect of the saturated fat content of dairy products". What this essentially means is that avoiding whole milk because of the saturated fat content is not necessary. The CLA offsets any potential damage the saturated fat may do.

Grass-fed milk was found to have higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids in another scientific study. Hopefully I don't have to go into detail about why we need more omega-3 fatty acids in our diet (but if I do that's a post for another time), but most of the diseases found today can be attributed to a poor omega-3:omega-6 fatty acid ratio. Having too few omega-3s and too many omega-6s is essentially the same as spinning one of those game show wheels and hoping it lands on the small pie-shaped sliver labelled "healthy".

Natural By Nature grass-fed milk, while not the ideal choice for everyone, is still a superior product that can be found at Whole Foods. While I would rather have access to raw grass-fed milk from cows that are also able to eat dandelion greens, berries, and the like, it's not easy to come across in New Jersey. Raw grass-fed milk is healthier, as the less processed something is, the healthier it is, but it isn't without its risks due to bacteria. So if you want to drink raw milk, do so knowing you may get sick. That's why I'm advocating Natural By Nature grass-fed milk; it has all of the benefits of grass-fed milk, tastes absolutely delicious, is the cheapest option at Whole Foods for grass-fed milk, and won't make you sick (unless you're lactose intolerant). So grab a glass of grass-fed milk and toast to the healthy liquid you're about to pour down your throat!

Eat healthy, stay happy!

-Ben