Sunday, March 27, 2011

Real vs Altered

At some point in our agricultural history things became more mechanized. Farms when from smaller units serving local people (or people within a days walk or days horse/wagon/buggy ride) to units that serve thousands of people from all over the world. Food that would spoil in transit became a liability. In the newly industrialized world, science came to the rescue and discovered that with pasteurization, many foods (not just milk) could be preserved, transported and sit for months or years on a shelf somewhere before consumption. Pressure canning became the standard for preserving food, leaving dried foods and fermented foods in the dust.

Populations grew bigger and more and more people moved into the cities. Dairies, still needing to stay close to their customers because refrigerated transport of milk had not yet been perfected, moved their animals into smaller lots until finally, almost all dairy cows lived in dry lots and were fed whatever the farmer brought to them.

Now, some folks are beginning to realize there is something missing from the foods we eat and the beverages we drink - nutrition. We are MISSING vital symbiotic living organisms that help us digest our foods properly and we are losing our health as a result.

I recognize it sounds crazy in our scientific worldview, but I do believe raw milk is one of the keys to good health. BUT, it must be healthy milk to begin with coming from healthy cows who eat grass -- not soy, not corn and not some other conglomeration of foodstuffs with vitamins thrown in.

The argument against pasteurization makes sense only if the animals are allowed to eat from healthy fields and other efforts to keep the milk clean and cold are adhered to. Milk from dry lot cows should be pasteurized. Milk from field fed cows does not.

Give me pastured cows and you won't have to pasteurize for me (and you can skip the homogenization step in either case).

Monday, March 07, 2011

Let's get real

Wow, I had an eye opener this morning. I was skimming over Jake Today this a.m. and came across this.

That led me to this article.

Which led me to this.

As a person at the back end of the baby boom, I'm getting very concerned about my future. I planned some for retirement. When I started work, I thought I would retire at age 55. Now, I'm looking at 65. And unfortunately, my health has not altogether kept up with my dreams. Part of that is my fault. And it is becoming much clearer to me (we call this the contemplative stage in recovery), that I will have to take full responsibility for my own health and welfare when I do retire. That means I need to get back in shape now.

I need to get serious about weight loss (the single biggest contribution to my health problems, I believe). And I need to do it now.