Milk has been a part of our nutrition since time immemorial.

Rich in nutrients, milk in its various

forms has a long, long history...

 Around 10 000 BC, the “agricultural revolution” occurred changing societies from
nomadic tribes to those who settled in communities. With this came domesticated
animals and the ingenuity for people to use by-products such as milk.
 In ancient Egypt, milk and other dairy products were reserved for royalty, priests and the
very wealthy.
 By the 5th century AD, cows and sheep in Europe were prized for their milk.
 By the 14th century, cow’s milk became more popular than sheep’s milk.
 European dairy cows were brought to North America in the early 1600s.
 Louis Pasteur, a French microbiologist, conducted the first pasteurization tests in 1862.
Pasteur is credited with revolutionizing the safety of milk and, in turn, the ability to store
and distribute milk well beyond the farm. Commercial pasteurization machines were
introduced in 1895.
 In 1884, the first milk bottle was invented in New York state.
 In the 1930s, milk cans were replaced with large on-farm storage tanks, and plastic
coated paper milk cartons were invented, which allowed for wider distribution of fresh
milk.
Growing up in England, I was required to consume a third of a pint of milk every day at school. I
was informed that this was good for my teeth and my bones, and that I had better "drink up,"
even though I didn't actually like the taste of milk.

When a storm or tornado hits in the US, one of the key items people rush to stock up on is milk -
right next to bread, toilet paper (and oh yes, beer). Milk has become a staple of the western diet,
but it wasn't always this way.

The Arrival of Milk

The "official" history of cows' milk begins around 10,000 BCE, when nomadic tribes decided to
stop roving and to settle down in farming communities. (The unofficial history may have begun
much earlier!) This era is generally referred to as the agricultural revolution, and with it came
domesticated animals and the advent of by-products such as milk.

Later, in ancient Egypt, milk and other dairy products were available, but reserved for royalty,
priests and the very wealthy. By the 5th century AD in western Europe, we find that milk was
taken from both cows and sheep, but that by the 14th century, cows' milk was more popular.

But it was never the drink of choice amongst the general populace.

In England and other western European countries, in the 16th and 17th centuries, ale, beer or
cider were common drinks, the water being unsafe to consume. Other alcoholic drinks, just as
whisky, were also popular, but not milk.

If we jump forward to western Europe and the US in the 19th century, milk was becoming more
common, but only for young people: fresh cows' milk was for babies only, although the further it
got from the cows who produced it, the more it was likely to be contaminated by bacteria.

How Did Milk Become a Drink of Choice for Kids and Adults?

Deborah Valenze, the author of Milk: A Local and Global History, believes that milk's rise to
fame was due to several factors that coincided at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
20th centuries:

* As infant mortality rose in cities, practices for making milk safer began to emerge. Louis
Pasteur conducted the first pasteurization tests in 1862, and he is credited with revolutionizing
the safety of milk and, in turn, the ability to store and distribute milk well beyond the farm.
Commercial pasteurization machines were introduced in 1895.

* The first glass milk bottle was patented in 1884 by Dr. Henry Thatcher, after he witnessed a
milkman making deliveries from an open bucket into which a child's filthy rag doll had
accidentally fallen.
* A growing interest in nutrition emerged around the same time, and this led to the idea of
treating sick people by giving them only the purest, simplest things to eat.

* Some temperance groups opposed to drinking alcohol pressed for the serving of milk in
factories. They even set up milk booths in towns and achieved some success.

Eventually it all came together in the early 20th century. The first tank trucks for transporting
milk were put into service in 1914, and by 1917, pasteurization of all milk except that from cows
proven to be free of tuberculosis was either required or officially encouraged across the US.

In 1922, Congress passed the Capper-Volstead Act, allowing producers of agricultural products,
such as milk, to "act together in associations" to organize collective processing, preparation for
market, handling, and marketing of milk and other agricultural goods.

In the 1930s, milk cans were replaced with large on-farm storage tanks, and plastic coated milk
cartons were invented, which allowed for wider distribution of fresh milk.

And so began the journey leading to the National Milk Processor's ubiquitous "Got Milk?"
advertisements, and the acceptance of milk as a staple of the western diet.

The Declining Popularity of Milk - Does It Do a Body Good?

Cows' milk remained extremely popular as a foodstuff for both children and adults for several
decades, but US milk sales have been slowly declining since the 1970s. According to Forbes,
"2011 sales were the lowest since 1984. Whole milk consumption is half what it was in the
1980s." During the 1990s those Got Milk? commercials boosted sales somewhat, but now they
have fallen off again.

Today there is considerable doubt about the nutritional benefits of milk.

Two years ago, Care2 posted an infographic with dozens of statistics that show why milk is not
nearly as healthy as the dairy industry might want you to believe.

Several studies have failed to find any association between milk consumption and fewer bone
fractures, one of its supposed benefits. Last year, Care2's Kevin Mathews examined a study from
Sweden that looked at the dietary habits of more than 100,000 adults for a span of 10 to 20 years.
Surprisingly, those who reported drinking the most milk actually broke their bones the most,
running contrary to conventional wisdom.

Could the dairy industry have been lying to us?

I'd hazard a guess that milk will no longer be a staple of the western diet in the not-so-distant
future.
A Brief History Of Raw Milk's Long
Journey...
People have been drinking raw milk from animals for thousands of years. Really, the term "raw"
is a misnomer because it implies that all milk should be cooked, but that's a topic for another
page! Onward..

Whether it's from cows, goats, sheep, camels, yak, water buffalo, horses, donkeys or even
reindeer, unheated, unprocessed milk has been a safe, reliable food source for a good, long time.

Even in the tropics, and centuries before refrigeration had been invented, raw milk was an
important food source for many cultures. By exploiting the preservative benefits of fermentation,
primitive peoples were able to take a great food and make it even better.

Having access to a nutrient-laden food from their animals gave many cultures a distinct
advantage over their hunter-gatherer contemporaries.

Rather than having to go from kill to kill, with sometimes days in between, even nomadic tribes
like the Maasai nearly always had a protein source at hand, whether it was milk, blood or meat.

With a readily available food supply at hand, members of societies were freed up to pursue more
productive things like making babies, building permanent communities, conquering their
neighbors and everything else that comes with not having to spend energy hunting for food.

Considering raw milk's role throughout history, it's simple to see that it's not a deadly food. If it
were, all those dairy-loving primitive cultures would have died out long ago, leaving their
vegetarian cousins to mind the store. At the very least, people would have dropped it from their
diets entirely. And we haven't even gotten to germ theory yet..

Closer to home, our early American ancestors lived in a farm-based economy. As the Industrial
Revolution reached our shores, the cities swelled with job seekers lured from their farms by the
factories and mills. By 1810, there were dozens of water-powered operations lining the rivers of
southern New England, all staffed by thirsty workers.

With raw milk and whiskey being the main beverages of choice (hopefully not mixed!), demand
for both grew along with the cities. When the War of 1812 broke out, the supply of distilled
spirits from Europe essentially dried up. Although the conflict only lasted about two years, it's
impact on our country was substantial, and strangely enough for milk, particularly nasty.

To meet the soaring demand for spirits, distilleries soon sprang up in most major cities. In one of
the most bizarre twists of entrepreneurial insight, some brilliant soul thought it would be fun (and
profitable) to confine cows adjacent to the distillery and feed them with the hot, reeking swill left
over from the spirit-making process.

As you might guess, the effects of distillery dairy milk were abominable, and for many of those
drinking it, amounted to a virtual death sentence. Confined to filthy, manure-filled pens, the
unfortunate cows gave a pale, bluish milk so poor in quality, it couldn't even be used for making
butter or cheese. Add sick workers with dirty hands, diseased animals and any number of
contaminants in unsanitary milk pails and you had a recipe for disaster.

Lacking its usual ability to protect itself, and with a basic understanding of germs or microbes
decades away, the easily contaminated "pseudo-milk" was fed to babies by their unwitting
mothers. In New York City during 1870 alone, infant mortality rocketed to around 20% and
stayed there for many more years.

The Distillery Dairy page mentioned above contains links to articles in the New York Times
archives which enable you to 'read all about it' in the language of the era.
The situation languished for years until two men stepped up to the plate from different directions,
united by a disaster common in the day- the death of a child.

In 1889, two years before the death of his son from contaminated milk, Newark, New Jersey
doctor Henry Coit, MD urged the creation of a Medical Milk Commission to oversee or "certify"
production of milk for cleanliness, finally getting one formed in 1893.

By joining with select dairy experts, Coit (above, treating babies in New Jersey) and his team of
physicians (unpaid for this work, by the way) were able to enlist dairy farmers willing to meet
their strict standards of hygiene in the production of clean, certified milk.

After years of tireless effort, raw, unpasteurized milk was again safe and available for public
consumption, but it cost up to four times the price of uncertified milk.

New York philanthropist Nathan Straus, who lost a child to milk contaminated with diphtheria,
felt differently. He believed the only safe milk was that which had been pasteurized.

Straus (at right) made a fortune as co-owner of Macy's department stores and spent decades
promoting pasteurization across America and Europe.

Using his considerable finances, he set up and subsidized the first of

many "milk depots" in New York City to provide low-cost pasteurized
milk (6).

While infant mortality did fall dramatically, other technological

advances, such as chlorination of water supplies and reduction of
previously ever-present horse manure (through the arrival of the
automobile) occurred in the same time period making it difficult to say
which change was most responsible.

Pasteurized and certified milks managed to peacefully co-exist for a time, but by the mid-1940's,
the truce had become decidedly uneasy. In 1944. a concerted media smear campaign was
launched with a series of completely bogus magazine articles designed to spark fear at the very
thought of consuming raw milk.
Government officials and medical professionals, swayed by corporate dollars and lies, have
effectively taken this valuable, healing food from the mouths of the people. Only in recent years
has the consumer backlash against valueless processed foods grown to the point where access to
clean, raw milk is once again being considered a dietary right.