The Johns Hopkins Raw Milk Study
February 12, 2021Raw Milk Safety: A Summary
March 16, 2021LIVED TO AGE ONE HUNDRED TEN (this letter includes a picture online)
Here is a picture of my great aunt who lived to be just shy of her one hundred tenth birthday! This is a picture of her at her one hundredth birthday party. I remember her asking my grandmother why she pasteurized her milk on the farm, it’s clear she drank raw milk.
Jane Elder Kunz
Indianapolis, Indiana
PRAISE FOR RAW MILK
We have a real “praise report” on our farm’s raw milk. We offer milk free of charge to families with a critically ill family member—and a young child battling leukemia is now in total remission after living on nothing but our milk for almost a year during his extensive cancer treatment.
He was two years old when they found he had cancer and once treatment started, he quit eating. He could not tolerate the NG tube so they were losing the fight for his life.
His mother and grandmother had heard of the benefits of A2 raw milk and found us through our listing at realmilk.com. For almost a year, they drove almost one hundred miles one way to get milk from us because their son would drink the milk and said it made his tummy better. As I said, he would not eat or drink anything else.
Once he completed treatment and was in remission, his oncologist questioned the parents on what they did to change things with their son. Now I didn’t tell you that the father of the child is a pediatrician and agreed to giving his son whole raw milk with open eyes and good base knowledge.
The father explained the way they had gotten nutrition in their son when he was losing his battle with cancer and how he turned around using raw whole A2 milk. The oncologist couldn’t argue with success!
The family could well have paid premium for their milk and we chose to donate to their son’s care as part of our ministry of our farm! So that’s a little success story on the health benefits of raw whole milk, even in a child with suppressed immunity due to cancer treatment! It saved his life!
Thank you, WAPF, for the part you played in the young man’s survival!
Jen Massey
Detroit, Michigan
RAW MILK SAVED MY LIFE
I’m very pleased to be able to give my testimony for raw milk. Two years ago I was diagnosed with diverticulitis. After reading about the options I actually had, which were horrible (tearing out half my intestines), I did all the research I could to find out how to heal my gut. I knew my doctor’s advice would end up in endless pill-taking and I didn’t want to go that route.
Where I live, small dairy farms have sprung up on the outskirts of town. After getting on a waiting list I finally was called to pick up my fresh raw milk. I had to travel twenty miles to get it, but it was well worth it. In the initial stage of recovery I drank mostly raw milk and organic beef bone broth—hardly any solids for about six weeks. (It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.) By the two-month mark my intestines relaxed and I was able to take in some pureed foods. I stayed on a strict diet, avoiding my intolerant and allergenic foods for a couple years, and today I feel great. When I start feeling like my bowels are upset in any way, I know that I’m not drinking enough raw cow’s milk.
The short and long of it—raw milk is liquid gold. It healed my guts, it helps me beat the blues in the winter seasonal depression, and gives me a glow that causes people to say, “You look great, what are you doing?” I cannot say enough about this super food that God has given mankind for nourishment. We do indeed live in a land flowing with milk and honey. Go find it!
Teresa Plew
Vancouver, Washington
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2019/
RAW MILK FOR CATS AND HUMANS
As a senior in college, I became seriously ill with chronic pelvic inflammatory disease. After ten months in and out of the hospital, unsuccessfully treating the infection with antibiotics, I turned to herbal remedies. At that time there was a traditional herb shop in town (now illegal). Within one month of following their recommendations to the letter I was well again, with a normal white blood count for the first time in a year. I’ve since considered food to be medicine.
Over the years I paid little attention to raw milk as it hadn’t been readily available. A year ago Jake the cat, who is around seventeen years of age, had to have most of his teeth removed. It was a tremendous shock to his system and for several weeks it seemed he didn’t want to keep on living. I looked around the food co-op for nourishment that would help him recover, and was surprised to find raw milk available there. For the next few weeks I kept him on a diet of finely chopped raw wild salmon and raw milk. It was during this time Jake’s attitude and health took a complete turn for the better. Within a few months he looked far healthier, shinier and happier than he had several years before the surgery. Jake now has had a bit of raw milk every day for over a year.
I was so astonished by Jake’s transformation that I began using raw milk myself and have been amazed at how much better I feel. I’ve since found out that in Europe raw milk is widely used and available from vending machines. I’ve looked in to what pasteurization and homogenization do to milk. The damage they cause makes it very difficult for our bodies to digest milk that’s been processed. It seems incongruent that here in the U.S.there’s so much regulation of raw milk, when frequently illness and death arise from eating meat readily available in stores.
I have Jake the cat to thank for wising me up about raw milk. I continue to share this insight with others.
Giza Valentine Kelley
Rimrock, Arizona
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2019/
FERTILITY AND ENERGY RESTORED (this letter includes a picture online)
After three years on the birth control pill, I noticed that my menstrual cycle was not only barely returning but was actually disappearing with one anovulatory period every three, five, six months, and then nothing for over a year. Tests showed that I had developed polycystic ovaries and stage 3+ adrenal fatigue, which gradually worsened until I was almost housebound.
I tried herbal tinctures, organic vegetarian and vegan diets with green smoothies, but all to no avail. I did notice clearer skin and better immunity and digestion but no progress with my hormonal health or energy. So there I was, a disabled, infertile twenty-six-year-old with big dreams turned to dust.
Then, my cousin recommended the book Healing our Children, which got me onto traditional diet protocols. I implemented organ meats, ghee, fermented cod liver oil-butter oil blend, and unhomogenized milk (raw milk was not available in Australia then).
A few months after, I moved to Peru and I started drinking one liter of fresh, pastured raw milk daily. The milk came from a small farm around the corner. After two or three months, I noticed my hair was growing back around my forehead and my skin was shinier. After six months on raw milk, my energy was strong enough to go out and not crash afterwards for a week. At this point, my menstrual cycle returned and became more and more regular starting at thirty-three days and normalizing at twenty-eight days per cycle.
In August 2017, I met and married my Bolivian spouse and in December 2017, we decided to try for a baby. I fell pregnant first try and gave birth to the most beautiful baby. I drank raw milk throughout the pregnancy (against the doctor’s advice!) and still drink it while breastfeeding. I have an abundance of milk and my now seven-month-old baby has rarely been sick (even though his father vaccinates him!).
Four months postpartum, my period returned and I had two regular periods. After that, the periods stopped again and I felt my energy sliding away. Thanks to a post on the WAPF website, I’ve added raw egg yolks to my daily regime in addition to the raw milk and my energy is much better on the days that I have four to six raw egg yolks. My little man is a big feeder, so it makes sense that I need even more nourishment while nursing!
We will see what happens in the future, but for now I am thrilled with my beautiful little family and having enough energy to enjoy it. Thank you so much to A Campaign for Real Milk and the Weston A. Price Foundation for reviving ancient wisdom about real food!
Rosanne
Australia and Bolivia
ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE (letter includes a picture online)
Here’s a picture that would be fun for the journal. The man in the photo tells me that some people say to him, “Oh, you are one of those people.” So he decided to embrace “Yes, I am one of those people.” So he sent a picture and a caption.
“Raw milk has been proven to be a superior nutritional product over pasteurized and homogenized milk. Why do we raw milk advocates have to fight for the right to consume it? Raw milk parents with young children will not speak out, as they have been threatened to be reported to Child Protective Services.”
Wouldn’t you know the Weston A. Price Foundation would be on top of the issue? Like raw milk, the Foundation is the cream—always rising to the top!! Thank you!
David Lindig
Fergus Falls, Minnesota
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2018/
RAW MILK MIRACLE
I have been taking care of a relative whose lowfat, low-salt, soy- and almond-milk laden, vegan diet finally caught up with her. She was dying of multiple causes including severe hypothyroidism, severe anorexia, lung tuberculosis, sarcoidosis and squamous cell carcinoma. You could almost say she was dying of malnutrition, if not outright starvation. All this of course, peppered with the usual toxic cast of other chemicals like vaccines and Roundup. Could anyone survive this onslaught of debilitating conditions?
Her entire abdominal area, neck to groin, was filled with tumors. Kaiser doctors gave up on her, giving her three to six months to live, with an emphasis on the former. This was in June. Mercifully, she rejected chemo and radiation, when the doctor told her she was too fragile and too advanced for either to be of any benefit. Her weight had shrunk from one hundred thirty to one hundred seven pounds. Kaiser finally recommended hospice. She was admitted to home hospice, with me in charge.
She took to bed after this death sentence, stopped eating nearly completely, went down to ninety-seven pounds, and was on 60 mg of morphine for “cancer-related pain” that many hospice patients get. Her foods were Ensure and Boost, soy milk and almond milk, sweet yogurts and storebought granola.
I am proud to say I exhibited remarkable self-control and did not say a word about these noxious foods. When she asked for Boost, I gave her Boost. When she asked for Activia, I gave her Activia. We had a slew of visitors over those weeks to pay final respects, bringing flowers and cards and many tears. We were all grieving.
Well, we finally moved next door (we were in the process of moving) and started feeding her ourselves. Literally three days after I started her on raw milk, she went from horizontal to vertical. She just started sitting up in bed, pain gone, and all of a sudden, was interested in life. She is an ADA-trained dietician, who doesn’t just disapprove, but is appalled by the foods I eat (raw butter, raw oysters and salt), and was even more shocked at the idea of raw milk. The only way I was able to get her to drink it was to say, “You are going to die anyway, why not give it a shot?” So, she had her first sip of milk around mid-July out of sheer politeness.
What happened after was remarkable. When she took her first sip, she said it tasted like the milk of her childhood, the kind they delivered on their doorstep in glass bottles, with cream on top. The Ensure, Boost, soy-milk and almond-milk went out the window. She now has raw milk with local organic ice cream three times a day. She was also quite opposed to the idea of eating ice cream, but quickly applied the same logic to the ice cream (cheered on by me). She was going to die anyway, and since she had deprived herself of ice cream for decades, and since that deprivation had not worked anyway, why not indulge herself now? Her weight went up from ninety-seven pounds and now hovers at one hundred nine. She is walking a small distance outdoors. She is hooked on the raw milk and ice cream. Her appetite has returned. She craves food, something she has not done in years. I am wondering whether she was missing zinc or some critical appetite hormone on the vegan, plant-drink-based diet, which caused the anorexia.
When she drinks milk, she holds it like her life depended upon it, in both hands, as the cup goes up, covers her face, and she gulps the whole thing down with satisfaction. It reminds me of the little girl with diphtheria in Willa Cather’s novel, Sapphira and the Slave Girl, who floats down in her sick stupor, goes like a magnet toward the broth, sips it like it was communion, and survives, while her poor sister who did not drink the broth, dies. I think it’s not until the body is in its death throes that our reptilian brain, our innate sense of self-preservation, takes over and makes these wise food decisions for us.
I am happy to say she will not die tomorrow or next month or by Thanksgiving either. She is on the hook for making homemade ice cream in three flavors for Thanksgiving. She has also committed to growing seedlings for our garden for winter and next spring. She will live for many more months, possibly years.
Sadly, she does not think it’s the food that saved her life, so when she gets better I am not sure she will eat the same way. But for now, it’s enough to have witnessed a miraculous transformation in a dying person, which has etched into my psyche the incredible healing power of real food.
Raw milk saved my life over a decade ago and now it has saved another of my family members. It has also gotten my daughter pregnant in a jiffy. I think of it as the food that gets you through life without problems. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Foundation. I hope it continues to educate misguided people forever, without conflict or corruption.
Melissa Yeany
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
THE RAW MILK DIFFERENCE
I believe that raw milk has made a huge difference in how healthy my grandchildren are. My family line was going downhill, with my parents sicker than theirs, and me sicker than my parents, and my kids sicker than my husband and me in some ways, especially with all those vaccines that I didn’t know damaged children. My grandkids are super healthy relative to most of the other kids we know, so I hope the raw milk and healthy WAPF diet, and vaccine avoidance have turned our family around. My daughter created her own micro farm-ranch-dairy so her kids could have healthy raw milk and good food, and it seems to have really helped.
Some people are so sick they can’t tolerate milk or fermented milk until they spend some time on the GAPS diet, but I haven’t heard anything bad in person about people reacting to raw milk, and certainly nothing about anyone I know of getting sick from microbes in it. When I started drinking it, I got sick because I had a leaky gut. I fermented it and continued consuming raw dairy, and I think the raw dairy has been a major factor in how my health has improved in spite of a high body burden of heavy metals and pesticides.
I am a scientist and was exposed to the propaganda they spout in biology classes about how dangerous raw milk supposedly is—they didn’t even teach a whisper about the gut flora—and I was scared when my daughter started drinking raw milk when she was pregnant. Hopefully the new knowledge will triumph.
Maria Minno
Gainesville, Florida
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2018/
WE LOVE RAW MILK!
Your organization has changed our lives—we appreciate all you do!
About ten years ago, after my youngest went through five years of treatment for leukemia, I stumbled upon your work. I began to make changes in how I shopped and cooked for my family. I have not looked back! We are all well-nourished and healthy now and rarely get sick. We’ve been drinking raw milk for eight years now. We love it!
Brenda Veltman
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2017/
CHANGED MY LIFE
Just a note to let you know how this Foundation helped me. I used to suffer from a stomach ulcer. I went to the doctor and all they did was push pills. I suffered for about twenty years.
In 2007, I was on the Internet researching ways to heal it naturally. I stumbled upon your site, and it changed my life!
I’m a farm girl and I read how good raw milk is for you. I thought to myself, I can milk! So I got a milk cow and milk goats and my ulcer healed. That was nine years ago.
This weekend I went to my first Mother Earth fair and had a blast! I found your booth and want to join. Thank you for all you do!
Robin Sharp
Grafton, West Virginia
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2017/
HEALED WITH RAW MILK
Our daughter had a severe reaction to her twelve-month vaccines. It started with seizures and ultimately her stomach was so torn up that she didn’t grow an ounce or have a solid bowel movement for over a year. We had tried everything we knew to try when our chiropractor recommended raw milk to us. We found a local farmer and got our first gallon. Within twenty-four hours she had her first solid bowel movement. Within a month she had moved up a full clothing and shoe size and gained five pounds. Many of her neurological issues subsided considerably as her stomach lining was noticeably healed by consuming the raw milk. We are so thankful to see our baby girl coming back to the healthy child she used to be.
Mary Coop
San Antonio, Texas
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2015/
ECZEMA CURED
When my fourth child was two months old, he was plagued with severe eczema from head to toe. He spent two hours every night scratching. I had to pin him to my body to get him to stop scratching and go back to sleep. We tried everything you can imagine until we reluctantly put him on Zyrtec twice a day and steroid cream. The eczema was subdued for sure, but as soon as I did not put on the cream, or give him his meds, it flared.
It was not until my friend Kristin Canty said I should get him on raw milk that he got relief. We also gave him fermented cod liver oil and high-vitamin butter oil, and within months he was completely cured. He is almost nine years old now and not only living without eczema but also without the asthma and allergies that most of the docs told me he would have, as they run hand in hand with eczema.
Our entire family of five kids and two adults has been on raw milk and FCLO/HVBO pretty consistently for the past eight years, depending on the season. We tend to cut back when the sun is nice and strong and kids are outside.
I credit the Weston A. Price Foundation for changing the way we think about food and the health of our family. I feel blessed to have learned about such an organization, one constantly seeking to empower people to take control of their own health, support the farmers doing things right and prepare traditional foods that have been supporting thriving communities across the globe for thousands of years.
Hilary Boynton
Venice, California
DONKEY MILK
I would like to be added to your list of suppliers of donkey milk in the United States. We discovered donkey milk when we were battling our daughter’s autoimmune disease, PANDAS. She got strep throat and her immune system attacked her brain. Overnight, we “lost” her to this awful disease. It wasn’t until she started drinking donkey milk, months after the onset of the illness, that she said “I love you, Daddy” for the first time.
We have just started our herd of mammoth donkeys, and two are due to foal any day. We should have enough milk to sell as well as provide our daughter with what she needs to stay healthy, and hope to increase our herd. You can read our story with donkey milk for PANDAS autoimmune disease here: buttercupfarm.wordpress.com.
Thanks so much for your amazing website. We love our raw milk!
Saundra Traywick
Midwest City, Oklahoma
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2015/
ASTONISHING EFFECT
My health has been failing. Nothing specific, just thought I was aging at fifty-nine. I bought raw milk the other day and I’m hooked. Instantly calm. I think my body has been starving for nutrients. It has amazed me that it has had an instant effect and I feel like a flower that finally got water. Louis Pasteur has done nothing good for the milk industry. Loving the taste, and the effect on my health and well-being is astonishing.
Jane McCallum
Richland, Washington
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2014/
RAW MILK CURES! (there’s a picture online)
Just an hour ago we got my son’s lab results following a long health crisis. It began three months ago when he contracted a superbug staph infection during a routine outpatient surgical removal of an ingrown toenail. Within a week he had severe blisters all over and broken blood vessels covering his body. We were treating him with healthy, whole foods and herbal supplements. This was not enough, and after three or four weeks my son was in terrible abdominal pain and showing blood in his urine. My strong and vibrant fourteen-year-old was deteriorating before my eyes and I felt helpless as a mother.
When he started vomiting blood, I took him to the hospital and he was admitted to Hershey’s Children Hospital with a diagnosis of Henoch-Schőnlein purpura. He was placed on IV fluids and prednisone. Thankfully, these helped stabilize him and I know they were necessary at the time, so that his kidneys would not shut down. He was released from the hospital with instructions to follow the schedule for prednisone which would be gradually weaned out of his system after four weeks. However, within two weeks of being weaned off the prednisone my son’s symptoms returned. We were told he’d have to start prednisone again and be monitored frequently until there were no traces of blood in his urine.
I heard about the raw milk cure a year or two prior to this and I let my son read the link to the article (www.realmilk.com/health/milk-cure). He asked to start the cure immediately and began consuming only raw milk. The day before his decision, red blood cell counts in his urine culture were said to be forty to sixty. Four days after drinking one to two gallons of raw milk per day, and nothing else, his levels came back (we got the results) showing zero to three red blood cells. His doctor is amazed, wants to know what we did, and doesn’t need to see my son again until next month.
I have another testimonial. Last year our basement became infested with mold. Our one- and three-year-olds were coughing for weeks. We cleaned up the mold professionally and received a small sum towards repairs from our homeowners insurance, but the babies’ coughs persisted. After about two months of trying various expensive herbal remedies, I decided to remove everything from the babies’ diet and have them only consume raw yogurt. I am not exaggerating when I say that their coughs and congestion were cleared in under two days. I continued the diet for about four or five days, giving them yogurt whenever they wanted and they were calm, happy, and healthy. I gradually introduced other foods starting with meat and broth. Now, a year later they are still healthy and eating a variety of foods.
Rebekah and Adrien Barlup
Lynchburg, Pennsylvania
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2014/
TRULY GOOD FOOD
The health benefits of raw milk are well documented. Our own doctor praises my family for producing our own food from our garden and milking the cow that gives her raw white gold to us on a daily basis. My four healthy and beautiful children only got ear infections when I bought pasteurized milk from the store when my cow was dry. (Those were three sad months!)
But that is not what I want to write about. I have to mention the superior taste that raw, nonhomogenized milk has, something even my young children have noticed. My five-year-old turned his nose up at the store-bought (organic) milk for the first month of buying it, claiming it was “weird tasting.” Now I’m no expert or foodie, but my children are right. There is no comparison. Raw milk is a perfect example of truly good food.
Julie Wheelock
Colmar Manor, MD
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2013/
RAW MILK FOR BLOOD PRESSURE
Here’s a great story for raw milk drinkers. I went on a strictly raw milk diet sixteen days ago to treat my high blood pressure of 160/100. Within four days it dropped like a stone to 120/80, sometimes lower, sometimes a little bit higher, but it’s never been back to 160/100.
I’m utterly elated; you can’t imagine what a monkey off my back that has been after all this time. I had had a large blood clot in my left shoulder earlier this year that has confounded medics and me alike as to cause, given my general fitness. Actually chronic dehydration contributed as well as elevated blood pressure and some minor trauma to the shoulder through doing, ironically, Tibetan longevity exercises.
You want me as a poster boy for raw milk as a kick-arse hypertension cure: I’m yer man! I only had one side effect to the raw milk diet: it had a majorly constipating effect. But I used a heaping dessert spoon of my good coconut flour with every sixteen-ounce glass and that resolved the issue.
Ian Haldane
New Plymouth, New Zealand
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2013/
THRIVING ON RAW MILK FORMULA
I discovered raw milk a few years back, and am forever thankful for that discovery. For the first few years, I was just thankful to drink milk without throwing off my whole body. It was after the birth of my second child, however, that raw milk and the Weston A. Price Foundation began to play a big role in my life. Besides starting to overhaul the food choices I make for my family, I receive confirmation from your work of suspicions I have held about the food industry. It is validating, yes, but more so empowering.
I also wanted to thank you for the recipe for homemade formula. I suffered from postpartum depression after the birth of both my children, and had to stop nursing my second because I got so lost and depleted. Thank God I am now back on track and better than I was before! I credit whole food nutrition, yoga, and raw milk with the bulk of my rejuvenation. My son is thriving on his raw milk formula and his daily egg yolk, and my daughter guzzles her raw milk!
Katie M. Clark
Grandview Heights, Ohio
RAW MILK FOR CROHN’S DISEASE
I was diagnosed with Crohn’s and colitis in 2006. I was a junior in college when I first heard the devastating news of my condition. I had spent three weeks in the hospital being fed through a bag because my intestines had completely closed! I was twenty years old. I have since had numerous hospital stays as well as a major bowel resection surgery in 2009, and six more surgeries in the last two years. I graduated with a BFA degree in 2007 and went to work right away. I also have gotten married and bought a house with my husband. Still, every day is a struggle living with my severe Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Last year amidst more surgeries and devastating news regarding my disease I first heard about raw milk’s positive health benefits for diseases. Because of the long standing stigma against raw milk, I immediately decided to research my options before trying it. After many articles and lots of research, I felt confident enough to give raw milk a try.
Many people with digestive diseases feel ill effects rather quickly after consuming food or drinks. I drank regular pasteurized milk many years ago and would have bowel movements, cramping and bloating minutes after. Coffee is another drink that I had to give up because of the effects it would have on my body, effects that would last for hours.
When I drank my first glass of raw milk, I felt no negative symptoms at all. I waited another few hours, expecting to have diarrhea and bloating. After a few hours, still no signs of any bad reaction. I was stunned and elated! I continued cautiously drinking the raw milk. I noticed within the first few days, I felt less cramping of my intestines and fewer, more formed bowel movements. Since then, I have been drinking at least two glasses of raw milk a day. It has helped my intestines get much needed probiotics as well as give my body much needed immunity.
I still maintain my doctor’s orders for my medications. But I do feel that together with raw milk and traditional medications, I am getting the best wellrounded care I can give to myself. Even with my changing symptoms, my husband and family have been the biggest support for me.
With them at my side I have managed to make it through every obstacle and challenge Crohn’s throws at me. I have found that becoming an activist for the disease and speaking out about my experience with raw milk and Crohn’s has given me the courage to keep moving on with life.
Kristin Gray
Danielson, Connecticut
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2013/
OSTEOPENIA REVERSED
In July of 2010, I had a bone density test done. In the past when the doctors checked my bones, I had always come out with good density. Because of this, I didn’t worry about bones breaking, even though I am in my sixties. It was a concern of mine because I have an aunt who has osteoporosis, and I seem to follow after her in many ways. She has fallen and broken some of her bones.
So imagine my surprise when my 2010 test came back with a diagnosis of osteopenia, the start of osteoporosis. I was very concerned but as life goes, I kind of forgot about it. At the time I was drinking store-bought, pasteurized, homogenized milk.
In the 70s and 80s, I lived on an acreage with my family and we had our own milk cow (along with beef, chickens, hogs, turkeys and rabbits). I was raised five kids on good, wholesome, real food, drinking a gallon of raw milk a day for the family. After moving to town, I have missed that life tremendously so I have always been in search of raw milk, right from the cow, just like we had at home. As most of you probably know, that’s not easy to find. Finally, I found a resource and I am grateful every day.
Fast forward to September 2012 (two years after the 2010 bone density test). My doctor suggested I get re-tested. I remember thinking, “That’s a good idea―I wonder whether the raw milk will make a difference?” I don’t think I really thought it would, I was just curious.
Well, lo and behold, my test results came back with the statement: “Since 7/12/2010 there has been a significant increase in bone density in the lumbar spine (2.8 percent).”
I was amazed and so excited―I couldn’t wait to see my doctor again. When she read my report, she couldn’t believe it. She said she had never seen osteopenia reversed. I asked her if she wanted to know what I was doing differently? She said she did and I told her, “The only thing I have changed is that I’m drinking raw milk.” She looked at me strangely and said, “Aren’t you afraid if it isn’t pasteurized?” I replied, “No, actually I’m more afraid of pasteurized.” She replied, “Well, keep doing what you’re doing.” I know I had to be the first patient that had told her that.
So my raw milk is gold to me. I love the taste and I love the results!
Elaine Andrews
Marion, Iowa
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2012/
FEELING GREAT AT SEVENTY
I just celebrated my seventieth birthday. I am on no prescription meds, I work fifty to sixty hours a week (more like eighty during greenhouse and garden season) and feel wonderful. I credit getting on raw milk about ten years ago with much of my good health. My family is full of cancer, and that is of great concern to me. Everything I read says a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet can help to prevent cancer. That is how I eat!
Both of my parents (now deceased) and my three siblings all have or have had terrible arthritis, and I have none. I have a problem with a knee, may need a partial knee replacement (meniscus is pretty much gone in one part), and the doctor remarked about the lack of arthritis in my joints. I seem to be beating the odds in that category!
Susan Siemers
Walkerton, Indiana
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2011/
NO CAVITIES
Eight years ago, I discovered the Weston A. Price Foundation and have been working diligently to implement a nourishing traditional diet for my entire family. The health benefits that I have seen have been enormous.
For example, my son Joel was born prematurely and had developmental problems but he went on raw milk (and an organic apple a day) when he was six. Now he is almost fifteen. He rarely brushes his teeth except for necessary hygiene concerns (that is, when we tell him to). He drinks only unfluoridated water, but we are not obsessive about restricting sweets, as long as they are made with organic, minimally processed sugars.
Joel just went to the dentist for the second checkup in his life, and as with the first one, no cavities were discovered. His panoramic x-rays show that his teeth are perfectly developed and aligned, with the final molars just now slipping into place (he even has some “supernumeraries” showing). And this from parents whose mouths are filled with mercury fillings and root canals.
My (fraternal) twin brother has been following my experiment from afar and has been a very hard sell about the WAPF principles. When he saw these x-rays he immediately attributed it to “better dental care” (like brushing and fluoride) than when we were kids. When I told him that Joel almost never brushed and has never been exposed to fluoride, he was visibly shaken.
Thank you for your tireless and sometimes thankless philanthropic service.
Rev. Paul K. Hubbard Former Virginia Peninsula Chapter Leader
Poquoson, Virginia
MY SON AND RAW MILK
I am the mother of three children and one on the way. Originally I was skeptical of raw milk. However, my son was born with a lot of health issues and needed something to help boost his health. His nutritionist, who is a firm believer in all things natural and organic, suggested he try raw milk. With hesitation, we did. Holy cow! (Pardon the expression!) He gained over two pounds in a month, had no colds during that month, and seemed to be feeling better in every way. Raw milk seemed to heal his gut.
I will advocate for raw milk in any way I can. Today I refuse to buy industrial milk and I only buy raw milk, which also goes along with my belief of “support your local farmers.”
I want to spread the word any way I can. I printed out some of the articles on your website and brought them to my pediatrician. He was dead set against raw milk and practically blew up at me for feeding it to my son. Well, guess what? My son still drinks it—and will continue to drink it. Thank you for such an informational website.
Cortney Spencer
Dover Plains, New York
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2010/
RAW MILK TAMES HORSE ALLERGIES
I went to an allergist as a child then again at about twenty years old. The scratch tests showed a severe allergy to horse dander. The doctor said he’d never seen it so bad. The wheal, which is usually as large as a nickel, was in my case the size of a half dollar. I didn’t need him to tell me I was allergic. Any exposure to horses resulted in more than twenty-four hours of sneezing, wheezing, itching and lethargy, even after taking a double dose of Benadryl.
About five years ago, I gave a farrier friend a ride home from the airport. Just having the essence of horse sitting next to me caused a massive reaction. I seriously considered going to the emergency room.
I have always been a huge milk drinker. As an adult I would consume six to eight glasses a day. About three years ago we started drinking raw milk. Although my children showed marked improvement from their eczema, I didn’t really notice any health changes in myself.
This past week, I shot a scene from a movie about a girl and her horse. I spent seven hours in a barn, in direct contact with the horses and hay dust. A certain death sentence, I thought. But at the end of the day, I was completely symptom free. No itching, no wheezing, nothing. What is different from the last time I was exposed? All I can think of is the milk. Thanks for working to make real milk available.
Jeff Babb
Wilmington, North Carolina
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2010/
NO BROKEN BONES
I grew up on a Virginia farm as part of a family of eight boys. None of us ever had a broken bone, and I attribute that to the fact that we all drank raw milk.
Tam Murray
Alexandria, Virginia
GOOD HEALTH FROM RAW MILK
My two brothers and I were raised on raw milk. We are now in our sixties. My youngest brother takes some medication, but my older brother and I take no medication. We do regularly take vitamins.
I raised my son and daughter on raw milk. Now in their thirties, neither takes any medication. They suffer only from some psoriasis. Other than that, they are very healthy. I attest that our good health had its good start in drinking raw milk. My mother was a strong advocate. She was a farm girl from South Dakota.
I am sorry for those that oppose the legalization of this wonderful product. It is their loss. If they could follow so many of us, like my family, rather than focus on those alleged to have fallen ill drinking raw milk, I believe they would discover there are more healthy than ill folk.
Carrie Gonzalo
La Crescenta, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2010/
AMAZING RAW MILK
I’m entirely new to the Weston A. Price Foundation. I’ve been hearing about it at a local homeopathic study group that I’ve been attending since May. At first it sounded bizarre but the more I listened, the more it started making sense (just like homeopathy). Then I tried, for the first time, some raw milk and it just blew me away. In fact, I’ve never liked milk much and I’ve been lactose intolerant for the past twenty years. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing about raw milk so I drank one-third of my half gallon the night I brought it home.
Amazingly, I had no problems at all. In fact, I woke up the next morning with a strong craving for it. The next night I pushed the experiment further and ate a huge piece of cake with buttery frosting (this would normally put me in agony) and drank a big cup of the raw milk. I had not a single bit of discomfort. Truly astounding.
Now I can barely tolerate the soy milk and hemp drink I had been using in place of milk. Even my two-year-old, having tasted the raw milk just once, is still asking for it two weeks later.
Chris Downey
Annandale, Virginia
RAW MILK SURPRISES
I knew that my husband could drink raw milk even though he is lactose intolerant. That made sense. I knew it took care of my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which makes sense also. But there are two other outcomes from raw milk that have really surprised me.
First off, my daughter always complained about her tummy hurting. She never wanted to eat because it made her tummy hurt. Then I started to think that maybe her tummy hurt because of hunger pains. So I started making her eat. But she would just complain after the meal that her tummy hurt. Her pediatrician was totally confused as to why and wanted to do testing, which she knew I would be against. I had discussed the possibility of raw milk with her, and although she hated the idea, she did admit that her brother drinks raw milk and his whole family says it has benefited them. In the end, she consented to trying raw milk for my daughter—as if I needed her permission. However, about a month after we started drinking raw milk my husband and I realized that our daughter has not once complained of a tummy ache.
Another friend had terrible back pains for over a year. There were some days when she had to stay in bed all day. She went to the chiropractor and one visit even made her back worse. However, after drinking raw milk, her back is fine! I did some research and found out that an unhealthy gut can affect all areas of your body, especially your back. Who knew such a simple change could do so much!
Missy Schuler
Santa Barbara, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/journal-winter-2009-holistic-cancer-treatment/
GOAT MILK HEALS!
I know firsthand the value of raw goat milk. Years ago, my husband suffered for a long time from diarrhea. Nothing seemed to help. His doctor put him on Lomotil pills, which he rarely took. He was then put on a baby food diet for two years.
The Lord must have told him to go on raw goat milk. His GI system healed completely and since then he has eaten anything he wants. I tell people to get goat milk, but it seems like no one is smart enough to listen. That is really sad.
Susan Fay
Marshall, Texas
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2009/
ALLERGIES GONE WITH RAW MILK
My daughter in Boone, North Carolina has been purchasing raw milk for the past year from a small local dairy farmer. My ten-year-old grandson has suffered from a large range of allergies and allergy-induced asthma. This bothers him most in the winter and he has always stayed on Claritin.
Since drinking raw milk he has been allergy-free, and medication-free as well. In addition, his digestive system (previous gas problems) also is greatly improved. The addition of raw milk in his diet is the only change so it is obvious the raw milk is responsible for his improved health.
Vicki Wilson
GRATEFUL AND PLEASED
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2009/
Raw Milk and the Eyes
I am just back from Illinois where I was unable to get raw milk. It was interesting to observe my body becoming full of phlegm, which went away after being back on raw milk.
I also noticed my vision deteriorating. I do not know what the connection is with raw milk and sharp eyes, but I stopped wearing reading glasses in my mid-fifties, after switching to raw milk.
I wrote about my grandfather’s farm in the Winter, 2007 Wise Traditions article, “The First Cow Share Program.”
While back in Illinois sorting through boxes of family photos, I was repeatedly struck by the difference in the ones of my older sister, who was born on the farm and lived there until six months of age, and the other two suburban-raised children. Christina, the eldest, has a square face, a perfect bite, and rolls of baby fat. The two younger girls had oval faces and less fat. As we grew up, the eldest was the only one who did not need orthodontia. This is a small survey, but interesting.
I appreciated the article on cookware. Incidentally, the correct word for a spoon-fork combination tool is runcible spoon, coined by Edward Lear in his famous poem, “The Owl and the Pussycat.”
Neysa Garrett
Berkeley, California
Raw Milk for Rash
I sell organic raw milk from grassfed, free-range Jersey cows to several women in my area. I had a new customer a few weeks ago started getting milk from me. Then one week she did not get milk and her daughter developed a rash around her mouth. This mother could not figure out what was going on with her child.
Then she got some milk from me again and the rash went away. What she discovered was that when she fed her child store bought milk, she developed a rash and when she fed her raw milk the rash went away. So this is proof that real milk really is the best!
Julie Rosen, Chapter Leader
Selby, South Dakota
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2008/
Raw Milk Recovery
I grew up in the Netherlands. For 25 years there, I consumed raw milk. My family would take a bucket full of milk and put it in the cellar because we didn’t have refrigeration, and they would skim it. Whenever the cream turned sour, I always got the sour cream. . . because I was the runt of the litter, and it was good for me. When I came to this country in 1950, I was employed in the dairy industry, and I still drank raw milk—I never took to the pasteurized and homogenized milk that you have here.
When my wife and I adopted our daughter, we were told that she was lactose intolerant. Well, we solved that problem with raw milk. I got it from my own cows because by that time I had my own dairy. My cows greatly outperformed those of my neighbors, and I credit that success to pasturing my herd once a day. After five years I moved to a dry-lot operation, which brought on leptospirosis [a bacterial disease of animals and humans] in my herd. At that point I stopped drinking my own product and I told my raw milk customers I didn’t feel right about it… so I stopped giving it to them. I went to considerable expense to solve the disease problem. After overcoming the illness in my cows, I was financially exhausted and sold the herd.
It wasn’t until three or four years ago, after moving to Bakersfield, that I started drinking raw milk again. I’ve been a steady customer of Organic Pastures ever since. I recently recovered from hospitalization during which I didn’t get any raw milk. They offered me non-fat milk which I refused to consume. At one point after the hospitalization I told my wife, “I’m losing ground.” I felt like I was going down. Then I resumed consuming raw milk at the rate of one and one-half gallons per week. That’s not quite a quart a day. Since then I’ve been told that I look really healthy. I divorced my wheelchair and I’m now trying to orphan my cane.
I’m nearly 84 years old, and I’m doing my part in fighting the government to keep them from interfering with my raw milk. To paraphrase John McCain, “I’ll go to the gates of hell to defend raw milk.”
Ed De Boer
Bakersfield, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2008/
Success List
Please add my name to the WAPF success list—I was researching nutrition for bones (to avoid taking Fosamax) when a friend told me about the WAPF guidelines. I had news in July, 2005, from my NP that I was very close to osteoporosis.
Forward to today. I have to go see my NP to get the actual numbers, but her recent note (result of a scan on December 10, 2007) indicates bone density “improvement.” I joined our local chapter and have been buying local raw milk and other farm products for about 18 months.
Tish Cotter
New York, New York
Raw Milk Stops Seizures
I am 29 years old and have suffered from epilepsy for 11 years now. I had my first seizure when I was 18. Medical doctors immediately put me on anticonvulsant medications. Aside from a few tests (MRI and Sleep Deprivation EEG), they never investigated what was going on in my life for possible causes or cures.
In these past 11 years I have had a few miscarriages due to the medication Dilantin that I was on, and I also almost lost one of my children due to fetal hydantoin syndrome. This syndrome is a rare disorder that is caused by exposure of a fetus to the anticonvulsant drug phenytoin (Dilantin).
When I was 16 weeks pregnant with my son Elisha, my water broke and I found out that doctors had no hope that my baby would live through the pregnancy. It was then that I began looking for an alternative way to deal with my epilepsy during pregnancy. The only thing I found out at that time was that the amino acid taurine could help reduce epileptic seizures and for the duration of the pregnancy, that’s all I used, but still had seizures, although at a much lesser degree.
Once my body got used to the Dilantin, it wouldn’t work any more. I tried a few other anticonvulsants and the last one threw me over the edge; I became anorexic, was constantly sick and wanted to commit suicide. (These side effects were all listed on the drug’s website.) That’s when I got desperate and began really searching. Thankfully I have found several natural healers! I have been going to a chiropractor twice a week, and I eat almost exclusively all organic food. I take fish oil, amino acids L-tyrosine and taurine, a very high quality multivitamin, coconut oil and raw milk! When I am out of the raw milk for a few days, I begin to have some auras and seizures. It is essential for me to be able to keep my supplements and milk around so that I can live a normal life.
Since eating a healthy diet that includes raw milk, I no longer need medication in the day time. I have reduced my dosage from 400 mg a day to just 100 mg at night. Now I am no longer sleepy, I have my memory back, I am not at a loss for words, and therefore my job of home schooling five kids (four of my own and one fantastic niece!) is much easier. I hope and pray that we will continue to have the freedom that our forefathers dreamed of when they gave their lives for us to be able to think for ourselves and make our own wise decisions!
Thanks for all you are doing to help Mark McAfee and Organic Pastures Dairy. I’ll be checking out the website to see what is going on and how I can help.
Jill Price
Discovery Bay, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2007/
MORE ON RAW MILK
Congratulations on the raw milk articles in the New York Times and Washington Post. My kids went to their annual pediatrician visit about one month ago. He said in his entire practice of six doctors and hundreds of patients, he thinks my three kids are the only ones he sees just once per year—for their annual visit.
He asked how we do it and the first thing my wife told him was about the raw milk. He was shocked yet gave us the standard comeback, “Well, if it’s working keep doing it.”
George Smith Dayton, Ohio
RAW MILK FOR THE EYES
Around February of 2005 I had blurred vision in my right eye, which had progressively gotten worse over the previous six months. It was time to get an eye exam. I was told by the optometrist that, yes, I had a cataract. She said that it would get worse and the left eye would probably be affected too, and eventually I would have to have surgery and put in manmade lenses.
I had been reading about raw milk and how nutritious it was for several years. I began to drink about three glasses a day. After six weeks, my right eye completely cleared up. I could see as clearly as one year earlier.
It is now almost three years since starting on raw milk and my vision is better than it has been since I was about 30—I’m now 64. I recently had another eye exam and the ophthalmologist said that I had no signs of any cataracts. I don’t even need glasses to use the computer anymore.
Bing Gibbs
Alton, Illinois
RAW MILK FOR ALLERGIES
My husband suffered from tree pollen allergies for 21 years. The allergies would appear in February and finally draw to a close in June. His eyes would swell and itch and water. It interfered with work, and at night, during the worst of it, he’d have to wear polar fleece gloves to keep from hurting himself in his sleep. For a full third of the year he was miserable and could not be outside, particularly after dusk.
We tried nettle, we tried quercetin, we tried probiotics—we tried everything of a natural stripe, with little or no relief. But a year and a half ago we switched to raw whole milk. By this February, when his symptoms didn’t appear, we thought the allergy season was going to be an easy one. But as March passed and then April, it dawned on us that the yearly affliction wasn’t happening at all! By June, amidst reports that others were suffering as usual, it was clear that my husband had finally cured himself, and raw milk was the only change we’d made during that time.
One change, and so powerful! We are so convinced of raw milk’s benefits that I now write on the subject for a local publication and when we move, it will be to a state that allows the sale of this incredible food. We don’t want to be without it again.
Jill Ebbott
Brookline, Massachusetts
SOY FEED FOR COWS
My newborn grandson had problems with formula. He would forcibly vomit up large quantities of clear liquid, oftentimes when he was in bed. My daughter’s milk was slow to come in, but as soon as possible, we took him off all formula and she nursed him exclusively.
When he was weaned at about fifteen months, she naturally started giving him regular milk, but again he started vomiting up clear liquid. Not knowing what else to do, she put him on ultra-pasteurized goat milk and when that made him too congested, she added soy milk to his diet.
Later, when I would bathe him and help with potty training, I noticed that his scrotum seemed very large for a toddler, plus he had frequent erections. I had raised two sons and never remembered anything like that. I was concerned but didn’t want to worry my daughter.
When I learned about the problems with soy, I started searching for a source of raw milk. I was blessed to find an Amish farmer who had milk for sale. We were happy to find that the raw milk did not cause vomiting problems for my grandson, and we were especially happy to see his sex organs shrink and become normal for a little boy.
Because our Amish farmer lives 35 miles away, I continued to search for a closer source for milk. I found a small dairy that sold raw milk, and we used their milk when we couldn’t get the Amish milk, or could only get a limited amount.
After one extended period of a few weeks when we used only the new milk, I noticed that my grandson’s organs enlarged and he began to have erections again. I had known that the dairy fed their cows soybeans, but I had hoped it wouldn’t cause problems. After that time, we have gone exclusively to the Amish milk, and things are back to normal for my grandson.
What a difference your work has made in my grandson’s life! Who knows where his very premature sexual development would have led.
Anne Farmer
Rockville, Indiana
BONE DENSITY
Our family has recently received exciting news regarding our son’s bone density. We have been drinking raw milk exclusively for over three years now. The very same month we switched to raw milk (October, 2003), our middle son also received a bone density scan. The test was ordered after he had broken his arm for the third time. He was five at the time, just entering kindergarten. The test results came back normal. All of his bones were within the 50th percentile for his age and gender. We were left to attribute the broken bones to reckless exuberance (not a stretch with this child).Fast forward three years to the fall of 2006 when I learned that our local university was conducting a bone density study and looking for eight-year-old volunteers. Remembering the earlier study, and realizing the chance to re-test our now eight-year-old son, I signed him up. The results came back this week. The weakest of his bones now measure in the 84th percentile, and the strongest measure in the 99th percentile.The two tests were conducted on the same type of machine, from the same manufacturer. In the three years between tests, we did not change the nature of our diet, only the source of our food. In addition to raw milk, we also switched to 100 percent local grass fed meat and eggs. We did not add supplements to our son’s diet, nor did he increase his level of exercise. The doctor reviewing the results called them “remarkable,” asked for more details on raw milk, and said, “Whatever you are doing, keep doing it… I don’t think you need to worry about any more broken bones.”
Elizabeth McInerney
Rochester, New York
RAW MILK RESTORES HEARING
My 4-year-old son Benjamin had been suffering from chronic impaired hearing for the last two years due to persistent congestion and constant colds. His hearing had degraded to the point that he had to be near the TV with it set at one of the loudest settings for him to hear it. We had taken him to the doctor for ear infections and colds on repeated occasions. In addition to the antibiotics that were prescribed, we were also given, at different times, prescriptions for antihistamines, steroids and asthma inhalers. Nothing had worked well enough to justify the possible damage that we were doing to our son by giving him these drugs.
Looking further into health, we came across the benefits of raw milk. After doing some research into dairies, we found that Organic Pastures had all the answers regarding the benefits and safety of raw milk on their website. We got rid of the organic pasteurized milk that we were drinking and purchased some Organic Pastures raw milk the next day.
Within a month, we noticed that we were no longer having to yell for our son to hear us. Then he started complaining that everyday things, like car rides, were too loud. Going forward, he has been far healthier than he has been in his whole life and his hearing has returned to normal. The only thing that has changed in his diet is the replacement of organic pasteurized milk with Organic Pastures raw milk.
Mark Souders
Fresno, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2007/
INCREDIBLE TESTIMONY
I have an incredible testimony of raw milk. In 1960, back in my country of Mauritius, my little sister and my cousin were at a neighbor’s house and were poisoned by some pesticide that they had put in pancakes instead of baking powder. The family of eight also ate these pancakes. When the kids of this family began vomiting and suffering diarrhea, they quickly realized that they were poisoned by the crêpes. They had cows in their yard and the grandmother quickly milked the cow and gave raw milk to all of the eight family members who ate the crêpes.
Unfortunately, my sister and my cousin had come home to our house after eating the crêpes. When they began vomiting and having diarrhea we did not know what was wrong. We took them to the hospital but my sister died the same day and my cousin died the next day. Their lives were lost because they did not get the raw milk—my neighbor had forgotten that our kids had also eaten the pancakes and did not warn us.
Anyone who says raw milk is not good for them should come to me and let me tell them the crucial truth about raw milk.
Rita Boa
Springfield, Virginia
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2006/
RAW MILK, HAPPY BABY
This is a short description of my experience with raw milk, which began over five years ago when I was diagnosed with systemic candidiasis. I hope that I am able to convey the extreme importance of raw milk’s positive effect on my health and the health of my children.
After consuming large, daily amounts of raw goat’s milk during my first pregnancy (totally free of complications), my first son was born easily and quickly with no drugs at all. He began eating kefir made with raw cow’s milk in his first year and later also drank plain, raw cow’s milk. You have never seen a healthier child! He is almost four now and I can count the number of illnesses he has had (all very mild) on one hand. He continues to enjoy clean, pure raw cow’s milk from pastured cows, and I am convinced that this is the main reason he stays so healthy when all the other children we know are constantly sick. As a side note, he is also extremely well-behaved and intelligent; he could read 20 of the 26 letters of the alphabet before his 2nd birthday!
When my second pregnancy occurred, I was unfortunately unable to find a source of raw milk for the first couple of months, having just relocated. During those weeks, my fetus’s palate failed to come together and little did I know that my second son would be born with a significant cleft lip and palate. Also, I was not taking cod liver oil at the time, so this condition cannot be blamed on vitamin A.
Fortunately, I was able to find a good, clean source of raw milk later in my pregnancy and practically lived on it. Again, I had a beautiful, drug-free birth. And despite the cleft, I was soon delighted to find that I had given birth to a very happy baby who was also extremely healthy, strong, and hardy, according to the doctor’s midwife. Because of the cleft, my son could not nurse. I pumped for him, but fearing that I was not producing enough milk, I began to supplement with raw milk formula that I made according to the recipe provided by the Weston A. Price Foundation. To my surprise (and maternal disappointment), my son seemed to prefer the formula, and to digest it with much less difficulty than my breast milk. So I began to rely more heavily on the formula, and finally I switched to using the formula exclusively. Before my son was one month old, he was laughing long, deep laughs and he smiled all day, especially in response to another person’s smile. Today, as my son approaches six months of age, I am constantly told that he is the “happiest baby” anyone has ever seen, and that his dexterity is out-of-this-world, that he is incredibly alert (from day one), and that he is exceptionally strong.
The raw cow’s milk formula also helped my son reach the mandatory weight for his cleft-repair surgery, which was set for three and a half months of age. The doctors were worried that he would not reach the 10-pound minimum by the surgery date, as he was born two weeks early at 6 1/2 pounds, and cleft babies are notorious for having trouble gaining weight due to difficulty eating. Not only did my son meet that weight, but exceeded it by four whole pounds! We were also warned that cleft babies suffer many ear infections, but my son has not had one! He has never been sick at all. He came through surgery with flying colors. Even the nurses commented that he did “much better” than most cleft babies after their first surgery. Not only that, but the nurses had prepared us for how the lip would look after the stitches were removed. They told us the scar would remain red for about eight months. Twenty-four hours after my son’s stitches were removed, there was no redness at all, except for a tiny area under the nostril. One could hardly tell that he had been sewn up only five days earlier. He truly seemed to be an exception to all the rules in the “cleft” world.
It horrifies me to think what the state of my son’s health would be if I had given him formula from a can. I now see that raw milk is a prime contributor to the happy, healthy lives we were all meant to lead. It is more than a shame that producers and consumers of raw milk are facing legal difficulties regarding this perfect food–it is a crime of heinous proportion. But I am confident that as more people’s lives are transformed by the nourishing, life-giving properties of raw milk, these difficulties will diminish, and all of our children will once again drink raw milk and be healthy and happy!
Michelle Eschbaugh-Soha
Denton, Texas
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2006/
RAW MILK FOR THE EYES
I am a 63-year-old male. About a year ago, the vision in my right eye started getting blurry. I went to the optometrist and she said that I had the start of a cataract in my right eye. She said there was not much that I could do about it and that it would slowly get worse.
I had been reading Dr. Mercola’s articles on raw milk and the benefits of it, so I purchased some Organic Pastures milk a week after the eye exam and started drinking it regularly. Amazingly, about six weeks after drinking the raw milk my right eye got better and better, and today my vision is super clear. I’ve always had to wear corrective lenses, but when I do my eyesight is now actually better than it was 15 years ago.
On a recent physical exam with a local MD, the doctor said this improvement was just a coincidence. I don’t agree. Thanks, Organic Pastures, for providing the milk to us.
Bing Gibbs
Volcano, California
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2005-spring-2006/
NO MORE ASTHMA
I was talking to a friend last night who told me that while his son was drinking the raw goat’s milk, he had not one asthma attack. When it was gone, his son tried store-bought milk and had two attacks.
Billie Paxton
Elkview, West Virginia
REAL, RAW MILK
I am a 17-year-old girl writing to encourage you and your Campaign for Real Milk. After studying pasteurization, homogenization, ultra-pasteurization, hormones, antibiotics, plus the living conditions and diet of the modern day dairy cow. . . I now have a Jersey named Buttercup. My sister and I milk her every morning and barter or give away our extra milk. In the future we would like to start a cow share since it is illegal to sell raw milk in Ohio.
My family and I realize the life-giving nutrients of real, raw milk. In fact, we know a 7-year-old boy who suffers from a rare disease called eosinophilic colitis, which only 300 people in the world have, and a high functioning form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. He could only eat six foods, but surprisingly, his body accepted Buttercup’s whole, raw milk. We supplied him with milk for a while until we had to dry off Buttercup because she was expecting a calf. During those few months of no milk, he tried raw goat’s milk but his body didn’t accept it and he lost four pounds.
Finally, when we began milking again he gained 11 pounds. The transformation is miraculous! He now eats more than 20 foods, his face has color and he is friendly and not withdrawn.
However, not only does he drink the milk, he also spices up his food with raw butter, cream cheese and mayonnaise. Just last week when his mother told him to thank me, he did and then took a jar of milk off the counter and hugged it. Real milk has given him life!
I hope you will continue blazing the trail for raw milk because the health of our families depends on it.
Katelyn Wey
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2005/
GREAT GOATS
God bless you! We really like your web site, and appreciate all you’re doing to educate folks about nutrition, especially the benefits of raw goat’s milk. We raise Oberhasli dairy goats, and practically live on the raw milk. It’s so tasty, and so healthy, we have people standing in line to get some.
Since we started raising goats about three years ago, we haven’t even had a cold. And that’s saying a lot, since my job takes me into the public schools almost daily.
Many people are aware that the positive enzymes and bacteria that are present in the raw milk are terrific for the digestive system. However the goat milk, unlike cow’s milk, also contains a small amount of colostrum in the milk throughout the entire lactation of the animal, not just when they first have kids. I believe that this really strengthens one’s immune system.
Recently, my wife’s cousin had to undergo a “stomach reduction” surgery. She was extremely overweight and diabetic. She’s lost a lot of weight since the operation, and is doing much better. However, she has suffered from constant diarrhea, stomach and digestive problems. The doctors had her on numerous prescriptions, and none worked. At the family picnic on July 4th, we noticed she was walking around with a copy of The Maker’s Diet. We, of course, had already read the book. In fact, The Maker’s Diet folks sent us a dozen free copies that we’ve been handing out to people in our area. We let her try some of our raw goat’s milk and she really liked it. In fact, she’s become a regular raw goat milk drinker, and gets a gallon a week from us now. From the very moment that she first drank the raw goat’s milk that day, all of her digestive problems ceased, and she said she felt 100 percent better! Isn’t it always something simple? We just wanted to share this with you folks!
As it says in Proverbs 27:27: And thou shalt have goats’ milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for the maintenance for thy maidens.
George Roberts
Salem, Missouri
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2005/
NO SURGERY
About 18 months ago my husband developed a painful condition called Dupuytren’s contracture and another GP referred him to a hand surgeon. I told my husband I’d look on the internet first, and read there that if you changed to unpasteurized, unhomogenized milk the contracture would lessen or disappear without surgery.
We now only have real milk and Ian’s hand is almost perfect. Thought you may be interested in this information.
Robin Mitchell
Queensland, Australia
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2004/
NO MORE MEDS
I just wanted to let you know what a blessing your work has been to us. My children are 4 and 7 and had never had milk to speak of because of my terrible allergy. (They were breastfed until 2 years, though.) Any time I ate cheese, I got terrible sinus drainage and asthma. If I drank milk I was sick! I hadn’t drunk milk in 11 years. After learning about raw cheese, I now eat cheese–all I want–which is a lot! We are all so content on this diet! Not hungry all the time. And not eating nearly as much food. Cooking is now much less of a chore for me since I use all the fat and salt I want without feeling bad and things actually taste good. Is there anything worse tasting than a low fat, low salt, high fiber diet?
I have had asthma and allergies ever since I can remember. Took oral cortisone as a child many times. Have been on steroid and bronchial inhalers since they were invented. As an adult, symptoms became systemic lupus, which I completely overcame by cutting out sugar and pasteurized dairy products. But guess what? After I started on raw goat milk, I have been completely off asthma meds and peak flow is still the same! I never thought that would be possible. And we have been having one of the worst allergy seasons ever. I can’t thank you enough! The freedom is wonderful, much less how much money I will save by not ever going to the pharmacy!
Audrey Hacker
Lincoln, Arkansas
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2004/
A PRENATAL VITAMIN TREE?
The Weston A. Price Foundation Utah County chapter is small but doing well. We have been able to hook up three families with raw milk. The interest has surprised me. In just the first two weeks I responded to four emails. I am so happy to help get the word out.
The best news is my four-year-old just had a well-check with the pediatrician and came out with 60 percent height and 55 percent weight. Just two years ago he was less than 5 percent for weight and severely allergic to processed cows milk.
Also, I am newly pregnant and my hematocrit is 45! It’s never been that good. And as an RN who has worked in OB/GYN offices, I can say that is an almost unheard of number–especially for someone who has obtained all of her nutrition from food rather than pills over the last two years. Today when the OB/GYN office manager asked whether I needed a prescription for prenatal vitamins I declined and said if God wanted us to take prenatal vitamins he would have made a prenatal vitamin tree. Her jaw dropped and then she started to laugh and said, “You are absolutely right.” I have to add that she picked my brain over the next fifteen mintues about what I thought about raw foods, milk, etc. She has been looking for a nutritional way to avoid the cancer that is so prevalent in her family.
Katie Bush
Cedar Hills, Utah
SKULL AND CROSSBONES
I have been enjoying raw milk shipped from Organic Pastures. However, three weeks ago I committed the monumental error of drinking ultra-pasteurized milk for the first time. I have had regular pasteurized milk before and have been able to digest it with the aid of a lactaid supplement, without which I get mild to moderate stomach cramps. Although I took a lactaid tablet when I drank the ultra-pasteurized milk, I slept fitfully that night and woke up the next morning with a terrible stomach ache. By mid-morning I fell violently ill. I was quite literally writhing on the floor. It was absolute agony and it lasted for hours. That stuff should be labeled with a skull and crossbones.
After drinking raw milk I have noted no ill effects. In fact, I feel perfectly fine. Amazing. And raw cream and cheese are absolutely divine.
Richard Morris
Woodbridge, Virginia
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-spring-2004/
SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE: REAL MILK
In our family, Real Milk has improved the quality of everyone’s life. For our boys and our toddler, they get to drink healthy milk whenever they want. They love the taste and the good feeling they get from this wholesome food and Mom feels good about letting them have it anytime. Our eleven-year-old girl was plagued with allergies to many, many environmental things for most of her life. She was taking three prescription medicines a day. (With insurance, this cost us over $60/month, which will pay for a lot of raw milk!) Within six months of abstinence from pasteurized and homogenized milk and normal consumption of raw milk, she was off all medicine and has been faring well ever since. She still is bothered by cats but leads a normal, healthy, medicine-free life.
Dad is grateful for raw milk because it helped him to get his pre-baby, svelte wife back. Doing nothing else, she lost 30 pounds and returned to her wedding dress size in six months. Mom loves real milk because she knows how good it is for her family, and because it has greatly reduced Dad’s snoring. Yippee–something for everyone!!
Anne Sergeant
Grand Rapids, Michigan
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2003/
BIG IMPROVEMENT
Thank you so much for your advice to switch my children’s milk to raw milk! I corresponded with you three months ago and at the time this seemed like such a leap of faith to give them something that had not been “sanitized.” My kids seem healthier to me. My little Adam now has chubbier cheeks. We miraculously recover from all of our colds in 1-2 days. And these colds are less frequent and much less severe. My husband used to wonder what was wrong with us because we were always sick.
I also feel reassured that with having children in the future I will be able to supplement them with something that really will nourish them. With both of my kids I have struggled with a low milk supply. I battled until the last drop, which for some strange reason was until the age of 11 months for both children. Both needed to be supplemented from 8 months on. I NEVER felt good about giving them Nutramigen or soy formulas. In contrast, every single time I leave the Cox’s family farm with my four gallons of raw milk I feel peaceful.
We have also started taking cod liver oil. My ancestry is Norwegian, Irish and Scottish–all from the coastline. My Irish mother is just amazed. She remembers herself and all her school mates taking cod liver oil and a glass of orange juice every day. She also recalls frequently going next door to the neighbor’s house to fetch a bucket of fresh milk. “Progress” has brought us Twinkies and goldfish crackers. There certainly is wisdom in learning from the past.
Again, thank you so much from an RN who stands corrected. . . not everything must be sterilized!
Katie Bush
Cedar Hills, Utah
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2002/
A NEW WIFE
We really enjoy your quarterly magazine. What you’re teaching us is what my father’s theory has been over the years, but some people thought he was a little goofy.
My wife suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome for ten years. Thanks to what my father taught me, we didn’t accept the saying “you have to learn to live with it,” and kept searching and found various things that helped. But after the birth of our first child, my wife lost what she had gained. So then she tried the vegetarian diet. For the first two months, it seemed to work great but after that things started to head the wrong way.
I’m an Amish farmer and milk cows and my wife tried to tell me how dairy products are not so good. I raise my cows organically without hormones so I thought that my milk is surely not so bad, but anyway this went on for eight months. She was losing weight and had no desire for sex and all those good things.
Then we found out about your work. We’re Holstein folks so my wife begged me to get a Jersey and I did. Now we’re expecting our second child and people are asking, “What are you doing for your health?” I mean, I have a completely different wife!
Keep up your great work!
Henry S. Stoltzfoos
Ronks, PA
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2002/
RAW MILK AND OSTEOPOROSIS
I recently met an expert on pasteurization who casually mentioned that the process destroys 34 enzymes in milk. As one of the great many people lost to the dairy industry as a customer because of alternative practitioner advice that I had “lactose intolerance,” I wondered whether the destruction of the lactase enzyme might be significant in my store-bought milk.
I started drinking quantities of fresh raw milk and had no signs of indigestion nor the mucus I used to get. My wife had both kinds of milk in the fridge for some months and I found if I had just a little of the pasteurized stuff, within an hour the mucus returned.
Then I realized that an arthritic joint at the base of one of my big toes–an old injury site which had gotten so bad my orthopaedic surgeon wanted to fuse the joint to alleviate the pain–had majorly improved. The range of movement deficit which had caused me to limp during the last ten years was almost rectified and the pain gone. This previously swollen joint also reduced in size back to normal.
I am a test group of one, however there were no other variables in my life except the addition to my diet of one-half to one pint each day of fresh Jersey milk for about three months. My doctors can’t believe you can reverse arthritis, but I just did, through sheer inadvertence, not any placebo effect or wishful thinking.
All of the above makes me wonder whether it is pasteurization and the destruction of enzymes that has led to the current plague of arthritis and osteoporosis, because the calcium in processed milk is less assimilable.
Arthur Bruce
Somerset, UK
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-summer-2002/
RAW MILK BENEFITS
I have been involved in your organization for a year now and my health keeps improving. I had hypoglycemia and was a vegetarian. I could not understand why I craved sugar and gained weight. My periods were coming every two weeks. Then I stopped eating soy and began taking cod liver oil. My periods evened out to every six weeks, and were much less painful. In addition, my blood sugar is much more balanced.
Raw milk and fats have changed the way I think about food. Now I look forward to meals, knowing that I’m eating well and giving my body what it needs to be well.
An older lady friend of mine has been suffering terribly from arthritis. I introduced her to your literature and she started drinking raw milk and eating more eggs and butter. Within two weeks her symptoms were 80 percent better.
My sister has suffered from severe allergies for years and resorted to using Benadryl whenever she would visit our house with all its pets. She started drinking raw milk and her allergies have dramatically improved.
I have so many stories, I could go on and on, but suffice it to say, thank you!
Marianne F. Kelsey
North Manchester, IN
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-winter-2001/
RAW MILK RESULTS
Just wanted to let you know that my family and I have been drinking raw milk for about the last three weeks. My husband has had the most noticeable results. He’s had a problem with diarrhea for at least the last two years and since drinking the raw milk, this has pretty much stopped.
Name Withheld
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2001/
RAW MILK MIRACLE
I love the stories I am told by Noah, our local goat farmer. He has sold raw goat milk to three generations of country folk. Mothers whose babies are sickly and the doctors can’t figure out what to do bring their babies to him as a last resort. He gives them a supply of milk and the babies become “show and tell,” all fat and pink. One baby was on its death bed. The doctor said not to give it raw milk when the mother questioned him. They went to the goat farmer anyway. The baby was covered with pussy hives and dying. The farmer gave them the milk, but he was sure that this child was too far gone. When he didn’t hear back from the parents, he assumed the baby had died. One month later, they were back for more milk (they had bought a month’s supply, frozen) with a different child–so Noah thought. Until they told him it was the same child–but healthy!
Elizabeth Benner
Topeka, KS
https://www.westonaprice.org/letters-fall-2000/
SAVED BY REAL MILK
I have been furnishing my son’s pediatrician with information on trans fats and soy products. She is the second pediatrician that I have spoken to that had heard nothing about the problems with soy infant formula. What’s going on? Seems to me, if anyone should know, it would be the pediatricians. I will make a copy of the “Soy Alert!” article in your magazine, plus the article on teeth and bone health with raw milk and forward it to her.
As for raw milk, Cody, my son, has always been tiny. He was full term, but only weighed just over four pounds at birth. His growth rate had always remained below what it should be. At almost six years, he only weighed 32 pounds. He also had been on four different allergy medications–Claritin, Flonase, Tanafed and Extendryl. Two weeks after my finding a source of raw Jersey milk, he no longer needed any medicine.
When I took him to the pediatrician, she wanted to know what I had done because Cody had gained four pounds and grown about one-and-one-half inches in a month. I told her and, surprisingly, she was for it. After all, what could she say? She has been his doctor since his birth.
Another story: Years ago Elton Maddox had a dairy. Some people he knew had a very sick baby. Elton said, “The little thing was as poor as a rail, and cried all of the time.” A baby specialist in Charleston told the baby’s father to find someone with a cow that had not been fresh for more than six weeks, and get the milk for the baby. Elton’s wife told the baby’s father that she was afraid that the milk would be too rich, give the baby diarrhea and that they might lose it. The father said that they were going to lose it anyway, so he wanted to try the milk. Elton separated out a Guernsey, milked her specially for the baby. The next day the baby’s mother wanted him to “come in and see something.” He went in and there was the baby sleeping peacefully. After putting it on the milk, the little thing got better, and did just fine.
Billie Paxton
Elkview, WV