Super Healthy Milk (conjugated linoleic acid and milk from pature-raised cows)

[Guest guest]

http://www.eatwild.com/articles/superhealthy.html

 

By Jo Robinson

 

Most cartons of milk in the supermarket show a picture of cows

contentedly grazing on grass. Unfortunately, 85 to 95 percent of the

cows in the United States are now being raised in confinement, not on

pasture. The only grass they eat comes in the form of hay, and the

ground that they stand on is a blend of dirt and manure.

 

The reason for confining our cows in feedlots and feeding them grain

rather than grass is that they produce more milk—especially when

injected with bi-weekly hormones. Today's grainfed cows produce three

times as much milk as the old family cow of days gone by.

 

With the current emphasis on quantity, the quality of our milk has

suffered. One of the biggest losses has been in its CLA content. CLA or

" conjugated linoleic acid " is a type of fat that may prove to be one of

our most potent cancer fighters. Milk from a pastured cow can have five

times as much CLA as a grainfed animal. To date, most of the proof of

the health benefits of CLA has come from test tube or animal studies.

But a few recent human studies have produced encouraging results. For

example, French researchers compared CLA levels in the breast tissues of

360 women. The women with the most CLA in their tissue (and thus the

most CLA in their diets) had a 74 percent lower risk of breast cancer

than the women with the least CLA.(Bougnoux et al, Inform, 10:S43,

1999.) If an American woman were to switch from grainfed to grassfed

dairy products, she would have levels of CLA similar to those with the

lowest risk of cancer. Got CLA milk?

 

Milk from pastured cows also contains an ideal ratio of essential fatty

acids or EFAs. There are two families of EFAs—omega-6 and omega-3 fatty

acids. Studies suggest that if your diet contains roughly equal amounts

of these two fats, you will have a lower risk of cancer, cardiovascular

disease, autoimmune disorders, allergies, obesity, diabetes, dementia,

and various other mental disorders.[1]

 

Take a few moments to study the chart below showing EFA levels in milk

from cows fed varying amounts of grass and grain.[2] The green bars

represent omega-3 fatty acids in the milk, and the yellow bars represent

omega-6 fatty acids. As you can see, when a cow is raised on pasture

(represented by the two bars on the far left), her milk has an ideal

ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. Take away one third of the

grass and replace it with grain or other supplements (represented by the

two bars in the middle) and the omega-3 fatty acid content of the milk

goes down while the omega-6 fatty acid content goes up, upsetting an

essential balance. Replace two-thirds of the pasture with a grain-based

diet (illustrated by the two bars on the far right) and the milk will

have a very top-heavy ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, a ratio

that has been linked with an increased risk of a wide vatiety of

conditions, including obesity, diabetes, depression, and cancer. Much of

the milk you buy in the supermarket has an even more lopsided ratio than

the final set of measuerments because they get no pasture whatsoever.

 

100% pasture creates ideal EFA balance

 

Milk from pastured cows offers additional health benefits. (I'm

beginning to sound like a TV infomercial: " But wait! There's more! " )

Besides giving you five times more CLA and an ideal balance of EFAs,

grassfed milk is higher in beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E. This

vitamin bonus comes, in part, from the fact that fresh pasture has more

of these nutrients than grain or hay. (When grass is dried and turned

into hay, it loses a significant amount of its vitamin content.) These

extra helpings of vitamins are then transferred to the cow's milk.

 

There's another factor involved as well. A grazing cow produces less

milk than a cow fed a grain-based diet. This turns out to be a bane for

the farmer but a blessing for the consumer. The less milk a cow

produces, the more vitamins in her milk.[3] This is because a cow has a

set amount of vitamins to transfer to her milk, and if she's bred, fed,

and injected to be a Super Producer, her milk has fewer vitamins per

glass. It's a watered down version of the real thing.

 

Oh, I almost forgot the best part of all. Dairy products from grassfed

cows taste delicious, and they have a bright yellow color that is

visible proof of their bonus supply of carotenes. Serve cheese or butter

from a grass-based dairy, and everyone will notice the difference. Also,

your cookies and cakes will have that rich buttery color that hasn't

been seen since Grandma's day. (You do bake, don't you?)

 

So where can you find milk from pastured cows? Unfortunately, the label

won't tell you whether the cows were raised on grass or grain. Even an

organic label is no guarantee that the cows grazed on pasture. At the

present time, however, there are two large organic dairies that make a

point of raising their cows on pasture ---Organic Valley and Natural by

Nature, an east coast brand. Look for them in your dairy case.

 

In addition, a number of farmers listed on http://eatwild.com have

pasture-based dairies. If you can find a local farmer who will sell you

dairy products from all pasture-fed cows, you have found liquid gold.

 

Jo Robinson is a New York Times bestselling author. To learn more about

the health benefits of grassfed products and to purchase her books, Why

Grassfed Is Best! or The Omega Diet, go to eatwild.com.

 

 

 

[1] For more information about essential fatty acid balance, visit the

following site: http://www.flax.com/newlibrary/ESSENT.html which

contains summaries of a large number of published studies about omega-6

and omega-3 fatty acids. Or refer to The Omega Diet, a book I

co-authored with internationally acclaimed fatty acid expert, Dr.

Artemis Simopoulos. The Omega Diet has 24 pages of pertinent scientific

references.

 

[2] The data comes from: Dhiman, T. R., G. R. Anand, et al. (1999).

" Conjugated linoleic acid content of milk from cows fed different

diets. " J Dairy Sci 82(10): 2146-56.

 

[3] Jensen, S. K., A. K. Johannsen, et al. (1999). " Quantitative

secretion and maximal secretion capacity of retinol, beta-carotene and

alpha-tocopherol into cows' milk. " J Dairy Res 66(4): 511-22.