Homogenised milk
We don’t often advise people to stay off a dietary product on a long-term basis. We usually try to find out why someone cannot tolerate a certain drink or food source and thus correct the problem from a biochemical angle rather than say to stay off it indefinitely because it doesn’t agree with you. If you correct the biochemistry, you should be able to enjoy that food or drink in moderate amounts.
However, talking about drinking cow’s milk, when we buy non-organic milk in the supermarket, it has been homogenised. This means:
- Uniform distribution of fat, no cream layer.
- Full-bodied layer.
- Whiter, more appetising colour.
- It lasts longer.
Does this benefit your body and health?
Natural cow’s milk or non-homogenised milk has fat particles that are so big that they cannot go through the intestinal mucosa and into the bloodstream; so the body will eliminate them. Unlike the fat particles of homogenised or non natural milk, which the processing has made so small , that they can enter your blood stream. Now you have undigested fat particles directly in your blood. The stressed body stores this undigested fat in the arteries, the joints and the heart.
In the process of extending shelf life and stopping the cream separating out of milk, medicine has a clear culprit for increased arteriosclerosis. Some findings link the formation of the plaque which clogs arteries directly to ingesting homogenised milk.
According to Dr Oster and Dr Donald Ross of Fairfield University of Delaware, homogenising allows the enzyme xanthine oxidase to pass intact into the blood stream. There it attacks the plasmologen tissue of the artery walls and parts of the heart muscle. This causes lesions that the body tries to heal by laying down a protective layer of cholesterol. The end result is scar tissue and calcified plaques with a build-up of cholesterol and other fatty deposits. According to these experts, dietary cholesterol is not the main cause of heart attacks; it is homogenised or non natural milk.
So what should we do?
We must minimise our intake of transfats (bad fats), i.e. homogenised milk fats, processed oils, margarine and excess animal fat. Instead use good oils such as, evening primrose oil, flaxseed oil, olive oil and small amounts of butter and cream.
Posted by Lise
I came across this blog after looking at another blog blaming a new strain of wheat for diabetes… But, the figures didn’t ring true. For me, the factor seemed to be cows milk – so off I go researching homogenisation. A link from Riverford directed me to your site.
Anyway, point being, you cite Oster’s theory without examining whether there’s any conflicting science. Mary Enig suggests that Oster’s mechanism doesn’t stand up: http://www.realmilk.com/homogenization.html
It’s a pretty old article & the first that came up on google. I don’t disagree that homogenisation is bad, but disagree on the mechanism by which it causes issues (I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer).
Milk from cows do naturally contain occurring trans fats in small quantities. Animal-based fats were once the only trans fats consumed, but by far the largest amount of trans fat consumed today is created by the processed food industry as a side effect of partially hydrogenating unsaturated plant fats (generally vegetable oils). Check out ‘trans fat’ in Wikipedia
There are a few misconceptions in this article.. One of the main jobs of the digestive system is to break down (i.e. digest) all fat particles into individual “fatty acid” molecules, and all enzymes into individual “amino acid” molecules. Undigested particles of any size never make it into the bloodstream (unless something is seriously wrong with the digestive system..) Also, homogenised milk fats aren’t trans fats.
For more info, you could check the Wikipedia article on “small intestine” or any textbook on nutrition, digestion or general physiology.
All this doesn’t mean there isn’t other bad stuff in milk of course..
Thank you for picking up on this. We have edited the text slightly and hope it all makes sense now.
I have long been aware that homogenising was ‘bad’ but never bothered to look it up. However you article is ambiguous:
‘fat particles that are so big that they cannot go through the intestinal mucosa and into the bloodstream just like nature intended; so the body will eliminate them.’ This sounds like you SHOULD shrink them so that ‘as nature intends’ they get through the mucosa. Reading further it makes sense but for those of us trying to put your argument forward and giving this as a link, its confusing.