Why organic milk that is UHT processed is unhealthy and certainly not a better choice than regular supermarket milk despite the sky-high prices and misleading marketing which leads consumers to believe it is healthy.
Fact: Organic milk companies are pulling the wool over the eyes of the consumer to boost profits.
By marketing their UHT milk as certified USDA Organic, an ever-increasing consumer base willingly buys it. The prices are roughly double the price per gallon of regular, pasteurized store milk. The sad truth is that ultrapasteurized (UHT) organic milk is just as unhealthy as regular, pasteurized store milk.
I’ve often thought if I HAD to choose between them, which milk would I select as being better: regular pasteurized milk from the store or ultrapasteurized organic milk? That’s a toughie. Neither choice is optimal as there is no clear winner.
Both are highly processed milks, both contribute to poor health and chronic illness in general.
Pasteurized Store Milk. Clearly Not Good for You
On the one hand, you have regular, pasteurized store milk that comes from sick, confined cows that are injected with hormones and other drugs. The cows are fed unnatural, GMO, pesticide, and antibiotic laced feed with no access to fresh air or green grass. These poor animals stand on cement floors their entire lives. No surprise that they usually die within about a year and half. Incidentally, the true lifespan for a healthy dairy cow should approach 15 years.
Milk from these confined cows NEEDS to be pasteurized. It is nasty stuff loaded with pus and pathogens because of the filth and chronic mastitis the cows endure.
Ultrapasteurized Organic Milk. Still Bad for You!
On the other hand, you have ultrapasteurized, organic milk. A consumer with only partial knowledge of how milk is processed is easily lured into buying this milk. On the surface, it seems so much healthier. After all, the cows don’t get any antibiotics, steroids or hormones, right? It’s certified USDA Organic. Doesn’t that mean something?
While the cows producing organic milk may not be subjected to the drugs and antibiotics used on conventional dairy operations, the milk coming from an organic-industrial complex is even more highly processed. For example, ultrapasteurized (UHT) organic milk must be subjected to a temperature of 280F for at least 2 seconds.
This compares with standard pasteurization temperature of about 161F. Such a high temperature results in a product that has extended shelf life. UHT milk can remain unrefrigerated for up to 6 months in aseptic packaging.
I find it outrageous that Organic Valley and Horizon frequently display their aseptically packaged, organic dairy in the refrigerated section of the health food store!
Turns out that consumers (particularly those in the US) are much more likely to be duped into buying organic milk if it is displayed in the refrigerated section. Buying organic milk unrefrigerated on the shelf goes against intuition and just doesn’t seem very natural, does it?
Moms buy individually sized aseptic packages of Organic Valley milk and put them in their children’s lunchboxes with ice packs! If they only knew that this milk is so dead that it doesn’t even require refrigeration they might rethink their choice of beverage.
Auto-Immune Disorder Link
Why is ultrapasteurization so bad? The high temperatures used to ultrapasteurize organic milk damage the fragile milk proteins totally and completely. The same thing happens when sweetened condensed milk is manufactured too.
When this happens, the enzymes the body produces to digest these proteins do not work as they no longer “fit together” like puzzle pieces. The undigested proteins then make their way into the bloodstream due to “leaky gut” syndrome, which nearly all Westerners suffer from to some degree. At that point, the body identifies them as foreign proteins and mounts an immune response.
This translates into symptoms better known as allergies, asthma, eczema, and other symptoms of autoimmune disorders! Ultrapasteurized milk is so completely sterilized that sometimes it cannot even be cultured into homemade kefir or yogurt.
This stuff is dead, dead, dead folks.
There is no way that it can be considered healthy even if it is labeled USDA organic.
The enhanced immune response that occurs from drinking ultrapasteurized milk has the potential to lead to milk and dairy allergies pretty quickly. I remember when my first child was nursing, I drank a lot of Organic Valley ultrapasteurized milk.
My son spit up so badly during that time that there was some concern that he had a reflux disorder. Remarkably but not surprisingly, when I stopped drinking the Organic Valley milk, his reflux problem resolved. No treatment was required.
I have no doubt that if I had continued drinking this milk and had weaned my son onto it that he would undoubtedly have a milk allergy today. Fortunately, I wised up in time to get off that poison!
Trading Drug/Pesticide Residues for Estrogen Mimickers
While a consumer may be reducing his/her exposure to antibiotic and pesticide residues by choosing Organic Valley milk, this is by no means a guarantee to less chemical exposure. Processors of organic milk frequently heat the milk to the required 270F AFTER the milk is in the aseptic package or plastic jug! Another option, just as bad, is to fill the package or jug with boiling hot milk that has not yet cooled down!
This releases high levels of endocrine-disrupting phthalates (the notorious BPA as well as several others) used in the packaging into the milk! Most everyone now knows never to heat food in a microwave with plastic wrap on top for this very reason. It’s a shame more people aren’t aware of the tremendous endocrine-disrupting potential of drinking ultrapasteurized, organic milk!
What to Drink Instead of UHT Organic Milk
As you can see, it is an extremely hard decision to pick which milk is more unhealthy: regular pasteurized store milk or ultrapasteurized organic milk.
Better not to have to make the decision at all! Seek out fresh raw grassfed milk straight from the cow (or goat) from a farmer in your local area. And, if you are fortunate enough to have a source for this type of health-giving milk, don’t run out and buy a half-gallon of ultrapasteurized organic milk if you temporarily run out of the fresh from the farm variety. In those situations, it is best to simply go without. The risks from consuming UHT organic milk even on occasion are simply too enormous to ignore.
Another option is to make healthy milk substitutes like this recipe for coconut milk tonic or homemade sprouted oat milk until the next local dairy delivery.
More Information
101 Uses for Raw Soured Milk
Tips for Freezing Milk and other Dairy Products
A1 and A2 Milk: Do Cow Genetics Even Matter?
I have provided your blog to Organic Valley and have asked them to respond. The only organic milk that would be considered unhealthy and dead would be the ones sold in juice boxes. The other types of organic milk that needs refrigeration, just as regular milk does, is much healthier to consume. Completely raw milk from healthy cows would be optimal and many stores are allowing local small farms to provide this option. The milk containers simply have a “warning”. Odd isn’t it? The good for your milk gets a warning! But to the blog….the first opening sentence is a blanket statement painting all organic milk with the same paint brush as the milk that can live on a shelf.
That is a good point! Unfortunately, regular pasteurized organic milk is allergenic and not to be consumed either by those in the know. It’s just a little less damaging than the shelf stable organic milk in aseptic cartons. Why not consume raw, grassfed milk? Any processed milk is not healthy organic or not!
I have used Horizon milk to make milk kefir. In fact, it makes it so quickly, I can’t drink it fast enough. I imagine it would also make yogurt. It would be great if I had easy access to raw milk, but I don’t and I refuse to buy “standard” milk. I’m not totally defending Horizon…I believe the USDA and the FDA are responsible for the corruption of ALL our food sources.
This article has really opened my eyes. I’ve recently been looking into making kefir. Everything I’ve read says you need to use organic non uht milk. I figured my milk was fine but low and behold it’s uht. I never really knew what that meant, but it makes sense. This is why organic milk is easier and easier to come by. Not sure now what I’ll do as I live on Long Island and I don’t know of any dairy farms nearby. Thanks for the info.
Nowhere in her article did she say that Dairy Cows die within a year and a half Pam. You have completely taken things out of context in so saying. She stated: “On the one hand you have regular, pasteurized store milk that comes from sick, confined cows that are injected with hormones and other drugs. They are fed unnatural, GMO, pesticide and antibiotic laced feed with no access to fresh green grass. These cows stand on cement floors their entire lives and usually die within about a year and half. Incidentally, the true lifespan for a healthy dairy cow should approach 15 years.”
Dairy cows do not die at a year and a half. They are often sent to slaughter/feed lots between 6-8 years old. Also, I have two jugs in my fridge right now. One conventional and one organic, both are pasteurized, not ultra-pasteurized. I agree that the ultra-pasteurized denatures the milk even more than pasteurization and is to be avoided. Your article is a mess of completely wrong mixed with incorrect blanket assumptions. Here’s what it should say. Convention and ultra-pasteurized is the cheapest and worst options. Organic and regular pasteurization is the middle of the road option available in most grocery stores. Fresh from a farm milk is best but costs 3-4X conventional. If you live in a state that allows the sale of fresh milk in your stores, you are blessed. Most states have freedom robbing regulations or a gestapo ban on fresh milk. I mean come on, you can’t tell me raw oysters are safer than fresh milk.
Hi all- My DD is a year old with a milk allergy…I breastfed but had to cut out dairy consumption. I am concerned about what milk or best alternative to give. I’ve read alot of your responses and have done research and am not really interested in soy. Please help. She is small in weight department. Suggestions.
So, there is very little, if any scientific evidence that this so-called “leaky gut syndrome” exists. Scientists have noted some naturally occurring permeability in the digestive tract, but not one legitimate study has ever found that the human body “mounts an immune response” to this permeability, let alone that this response is manifested through common allergies or eczema. “Leaky gut syndrome” is most likely just what it sounds like: a buzz term developed by alternative medicine practitioners looking to sell supplements. Making incredibly broad, scientifically unfounded statements like “all Westerners suffer from leaky gut syndrome to some degree” sounds highly suspect. Now, you show me several different scientific studies by reputable research teams proving your claims and demonstrating how all this works, then I might change my mind.
Ryan,
You couldn’t be more wrong. What you need, however, is to do your own research. That way you will be sure no one is simply duping you. Try entering “paleo” diet, books, method, etc. in a search. Good luck and good health.
Although non-dairy milks (except for soy) are good for you, they should be homemade with nothing other than the almond, quinoa, etc. and water. Commercially-produced non-dairy milks are all ultra-processed and contain all sorts of other ingredients to make them palatable to the average consumer. Carageenan, for example, is added as a thickener to most all non-dairy milk. Although it is supposed to be something natural, that doesn’t make it good for you. Not everyone tolerates having this particular ingredient in their digestive tract. In fact, it can either cause or aggravate IBS something fierce. For those who believe that drinking the ‘breast’ milk from another mammal is unnatural, then ingesting carageenan (which was never a part of the human food supply until non-dairy milk started being produced commercially) should not be something acceptable either.
What about “flash pasteurized”??? Is this better? We have a milk delivery service that offers this — tastes GREAT.
I’ve tried raw milk and it doesn’t taste good at all 🙁
You may want to try the raw milk again. When I first had it I thought it tasted weird also but that was because it was springtime when they eat the new greens that are kind of bitter. So part of it is that and a bit of it is adjusting your taste buds. Although the rest of the year the flavor really isn’t that different to me from regular milk. Just be sure of course to shake it up, and keep in mind the milk will be creamier because it has more cream than store-bought, as I’m sure you know. Perhaps Sarah can clarify but from what I understand flash-pasteurized is better though of course not as good by far as raw milk. If we’re in a bind, and out of raw milk, sometimes I purchase Kalona grassfed milk from the store which is flash pasteurized.
I buy Organic Valley grass fed milk…but lately, i don’t even see any cream on top or anywhere??? So I feel like I”m drinking skim milk.
You won’t see any cream on top of OV milk because it is ultrapasteurized and homogenized. It also primarily comes from holstein cows which produce very little cream. Best to get raw milk from jersey or guernsey cows that produce lots of cream!
what about half and half???