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?
There are enough really good food clubs now in most cities that deliver fresh (raw) milk weekly. If you really dig in to the bowels of research on milk v. pasteurization and how it got started (by the New York City Sanitation Dept.), you will see that it was never justified but something that the Powers that Be simply wanted done. Any pasteurization kills almost all of the good health providing agents in milk…….ultra-pasteurization is even worse. Not only, industrial milk is deleterious to your health due to all of the bad things they add. So none is better. Drink raw, or not at all. If I run out of milk, I use coconut milk. – MM
Also, Organic Valley just stopped allowing farmers who believe in raw milk into their consortium. That's sick, IMHO! Raw milk from grass fed cows is the only cow milk that is safe to drink. Otherwise, it's raw goat milk or raw sheep's milk from grass fed goats and sheep.
As much as I like almond milk and coconut milk, they just don't make hot drinks like organic decaf look like it has cream in it.
Hi Beth, of course you can recover from allergies and yes they indicate gut based immune disfunction. My husband used to be allergic to everything and has the allergy tests from the doctor taken years ago to prove it. He is now allergic to nothing .. how did he heal? Traditional eating for nearly 10 years now and his allergies disappeared one by one until they are now all gone!
Hey Sarah thank you so much for that inspiring story about your husband. My three kids have severe food allergies and my husband and I have been trying for yrs to help their bodies heal.
What did you mean by traditional eating? Also..did he take a probiotic or just drink raw milk? Do you have suggestions for me? Thank you.
Hi Steph, pick up a copy of Nourishing Traditions cookbook. It is a mandatory primer for anyone wanting to learn the traditional preparation methods for cooking. WHOLE FOODS EATING IS NOT ENOUGH. You must prepare your foods traditionally too. Selecting the right food and preparing it wrong (like with grains) can be just as harmful as picking the wrong food from the get go. A probiotic is a great way to go. Our favorite most reliable supplier of BioKult is under the Resources tab at the top of the blog.
Here’s the link to the book:
Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.
KELSEY, can you give us an update as to how you're doing with raw milk? I know someone with a lifelong dairy allergy as severe as yours (throwing up, hives, potential for throat swelling), and would love to know if there is any hope.
Also, if it's true that any person with allergies has gut dysbiosis, leading to leaky gut syndrome and all the issues that result from that, I wonder if a diligent program of gut healing would ever eliminate a severe dairy allergy. I'm referring to the type of gut healing with GAPS, Body Ecology, etc., with plenty of lacto-fermented foods, bone broth, easily digestible foods, protective fats, and, eventually, ghee or cultured dairy such as kefir.
Is this possible??
Thanks!
Beth
I used to make yogurt with Horizon's ultra pasteurized 1/2 and 1/2 and never had a problem with it turning into super thick yogurt. However, I've read enough bad about Horizon that I made the switch to Trader Joe's organic milk and 1/2 and 1/2.
I consistently find ultra pasteurized to go bad extremely quickly. I noticed quickly what the issue was so I quit buying it. I wondered about these choices myself and had come to the same conclusions. Great blogs and site!
Try to get low temp pasteurized/nonhomogenized whole milk from Natural by Nature if you don't have access to fresh from the farm. Healthfood stores will order Natural by Nature for you if you ask.
Does anyone have any ideas for a milk replacement for my 16 month old? I have had a hard time getting him to gain weight and there are few things he will het, milk being one thing he really loves. We purchase horizon and shamrock organic milk now.
I whole-heartedly agree with this post, although I'm a little dismayed at how unhealthy even organic milk is! I knew it wasn't optimal, and we've been trying to purchase a goat share from a local farmer but it's taking longer than I had hoped, so I thought drinking organic milk in the meantime was okay but I guess I was wrong! We've been purchasing Organic Valley whole milk, and I will stop doing that now and look for a better alternative. I have never been a milk drinker, because since I was an infant I haven't been able to tolerate it, not even my mother's milk. So I grew up not drinking it and not being much of a dairy fan in general, and then when I got married I started cooking with cheese a lot more because of my husband and quickly developed an allergy, which spread to all dairy products! So now unfortunately I am unable to eat much dairy at all (I get hives and with some things my throat swells – yikes!), which led me to my search for raw milk. I hope to start being able to consume it soon and make homemade kefir and yogurt – for now I guess I'll just try to find the least harmful alternative. Thanks so much for all the info on your blog! – Kelsey
Organic Valley offers traditionally-pasteurized milk, but stores seem to stock only the UHT version, probably due to shelf life/consumer demand.
All of Organic Valley one-gallon containers of milk are non-UHT, and they also have half-gallon non-UHT milk. In one part of the country, they sell non-homogenized milk as well.
If you can find full gallon sizes of organic milk brands, they are likely to be traditionally-pasteurized. It seems the half-gallon cartons and single-serve ones are the main culprits.