The Foodiste

This is not my actual cow. Her name, incidently is Dolores. The reason I can’t show you the real Dolores is because the only photo I have of her also has the farmer in the pic and he, like other farmers doing what he’s doing prefers not to be identified. 

By the way, I must also point out, I don’t own all of Dolores. If you look at the little protrusion just above the hoof on this pretend Dolores; I probably own that much of her. Or perhaps just an ear tip. 

I first met farmer ‘John’ a couple of years ago when I was in the country doing a story on the history of Queensland cheese industry (a story for another day). He is a smallholder; someone who is gradually turning a once overgrown and unloved few hectares into a sustainable and very much hands-on farm he hopes will one day entirely support him and his family. 

At around the same time, I started to have a problem with milk; specifically what was happening to it once it left the dairy. Generally, from talking to dairy farmers, this is the process as I understand it: firstly farmers get paid less for their milk with supermarkets setting a take-it-or-leave-it price. Once it’s picked up from the farm in tankers, the milk is taken to a factory where it is subjected to ultra-filtration. This separates the vitamins and minerals and lactose from the water and protein and is done to ‘standardise’ our milk so that it all tastes the same, no matter what the situation on different farms or the time of year (grass in different seasons will produce different fat content in milk as do the cows at different stages of their lactation cycle). The resulting standardised milk is sort of like the equivalent of cask wine as opposed to bottles from different vineyard that express the terroir.

At this stage, the processors can also choose what to put back in to create different speciality milks, such as low lactose or fat free milk. The milk is then homogenised (breaking down the fat into smaller globules so it doesn’t have a layer of cream) which is also necessary for the manufacture of dried milk. It’s also pasturised which means it’s heat treated to kill any bacteria. Often permeate, the by-product of the process above of separating the different elements is added back in too. 

 The composition of milk is governed by the Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) Food Standards Code which allows manufacturers to add or withdraw ‘milk components’ to standardise the composition of milk. We don’t have a choice about what they do to our milk; a basic foodstuff and really these days it bears little resemblance to the natural product. Milk today has little flavour and to my palate, a weird slimy texture and a stale, garbage-y sort of smell. 

So I have done as many before me have and increasingly many are, and joined a herd share. 

For a small payment to Farmer John, I own part of the cow, and he can legally give me the raw milk from my cow. If he tried to sell it to me and was found out it he could be arrested. 

According to a website I’ve just read, by giving my family this unpasturised milk, I am putting myself and them at risk of : 

“diarrhea (sic), stomach cramping, and vomiting, kidney failure, paralysis, chronic disorders, and even death” as well as “life-threatening diseases, such as Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, and hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure and stroke.”

Really, it’s a wonder the human race didn’t die out in the days when people drank unpasturised, milk straight from the cow. 

Herd sharing is unfortunately a legal grey area and many farmers who participate worry that it’s a loophole that may soon come under further scrutiny. Thus the ‘raw milk deals’ are done with almost as much stealth as an undercover drug deal. It’s truly appalling that we have to go to these lengths for what should be a basic human right; the right to make our own choice; to weigh up the risk and decide for ourselves whether it’s worth it. Instead we are expected to thank the government for ‘protecting’ us while on the other hand, they allow food manufacturers to add all kinds of awful stuff to our food (and even worse, to food aimed directly at kids).

‘John’ has to come to the city every fortnight, so he kindly drops off my milk, like a real milkman of my childhood memory.  It’s in glass like recycled passata bottles rather than high-density polyethylene containers and there’s a big fat layer of cream on top. It tastes wonderful; even my former milk hating teenage son says so.  And while I don’t necessarily buy into the more outrageous ‘miracle cure’ health benefits propounded by some enthusiastic raw milk drinkers, I can’t help thinking that surely something that has been interfered with less is going to be better for me and my family. 

Thank you John and thank you Dolores.

For love or money, time,  or calories saved, I still don’t reckon these things are worth it.  What’s on your list?

• Instant coffee/Decaf
• Herbs in a tube
• Pre-chopped vegetables in a packet
• Supermarket sausages
• ‘Lite’ anything
• Those ‘no fat’/no carb ‘noodles’
• Margarine
• Supermarket white bread
• Packet stock (with 2 exceptions)
• Cadbury chocolates
• Nutella
• Jars of tomato ‘sauce’ esp with dried herbs
• Tinned vegetables except bamboo shoots & water chestnuts
• Gluten free bread (with rare exceptions)
• Supermarket jam
• Crushed Garlic in a jar
• Tuna in spring water
• Bulk tins of olive oil