The healthiest form of cow’s milk has the following properties:
Raw (unpasteurized)
In raw milk, the good bacteria, the enzymes, the bioactive peptides, the vitamins, are all intact in their natural and functioning state.
All of the milk in the shops here in the UK is pasteurised (heated) to kill potential bad bacteria that are rarely present if dairy cattle are reared and milked the right way.
But unfortunately, pasteurisation also kills healthful probiotic bacteria in milk. It also denatures proteins, thereby deactivating beneficial enzymes and bioactive peptides, both of which carry countless health benefits in their active state. It also lowers levels of heat sensitive vitamins, such as vitamin C.
Click here to learn more about the benefits of raw milk.
Click here if you're concerned about the safety of raw milk.
Unhomogenised
Homogenisation does a good deal of damage to these healthful components of milk too, plus it reduces the size of fat globules, which could make milk more allergenic and increase the inflammatory response from drinking milk. So best get unhomogenised milk where the cream floats on top.
Click here to learn more about the health effects of homogenised milk.
Organic
This ensures the cows are on a non-GMO and pesticide-free diet. Many pesticides are known carcinogens, and pesticides in a cow’s feed are known to end up in its milk.
It’s forbidden to use routine antibiotics on organic dairy cattle.
Organic certification also ensures a certain extent of grass fededness, organic cows must be allowed to graze on pasture for over 200 days a year. Their daily diet must be more than 60% grass based.
There’s also a higher hygiene and welfare standard for organic cows, they are not stressed by being pushed to their milk production limits, they are kept in cleaner indoor environments, all of which improve the quality of its milk.
From grass fed cows
The organic standard for how much dairy-cattle are grass fed is not enough. Ideally you want the cow to be as near to 100% grass fed as possible, to maximize the amount of nutritional goodness that gets into the milk from the grass.
The label “free range” means nothing, it is not regulated the way organic is. A 2019 study in England found significantly higher levels of beneficial lignans and isoflavonoids in organic milk than in conventional milk, but no difference between free-range milk and conventional milk.
So if milk is labeled “free range”, be sure to verify it for yourself by visiting the farm and ensuring that their cows graze on green pastures above and beyond organics standards.
From Guernsey or Jersey cows
Guernsey cows produce by far the highest levels of A2 beta-casein compared to the more problematic A1 beta-casein. Jersey cows are second best.
The holstein breed of cow is the worst as far as I know, it’s the most popular dairy cow in the UK because it produces the most amount of milk, but its milk is also highest in A1 beta-casein.
Milk from Asian cows also contain mostly A2 beta-casein from what I hear, but you would need to verify this based on the exact breed. Milk from other animals, such as sheep, goat, donkey, yak, camel, and buffalo, also contain mostly the healthier A2 beta-casein.
Full Fat
After the low-fat craze started in the 1960’s, we started taking the fat out of milk and serving low-fat milk.
The theory at the time was that eating fat makes you fat, and saturated fat gives you heart disease, but this has been disproven by the latest evidence. The studies now show that dairy fat intake is associated with neither weight gain nor heart disease.
We also know that while low-fat dairy has either no effect on or increases a certain marker of inflammation, eating high fat dairy like butter, cream, or cheese has either a beneficial or no effect on inflammation.
Dr. Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts’ Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, said:
“In the absence of any evidence for the superior effects of low fat dairy and some evidence that there may be better benefits of whole fat dairy products for diabetes, why are we recommending only low fat diary?”
So Mother Nature wins yet again – any time we alter a natural product, like whole full-fat milk the way it comes out of the cow’s udder, we find later that we were wrong to do so.
If in doubt, stick to what’s natural. So unless there are multiple long-term large scale human double blind randomised controlled trials that show without a doubt that an artificially altered version of a natural food is better for you, then stick to what’s natural. The few small studies or opinions that say the artificially altered version is better, will likely just be proven wrong in the future, just the way many such false studies and opinions from the past are being proven wrong today.
Just on the side, I was looking at Dr. Mozaffarian’s Twitter feed, and he said:
“”What Americans eat is making us sick on a staggering scale” – but much too little invested in nutrition research to solve this crisis. At this pace we will find the answers in 40 years – but we don't have 40 years.”
If you wait for the research to be 100% clear on everything, you’ll be sick and miserable for a long time, maybe even for the rest of your life. If you want to rid yourself of your joint pain now and be healthy now, then eat natural food the way nature intended. Study ancient societies that thrived in their health, and eat and live the way they did.