Why certified organic milk brands such as Horizon and Organic Valley are toxic despite glowing marketing claims, which falsely lead consumers to believe this type of milk is a healthier alternative to regular supermarket milk.
Fact: Organic milk companies such as Horizon and Organic Valley are pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers.
By marketing their ultrapasteurized (UHT) milk as certified USDA Organic, a willing consumer base buys it, thinking it is a better choice than regular pasteurized supermarket 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 supermarket milk or ultrapasteurized certified organic milk? That’s a toughie. Neither choice is optimal as there is no clear winner.
Both are highly processed milks, and both contribute to poor health and chronic illness in general.
Pasteurized vs Ultrapasteurized Milk
Let’s first consider regular supermarket milk.
The dairy cows producing this type of milk are injected with hormones and other drugs.
They consume unnatural, GMO, pesticide, and antibiotic-laced feed with no access to fresh air or green grass.
To add insult to injury, these abused animals stand on cement floors their entire lives. No surprise that they usually die within about 18 months. Incidentally, the true lifespan for a healthy dairy cow should approach 15 years.
Milk from confined cows NEEDS to be pasteurized. It is dirty, nasty stuff loaded with pus and pathogens because of the filth and chronic mastitis the cows endure.
Now let’s consider certified organic (UHT) 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 the Organic Industrial Complex is even more highly processed.
For example, ultrapasteurized (UHT) organic milk is subjected to the insanely high temperature of 275–302°F/ 135–150°C for 1–10 seconds (most commonly 2–5 seconds).
This is waaaay over the boiling point!
For reference, the boiling point of milk is 212.4–212.9°F/ 100.2–100.5°C.
Excessively high UHT processing, far above the boiling point, results in a destroyed product (it isn’t really even food anymore), but dairy corporations love it because it has a much extended shelf life compared to regular pasteurization.
The dirty little secret is that certified organic UHT milk can actually remain unrefrigerated for up to 6 months when packaged in aseptic cartons!
Yet, it is placed in the refrigerated section nonetheless because US consumers won’t readily buy cartons of milk from an unrefrigerated shelf. It goes against intuition and just doesn’t seem very natural, does it?
I don’t know about you, but I find this practice outrageous!
To show the disconnect, consider that Moms often buy individually sized aseptic packages of organically certified milk and put them in their children’s lunchboxes….with ice packs that aren’t even needed!
If they only knew that this milk is so dead that it doesn’t require refrigeration, then they might rethink their choice of beverage.
Auto-Immune Disorders
Why is ultrapasteurization so bad?
The high temperature (far above boiling point) necessary to ultrapasteurize organic milk greatly damages the fragile milk proteins. The same thing happens when sweetened condensed milk is manufactured too.
This violent industrial process results in a “food” that the body no longer recognizes when it is consumed.
The enzymes produced during digestion do not “fit together” like puzzle pieces with the milk proteins destroyed by UHT processing.
These 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 such as allergies, asthma, eczema, reflux, bloating, and other symptoms of autoimmunity.
People who drink this type of certified organic milk often think they have a “milk allergy”. In reality, they have an allergy to the processing, not the milk itself!
Ultrapasteurized milk is so completely sterilized that sometimes it is difficult to culture into homemade kefir or 24 hour yogurt.
In short, ultrapasteurized milk is dead, dead, DEAD.
There is no way that it can be considered healthy, even if it is labeled USDA organic and comes from grassfed cows.
I remember when my first child was nursing, I drank a lot of Organic Valley ultrapasteurized milk.
My baby 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 completely resolved. No treatment was required.
I have no doubt that if I had continued drinking this milk while nursing and he drank it as a toddler, that a likely “milk allergy” would be the result today.
Fortunately, I wised up in time to get off the industrialized poison otherwise known as certified organic milk!
Pick Your Poison
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 boil the milk to the required 275–302°F/ 135–150°C after the milk is in the plastic or plastic-lined aseptic carton packaging.
Another method (just as toxic), is to fill the package or jug with sterilized hot milk that has not yet cooled down!
Either of these industrialized processes release high levels of endocrine-disrupting phthalates from the plastic or plastic lining 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 all forms of pasteurized milk, even certified organic that is falsely perceived as safer.
Never Buy Certified Organic Milk from the Store!
As you can see, it is an extremely hard decision to pick which milk is more unhealthy: regular pasteurized store milk or certified organic milk.
It is best 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 truly healthy 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 certified 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.