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?
Correct me if I am wrong but don’t the existing bacteria need to be replaced with the type of bacteria that produce a particular cheese? How would that happen unless the milk is heated somewhat?
Or….. maybe we could drink milk that isn’t the breast milk of another species? Breast milk designed and formulated for a baby calf, not human beings. I don’t know…just a thought.
No added sugars (unless you get the sweetened types), no pus, no hormones..but what do I know?
almond milk
cashew milk
hemp milk
flaxseed milk
coconut milk
soy milk
rice milk
quinoa milk
…my fingers are getting tired. LOL
None of those choices are time-honored or traditional milks. The soy milk is especially loathsome with its anti-thyroid actions. For those who are looking for nourishment, raw milk from cows, goats, etc. is the best solution.
Wow, a kinder tone might be more effective in trying to convince people. There are many health benefits from raw cow milk and raw dairy products that simply don’t exist in these other “milks”. Plus even the versions of these you may be able to find that don’t have sugar do almost always have other additives (unless of course you make your own). I’m not against using them (minus soy milk because it affects hormone balance) although, as another person stated, most/all of these are newer, from what I understand, and more unnatural concoctions. Raw dairy has been used for thousands of years and has helped facilitate excellent health. It’s the same for other foods out there until all of them were tampered with in our modern times. Gotta go back to the original state of foods and make sure they’re clean and high-quality. To end this comment, I love raw milk and am really thinking about doing a raw milk fast this spring when it is extra nutritious from the spring grasses. I think that will be the easiest way for me to detox and go grain free for a period of time. I wasn’t raised on traditional foods and battle sugar cravings off and on so I have frequent sinus infections and other health issues. But I think the milk will work nicely since I’ll still have something filling and satisfying to consume, and I’ve heard people say they didn’t really have cravings or die-off symptoms. Anyway, to each their own. We all have to respect each other’s opinions and decisions. 🙂
I used to get pasteurized milk from Maines Own Organic Milk (MOO Milk), but when they almost went under OV bought them. I’ve since noticed that OV is offering Grassmilk and Local (New England) Milk at my neighborhood WFM. None of OV’s milk seems to be ultra pasteurized at the Whole Foods I go to. I avoid all other organic brands, especially Horizon! Mostly we drink raw grass fed milk, but if I can’t get my hands on it (often for weeks because of ridiculous inspections) I opt for OV milk that isn’t ultra pasteurized.
Time for a grassroots rebellion to get our freedoms back. It is our RIGHT to feed ourselves as we wish and the rights of the farmers to produce their products as they will. Raw milk is our RIGHT and those who oppose this need to be fired, educated or whatever else works. Enough is enough.
Be sure to check the ‘sell by’ date. I bought the OV Grassmilk to make yogurt; when I opened it the cream was in chunks floating on the watery part. It was 2 days short of the sell by date so it should have been somewhat ok. I used my blender to break it up and it looked fine. When I started to heat it, it broke into curds and whey at a fairly low temperature. Not being little Miss Muffett, I was aghast at first but then I strained it — voila, ricotta cheese and whey. But that’s not what I wanted. I bought some local milk, as usual, and am happily making yogurt without any separation or other problems.
Sigrid,
What you saw was a lot more to do with the delivery than the age of the milk. The “chunks” were simply the butter fats, floating because of age (a few hours is needed), but turning to butter because it had been shaken. You should simply skim it of and use it. There is nothing what so ever wrong with the milk. In fact I would be disappointed if the raw whole milk I buy didn’t have a generous portion of thick cream on top.
Why does NV raw milk taste bad when I compare it to TN raw milk? We drank raw milk all the time in TN. Now that we’ve moved out west, the kids won’t drink it, and I don’t blame them. It doesn’t taste good. Is that due to the lack of green grass out here?
Yes, that is likely the reason why. When we drink raw milk in other parts of the country, it tastes different whereever we go based on what the cows are foraging for in the pasture.
And it tastes disgusting…
Hi Jeani! 🙂 I had read this before so started buying Horizon Organic which is only pasteurized. Do you know if that’s any better? I know grasping at straws, lol! 🙂
Just read this comment…
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist June 1, 2011 at 10:25 pm
Plain pasteurized is certainly much much better than ultra-pasteurized … try to find some that is also nonhomogenized and that would be an acceptable compromise.
– See more at: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/organic-milk-healthfood-trojan-horse/#comment-570864
I wish I could get Kalona in the Seattle area, but they don’t ship out this far west and the places that will ship it for them, charge 4-5x the rate or what standard organic milk is. Plus, they require a 4-6 pack of most items, which is a lot for 1 person.
I’m drinking Kalona milk right now, and it has a goaty taste….I don’t think I will be buying it again. There is a brand in our area called MillKing that tastes a lot better! It’s the same type of product, low-temp pasteurized, non-homogenized.
I was hoping someone had information on this blog about the supplements given to the cows to increase their milk production – I have heard it keeps them in constant pain – The UHT route seems to be a bad way to go also but if cows are treated more humanely that would be better than nothing – We tried almond milk for a long time but now am told to avoid almonds because it exacerbates kidney stones in me – Soy milk does not seem a good option because it manipulates hormones in women