A previous commenter has mentioned trying to find a small holding and buying your milk directly from there and I have to agree. Commercialisation of the milk industry, while necessary to meet demand, has totally destroyed the taste. Milk now is effectively just a whitener for coffee and tea, which is a real shame.

The milk I buy, direct from a local farm just north of Canberra, has taste that changes over the year. I can tell when the cows are eating new pasture grass, or hay, even if they are having to eat more protein/molasses (usually during winter). In short, it has flavour. When I'm drinking 'standardised' milk (i.e., coffee in a cafe) I can tell - it is tasteless and just makes the coffee white.

The only reason for breaking them down to this size is so that they'll stay suspended in the milk, instead of floating on top (cream on top). You can find this information in Healing with Whole Foods (pg. 19) by Paul Pitchford, with excellent in-text references.

Drinking raw milk from a local farmer is perfectly safe if the conditions are clean and promote health and low stress among the cows. The problem becomes the mass production of a needless substance like milk in a small plot of land. Thousands of cows are set in tiny plots where they walk around in feces and are regularly given antibiotics until "X" amount of time before slaughter. All this is irrelevant however if the consumer becomes educated.

Visit the actual farm where your buying milk from and see it for yourself. If they don't let you bring cameras onto the grounds then get a clue as to what is going on. Disease is caused by poor food choices made by a society of people who do not think for themselves. -Dan

For example, Hartzler's Dairy in Ohio (where I buy all of my milk) uses a low temperature vat pasteurization process and does not homogenize their milk. The Hartzler's heat their milk to 145 degrees in a vat for 30 minutes instead of heating it to more extreme temperatures of 160 for 15 seconds (HTST) or even higher to over 200 degrees for less than two seconds (UHT) and because they do it this way, the milk only has a shelf life of 18 days. But the health benefits are certainly worth it. Enzymes are protected and your body is able to digest the milk better because the milk is in a more natural state.

That part isn't true. While the milk can travel farther without significant separation, breaking up the fat globules makes it easier for the fat molecules to combine with other things, making them turn rancid more quickly once the package of milk is opened.

Milk that has not been homogenized will last longer after it has been opened, but the cream will separate, so it needs to be shaken.

i think only babies adopted by another species like we see on tv sometimes or things like cats given milk by human owner etc. are more possible.

Many species also consume others' eggs. This is why mothers usually try to protect them.

No wonder we now have men in their 60's suffering from osteoporotc fractures, let alone the general epidemic of osteoporosis among women!

To sour the milk for yogurt we use the cream too. Later the cream is removed form the yogurt (sour cream) and churned to make butter, so we drink a kind of de-creamed milk and those interested can consume butter otherwise.

If I had the choice, I would never by homogenized milk! I shop at natural food stores, and still have a problem finding nonhomogenized milk or half and half.

I have been buying heavy whipping cream because it doesn't say it is homogenized; although, it does say ultra pasteurized. Does ultra pasteurized mean that it has been homogenized?

Shelf life is related to bacteria levels in milk which has little or nothing to do with homogenization. High bacteria levels= more organisms living, producing waste, and dying in your milk. Higher bacteria levels are a result of transferring milk from vat to vat which occurs in larger producers who receive milk from multiple farms.

We have an ongoing list of over 500 people who are lactose intolerant who are able to drink our milk without having to take Lactaid or similar medications. They say they still suffer ill effects if they drink homogenized milk.

The debate over whether homogenization is detrimental or not is ongoing. I stand to believe, based on my experience, that drinking non-homogenized milk is generally in a person's best interest. It is a more natural product than its counterpart which your body is therefore more readily able to process and receive only the enzymes, nutrients, and fat it truly needs.

The cream would be then collected with a spoon, and eaten either like that or spread on a slice of bread with a little sugar, it was usually meant for children. What a delicacy. This was not done often, and the amounts were rather small, but it was so delicious.