Estrogen in milk 5/5/16

Here is an interesting question that has come up way too often in the last 3 years that I will address and hopefully put to rest, at least for a while:
Hi Dennis and Alicia,
Could you please let me know how many and how often your cows are pregnant? What percentage is the milk of pregnant cows in the bulk of your milk? Would you consider selling "milk for boys?"
I am concerned about my sons drinking milk that is high in estrogen from pregnant cows. Do you know of any research on this? I found and read several articles in peer reviewed journals and a few magazines, but nothing I found was recently published or especially definitive, each only calling for more research.
Thanks for letting me know your thoughts on this.

Listen folks……… milk has been used for human food for a very long time and if properly produced it is healthful and life giving. Yes it has estrogen in it just like a women’s breast milk who is nursing her baby………and yes many pregnant women nurse baby’s and these boys grow up to be just fine with these higher estrogen's in mama’s milk. Lord knows I was probably nursed while my mama was pregnant and I grew up to be fully male and normal. It is funny how we fear these natural hormones in our food but think too little of the chemicals that mimic and act like hormones which can really harm us, that processed foods are loaded with.

A little back ground………….when a cow gives birth the flow of milk begins. She is usually bred back in 3 months, this gives a baby once per year and this is normal and healthy and most all herbivores that I know of have yearly babies even in the wild. Sheep sometimes do 3 sets of babies in 2 years. My opinion on high estrogen milk from pregnant cows being in any way harmful is that this thinking is stupid……………I drink it and many other fully male men that I know do the same and are extremely healthy for it. As farmers, if we were to milk the cows only while not pregnant it would mean double the price on milk, at least, maybe more.
I was once told by a scientist at UF “Hey Dennis, I am the king of studies, I can make studies show whatever you want them to show”! He went on to tell me how he has a track record and has done a lot of business with this corporation and that corporation and assured me over and over he could get me the studies to turn out just the way I wanted and that this would prove whatever I wanted to prove. Of course, they cannot claim to be the end of all studies so they always call for more studies. May I say they have done studies on whether or not cows need shade in Florida? One such used 100K in tax money to show that cows did not actually need shade. Never mind what the cow prefers and never mind that none of the stupid people doing such a study would like to be outside day after day in Florida heat without shade but they still spent the money and concluded that cows did not actually need shade in Florida. It’s stupid science folks, proving nothing and It is just a way to raise questions in people’s mind that distract them from real truth about real food. And doubts and fears can keep us distracted from even asking good questions, questions like, “yes, this is certified organic meaning chemicals were not sprayed on the land for 3 years but is this food nutrient dense, will it feed my body and make me well.” And one more time I want to ask every one out there, please, if you have not watched Sally Fallons DVD set that we sell, please do. I recommend you watch it till some of this stupid junk science is run right out of your head. You will be healthier for it.

Now that my ranting is over let’s look at one more thing. In the introductory summary I found this:
The milk that we now consume may be quite unlike that consumed 100 years ago. Modern genetically-improved dairy cows, such as the Holstein, are usually fed a combination of grass and concentrates (grain/protein mixes and various by-products), allowing them to lactate during the latter half of pregnancy, even at 220 days of gestation.
Folks this is in part true and I want to just focus on one thing here and leave the half true part. WE HERE AT FCF strive to produce milk the way it was done about 100 years ago. Zero chemicals on land or animal of any kind and zero grain to pump up production. We get 1 to 2 gallons per cow per day average and if you feed just 10 lbs of grain you can double and triple that easily. The average cow in a commercial dairy today gets 50 lbs of grain per day and produces 10 to 15 gallons per day and lives 4 years or less on the average. Our cows triple that life span, so you can decide what you will support with your dollars.
One more thing, a LOT of the grain concentrates fed are soy which is high in estrogen which I believe comes thru into the milk. THIS my friends is where the high and unnatural level of estrogen's comes from, in my opinion, NOT from the cow being pregnant at the time. The modern cow barely sees green grass, even on a local farm here that has the slogan “The way God intended”. All the grass is brought to the cow in fermented form. www.eatwild.com has good science showing us that this wilted grass is not the same eaten out of a feed trough as it is direct grazed by the cow and to me it is VERY offensive to say that this is remotely “The way God Intended”?? If any of the customers of this farm visited on a rainy day they would never drink the milk again as the cows stand in black muck up to their knees.
Of course we also do not use the modern Holstein cow; we are breeding the old style cow as fast as we can. (the breeding of cows takes a life time) The modern Holstein falls apart without her crack (grain). My friend calls grain “crack for cows” and this cow has been bred to do well on her addiction. Since we do not feed grain this type of cow almost cannot live on our farm, they just do not do well. From the start we have been working in the exact opposite direction with the breeding of an old time cow just like they were about 100 years ago. Um……….100 years ago, 1 in 200 people got cancer now it’s 1 in 2. Does this all have anything to do with it? In the next letter I will address other factors very much related.

Really, truly awesome, old world bread that is worth eating and yes, maybe expensive but you will not need 3 loaves to fill you up either. We do not eat much bread but when we do we like a little bread with our butter. And we do love this amazing bread that is nutrient dense, living, healing, nourishing food. This is the same type of bread spoken of in the Weston A Price book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration where the Swiss of the Loenchal Valley would hang it on a hook and it got better with age.

Local Blueberries! We have a friend here, locally, who has 2 acres of the very best in beautiful ripe berries. They were grown with zero chemicals. He is too small to get certified organic but could and in fact is way beyond organic. He uses guineas to debug them and weeds by hand. Some of you may remember these from last year. Packed in 1 lb packs, Price $8/lb. 5-1lb bags for $6.50/lb.

“Eat Dirt” by Dr Josh Axe, “Why Leaky Gut may be the root cause of your health problems and 5 surprising steps to cure it”…………this book is a very good look at how Americans have become too clean for their own good. We need to get dirty again by producing some of our own food and/or eating raw food straight from the source local too us. I highly recommend this book.

Dry curd cottage cheese sales are up because people are getting results with it. You can google or you tube “Budwig diet” for details. I cannot say this diet cures anything but if you have cancer it may do you good to try it. We have several customers who cannot say enough about it.