Does the A2 thing or raw milk thing matter more? It depends.

What's up with soooo many people not being able to tolerate dairy these days? Could it be how conventional milk is being altered? Sure, switching to conventional "certified organic" milk that you can find in nearly any supermarket might help. You're eliminating some of the modern milk alterations. With organic, you're getting rid of the antibiotics. Antibiotics are routinely given to conventional cows to help keep them disease-free, even when in unsanitary or unnatural living environments (like indoors on concrete all the time). With organic, you're getting rid of hormones, which are given to conventional cows to make them produce more milk. More milk + the same amount of feed = more profit.With organic, you're removing some weird, unnatural stuff in the feed. This includes GMO fragments that might make their way into the milk as well as the awful chemicals like glyphosate used to grow GMO crops. But, keep in mind that "organic" does NOT mean chemical free. It simply means that any chemicals used are "approved for organic". Switching to organic is a great step in the right direction. But... what if you already did that and are still experiencing dairy issues? There are so many symptoms of dairy allergies or intolerances. They range from bloating to tummy troubles to nausea to brain fog. In this scenario, it's most likely one of two things, the lactose or the casein protein. There's a different solution for each: Lactose Intolerance → Can be solved with raw or cultured dairy Some people are "born to dance", some are "born to lead", and some are "born to rock"... but all humans are born to drink milk! I mean, breast milk is our first food after all! Babies are naturally designed to digest lactose (milk sugar). That means that, as a baby, you naturally produce tons and tons of lactase, the enzyme required to digest lactose, in your gut. But, over time, a human naturally produces less and less lactase. This is especially true if a human stops eating dairy or foods with the living microbiology present in raw dairy like lactic acid bacteria. After all, why would your body continue producing something if it's useless? Here's the good news. It can be reversed! You may be able to produce lactase again, you may be able to drink milk again, and may be able to eat cheese again. At least, this is true for many, many people. The living dairy microbiology in raw and fermented dairy (even yogurt or kefir made from pasteurized milk as long as it has live cultures in it) can jumpstart your body into producing more and more lactase. Pretty neat! A1 Protein Intolerance → Can be solved with A2/A2 dairy The A1 beta-casein protein is relatively new. A few thousand years ago, humans made cows in Europe pretty stressed. They moved them indoors in cities and started feeding them grain (the byproduct of making whisky and other stuff). And what do organisms tend to do under stress? Mutate! Unlike any other mammal, those European cows had a genetic mutation that makes them produce a new type of protein - the A1 beta-casein protein. Those cows made their way to the US. And now, basically all American milk has a mix of A1 and A2 beta casein proteins. Some people, especially those from eastern countries like India (where cows didn't mutate) or who drink pasteurized or boiled milk, might have an issue with A1 but can handle the A2 beta-casein protein just fine. Switching to A2/A2 milk is all they need to handle dairy again. It's important to note that the only way to know what kind of milk a cow produces is via a genetic test. We test all of our cows, and that's how we're sure our milk contains 100% A2 beta-casein protein. It's A2/A2! Do you have issues with dairy? Did raw or A2/A2 help? What solved your problem, or are you still looking for a solution? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below to share your thoughts with our amazing community (no account required), or keep it private and contact us 😊

100% grass fed and finished beef different from grain fed beef? Yes, it is!

Why grass fed beef? And, I'm not talking about that silly "grass fed" label in the supermarket, which doesn't necessarily mean what you think (read more on that here). I'm talking about truly pastured, 100% grass fed and finished beef. Feeding beef cattle 100% grass is the most natural way. Beef cattle are ruminants. That means they have 4 stomachs are are designed to graze and eat and digest plants... not fully grown seeds like corn and soy and canola or their oils. Eating 100% grass, ideally fresh from the pasture, is how cattle stay in their best health. When beef are fed grain, it creates a lot of acid in their stomach, lowering the pH. It creates an imbalance in gut microbiology, which can result in some pretty awful health outcomes for the cow (sometimes even death). And of course, the healthier the animal, the healthier and more nutrient-dense the food it produces. 100% grass fed and finished beef is more nutritious than grain fed beef! Compared to conventional grain-fed beef, 100% grass fed and finished beef has: 3x more Vitamin E2.5x more Vitamin C2-3x more B Vitamins9x more Vitamin B310x more EPA3x more DHA10x more linolenic acid (alpha/gamma)2-4x more Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) And, grass fed beef has a much better omega 6/3 ratio, usually less than 3:1. Compare that to conventional beef, which has a ratio more than a 15:1. Wow! For some reference, humans should be eating a 4:1 omega 6/3 ratio for optimal health. But, the conventional American diet typically provides a 20:1 ratio. Ugh, no wonder Americans are so sick! Truly pastured, grass fed beef is more flavorful and has a better bite compared to conventional beef. When beef cattle aren't fed a bland diet of corn and soy and instead eat biodiverse, regenerately managed pasture, the meat has more flavor. When beef cattle have plenty of room to roam and exercise those muscles, the meat has texture to it. It has a bite. When some people start eating grass fed beef, they're sometimes put off by the flavor and texture. They might describe it as gamey and tough. But, now that I've been eating grass fed beef for years, it's quite the opposite. Conventional beef is tasteless and boring and mushy. Do you choose grass fed and finished beef? Why? Is it because it's more humane, more nutritious, better tasting, or a combo of them all? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required) or keep it private and contact us 😊 ----- Sources Nutritional Comparisons Between Grass-Fed Beef and Conventional Grain-Fed Beef

Food web vs food chain. I'll use the crazy egg recall as an example.

At Miller's, we're building a food web. This is a lot different than the modern food chain most Americans rely on. A food chain is a factory-filled engine. Here are the links that usually make up the food chain. Mega feed mills and fertilizer plants --> mega factory farms --> mega processing plants --> mega distributors --> mega supermarkets. And in between all of those things are mega supplies and transportation companies. When one link breaks, the whole chain goes down! Sure, it's made food more affordable. But, it's also made our food system fragile. Let's use the egg recall that's happening right now as an example. It's a conventional egg recall (NOT our eggs, which we have plenty of btw). The current salmonella outbreak has sickened at least 89 people to date. It's affected 1.7 million cartons of eggs in 9 states, starting in March. Hundreds of thousands of people have eaten contaminated eggs. Wow, I mean, that's awful on such a big scale. But, here's what's interesting to me - there are 29 different products affected. How could that be? How could they be related? Well, those products come from 10 different egg brands who all have their eggs packed at 2 facilities. Talk about mega ag! Now, I don't know this for sure, but I would bet that all of those millions of eggs come from one mega-farm that has a salmonella outbreak inside one of its mega buildings. Keep in mind that a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) is defined as having a minimum of 82,000 laying hens. In other words, it's plausible for those millions of eggs to come from one "farm". And the saddest part? All of those hens were likely culled to stop the outbreak quickly. One last note here -- the egg recall example is actually a small one. It's even worse with beef. Did you know that 85% of all grain finished beef is processed by just 4 companies? Geez! And, I mean, we all saw the food chain break during COVID. On the flip side (and gosh, I'm happy there's an alternative), a food web is a collection of small feed suppliers, farmers, processors, etc. They are all independent, and each has an important role in getting your food to you. When one intersection in the web breaks, it's fairly easy to repair it and find someone else to fill in. It's a resilient way to produce food. The downside to a food web is that the food does cost more. Let's take our egg farmers as an example. They work in small "pods". They all get their feed and cartons from the same place. They all follow the same farming practices. But, other than that, they work independently in "pods". Right now, we have 2 egg pods. A "pod" consists of 1-5 family farmers with small flocks (no more than 3,000 birds each). And that group of farmers has their eggs packed at one small family egg packer. If we need more eggs, then we need to start another pod. If one pod (or a part of a pod) goes down, another can likely fill in. What do you think? Is it worth it to pay more for food from a resilient food web? Do we need the food chain to supply affordable food? What does our food future look like? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required) or contact us 😊 ----- PS: Did I mention we have plenty pastured, honest yolk, corn & soy free eggs right now? There's no outbreak or shortage for us! ----- Sources Eggs sold at Walmart, other grocers in 9 states recalled amid salmonella outbreakExplainer: How four big companies control the U.S. beef industry

Is beef rennet really the best option?

This year, we started getting the same question from a bunch of our awesome customers. It goes something like this, “I’m vegetarian. Can you make A2 cheese with vegetable rennet?”

First, let’s all get on the same page. What is rennet?

Ephraim told me that the best aged cheese is made with beef rennet. It produces the best taste and texture and has a great shelf life.

He also said that vegetable rennet is genetically modified and highly processed. Wait. What!?

Rennet is an enzyme created in the stomach of ruminant animals - animals with four stomachs like cows, goats, deer, and giraffes. Chymosin is the key component.

There are some less popular alternatives to these three rennets.

So, what do you think? Would you prefer cheese made from the most natural type of rennet - beef rennet? Or, would you prefer cheese made from GMO vegetable rennet?

More from the blog

Does the A2 thing or raw milk thing matter more? It depends.

100% grass fed and finished beef different from grain fed beef? Yes, it is!

Food web vs food chain. I'll use the crazy egg recall as an example.

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