Why does our raw milk last longer than most? It's our cleanliness and safety standards.

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January 12, 2024

Back in the day, nearly 10 years ago when I first became a customer, things were a lot different at Miller's Bio Farm. The barn was old and outdated, the packing facility was in a garage, we had a shipping container as a cooler and freezer, the equipment was older, and there were no firmly set processes. And, the milk would start souring after just a few days in the fridge.

Since then, Aaron the owner has changed things A LOT. It seems like it happened overnight, but it took a few years. He updated the barn and facilities and equipment (if you've visited then you know how oddly sparkly it is... at least for a farm). And, he created procedures to ensure the quality and safety of his milk. He's always improving.

Aaron's goal is for Miller's Bio Farm to produce the best natural dairy that's yummy, highly nutritious, and also ultra low risk.

We take cleanliness and milk safety very seriously. It's the reason why our RAW A2/A2 MILK lasts up to 2 weeks before it becomes too sour to palate, which is at least 25% longer than raw milk for most other farms.

You see, raw milk sours because of the living microbiology within. The bacteria naturally present in milk are lactic acid bacteria. This means they eat lactose (milk sugar, which is sweet) and produce lactic acid (which is sour). The more lactose they eat, the more the milk sours.

You can't stop the souring process, but you can slow it down. The cold fridge slows it down, and the freezer almost stops it. And, controlling and limiting general bacteria counts (especially bacteria from outside of the cow) slows it down, too.

Naturally occurring healthy microorganisms are present in raw milk. They are a good thing and a big reason why raw milk is touted for its health benefits. But, not all microorganisms in raw milk are good.

We don't want manure in the milk! We don't want potentially harmful pathogens in the milk! And, in the rare chance a cow falls ill, we don't want that in the milk, either! Controlling and limiting bad or extra bacteria is the key to making milk safer and last longer.

How do we ensure an ultra low risk product that lasts such a long time? We do this in so many ways, for both our RAW A2/A2 MILK for humans in PA as well as our raw milk for cats & dogs everywhere else! Here are the most important things we do:

We are certified by the State of Pennsylvania for raw milk production. That requires regular farm inspections every 2 months as well as periodic testing for:
- General bacteria counts (2x per month - within set limits)
- Salmonella (2x per year - zero tolerance)
- e.Coli (2x per year - zero tolerance)
- Listeria (2x per year - zero tolerance)
- Campylobacter (2x per year - zero tolerance)
- Brucellosis (1x per year - zero tolerance)
- Tuberculosis (1x per year - zero tolerance)
We test every batch of milk on site for general bacteria counts. This is above and beyond required testing, and our counts are always well below what's required for pasteurized milk! This means that we can catch any slack in cleaning (or the rare case of a sickness) immediately. You can view the test results since 2018 here.
We have meticulous sanitation practices for milking and bottling. This involves A LOT of cleaning of the cows, the barn, and the equipment (other farmers think we're crazy for this). You can read the details about the process here. And, here are things we do that most farms don't:
- Clean the udders and teats with great care, and that includes removing all manure from small divots on the teats.
- Spread gypsum under and around the cows to effectively keep the milking environment free of urine, manure, and the moisture it may leave behind.
- The milk is cooled to 38-42F in under 10 minutes.
- Wash equipment with water that's at least 180F. The high temp helps the cleaning process significantly, and we know this because of the on site testing.

When delivering your order, we keep the frozen frozen and the fresh fresh. We maintain optimal temps for the best quality products. We have worked hard to figure out how to pack milk for mail shipping, delivery in our refrigerated vans, and pickup at our locations.

Why? Why do we put this extra effort in? Why are we so serious about milk safety? There are 2 big reasons:

Your safety is our priority.
We want to be a reliable source for real food.

Do you value milk safety? What practices do you look for when shopping for milk? Or are the government regulations enough to make you feel comfortable?

I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required - start typing for the guest option to appear) orcontact 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 linoleic acid2-4x 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

Hidden ingredient in pure maple syrup? Yup, a defoamer! Ours is PUFA free.

I know you've seen it advertised everywhere - "PURE MAPLE SYRUP". But, is it really and truly pure? Not exactly. Why is maple syrup is advertised as "pure" anyway? Well, it's because it's being compared to the Aunt Jemima kind of syrup, which doesn't even have maple syrup in it! It's fake maple syrup made with corn syrup with colors, flavors, thickeners, and preservatives. It mimics maple syrup, but it's definitely not maple syrup. So... for companies that are selling actual maple syrup (you know, the kind that's cooked down from the sweet sap from a maple tree), they like to differentiate their syrup from fake syrups. They do this by calling it "pure". I've even seen it as "100% pure". But, that's not really true either. The dictionary definition of "pure" is "not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material." Well, in order to make real maple syrup, you kinda need to do just that. Enter defoamers... Here's how maple syrup is made, including when defoamer is used. First, you harvest the sap from the trees. This happens at a specific time of year. In early spring, as the weather starts to warm up, the sap starts flowing. Here are the lines that run through the maple forest in Vermont that our syrup comes from: Then, the sap (which tastes like sweet water), is pumped into a big stainless steel tank: After that, it goes into another big stainless steel pot in the sugar shack (yup, that's what an old fashioned place that makes maple syrup is called). And then, the heat is turned on. Our maple syrup is cooked over a wood stove! As the maple sap cooks down, it bubbles. Like a lot. To prevent the pot from overflowing with maple lava, not only making a mess but also creating a dangerous situation, syrup makers use a little defoamer. A defoamer is a fat that breaks the surface tension on the bubbles. Only a little bit is needed. *There are all kinds of defoamers, natural and absolutely not natural. But first, let's finish making the syrup. Keep scrolling to learn more about defoamers. Here's what those bubbles look like as a defoamer is added: When the bubbles are smaller and the syrup has cooked down to the perfect thickness and specific gravity, it's done! It's drained into another stainless steel pot. Final thickness and color testing is done before it's bottled. The Virkler family is serious about color distinctions. They always keep some super dark and super light syrup around to make it just right. Why is maple syrup different shades anyway? It's a natural thing! It has to do with the changes in the sugars within the sap as the season changes. As the temperature warms up, naturally occurring bacteria become active and break down the sugar into glucose and fructose. These simpler sugars caramelize more easily during boiling, making a darker syrup. That's why lighter syrup is generally made at the beginning of the season when it's colder. But, just like the weather, the color varies throughout the maple syrup season. The Virkler family documents this every year. In the pic below, the first sap of the season is in the bottom left. And then every harvest after that goes to the right and then up to the next row. Pretty neat! And voila! That's how maple syrup is made! What's in a defoamer? A defoamer is a fat. It disrupts surface tension, breaking those syrupy bubbles down, because it contains non-polar molecules that are attracted to water. Conventional Defoamers Conventional defoamers are a blend of who knows what kind of cheap oils. They can be mineral oils, silicone oils, vegetable oils (canola, soy, olive, etc), or other hydrophobic oils. Some contain up to 10% silicone. Did you know "pure" maple syrup can have that in it!? Conventional defoamers are a lab and factory made thing. And you know what that means - the actual ingredients are proprietary. That's 100% allowed, especially since the defoamer ingredients don't need to be listed on the label. It's less than 1% and considered a trace ingredient. Natural Defoamers More natural defoamers are straight oils. For example, our old maple syrup used sunflower oil. I've seen other maple syrup makers use canola oil. But, the most common defoaming oils are seed oils, and that means PUFAs. Natural No PUFA Defoamers In an effort to reduce PUFAs whenever possible, we have a new no PUFA maple syrup! Virkler Farm & Forest uses organic coconut oil as their defoamer. We're so proud to offer it to you! *It's important to note that a really tiny amount of defoamer is used. Whatever is left in the final syrup is a trace amount. But, as I say again and again, if there's a trace amount of something bad in everything you eat, is it a trace amount anymore? So, what should you look for in a natural maple syrup? For the most natural maple syrup, you can look for a few things: From a pristine forest, free of chemicals.No added colors, flavors, thickeners, or preservatives.Boiled with wood to prevent any unnatural fumes from contaminating the syrup.A natural defoamer is used.Bottled in glass. This is particularly important with maple syrup since it's typically bottled hot/warm. Our maple syrup checks all those boxes! Do you use maple syrup? Did you know about defoamers? What's important to you when choose natural foods? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below or send us a message. ----- PS: Did you know that the maple syrup we sell is also used in a bunch of our products? That includes our ice cream, egg custard, maple sausages, chocolate and strawberry syrups, and more!

Why does our raw milk last longer than most? It's our cleanliness and safety standards.

More from the blog

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.

Hidden ingredient in pure maple syrup? Yup, a defoamer! Ours is PUFA free.

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Miller's Bio Farm, 523 Valley Road, Quarryville, PA 17566