nutritional and supplementary considerations

re cows and milk You only have to look at the average nz dairy farm to know very few chemicals are added to the cows. In a green field situation it cant be done and they are not injected in the milking shed either. Overseas meal feed often has antibiotics etc added just for good measure and cases in Britain where dead cows were ground up and added to feed caused the outbreak of mad cow disease. About 10 years ago though the town milk supply was changed from a constant fresh supply to a get as much as you can and dehy it and reconstitute as required method. Huge cost savings and a standardised product so all bottled milk of a type and brand is the same (just like a big mac) Its also when trim milk became pallatable and cream stopped rising to the top of an old bottle and milk started keeping for more than a week in the fridge. Is it just dried and rehydated or does something else happen?

I believe the fat is stripped out and on-sold and the milk is dried and then reconstituted. I have got this impression from talking to people who work in milk processing factories. I buy Retro Organic's jersey (i.e. A2) organic, whole, unhomogenised milk. Their feta is great too - my favourite brand. They are cheaper than Lewis Road or whatever they're called and without the hype. My 2L bottle lasts a week OK. Of course some cockies feed PKE to the cows which 'rips their guts up', i.e. causes leaky gut and up to 1kg a day of wheatbarley is fed to the cows according to the ear tag which determines how much in response to how much milk the cows produce. All very scientific. Tapioca lowers urea output. When times are hard, less of this weird stuff goes on apparently and it is more pasture-based feeding. I have no compunction about enlightening foreign folks who think our cows are just grass-fed. The grains etc. alter the beneficial omega-3 levels in milk and other lipids. http://paleozonenutrition.com/2010/10/02/new-zealand-cows-fed-palm-kernel-expeller-producing-a-new-type-of-trans-fat-is-it-safe/

There are now plenty of raw milk providers around. In the canterbury area you have Clearwater. We have several local outfits in Taranaki, one each in openake, inglewood, and stratford. They do daily testing, and theres a whole order of magnitude greater shed and animal cleanliness than what traditional sheds do. I was never good with pasterised dairy, but my body seems quite fine with raw. It all helps getting the percent raw in your diet up, and with fat soluable vitamins.

With the current dairy payout there will be very little suplimentary feeding of dairy cows happening at the moment. The milk we buy here is made from fresh milk - it would be a massive waste of money to dry and then reconstitute milk for the local market. All the major brands are standardised to set protein and fat levels (minimum required for each milk type). Only dairy components are used in the standardisation process. Again this is a cost issue. Liquid milks sold overseas are mostly dried in NZ and reconsituted in the country they are to be sold in. This is done because the cost of drying and reconsitiuting is a lot less than shipping tonnes of water overseas. Some liquid UHT milk is shipped but this is a premium product so overseas customers pay for this shipping of water. Raw milk is just milked and chilled and as long as the farm has good hygiene it keeps just as well as pastuerised milk. Tastes really nice too! The only people who should avoid raw milk are those who are immunocompromised and they generally have a long list of things to avoid.

"The milk we buy here is made from fresh milk - it would be a massive waste of money to dry and then reconstitute milk for the local market. " During the spring to autum that is probably true but winter its cheaper to dry the cows off and reconstitute dehy than go to extreme lengths to keep them milkable. Better for the cows too.

I would love to drink raw milk but living 5 minutes from the CBD, I don't go past any farm gates unfortunately. It's good that some cheese makers here now have permits to produce raw milk cheese e.g. Aroha. So much vitamin K in that stuff.

Honora, Clearwater deliver to Chch, weekly. At least they did when we lived in Canterbury. They run it as a "milk club", you drop your containers off at a central location the day before and they fill and return them. Its a slight bending of the 5l per day per customer at the farm gate ruling. Thankfully that rule is about to be lifted from next year, see http://www.foodsmart.govt.nz/food-safety/high-risk-foods/raw-milk/rawmilk.htm Theres various lists of raw milk suppliers eg here: http://www.tuiheightshealth.co.nz/resource-centre/milk/raw-milk-suppliers/ But many/most are not on these lists because they are semi underground. All of the ones around here are not on those lists despite operating under MAF approved RMPs. Producers are naturally cautious given the endless raw milk reviews going on for the last 10 years, and some of the stuff thats gone on overseas. But if you ask around these things are sprouting everywhere. Our local one has a vending machine, you rock up anytime and fill your bottles.

thanks, zoneblue. I'll make enquiries.

For those that haven't noticed, tuna-in-a-bag is back! Sealord do a few different flavours and the lemon, sesame and ginger one is really nice . Not 'I'm tramping and everything tastes great' nice, but actual 'I'd eat that at home' nice.

We've been using them on trips. Great to see they are back. Flavours aren't too bad.