76 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



ent grades of milk. Generally that of the best 

 grades is far below that of the poorest raw milk: 

 either part of the cream is skimmed out, or the 

 raw milk is "sophisticated," as the perfumers say, 

 with water or some other liquid, at the dairy. 



This diluted or weakened milk is then pas- 

 teurized. That is to say, it is cooked. No one can 

 deny the great blessing the Pasteur process has 

 been to humanity. But it is a wholly negative good: 

 it merely makes a fluid that may otherwise be 

 deadly poison, innocuous and potable. What else 

 it does how much of the food value of raw milk it 

 destroys I do not know. What we do know is that 

 raw foods contain more nutriment than cooked. 

 Much has been added to our knowledge in this 

 direction since the practice of pasteurizing began, 

 yet to the best of my knowledge no check-up has 

 been made on raw versus cooked milk. The fact 

 that pasteurized milk is safe has probably obscured 

 the question whether it is beneficial, much as the 

 fact that chlorination renders water harmless has 

 obscured the truth that the chlorine which kills 

 dangerous organisms in water also kills benign 

 enzymes in the digestive system. 



If the behavior of cream is an indication, a lot 

 of other things must happen to whole raw milk 

 between the time it enters the modern city dairy 

 and the time it appears on the back step. Bottled 

 cream can be bought in different degrees of I 



