A science columnist for the American newspaper The Washington Post analyzed different products and figured out which ones are worth buying only in the form of “organic” products, and which ones are less demanding on such a requirement. Particular attention in the report was given to milk.
Which milk is healthier? Does industrial milk contain antibiotics and hormonal supplements? Is it safe for children? These and some other questions are answered by this study.
It turned out that compared to ordinary milk (obtained on an industrial farm and sold in a chain of stores in the city), farm milk is richer in healthy omega-3-unsaturated fatty acids – moreover, the more fresh grass a cow eats during the year, the more of them . Other nutritional criteria for farm/commercial milk have been studied but appear to be negligible in research data.
The level of contamination with antibiotics in farm and industrial milk is the same – zero: by law, each jug of milk is subject to mandatory verification by a specialist, if there is a discrepancy, the product is written off (and usually poured out). Farm cows are not given antibiotics – and cows on industrial farms are given, but only during the period of illness (for medical reasons) – and until complete recovery and the drug is discontinued, milk from these cows is not sold.
All dairy products – farm and industrial – contain a “very small” (according to official government data – in the United States) amount of DDE toxin – “hello” from the past, when in many countries of the world they began to use the dangerous chemical DDT unjustifiably (then they realized it, but it was too late – it’s already in the ground). According to scientists, the content of DDE in agricultural soils around the world will be reduced to negligible only in 30-50 years.
Sometimes milk comes on the market that has not been properly pasteurized (pasteurization error) – but there is no data with which milk – industrial or farm – this happens more often, no – any milk from any source must first be brought to a boil. So this factor also “reconciles” farm milk with industrial milk.
But when it comes to hormones – there is a big difference! Farm cows are not injected with hormonal drugs – and “industrial” cows are not so lucky, they are injected with bovine growth hormone (bovin-stomatotropin – abbreviated as BST or its variant – recombinant bovin-stomatotropin, rBST).
How “useful” such injections are for a cow is a topic for a separate study, and it’s not even the hormone itself that is dangerous for humans (because, in theory, it should die during pasteurization or, in extreme cases, in the aggressive environment of the human stomach), but its component, which called “insulin-like growth factor-1” (IGF-I). Some studies link this substance to aging and the growth of cancer cells in the body – others do not support such a conclusion. According to official certifying organizations, the level of IGF-1 content in store-bought milk does not exceed the permissible norm (including for consumption by children) – but here, of course, everyone is free to draw their own conclusions.