Baby Buttercup
Remember when we got a new dairy cow and shared the cute story about how she was named Daisy without the Whites, Isaiah, or Stevenson knowing that the Zeiter’s had already had a Daisy? … Well she had her calf! This little girl is named Buttercup and she is so cute! Jersey Cows have the biggest, softest eyes and are just beautiful 😍
Everyone has been having a ton of fun with the calf (cuz who doesn’t love babies) and enjoying the fresh milk immensely!
Raw Milk is a bit of a taboo subject for some odd reason but is slowly gaining popularity again here in the States. While some are afraid of the bacteria in raw milk (which is killed - pasteurized - in store bought milk), others are convinced that humans aren’t naturally supposed to drink it (even though we drink breastmilk exclusively for the first 6 months of our lives, at least), and still others down it by the glass (like Phil Zeiter 😂).
So what’s the deal? There’s a lot of contradictory material out there but we can say from personal experience that raw milk didn’t kill any of us growing up - in fact, some of our (Zeiter kids) dairy problems started when we moved out and were no longer consuming raw dairy but the pasteurized stuff. Not only do people who are lactose intolerant find that they can drink raw milk and eat raw milk products without problem, there are also scientific studies that show raw milk can help with: Asthma, Ulcers, Inflammation, Eczema, Allergies, and more!
We would still caution not to get your raw milk from just anywhere though because of course you need cleanliness in any environment when dealing with food, but it is no longer something to be afraid of. Sure, pasteurized milk kills all the bad bacteria, but it kills the bad bacteria too, and then you’re just drinking a bunch of dead bacteria! This isn’t to say that pasteurized milk has no benefits, we're just saying that raw milk has more 😉.
One of the awesome things about homesteading is having the opportunity for and the access to real, whole foods like raw milk. Dirt under our fingernails, sunshine on our faces, and unprocessed foods are the way God designed us to be happy and healthy. We believe that a lot of the chronic depression, anxiety, and unhappiness of our world could be cured if people received more of the three things listed above - even if it was just once a week!
