“Pasteurization of milk ensures safety for human consumption by reducing the number of viable pathogenic bacteria.” So begins an article published in the Journal of Food Protection, published in 2011.

According to the study authors, one argument against pasteurization is its association “with destruction of selected vitamins present in raw milk.” This statement is not completely accurate, and we will return to it in a moment. Nonetheless, the direct effect of pasteurization on vitamin levels is important to know.  The researchers looked at studies measuring vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, E and folate, eliminating many for various reasons, some or all of which seem frivolous—such as not published in English, not reporting sample size, not including a standard deviation, not reporting mean values. Nevertheless, even after leaving out over half the studies looking at vitamins levels published between 1936 and 2003, the researchers came up with interesting results.

Starting with the fat-soluble vitamins, studies on vitamin A were inconsistent, with two studies reporting a reduction and—strangely—two reporting an increase in vitamin A after pasteurization. (The suspicion is that vitamin A was added to the pasteurized milk.) The available data did not allow the researchers to make important conclusions about vitamin E, although “pasteurization appeared to qualitatively reduce concentrations” of vitamin E. They did not examine vitamin D “because secreted bovine milk is deficient in vitamin D based on human nutrition needs.” Vitamin K2 was not on the radar screen until very recently, so the researchers did not look at this fat-soluble vitamin either.

Looking at the water-soluble vitamins, researchers found a significant decrease for vitamins B12, B2 and folate, with a slight decrease in vitamins B1 and B6.  As for vitamin C, “In the majority of trials, a numeric decrease in vitamin C was found after heat treatment.”

These results are pretty shocking.  Every water-soluble vitamin decreased, some significantly. But not to worry, say the researchers, since “milk is not an important source of vitamin C and folate,” nor of vitamin B12! Only the reduction of B2 has them a little worried: “With the exception of vitamin B2, pasteurization does not appear to be a concern in diminishing the nutritive value of milk because milk is often not a primary source of these studied vitamins in the North American diet.” Put another way, “The effect [of pasteurization] on milk’s nutritive value was minimal because many of these vitamins are naturally found in relatively low levels.”

Note the word “often.” Milk “is often not a primary source of these studied vitamins. . . “ For someone not drinking milk, or drinking little milk, this statement is true.  But what about babies and toddlers? Milk is often a primary source of these nutrients for this group. And what about a mom worried about her children’s junk food habits or pickiness, who wants to ensure that her children at least get the basics of what they need. Raw milk can be a primary source of these nutrients for these children. And what about vegetarians depending on milk for vitamin B12? The destruction of B12 by pasteurization could be disastrous for these folks.

But let’s go back to the premise that people are opposed to pasteurization because it destroys vitamins in the milk.  Indeed, it does, but this is only half the story.  What pasteurization completely destroys is the enzymes—after all, the test for effective pasteurization is the destruction of the enzyme phosphatase–and many of these enzymes act as carriers for the vitamins and minerals in the milk.  This explains why levels of some vitamins in milk seem low—since the enzymes in raw milk ensure that they are completely absorbed, the levels do not need to be high.

The researchers did not even examine vitamin D levels on the assumption that there is not enough vitamin D in milk to satisfy human needs.  If this is the case, where do infant humans and animals get their vitamin D?  The fact is that vitamin D is very difficult to measure in foods, and also vitamin D levels vary widely depending on the diet of the human mother—and presumably depending on the diet of the animal mother also.

Pasteurization destroys the enzymes and carrier proteins needed to absorb calcium, folate, B12, B6, vitamins A and D, iron and many other minerals. To absorb these nutrients in pasteurized milk, the body has to produce its own enzymes, something that takes a lot of energy to do, especially in amounts required to ensure 100 percent assimilation.

So despite assurances by apologists for pasteurization, heat treating Nature’s perfect food does have a negative effect on the amount of nutrients and their availability—a profoundly negative effect.

One more thing: most of the studies the researchers had available were for regular pasteurization, not for ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurization—and most milk today, even organic milk, is ultra-pasteurized. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the additional heat pretty much kills everything.

What emerges is a story of the most colossal waste—think of the nutrients that our growing children are not getting, but should be getting, because we pasteurize!

The Weston A. Price Foundation is America’s leading champion of raw milk, especially raw whole milk from pastured cows. 

This article was first published on Sally Fallon Morell’s Nourishing Traditions blog! Check it out here: http://nourishingtraditions.com/pasteurization-vitamins-milk/

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Those looking to buy only the highest quality cheeses should also keep an eye out for cheese made from pastured animals. According to a recent article, High Quality Raw Milk Cheese is Healthy, cheese made from grass-fed cows has the ideal omega-6 to omega-3 fat ratio of 2:1 whereas pasteurized cheese has a 25:1 ratio, which is already excessive in Americans’ fatty diets. Furthermore, grass-fed cheese “…is considerably higher in calcium, magnesium, beta-carotene, and vitamins A, C, D and E.”

Gouda, Brie and Edam cheese are safe bets. Read it for more tips on how to pick out the healthiest cheeses.

The Campaign for Real Milk is a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education non-profit based in Washington, D.C. To learn more about raw milk and other nutrient dense foods, attend one of the upcoming Wise Traditions conferences.

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IMPORTANT UPDATE, SPRING 2007:
Price’s “X Factor” or “Activator X” is now believed to be the fat-soluble vitamin K₂.
Please follow the link to read Chris Masterjohn’s article on the Weston A. Price Foundation site to learn how this sixty-year-old mystery was finally solved!

Dr. Weston A. Price, a Cleveland dentist, has been called the “Charles Darwin of Nutrition.” In his search for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration that he observed in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to the evidence supplied by human beings. Dr. Price sought the factors responsible for fine teeth among the people who had them —the isolated “primitives.” The world became his laboratory. As he traveled, his findings led him to the belief that dental caries and deformed dental arches resulting in crowded, crooked teeth and unattractive appearance were a sign of physical degeneration, resulting from what he had suspected —nutritional deficiencies.

Price travelled the world over in order to study isolated human groups, including sequestered villages in Switzerland, Gaelic communities in the Outer Hebrides, Eskimos and Indians of North America, Melanesian and Polynesian South Sea Islanders, African tribes, Australian Aborigines, New Zealand Maori and the Indians of South America. Wherever he went, Dr. Price found that beautiful straight teeth, freedom from decay, stalwart bodies, resistance to disease and fine characters were typical of primitives on their traditional diets, rich in essential food factors.

When Dr. Price analyzed the foods used by isolated primitive peoples he found that they provided at least four times the water soluble vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least TEN times the fat soluble vitamins —vitamin A and vitamin D —from animal foods such as fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats and butter from cows eating green grass.

Dr. Price discovered an additional fat soluble vitamin that he called “Activator X” and which was also referred to by others as the Price Factor or X Factor, and is now believed to be vitamin K₂. It is a powerful catalyst which, like vitamins A and D, helps the body absorb and utilize minerals. It was present in the diets of all the healthy population groups he studied but unfortunately has almost completely disappeared from the modern western diet. Sources include organ meats from cows eating green grass, fish eggs and shellfish. Butter can be an especially rich source of Activator X/vitamin K₂ when it comes from cows eating rapidly growing grass in the Spring and Fall seasons. It disappears in cows fed cottonseed meal or high protein soy-based feeds. Fortunately, Activator X/vitamin K₂ is not destroyed by pasteurization.

The importance of good nutrition for mothers during pregnancy has long been recognized, but Dr. Price’s investigation showed that primitives understood and practiced preconception nutritional programs for BOTH parents. Many tribes required a period of premarital nutrition, and children were spaced to permit the mother to maintain her full health and strength, thus assuring physical excellence to subsequent offspring. Special foods were often given to pregnant and lactating women, as well as to the maturing boys and girls, in preparation for future parenthood. Dr. Price found these foods to be very rich in fat soluble vitamins A, vitamin D and Activator X —nutrients found only in animal fats.

These primitives with their fine bodies, homogeneous reproduction, emotional stability and freedom from degenerative ills stand forth in sharp contrast to those subsisting on the impoverished foods of civilization —sugar, white flour, pasteurized lowfat milk and convenience foods filled with extenders and additives.

The discoveries and conclusion of Dr. Price are presented in his classic volume Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. The book contains striking photographs of handsome, healthy primitives and illustrates in an unforgettable way the physical degeneration that occurs when human groups abandon nourishing traditional diets in favor of modern convenience foods.

From Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon Morell and Mary G Enig, PhD. Available from NewTrends Publishing, (877) 707-1776.

Nutrition and Physical Degeneration by Weston A. Price is now available from Radiant Life (888) 593-8333.

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This article has since been expanded and updated on the Weston A Price Foundation site as Vitamin A Saga

“Eat carrots for vitamin A.” Such statements, found in many popular diet and nutrition books, create the impression that the body’s requirements for this essential nutrient can be exclusively met with plant foods like carrots, squash, green leafy vegetables and orange colored fruits. The low fat school of nutrition benefits greatly from the fact that the public has only vague notions about vitamin A; for the family of water-soluble nutrients called carotenes are not true vitamin A, but are more accurately termed provitamin A. True vitamin A, or retinol, is found only in animal products like cod liver oil, liver and other organ meats, fish, shell fish and butterfat from cows eating green grass.

Under optimal conditions, humans convert carotenes to vitamin A in the upper intestinal tract by the action of bile salts and fat-splitting enzymes. Of the entire family of carotenes, beta-carotene is most easily converted to vitamin A. Early studies indicated an equivalency of 4:1 of beta-carotene to retinol. In other words, four units of beta-carotene were needed to produce one unit of vitamin A. This ratio was later revised to 6:1 and recent research suggests an even higher ratio.¹ This means that you have to eat an awful lot of vegetables and fruits to obtain even the daily minimal requirements of vitamin A, assuming optimal conversion.

But the transformation of carotene to retinol is rarely optimal. Diabetics and those with poor thyroid function, a group that includes at least half the adult US population, cannot make the conversion. Children make the conversion very poorly and infants not at all —they must obtain their precious stores of vitamin A from animal fats —yet the low-fat diet is often recommended for children.² Strenuous physical exercise, excessive consumption of alcohol, excessive consumption of iron (especially from “fortified” white flour and breakfast cereal), use of a number of popular drugs, excessive consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids, zinc deficiency and even cold weather can hinder the conversion of carotenes to vitamin A³, as does the low-fat diet.

Carotenes are converted by the action of bile salts, and very little bile reaches the intestine when a meal is low in fat. The epicure who puts butter on his vegetables and adds cream to his vegetable soup is wiser than he knows. Butterfat stimulates the secretion of bile needed to convert carotenes from vegetables into vitamin A and at the same time, supplies very easily absorbed true vitamin A. Polyunsaturated oils also stimulate the secretion of bile salts but can cause rapid destruction of carotene unless antioxidants are present.

It is very unwise, therefore, to depend on plant sources for vitamin A. This vital nutrient is needed for the growth and repair of body tissues; it helps protect mucous membranes of the mouth, nose, throat and lungs; it prompts the secretion of gastric juices necessary for proper digestion of protein; it helps to build strong bones and teeth and rich blood; it is essential for good eyesight; it aids in the production of RNA; and contributes to the health of the immune system. Vitamin A deficiency in pregnant mothers results in offspring with eye defects, displaced kidneys, harelip, cleft palate and abnormalities of the heart and larger blood vessels.

Nutrition pioneer Weston Price considered the fat soluble vitamins, especially vitamin A, to be the catalysts on which all other biological processes depend. Efficient mineral uptake and utilization of water-soluble vitamins require sufficient vitamin A in the diet. His research demonstrated that generous amounts of vitamin A insure healthy reproduction and offspring with attractive wide faces, straight teeth and strong sturdy bodies. He discovered that healthy primitives especially value vitamin-A-rich foods for growing children and pregnant mothers. Working in the 1930’s, he found that their diets contained ten times more vitamin A than the typical American diet of the time. This disparity is almost certainly greater today as Americans have forsworn butter and cod liver oil for foods based on polyunsaturated oils.

In third world communities that have come into contact with the West, vitamin A deficiencies are widespread and contribute to high infant mortality, blindness, stunting, bone deformities and susceptibility to infection.⁴ These occur even in communities that have access to plentiful carotenes in vegetables and fruits. Scarcity of good quality dairy products, a rejection of organ meats as old fashioned or unhealthful, and a substitution of vegetable oil for animal fat in cooking all contribute to the physical degeneration and suffering of third world peoples.

Supplies of vitamin A are so vital to human health that we are able to store large quantities of it in the liver and other organs. Thus it is possible to subsist on a diet low in animal fatfor a considerable period of time before overt symptoms of deficiency appear. But during times of stress, vitamin A stores are rapidly depleted. Strenuous physical exercise, periods of physical growth, pregnancy, lactation and infection are stresses that quickly deplete vitamin A stores. Children with measles rapidly use up vitamin A, often resulting in irreversible blindness. An interval of three years between pregnancies allows mothers to rebuild vitamin A stores so that subsequent children will not suffer diminished vitality.

One aspect of vitamin A that deserves more emphasis is its role in protein utilization. Kwashiorkor is as much a disease of vitamin A deficiency, leading to impaired protein absorption, as it is a result of absence of protein in the diet. High protein, lowfat diets in children induce rapid growth along with depletion of vitamin A supplies. The results —tall, myopic, lanky individuals with crowded teeth, and poor bone structure —are a fixture in America. Growing children actually benefit from a diet that contains more calories as fat than as protein.⁵ Such a diet, rich in vitamin A, will result in steady, even growth, a sturdy physique and high immunity to disease.

So it’s a bit embarrassing to the low-fat people, especially as the truth is beginning to come out, even in orthodox publications. A recent New York Times article noted that vitamin-A-rich foods like liver, egg yolk, cream and shellfish confer resistance to infectious diseases in children and prevent cancer in adults.⁶ A Washington Post article hailed vitamin A as “cheap and effective, with wonders still being (re)discovered,” noting that recent studies have found that vitamin A supplements help prevent infant mortality in third world counties, protect measles victims from severe complications and prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV virus.⁷ The article lists butter, egg yolk and liver as important sources of vitamin A but claims, unfortunately, that carotenes from vegetables are “equally important.” So vagueness about vitamin A continues, even among science writers.

Those familiar with the work of nutrition pioneer Weston Price are not so easily fooled. They know that vitamin-A-rich foods like liver, eggs, and cod liver oil are vital to good health. If you–or your children–don’t like liver, eggs and cod liver oil, don’t despair. Studies show that the best and most easily absorbed source of vitamin A is butterfat,⁸ a food relished by young and old alike. So use plenty of butter and cream from pasture-fed cows for good taste and wise nutritional practice.

Vitamin A Vagary was first published in the Price-Pottenger Health Journal. (619) 574-7763

Endnotes

1. Solomons, N.W., and Bulus, J., “Plant sources of provitamin A and human nutriture”, Nutrition Review, Springer Verlag New York, Inc., July 1993, v. 5 1, pp 199204.
2. Jennings, I.W., Vitamins in Endocrine Metabolism, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, Illinois.
3. Dunne, Lavon J., Nutrition Almanac, Third Edition, McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, 1990.
4. Solomons, Op. Cit.
5. Personal communications, Mary G. Enig, Ph.D.
6. Angler, Natalie, “Vitamins Win Support as Potent Agents of Health”, New York Times, March 10, 1992.
7. Brown, David, “It’s cheap and Effective, With Wonders Still Being (Re)discovered”, The Washington Post, November 7,1994.
8. Fraps, G.S., and Kermerer, A.R., “The relation of the Spectro Vitamin A and Carotene Content of Butter to its Vitamin A potency Measured by Biological Methods”, Texas Agricultural Bulletin, N.- 560, February 1938.

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