Today started my fourth day on the all raw milk diet! I have to admit, I'm really having fun with this and I'm not at all tired of my beloved raw milk yet. Heck, maybe I can be one of those folks who survives on raw milk for years... but I'd better not get ahead of myself here. For one thing, I am totally snowed in today. Roads where I live are steep and curvy... and in Alabama there's nary a snow tire in sight and frankly we Southerners all get the heebie-jeebies when more than an inch of snow shows up. I only have one gallon of raw milk left right now - just enough to get me through the day (if I deny my children any access to it, and that's just cruel). If I play it completely safe, I won't be going anywhere until tomorrow afternoon or even Wednesday. So, from what I see I have three choices:
1. Ration my milk and basically go on an unwanted low-calorie milk diet. I have a severe aversion to calorie restriction (plus I get so darn moody if I'm not eating enough). I don't really like this option.
2. Brave the snowy roads and possibly plummet to my death off the side of a mountain in an attempt to go pick up my milk. Okay, I'm not too much of a fan of this one, either... but the sun is out and things are starting to look melty, so maybe it will be safer soon (especially if the ever-so-slow local road crews actually get in to sand the roads).
3. Break my milk diet for a couple meals until I can go pick up my milk. Believe it or not, I am so darn headstrong that this option is actually the least attractive to me. I'm totally into this right now, and I'd hate to have to cheat when I really don't even want to.
So, anyway, while I'm debating this, here's the rest of this morning's post:
The milk diet (or milk cure, as it's also known) is pretty obscure, even in the real food community. So if any of you are wondering about it, I want to point you toward some different sources that helped me figure out the why and how of doing a milk diet:
Milk-Diet.com is a great place to start. Especially useful is a free online copy of Bernarr MacFadden's The Milk Diet: How to Use the Milk Diet Scientifically at Home. You can read it online here. This book is quite interesting. I've read through it once and will be doing so again soon.
Milk Diet As A Remedy For Chronic Disease by Charles Sanford Porter, M.D is the next stop if you're seriously interested in learning about the history of the milk diet. You can download a free copy here, but you can also purchase the book on Amazon if you want a copy you can hold in your hands. Coupled with Mac Fadden's book, you've got your basics covered. Now, these books are old - both were written nearly a century ago. I personally love oldies but goodies like these. The language and style take you right back into a simpler time when raw milk was still a staple in most American homes. Some might consider these texts dated, but to me they are unearthed treasures.
The Raw Milk Diet: A Physician’s Experience With Real Healing is a great post which discusses Porter's work and also details two personal stories about benefits received from going on a raw milk diet.
This post at the Nutrition and Physical Regeneration blog covers a great article written by Dr. J. R. Crewe of the Mayo Foundation about the milk cure. It's a great read, plus you can find some discussion about the milk diet between myself and webmaster Michael in the comments.
Want more information about raw milk? Look no further:
- Realmilk.com is the mother of all raw milk resources. Not only can you read plenty of informational articles about the benefits of raw milk, you can also find local suppliers of raw milk if you're interested.
- I was so excited to see a post about my raw milk diet experiment at The Bovine, a great blog devoted to sharing information about raw milk and our rights to access this incredibly nourishing food.
Stay tuned this week for posts on the benefits I hope to receive with the milk diet, and also whether or not the milk diet should be used for weight loss. And I'll also be posting a podcast or two this week to keep you updated on how I'm doing on the milk diet.
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