Real Milk: A Trip to Mauthe Farms

  "We have never been on a vacation all together at the same time." Jamie Mauthe, of Mauthe Farms, told us in our recent interview.  This quote illustrates one of the many sacrifices small dairy farms must make in order to provide our community with their home grown products.  Set on 40 acres amid the quiet, woodsy town of Progress, MS, Mauthe Farms is one of few dairy farms of its kind left in the Southern area. An abundance of happy cows, who are mainly grass fed, supply the Mauthe family with the essential substance necessary for them to earn their living: milk.
  The Mauthe family has a long history in the milk business that stretches back to the 1930s in New Orleans when raw milk was delivered by truck in the lower 9th ward.  Nowadays, their products appear in markets such as The Crescent City Farmer's Market and Holly Grove.  However, despite their decades of hard work, farmer's markets in the New Orleans area are dying.  And unlike industrialized dairy farms that mass produce milk, family owned farms receive no health insurance or retirement fund.  They are truly on their own when it comes to funding and additional support.
  Our visit to Mauthe Farms was like stepping back in time to when quality food was a necessity in America.  The farm takes care of their cows and breeds them for longevity, with their average cow living to be around 11 years old, contrary to the current industry standard.  Industrialized cows live for a maximum of 4 years and spend their days chained to milking machines. This method of raising cows comes from a perspective based purely on profits and capital gains.  As Sarah said, "It's all about the dollar".  
  Another aspect of the current industry standard for milk involves the ultra pasteurization of milk which removes the enzymes necessary for digestion.  This renders many people lactose-intolerant.  As Mauthe farms uses a low heat pasteurization process, many lactose-intolerant people are able to digest their milk without any problems.  Jamie told us, "a man who had gone 50 years without drinking milk due to his lactose intolerance tried our milk and now buys several half-gallons from us a week".  This just goes to show how loving care, dedication and hard work form the true roots of dairy farming.
  To the Mauthe family, working on the farm is not a job, it is a way of life.  Our trip to their farm was an eye-opening experience and we believe every consumer should form the same connection to their local farms.  We, as a society, have lost our way when it comes to knowing and appreciating where our food comes from.  To know the Mauthe family and to see their farm is to know what real milk is.
  Consumers have every right to know where their food comes from and how it is produced.  We must take advantage of the information and wisdom that family owned farms provide.  Thank you so much to Mauthe Farms for providing our community with a healthy and safe source for REAL milk.  Don't just take our word for it, take a trip to Mauthe Farms or to one of the local markets and see for yourself.

From Dairy Farms to Nurseries: Taking A Closer Look at Breast Milk Production

Consuming countless vitamins, nutrients, and up to 10 billion live immune cells a day, there's no denying it: breastfed babies, of any mammalian species, get some of the most incredible nutrition around. But could it be that gender of your infant determines how much milk they're getting? In a recent study, published on PLOS One, on female lactating cows by Katie Hinde and several of her associates, it's been shown that the sex of the fetus, as well as other factors in utero, plays a large part in how much milk the mother produces for her young, as well as how much milk the mother will produce for any future pregnancies.

After studying over 2.39 million lactation records from 1.49 million dairy cows, it's been shown that heifers who, during their first pregnancy, gave birth to a daughter produced 1.6 percent more milk than they would have for a son. Interestingly enough, this bump up in production from the first female pregnancy was maintained for any future pregnancies, but the heifers who first gave birth to a son did not receive as high of a raise in milk production. Because on the dairy farms the female calves are taken away from their mothers soon after birth, it was noted that the overall boost in milk production must have come while the calf was in utero.

Other studies have shown that human mothers, in a similar sense, also produce more milk for their first born daughters than their sons. One reason for this could be the hormone estrogen, which is more abundant in the female fetus as well as the mother and could correlate to the boost in milk production. There are also many other physiological and hormonal factors that are involved in the production and nutrient content of breast milk, including the mother's gut bacteria and environmental exposure to pollution or toxins. Studies have shown that milk produced for a week old female newborn can be much different, in terms of nutrient and bacterial content as well as hormonal levels, than the breast milk produced for a ten month old male baby. It all depends on the individual needs and demands of the child in question.

Overall, the more time passes the more we realize that the differences between other species and ourselves, especially concerning our young, really aren't as glaring as we once thought. Being one of the most universal forms of nutrition, breast feeding has proven itself again and again to be incredibly adaptive and specific to the mother and child, whether they are human or not. The amazing specifications of breast milk will continue to be explored and studied as scientists yearn to understand the subtle physiological intricacies and factors that are involved in producing the most ancient life giving substance there is.