Goat Milk

Raw milk is a controversial topic with many advocates believing it is a healthy food, and many opponents believing it is dangerous. There are risks to consuming just about any food (whether immediate from contamination with pathogens or long-term from unhealthy processed foods). It is up to everyone to understand the risks and benefits of any particular food and make a decision as to what is best for their family.  Even though the Jonas family consumes raw goat milk, we do not believe that raw milk is right for everyone.

When it comes to dairy farms, there are two classifications - Grade A and Manufactured Grade (commonly referred to as Grade B).  Grade B means you can legally make and sell cheese and gelato.  Grade A means you can legally produce fluid milk products such as milk, chocolate milk, and yogurt in addition to cheese and gelato. We chose to get our Grade A license because, well... we're Goat Milk Stuff.  And that means people should be able to legally purchase goat milk from us, right?

In general, there is not a lot of research done on goat milk.  So when I discover scientific studies about goat milk I get excited.  In this study, the researchers concluded that goat milk is recommended for people who suffer from iron deficiency (caused by problems with their diet) because it can relieve or even possibly reverse the negative effects of iron deficiency on the human body.

Turning our raw goat milk into homemade yogurt is a great way to fill my children with healthy probiotics and boost their immune system. Unless you heat the milk to a very high temperature (to denature the proteins), heat the milk for an extended time period, or add powdered milk, most homemade yogurt will come out fairly runny. While this is great for smoothies, thicker greek-style yogurt is preferred in my family.

I am a big believer in using whole foods to keep our bodies healthy.  In this day of scary viruses, a healthy immune system is especially important.  One of the foods that the children make quite often is goat milk yogurt.  It is full of probiotics that helps to keep their gut (and hence their immune systems) healthy.  This is how we make consistently good goat milk yogurt at home.

Because we have a growing business, we always keep our goat herd slightly larger than we think it needs to be, just in case we have an unexpected growth spurt.  And because a few extra goats means some extra goat milk, we've become very adept at using goat milk in many ways.