"As a taxpayer who foots the bill for research and health policy in america, you deserve to know that many of the common notions you have been told about food, health, and disease are wrong. I propose to do nothing less than redefine what we we think of as good nutrition. You need to know the truth about food, and why eating the right way can save your life...In this project I uncovered a dark secret. People who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease, People who ate the most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease. These results could not be ignored"
A Delicate Balance, View the full movie
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Somatic cell count (SCC) is an indicator of the quality of milk. Somatic cells are leukocytes (white blood cells). The number of somatic cells increases in response to bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus, a cause of mastitis. The SCC is quantified as cells per ml. General agreement rests on the values of less than 100,000 cells/ml for uninfected cows and greater than 300,000 for cows infected with significant pathogens. The California mastitis test provides a cow-side measure of somatic cell count. The somatic cell count in the milk also increases after calving when colostrum is produced. So, yes your milk has no less that 100,000 white blood cells, pus and mucous. Did you know that each cow is not individually tested? This is because testing of individual animals at each milking would be expensive, but it also means that milk from a sick cow is diluted and averaged down by the healthy animals. The huge bulk tanks at very large commercial farms are accommodating of more sick animals in the herd, without the sick animals affecting the overall milk quality rating. However many different state and governmental agencies (including FDA) inspect each load of milk delivered to the processing facility as well as the processing facilities themselves to ensure that all milk processed through those facilities is safe for all consumers.
