This morning I saw that Sarah at The Healthy Home Economist was writing about the wonder of rapidly growing spring grass. She tells how the color of her grassfed milk changes to a darker beige as the cows feed on the vitamin rich new spring grass.
We switched to raw dairy at the end of this past summer and I read Nutrition and Physical Generation just a few months ago, in the middle of winter. Weston Price tells of the isolated Swiss who regard the milk they harvest during the spring as a sacred food, thanking God for providing them with the means to make nourishing cheese that will sustain their families through the year. After analyzing butter made from spring milk, he found that it had a special, uniquely vital component that he called "Activator X". I think I saw somewhere else that this turns out to be vitamin K2. Price used butter oil from spring butter as a supplement for undernourished children and now I give my own children this same butter oil, mixed with fermented cod liver oil.
Late last summer I switched to raw, grassfed milk, butter, and cheese because I wanted to provide my children with optimal nutrition. Since it was the middle of winter (and the cows were eating hay) when I was learning about the special properties of raw dairy harvested in the early spring, I felt a little frustrated that I would have to wait to see that subtle color change. I bought grassfed butter that was a pale, off white color but made a plan in my own mind that when spring arrived and the butter turned yellow, I would buy as much of it as I could and store it in my freezer to use year round. Since then, I have lost my original source of butter and need to find a new one (I still have butter in my freezer, so it hasn't been at the top of my list).
Perhaps this spring I'll try making butter myself, using the grassfed raw milk I get from Carlton Farms. If I do, I will be sure to tell you about the experiment and the results.
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