Cream top, low pasteurized milk? Here's what to know - and why you'll love it.

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May 27, 2024

“Tell me about your milk.” That’s one of the first things I hear when customers walk into our farm store on Saturdays and see it lining the refrigerator shelves.

The next thing I might hear? “I tried your milk last time, and it was amazing. I’m back for more!”

Our milk from Ran-Lew Dairy is one of our top five best-selling items – because it’s different. So when someone asks me to tell them about our dairy, I have a lot to say!

One of the first things I could say? This is milk – like it used to be.

Ran-Lew Dairy is one of the last small dairies left in our region in North Carolina. It’s truly a family-run dairy – Randy (a fifth-generation farmer), his wife, and the handful of employees that help them.

It’s not owned by a big corporation pretending to be a “family farm”. The dairy produces and bottles the milk right on the farm. And because of this, they can produce some of the best milk possible.

Ran-Lew’s milk is cream-top, low-pasteurized milk. This means that you have to shake it up, quite a bit, before you drink it. The official name for this is non-homogenized– and there’s an important reason for this.

When milk is homogenized, its molecular structure is changed to prevent the cream from separating. Although this can make it more convenient to drink, it also often makes it harder to digest. (Read our blog to learn more about this!)

This means that preserving the cream-top quality of milk isn't just an aesthetic decision, or a way to stir up nostalgia. It's an important nutritional decision. Keeping milk cream-top allows our bodies to absorb and digest milk, in its natural form.

Ran-Lew's milk is also different because it is low pasteurized. It's heated to a low temperature, very slowly, to kill harmful pathogenic bacteria while also preserving most of the beneficial bacteria and nutrients.

Low pasteurization not only protects the natural protein structure of milk, but also the vitamins and minerals within it. There's no need for synthetic additives - just what the cows naturally give the milk through grazing.

And our partnership with Ran-Lew Dairy preserves a local connection with dairy farmers, too.

It wasn’t that long ago that fresh milk was delivered to your door by the farmer, or a partner that helped them distribute it. This way, the consumer received the freshest, most nutritious product, and that the farmer didn’t let their perishable products go to waste.

We go to the dairy every week to purchase fresh milk and bring it to your door. This partnership ensures that you’ll receive high-quality milk that will last a long time with excellent nutritional benefits.

But it also means that one of the last family dairies in our geographic region can continue to survive.

Without small partnerships like ours, farmers find it increasingly difficult to distribute their food. Stores that will sell this milk are few. Providing home delivery, whether that’s through farm driver delivery or shipping, is out of the question for many farms.

By partnering together, we create a more resilient system.

On our farm, we're able to access milk that we simply don’t have the land, expertise, or wisdom to produce on our own. Ran-Lew Dairy can deliver the milk directly to a larger community. And you can source milk that’s truly small-scale, wholesome, and delicious.

Small partnerships like these have been the backbone of traditional agricultural practices and farms for hundreds of years. We’re happy to continue the legacy by offering Ran-Lew milk.

And if you haven’t tried the milk yet? You should. Our customers tell us all the time – it’s amazing.

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Can we care about animals - and still raise them for food?

I probably spend the most time with the pigs on our farm. Part of this is practical: since pigs can’t sweat, we spray them down twice a day to help them wallow in the mud and stay cool. But part of it is emotional, too. I enjoy being around the pigs. When there’s a lot on my mind, or I’ve spent too much time on the computer and need to get outside, wandering over to that week’s pig paddock is one of the ways I can clear my mind. Pigs are highly emotive and responsive. When I spray them down with the hose, they like to sit back on their haunches, prick back their ears, and snap playfully at the water as it showers down on them. And then joyfully roll around in the mud afterward, of course. But they’re responsive to humans in general, too. They are naturally curious and, in the case of our heritage breed Red Wattles, gentle. They’ll come up and sniff you, rub their mud-streaked bellies over you, and let you scratch their ears. And maybe this is the part where you start to wonder: But aren’t you raising them for food? Why would you want an emotional connection to an animal that you are raising for food? I understand where this question is coming from. I was a vegetarian for nearly a decade because I didn’t like the thought of killing animals, especially within the framework of our industrial food system. But actually, it isn’t a problem or moral quandary for me. Yes, we grow fond of and attached to our animals, including our pigs. Yes, we still send them to the butcher or process them on our farm for food. And yes, this still makes sense to me. I would gently suggest that the idea that we shouldn’t have any emotional connection to our food - that we can only eat meat that comes from animals we withhold our emotions or affection from - is a sign of our disconnection to the way food is grown. That is, after all, one of the premises of industrial agriculture. Designate animals with one sole purpose - “becoming food” - and then shut them away in buildings, cramped quarters, or far away from humans who might interact with them beyond the farmer. And the farmer, too, should be as disconnected as possible. After all, this is an efficient machine. The problem, from a regenerative perspective, is that growing food is never just about growing food. Food is the gift you receive at the end of your work, but it’s the work itself - and the consequences of the work beyond the food - that is the point. The work, on our farm, is caring for the land. That means working alongside animals to nurture native plants, clear forest areas to make existing trees healthier, and create habitats for birds, pollinators, and wildlife. And that means becoming attentive and thoughtful - to animals and to the land. Watching, learning, and yes, developing bonds with the habitats you’re nurturing and the animals that are helping you do so. Is it sad to load up animals and take them to the butcher at the end of the season? Yes, it often can be. But I don’t feel guilty about it. I know that we’ve given them the best life possible, and that we’ve partnered with them to leave our farm better than we found it each year. And if that doesn’t make sense, that’s okay. I’m not saying that everyone has to agree with me. I’d simply like to advocate for a way of farming and consuming meat that includes this experience - one of affection and bonding between animals and humans. After all, this is one of the many ways we try to do things differently on our farm. We don’t want to just provide you with food that meets your standards - non-GMO, no vaccines, no antibiotics, grass-fed and pasture-raised. We also want to help you reconnect with that food. And part of that is knowing the animals, hearing stories about them, and yes, maybe even having an emotional connection with them, despite the end goal of providing meat to you.

Cream top, low pasteurized milk? Here's what to know - and why you'll love it.

More from the blog

Why should we care if grass-fed beef is grown in America, anyway?

Can we care about animals - and still raise them for food?

Know your beef farmer - and stock up on grass-fed and grass-finished beef you can trust.

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