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I noticed that the Organic Pastures (raw dairy brand) kefir has no fat in it. Anyone know why that is? It's made from colostrum, which has a ton of fat, but yet the kefir doesn't. I mean, I can get fat from other sources without a problem. I'm just concerned that the product quality might be compromised if the fat was removed.

Hope that made sense. Thanks!

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Colostrum is high protien not high fat. They use the skim milk mixed with colostrum. This is probably in order to sell their skim milk which does not sell as well. Since the skim is basically a biproduct of butter and cream production, and many people who buy from them are followers of Weston A Price's traditional foods--meaning they want full fat milk...they are most likely trying to get rid of the extra skim by culturing it. I personally, just got some kefir grains and make my own from their whole milk. It tastes much better that way. (btw qephor is just an alternate spelling of kefir since the word originates from Russia using a different alphabet)

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Well the fat content in the organic pastures colostrum qephor is not listed on their website but I do happen to have a container which states 4 grams per serving of fat. Is that fat content too low still? Just checking to see if this product is worth buying again.

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I just checked my Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery plain unpasturized goat milk kefir and it has 9 grams of fat per 1 cup (6 grams saturated) and 25 mg cholesterol. Total carbs are listed as 11 grams, but due to the law that makes them state how much carbs are in it at processing, that is probably inaccurate as the cultures have probably eaten some of that sugar by now. SInce you can make kefir from fat free milk, that is probably what happened with yours. THey probably bowed to popular 'wisdom' that fat is bad and wanted to sell their product to those many who fear fat.

How do they get the fat out of the milk in the first place (before they use it to make kefir)? Apparently there are a variety of ways. Rumor has it that they often actually take all the fat out of all the milk using a heating centrifuge system that pasturizes at the same time, and then they add some of the fat back in to some of the milk according to the percentage of fat in the desired product, 1%, 2% etc. However, for unpasturized specialty products, methods may vary. Nowadays, I always get whole milk (if I am going to drink any, which I don't often) because when they take out the fat, they take out a lot of vitamins and many of those vitamins do not digest well when not ingested with fat anyway.
-Eva

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That makes a lot of sense. I was just confused because the product lists "raw colostrum and kefir grain cultures" as the only ingredients. Reduced fat dairy products say they are reduced fat on the label. – Susan Jul 19 2010 at 3:44
I suspect legally they do not have to tell you what they took out, only what is in there now. Most people will probably not realize that the loss of the fat is unnatural. They will just look at the fat content and most will think it's good that there is no fat. They will probably assume it's natural as long as the manufacturer does not draw attention to it by mentioning it, which apparently they did not. It's sad how much time I have to spend reading labels looking for such kinds of sneakiness! – Eva Jul 19 2010 at 4:59
Eva, how'd you get redwood's kefir in an unpasteurized form? Im in NYC and their kefir is indeed available but it is all pasteurized. I thought their site stated that they pasteurize everything too. Just wondering. – ben61820 Jul 19 2010 at 14:06
Ben, not sure, I just went to the store and bought it. I live in the San Diego area of California. I was reading the label to answer Susan's question. I don't have the bottle anymore now though. Next time I buy some, I'll check the back and make sure I didn't misread something. Now that you mention it, I do remember something about totally raw milk being illegal to sell, or something to that effect. – Eva Jul 19 2010 at 20:04

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