An e-mail about paneer and raw milk…

“Hi,I made paneer for the first time ever today. It didn’t seem to curdle in a large enough clump. Is there a recipe for how much milk to boil and how much lime juice to use?

Also, wondering about using organic raw milk, with any of the natural cow hormones, since I had estrogen-positive breast cancer five years ago and need to be careful about hormone intake.

Thank you for any help you can give. Laura”

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“Dear Laura: in general, raw milk will not contain any hormones that will imbalance your physiology unless the cow herders are injecting the cows with substances to increase the production of their milk. However, milk is considered estrogenic, but how your body responds to it also depends on the current state of your physiology. I would suggest you test things out on your end with hormonal panel tests and see how you are doing when consuming it. If you are consuming the raw milk in the form or paneer and/or yoghurt, then the estrogenic content is less of an issue. However, if you are looking to consume the milk as a drink, I suggest you boil the raw milk with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, black pepper. This may balance out the estrogenic effect of the milk

For one glass of raw milk add:

1 small stick of cinnamon,

4 crushed green cardamom pods,

2 thin slices of ginger,

6 crushed black peppercorns.

 Boil and filter, cool off to room temperature and consume.

In general, raw milk does not and should not contain any additives and the cows it comes from should have been treated more humanely than not. But it does not hurt to check with the providers to make sure they are not injecting additional hormones into the cows as well.

As for making fresh paneer with 1 gallon of raw milk, bring to a boil and then lower the heat, squeeze in 2 oz of lime juice and boil for another 3-5 minutes until it curdles. At this point, your milk should curdle into big clumps of paneer surrounded by a clear yellow water – whey water. Filter the mixture by pouring into a cheese cloth. Tie it up and strain it so when it dries you can slice or cube it. Keep in your refrigerator – it is good to consume for up to 5 days.”