Future of (fresh) milk

[Susan]

While I can get raw milk without much trouble here, the common belief is that you risk your health if you drink it (without cooking it before). To an extent that I can not google "raw milk" and get reasonable results (there was a huge affair about two years ago where people died after eating cheese sold by a big supermarket. The supermarket and the media coverage sold the whole thing as "raw milk cheese scandal" even though the deadly cheese was NO raw milk cheese but pasteurized... I don't even want to say any more about that...).

Drinking raw milk seems to be more common among health conscious people in the US it seems to me? What are the benefits (compared to drinking fresh pasteurized milk)?

Nowadays it's even getting difficult to buy fresh milk in supermarkets, because it gets displaced by ESL milk silently.

[OakLeaf]

It's true raw milk can carry pathogens. So can raw vegetables (witness all the recent salmonella outbreaks) and meat - but no one is talking about banning sprouts, sushi, spinach or carpaccio. It's safe growing that really protects public health, but safe growing would mean a huge economic hit to the industrialized milk system, and they REALLY don't want to do that. Read about it some time, you may never consume store bought dairy products ever again.

You read a lot about theory, but as with everything related to food, there's so much suppression by industry that it's hard to know what's true. I'm sure there are a lot of people who compare industrialized, chemically grown, corn-fed and consequently antibiotic-laden, rBGH-enhanced pasteurized milk from the grocery store, with the raw milk they get from the grass-fed cows down the road, and that's obviously not a fair comparison.

All I know is that pasteurization changes the protein structure, it's proteins that trigger allergies, and I can handle raw dairy products much better than I can pasteurized. I'm still sensitive to raw cow's milk, but the reaction is much more muted than it is with pasteurized milk.



ETA: Susan, what is "ESL" milk? In the USA it stands for "English as a Second Language" and I don't think that's it.

[GLC1968]

Ditto everything that Oakleaf said about raw milk.

Personally, I think raw milk tastes better too, but that might just be my prejudice showing through.

I'm going to guess that ESL means 'extended shelf life' milk - like the Parmalat milk you can get here in the US.

[Tri Girl]

+1 Oakleaf.

During spring/summer months, I buy raw milk from the Farmer's Market. It's an illegal transaction in Oklahoma (you can only buy on the farm from the farmer- to transport it to the FM and sell it is illegal for the farmer- but he's in his 80's and says he's not going to stop until they throw him in jail).
I find it tastes better, although you have to shake it to mix the cream that rises to the top. The farmer said that in 60 years of selling his raw milk there was only one time he was investigated after someone got sick and said they bought raw milk from him. Turns out it was bacteria on the lettuce from a restaurant that got the little girl sick- not the raw milk.

My biologist friends tell me that I'm taking my health in my hands by drinking raw milk, but I feel that same way about ultra-pastuerized milk (highly processed milk that has chalk added back into it to give it it's white color).
And like Oak said- bacteria is found on raw vegetables, too. I think I'm fine.

[Susan]

Thank you for your explanations.

Sorry I thought it would be "ESL" milk in english too.

Raw milk is sold by farmers or in organic grocery stores, it's just plain milk as it comes out of the cow
Pasteurized milk gets heated to 75° (Celsius) for 30 seconds.
ESL milk gets filtered mechanically and heated to 85 to 120°. Is has an extended shelf life and is therefore favored by the supermarket-chains. It has no benefits for the customer (if you open it it lasts as long as ordinary milk) and some drawbacks.

There was something like a paradigm change some years ago. "Milk" used to be pasteurized. Then they introduced "longer fresh" (=ESL) milk. Nowadays you have to look very carefully because if the label says just "Milk" it's often really ESL milk. Pasteurized Milk now is sold as "Fresh milk". But ESL gets also sold as "Longer Fresh" or "Maxifresh". It's just very confusing and misleading.


Thats why I tried to find out more about raw milk. I buy raw milk at the organic grocery store now, but I pasteurize it at home.

What you said, Oakleaf, is so true:
"You read a lot about theory, but as with everything related to food, there's so much suppression by industry that it's hard to know what's true."
And it makes research hard.

[trista]

Drinking raw milk seems to be more common among health conscious people in the US it seems to me? What are the benefits (compared to drinking fresh pasteurized milk)?

We once had a really bad year where my hubby was hospitalized with pneumonia with pleurisy & fluid in the lungs, one of my daughters had pneumonia twice, and other random illnesses, so I started researching ways to boost our immunity. I came across a lot of information on raw milk and how the antibodies in it can help build your immune system (it's more complicated than that, but I am no scientist). I figured I'd give it a try. Since we started, no one in the house has been sick. It may be a coincidence, but I'm not going back to store-bought milk. There are long-term health effects to drinking raw milk as well.

Our cows are tested regularly and are only pasture-fed. The farm has a 100-yard perimeter of unused grass as a border, to keep out any possible non-organic matter from other farms. I have no concerns about pathogens in the milk.

[hebe]

I get pasteurised milk delivered to my doorstep by the local dairy. It comes in glass bottles which they take away again for re-use. I get quite annoyed about the amount of plastic waste generated by supermarkets who sell milk super-cheap to get people into the store.

I haven't had raw milk in ages, although it's not illegal here it's not widespread. I think I've seen it at supermarkets once or twice. I adore unpasteurised cheeses though and had a hard time in pregnancy giving up some of my favourites.