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I'm one of those whose childhood was spent in the pre-pasteurization period at least in southern New Hampshire. The risk of an acute infection is quite low, but there's lots of other bacteria that can give you some stomach problems. I don't drink milk any more, but I wouldn't be afraid to try it.
But adults can usually eat it without problems. Parents are feeding their children raw milk based on the misconception that it is healthier. It's not.
Through high school and college I worked in the restaurant world. Since I was eventually in a management position I had to do one of those week long food safety certification programs. More people get violently ill every year from a lack of hand washing and proper sanitation than a quadrupling of raw milk sales could ever accomplish. 4 years ago 30 people died from eating cantaloupes. We're not banning restaurants or fruit now, are we?
Raw milk is perfectly legal in Pennsylvania, California, and a few other states and is readily available in any specialty store. It comes with the same warnings as honey, bigger actually, some version of:
"do not feed raw milk to infants."
I've had raw milk before. I've had a lot of cheese made from raw dairy as well. But I also have young children so it's not something I leave in the fridge. It doesn't mean that other people shouldn't be allowed to - just like we let responsible adults buy honey, or beer or cigarettes or soy milk. Yeah, some idiots will give them to their kids and those idiots should be punished.
I understand with the way animals are now mass-produced and treated with a plethora of antibiotics, growth hormones, and other nasty things that we need to be careful. I'm living in an area where healthy living is promoted. So, I have learned to selectively trust the locally-produced milk products that are fortunately not cooked white water. Ugh, what an image.
The issue is not what it's in the cow but what's on the cow. As I understand it milk straight from the cow, any cow, has a bacteria count of 0. Once it leaves the udder is when contamination occurs; dirty hands, the udder on the cow, equipment etc. The milk itself is perfect medium for bacterial growth. There is many paths for bacteria to make it's way into the milk and even if the farmer is doing everything they are supposed to you're going to have cases of contaminated milk.
The issue is not what it's in the cow but what's on the cow. As I understand it milk straight from the cow, any cow, has a bacteria count of 0. Once it leaves the udder is when contamination occurs; dirty hands, the udder on the cow, equipment etc. The milk itself is perfect medium for bacterial growth. There is many paths for bacteria to make it's way into the milk and even if the farmer is doing everything they are supposed to you're going to have cases of contaminated milk.
No, the milk can be contaminated by bacteria from an infected udder, and the cow may seem perfectly healthy.
Through high school and college I worked in the restaurant world. Since I was eventually in a management position I had to do one of those week long food safety certification programs. More people get violently ill every year from a lack of hand washing and proper sanitation than a quadrupling of raw milk sales could ever accomplish. 4 years ago 30 people died from eating cantaloupes. We're not banning restaurants or fruit now, are we?
Raw milk is perfectly legal in Pennsylvania, California, and a few other states and is readily available in any specialty store. It comes with the same warnings as honey, bigger actually, some version of:
"do not feed raw milk to infants."
I've had raw milk before. I've had a lot of cheese made from raw dairy as well. But I also have young children so it's not something I leave in the fridge. It doesn't mean that other people shouldn't be allowed to - just like we let responsible adults buy honey, or beer or cigarettes or soy milk. Yeah, some idiots will give them to their kids and those idiots should be punished.
But the discussion should begin and end there.
How should they be punished? The people who buy it do so because they are convinced it is "healthier". The internet sites pushing raw milk are telling folks the risk of getting sick is one in six million when it is closer to one in six. If they have kids, they feed it to the kids.
The best thing to do with a loaded gun is to not hand it to someone who does not know how to handle it safely.
Pasteurized milk that you buy at the store gets tested at the farm as it comes from each cow because the farmer does not want to lose his entire milk shipment. The shipment is checked at the dairy co-op before it even leaves the truck because the coop does not to contaminate all its milk and all its processing equipment. Only then does the milk get processed, including pasteruizing. The milk plant (co-op) is regularly inspected by the county and/or health inspectors.
That's the hooker, isn't it? Some bacteria are expected to be in milk headed for pasteurization. If the raw milk did not potentially contain organisms that could cause illness, there would be no need to pasteurize it.
Those same bacteria are in raw milk consumed raw. There is no way (short of testing each milking) to know what is in it, and no one is inspecting it.
Oh, the joys of sweet cream butter from raw milk!! Oh, to experience it again!
I grew up in dairy farm land in Upstate NY.
We also had a ceramic butter churn for decoration in the LR. My mother wanted to know how to churn butter from my g-mother, who said she'd demonstrate if we could get raw milk {homo/pasteurized sold inteh stores won't work for churning butter, althought I had heard if you add something to it, you can approximate churned butter if you care for it}.
SO {this was the late 70s} my mother asked a nearby farmer we "knew" about getting some. SHe said is WAS illegal, BUT if there were milk jugs on a certain back stoop a the barn that were *magically filled and disappeared* and she knew not where it went or what happened it it after the 4 pm milking, there might be some chance of getting some.
So it appeared on our kitchen table after a trip to the barn stoop! 4 gallons of it.
We let the cream rise for some rising cream butter spread, and we made churned butter {took all 5 of us turns at hand churning}.
BOY OH BOY! THAt was the BEST DARNED Sweet cream churned butter I ever done tasted!
OH, how I'd love to have that again! I'd even sit and churn for the hour it took {IIRC}
Yum!
ANd NO, it did NOT make us sick!!!!
Where can I get some raw milk?
When the bulk milk trucks used to come to the farms the trucks had baffles in them to reduce sloshing of the cargo. Butter would accumulate on the baffles and the guy who cleaned the trucks got a few pounds every day. It was wonderful sweet cream butter - unsalted.
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Add me to the list of people who think we should return raw milk cheeses to markets, and reduce restrictions on raw milk sales. I would like to better understand why European countries seem to manage the issue without significant problems while the US is unable.
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and she knew not where it went or what happened it it after the 4 pm milking, there might be some chance of getting some.
