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Raw milk CAN be dangerous if not handled properly.
The key is to know your farmer.
That's a ridiculous fallacy, how does knowing the farmer reduce bacteria. You can't see Coxiella burnetii, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, Listeria, Campylobacter or Coxiella
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Originally Posted by gwynedd1
Why sell raw chicken? Shouldn't that and eggs be precooked? Shouldn't it all be safe?
What? Your post makes no sense. Do you ingest uncooked chicken and eggs?
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Originally Posted by pknopp
LOL, it's a wonder the human race ever survived. It's actually more of a surprise to me today than back when everyone drank raw milk.
Ummmm, people have been boiling milk for centuries. Guess why? Because drinking raw milk made them sick. Even in the most remote corners of the earth people boil milk.
ummmm, people have been boiling milk for centuries. Guess why? Because drinking raw milk made them sick. Even in the most remote corners of the earth people boil milk.
That's a ridiculous fallacy, how does knowing the farmer reduce bacteria. You can't see Coxiella burnetii, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, Listeria, Campylobacter or Coxiella
What? Your post makes no sense. Do you ingest uncooked chicken and eggs?
Ummmm, people have been boiling milk for centuries. Guess why? Because drinking raw milk made them sick. Even in the most remote corners of the earth people boil milk.
So why not sell it raw? As long as someone knows what they are buying.
If somebody wants to boil it they can. Nowadays, the whole process is much more modernized. This isn't the early 1900's.
Interesting info. http://www.raw-milk-facts.com/raw_milk_safety.html
quote:
Pasteurized milk still sickens people, and in far greater numbers than the more heavily regulated raw product (5). The real question ought to be, how are pathogens getting anywhere near cows to begin with.
The Swedes have practically eliminated Salmonella from their herds. At one dairy feeding organic grass to their cows, the very manure is pathogen-free (6)!
Raw milk from cows fed diets heavy in grain (7), soybeans (8) and cottonseed meal (9), etc., apparently cannot effectively protect itself from pathogenic infection. Everyone agrees, it must be pasteurized.
So why not sell it raw? As long as someone knows what they are buying.
If somebody wants to boil it they can. Nowadays, the whole process is much more modernized. This isn't the early 1900's.
Seriously? Because many raw-milk proponents refuse to educate themselves using variety of unbiased sources. The pro-raw milk sites are nototrious for distorting facts. Point in case below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CDusr
Interesting info. Raw Milk Safety
quote: Pasteurized milk still sickens people, and in far greater numbers than the more heavily regulated raw product (5). The real question ought to be, how are pathogens getting anywhere near cows to begin with.
Sorry, but this statement is disingenuous. One has to compare consumers of raw vs. pasteurized not numbers overall. And raw product is not heavily regulated, as most is sold illegally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CDusr
The Swedes have practically eliminated Salmonella from their herds. At one dairy feeding organic grass to their cows, the very manure is pathogen-free (6)!
Raw milk from cows fed diets heavy in grain (7), soybeans (8) and cottonseed meal (9), etc., apparently cannot effectively protect itself from pathogenic infection. Everyone agrees, it must be pasteurized.
Interesting. But the probability of contamination remains high, that's the big problem.
That's a ridiculous fallacy, how does knowing the farmer reduce bacteria. You can't see Coxiella burnetii, Listeria monocytogenes, E. coli, Listeria, Campylobacter or Coxiella
Actually, knowing your farmer, while not being able to reduce the risk of bacteria completely, does help.
Knowing what kind of conditions their animals are kept in, the cleaning and sterilization practices of their machinery (if they don't milk by hand), how they wash and sterilize the rest of their equipment (bottles, pails, etc.), and their cooling procedures can make a difference.
If you've got cows (or goats) standing up to their udders in muck all day long, do you really want to buy that milk?
Several years ago, a number of people (most of them children) got sick drinking raw milk from a dairy in Oregon. This dairy got around the regulations by selling on "herd shares."
I saw pictures of the conditions those cows were kept in and it wasn't pretty. Granted, this is in the Pacific Northwest, and mud is unavoidable six to nine months out of the year, but what those cows stood knee-deep in in their barn was not mud. Seriously, I would not have bought milk from those cows - no way.
Some stuff getting into the milk is unavoidable. I just milk one goat (sometimes two) and I milk through a strainer, into a stainless steel pail that has been sterilized with boiling water just before milking. I bring the milk into the house and I strain it again into a sterilized glass jar - and sometimes I still have to pick an occasional speck of something out of the milk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CDusr
So why not sell it raw? As long as someone knows what they are buying.
If somebody wants to boil it they can. Nowadays, the whole process is much more modernized. This isn't the early 1900's.
Interesting info. Raw Milk Safety
quote:
Pasteurized milk still sickens people, and in far greater numbers than the more heavily regulated raw product (5). The real question ought to be, how are pathogens getting anywhere near cows to begin with.
The Swedes have practically eliminated Salmonella from their herds. At one dairy feeding organic grass to their cows, the very manure is pathogen-free (6)!
Raw milk from cows fed diets heavy in grain (7), soybeans (8) and cottonseed meal (9), etc., apparently cannot effectively protect itself from pathogenic infection. Everyone agrees, it must be pasteurized.
Again, knowing your farmer does help.
It is actually quite easy to pasteurize milk without a pasteurizer.
Quote:
Mumbai, India It’s actually very easy to pasteurize your own milk on the stovetop. An added bonus is that your milk won’t need to stand up to long distance shipping and prolonged storage, so you can pasteurize it safely using lower heat and less time than many industrial milk producers use. All you need is a stainless steel pot and a simple kitchen thermometer. Just follow these simple steps for home pasteurization:
Pour the raw milk into the stainless steel pot. If you have a double boiler, that will work even better to keep the milk from scalding. If you don’t have a double boiler, you can put one stainless steel pot inside a larger pot with a few inches of water at the bottom. If you can’t achieve this setup, then you’ll just need to be careful to heat the milk gently.
Slowly heat the milk to 145 degrees Fahrenheit, stirring occasionally. If you are not using a double boiler, stir frequently to avoid scalding the milk.
Hold the temperature at 145 F for exactly 30 minutes. You may need to increase and decrease the heat to keep the temperature constant.
Remove the pot of milk from the heat and place it in a sink or large bowl filled with ice water. Stir constantly until the temperature drops to 40 F.
There is another, quicker way to do it, too. I'm not going to look it up, but if I remember correctly, you can heat it to a higher temperature (168 degrees, I think), and hold it at that for fifteen minutes, cutting the time in half.
Again, though, I prefer my milk raw so I don't pasteurize at all - except when I make yogurt because that ends up being part of the yogurt-making process. There are methods for making yogurt without pre-heating the milk, but I haven't had much luck getting the yogurt to set using those.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zimbochick
Sorry, but this statement is disingenuous. One has to compare consumers of raw vs. pasteurized not numbers overall. And raw product is not heavily regulated, as most is sold illegally.
My friend sells raw milk and is pretty heavily inspected so that she can sell legally.
She also carries "raw milk insurance," which costs her a pretty penny - just in case (kind of like doctor's malpractice insurance, I guess). She has never had a consumer get sick from her milk, though.
I guess my opinion is that raw milk should be legal - but caveat emptor ("buyer beware"). Know your farmer; know what kind of conditions the animals are kept in and the milking practices and how the milk is handled.
Personally, knowing what I do now, I would not buy from just anybody. I wouldn't hesitate to buy from my friend with the licensed raw milk dairy, though - if I could afford the $9.00 a gallon.
Although, actually, as I was typing the last two paragraphs, it occurred to me that if they made raw milk sales legal, it would probably put people like my friend out of business. It costs her a lot of money to sell raw milk legally, and if you've got a bunch of people out there selling milk, without having been inspected, for five bucks a gallon because they don't have those expenses, it could very well hurt those who are conscientious and who do what they have to do to ensure they are selling a safe product. So............
One can find where bad things happen with everything.
CHICAGO, April 16— A dairy linked to one of the nation's largest outbreaks of salmonella poisoning produced tainted milk one week after it was identified as the source of the outbreak and one day before it was shut down, Illinois officials said.
About 6,644 cases of samonella poisoning have been reported and 5,295 have been confirmed in five states, most of them in Illinois, according to Jeremy Margolis, the acting Illinois public health director. At least nine deaths have been linked to the outbreak. The other states affected by the outbreak are Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Mr. Margolis said that tests have uncovered contamination in two batches of milk processed April 8 at the Hillfarm Dairy in Melrose Park, Ill. The Hillfarm skim milk and 2 percent milk both had April 17 expiration dates.
On April 1, state officials confirmed an outbreak of salmonella, traced to Bluebrook 2 percent milk with an expiration date of March 29. Bluebrook is a brand produced by Hillfarm, which is owned by the Jewel Company.
SHREWSBURY - Two people have died and two more have become ill since June from milk tainted with listeria bacteria from Whittier Farm - a dairy that has stores in Shrewsbury and Sutton, according to state officials.
The Department of Public Health issued a warning yesterday, encouraging consumers to toss any Whittier milk products.
Brand names produced at the farm include Whittier, Schultz, Balance Rock, Spring Brook, and Maple. Those products are delivered - in some cases in old-fashioned glass bottles - to homes throughout Greater Worcester, according to the farm's Web site.
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A little sanity in the INSANE world of agricultural monopoly.
