Would you drink raw milk?
Day three at my food journalism conference at MIT in Boston. One of the hot topics that arose yesterday was raw milk – a topic that generates intense passions.
It just so happens my fellow Fellow here, Maureen O’Hagan (above), just wrote a story about it. We’ve reported on raw milk occasionally, most recently here at The Inbox about a controversy in Canada.
Former Cornell University researcher Joseph Hotchkiss was telling us yesterday that pasteurization massively reduced infant mortality beginning in the early 20th century. It became national law in 1948. Hotchkiss repeated an oft-used quote on the subject – drinking raw milk – even today – is “like playing Russian roulette” because of potential exposure to E Coli, salmonella, listeria, etc.
Yet there’s a very passionate pro-raw milk movement. You can buy raw milk from farmers in New York, but not in stores. Next week, you’ll hear from farmers Ray and Stephanie Hill at Windy Ridge dairy in West Potsdam. They sell raw milk and swear by it.
The days of room temperature milk being transported on trains to New York City – spoiling and acquiring disease as it travels – are long gone. Is it time to revisit the hard-line stance on pasteurization in this country?
Would you – do you – drink raw milk? If you do and love it, or, if you have and got sick from it, please e-mail me – david-at-ncpr-dot-org – I’d love to talk with you.
Raised on it.
I currently drive an hour one-way to purchase raw milk and wish it could be sold in stores. I completely trust the farm where I purchase it and have seen many benefits in both myself and my children. It is so much healthier for our bodies!
Anon– would you send me an email so I can ask you some more?s. Thanks– david
Back in my communal days in the 1970s, we would buy raw milk from the farm down the road. In order to stretch the collective food dollar, we would cut it half with non-fat dry milk. Had we only known (and patented the notion) we were the inventors of 2% milk.
Many moons ago I had some fresh cheese curd made from raw milk. It was the best curd I ever had and didn't make me sick. It was illegal though for them to sell it without aging it first and I could only get it through a friend who the cheese makers knew wouldn't report them.Although it was excellent and I would buy it fresh if I could get it from a source I trusted I would not support making it generally available through supermarkets, etc. The mass food distribution system is too prone to the kind of problems pasteurization is meant to combat.
Go for it. Put raw milk back on the market. While we're at it we can do away with all public health controls. Heck, do away with required immunizations also. What has public health ever done for us?
i find myself quite sympathetic to raw milk, mostly on grounds of deliciousness, but i certainly think the safety issue has to be confronted. not to sound horribly naive, but there must be some reasonable compromises out there, right?
f all the truly seismic shifts transforming daily life today — deeper than our financial fissures, wider even than our most obvious political and cultural divides — one of the most important is also among the least remarked. That is the chasm in attitude that separates almost all of us living in the West today from almost all of our ancestors, over two things without which human beings cannot exist: food and sex. The question before us today is not whether the two appetites are closely connected. About that much, philosophers and other commentators have been agreed for a very long time. What happens when, for the first time in history, adult human beings are free to have all the sex and food they want?http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/38245724.htmlI mentioned this in another post the other day. it's a fascinating read.
My post, above, should have quotation marks around those first two paragraphs. i apologize.
I am a Raw Milk drinker from British Columbia, Canada – currently our cow share program (the only way that stepped around the law of selling as we are part owners of the herd) is embroiled in a major legal battle. The Fraser Health Authority is fighting us on the grounds that there 'might' be a risk – however, where is the scrutiny of alcohol, cigarettes, bagged salad and thousands of contaminated foods which are under recall with REAL risks instead of unfounded ones (the BC case 'might' have one but there is no backing evidence and much prejudiced on the issue) – we go well out of our way to acquire this product – for me it has limited my colds and lessened the impact of them if i got them at all. I believe the government has no right to tell me what I can't or cannot eat or drink.
We have cows in the western suburbs of Chicago. We are the only ones in this area. We have grown from one cow to 10 in a little over a year. Just from our growth you can see what people want! People are tired of processed foods that make our children sick. all of my children were raised on. we rarely go to the doctor or get sick. People are trying to get back to the grassroots of good food, produced locally!
Our family drinks nearly 5 gallons of raw milk every week. No health problems to report, if anything I think my digestion has improved since we started consuming raw milk about 4 years ago, possibly because the "good bacteria" in milk hasn't been killed.In the early 1900s I think there were a lot of problems in cities with raw milk, due to confined cows, workers with TB, poor sanitation, etc.Now that food science has improved, it's easier to understand how raw milk can become contaminated and its easier to detect sick cows before they spread diseases to humans — with that knowledge farmers and milk handlers can produce and handle milk more safely than ever before.I am concerned, however, about so-called "super E.coli" produced in cows that are fed a heavy grain diet. Confined feedlot cows, for example, have serious health issues held at bay only through the heavy use of antibiotics. I think Diary cows primarily fed grain and corn are more susceptible to diseases as well, so I would not want to drink raw milk from such cows.Getting to know and buying directly from your local farmer is the best way to improve the resilience of our food system, that includes milk, raw or processed!Btw, raw milk farmers have to follow MORE regulations and have more testing than non-raw milk producers. You can Read the NYS Dairy regulations
In a country that values freedom (or the perception of freedom) why not – it is personal choicelike smoking…like drinking…like assisted suicide…like abortion…foodborne illness is on par with respiratory illness – deaths are much lowermore people – die in accidentsdie by sucicidedie by murderthan die from foodbut when my governement tells me I must not do something that I currently do then its time to burn tea!
I don't drink milk, so this doesn't matter to me, but I'm skeptical about the myriad of benefits ascribed to raw milk. Studies over many years have found raw and pasteurized milk to be virtually identical nutritionally. I have read a number of articles put out by the Weston Price Foundation – I urge you to take their claims with a grain of salt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weston_PriceGood overview of Price. He was a dentist who traveled in indigenous cultures during the 1930s. He saw healthy people and attributed their health to their native diets; he combined his ideas into an idiosyncratic theory of diet-related health. In 1999 a foundation was formed to disseminate his ideas, which largely accounts for the current interest in raw milk. However, the basis for his theories have never been scientifically assessed.
Got runs?
I drink raw milk but also agree that there is a lot of politics envolved with it like in anything else. That being said I am a believer in nature and that it knows best. So when you take nature and process it there is NO way it can be as healthy, no matter how many vitamins you put in it. Think of it this way when your camping and run out of clean water you can boil some water to "clean" it (boiling out impurities). Same thing when you pasteurize milk. As far as production and standards as to not receiving contaminated milk go, how bout mom & pop make their way bake to their shops. Smaller dairies = better product = healthier people!
"Think of it this way when your camping and run out of clean water you can boil some water to "clean" it (boiling out impurities)."Don't know about you, but I'd rather drink filtered (or boiled) water than straight from the pond. Not everything that is natural is good.
I would rather drink clean water from a clean pond then "boiled" water from a dirty pond.Should I not have a choice?
Last year I had a personal and intimate experience when drinking raw milk. My sleep improved, new hair grew above my temples(where it had fallen out in my twenties), and there were improvements to my general sense of well being and mental acuity. To me milk from pastured cows in specialized husbandry exemplifies innovation and ingenuity on a 21st century farm, a new boon in the Ag sector. I look forward to locally made and natural sources of vitamin C and compounds that boost the immune system. A positive response to hand sanitizers in public buildings and whoknowswhat in vaccines and no phosphatase in commercial milk.
The actual risk of contracting food borne illnesses from consuming raw milk needs to be brought into perspective. According to CDC data, you are much more likely to contract food borne illnesses from fruits, vegetables, beef and/or chicken. Raw milk has several built in protective systems that destroy harmful bacteria, such as lactoperoxidase. Many of the protective factors present in raw milk are inactivated during pasteurization. This information is well documented in the scientific literature and needs to be brought into the conversation.
Wow, I google Raw Milk and this blog post came up. I currently live in Waddington, NY and I get my raw milk from Windy Ridge Dairy. The best raw milk I have ever tasted and at this point, my family (of five) are drinking 3 gallons per week. I have noticed that we are upping our intake as well. My two daughters (ages six and four) run to the kitchen when I tell them their milk is on the table. They love it. My husband notices his joint pain comes back if he doesn't get his Raw milk that day. Also, I just finished reading The Untold Story of Milk by Dr. Ron Schmid. Excellent book and I can't even tell you how many new things I have learned. Dr. Ron Schmid made a very good point in the book. Despite "outbreaks" from PASTEURIZED products, what about other foodstuffs like clams, muscles, oysters and sushi? They don't have to carry a warning that the food may POSSIBLE contain pathogens that can cause disease and the gov't is not on a crusade to limit or ban these foods? Why is raw milk public enemy number one? I just got news we are moving to the northern coast of North Carolina. I just did a search for raw milk and there is none in that general area. I can not express how frustrated I am. I am a rational, well read mother of three children and I can make decisions on what goes in my body…. I made the decision to give up unnatural, heavily processed foods and my whole family has shown great improvement in many areas. What really ticks me off is that something like abortion, which I am wholeheartedly against is a CHOICE in this country and consuming raw milk is not?? This country can't have it both ways. If anyone has questions and or doubts about the merits of raw milk, please read further. I warn those to watch what they are reading. There is so much incorrect information out there, one has to know that the hand the rocks the proverbial food cradle in this country does not want anyone to have access to these health giving foods. "They" want you sick and dependent upon them for their drugs and processed foods that can sit on a shelf for a crazy amount of time and still taste the same. Okay I am done now.Thank you all for reading. :)
I had chronic GI problems and allergies greatly impoved by drinking raw milk, cutting out sugar, and minimizing wheat.