Raw Milk a Tasty Treat?

Posted by Baylen on May. 21, 2008

milk.jpgFriend and food blogger Jacob Grier has a great piece in Reason on the waning legality of raw milk.

[Pasteurized] milk resulted in the loss of seasonality and taste. Cooking milk introduces new flavors, some of them unpleasant. And since pasteurization kills bacteria indiscriminately, many raw milk devotees argue that the process robs them of probiotics, bacteria that they say build their immune systems and aid digestion. As McAfee put it to me, “kids are germ magnets.” Exposing them to raw milk, he argues, is good for them. Similarly, the testimonials section on the website of the Campaign for Real Milk, a project of the Weston A. Price Foundation that aims to overturn legal barriers to unpasteurized milk, is full of quotes from people writing that the product has cured them of everything from indigestion to autism. While some of these claims are obviously far-fetched, it’s clear that many raw milk drinkers believe they benefit from introducing a thriving population of bacteria into their bodies.

[...]

When I recently visited dairywoman Kitty Hockman-Nicholas at Hedgebrook Farms in Winchester, Virginia, I saw nothing dangerous or diabolical. Kitty showed me around the farm, introduced her cows by name, and demonstrated her milking process. It would have been illegal for Kitty to sell me raw milk—she provides it for people who buy into “cow shares” and thus technically own the cows from which they get their dairy—but she kindly sent me home with some as a gift.

My trip to the farm provided delightful insight into the origins of one of our most essential foods. I didn’t enjoy any miraculous health effects after drinking it, but the taste was smooth and creamy, with none of the processed aftertaste I now can’t help noticing in store-bought milk. As I sipped my unpasteurized beverage, I reflected on the absurdity of the situation: If Kitty were to offer the same experience to others for a profit, the government could forcibly put her out of business.

Campaign for Raw Milk here. Time on raw milk outlaws here. Raw milk opponent Stephen Barrett on why raw milk doesn’t do a body good here.

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  • JD Burke
    reading the Quackwatch article I was struck by the tendency of the pro pasteurization folks (CDC, FDA, etc) to gloss over any real numbers. There were claims of possibility sickness, even one study of 94 families that only really concluded some folks in those families got sick and and stayed sick for awhile, probably through raw milk.

    More telling was the stat offered by a pro raw supporter that noted "3.6 million human cases of salmonellosis were reported between 1971 and 1982 in California, and that almost half of them were attributed to food service establishments, most of the remainder to meat and poultry, and only 103 to certified raw milk".

    103 out of 3.6 million? And that constitutes a health problem? Granted I understand salmonella is not the only risk of raw milk, but unless one of them is far more prevalent than that, I don't see the risk.

    I don't buy the it'll cure me of X problem angle, and while it may contain more vitamins than pasteurized, I'm not sure milk drinkers are at any danger if they don't drink raw milk.

    But the fact that no one could show any real numbers on public health harms it seems to me this ought to be a legal option for folks to purchase.

    Seems to me to easily be more Nanny State BS in terms of food.
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