I hate to take the side of the guvment and other elites on this , but raw milk is an invitation to problems, even if it has a higher fat content and people like the idea of “NATRRRUAL.”
My big deal in summer as a kid was to travel the 50 miles from Estherville, Iowa to West Bend, Iowa, where my grandparents lived on an 80 acre farm.
Grandpa Hugh was a general practice farmer, milked cows, raised pigs, grew corn and soybeans, wonderful man, all of 130 pounds, tough as nails, worked from before sun up to after sunset, didn’t have indoor plumbing until mid 50s. Played a little piano, sang bass in the 1st Methodist Choir, told jokes and loved living, even raced me to the house after doing chores.
He had a Holstein Bull and some cows and the cows would have calves and they would be milked every day by hand by grandpa Hugh, into a stainless steel pale, and then he would take the milk to the separator shed, and put the milk in some stainless steel contraption that would separate the milk from the cream. He had electricity in the 50s so then he would put the milk and the cream in separate vessels in a cooler, and two times a week we would travel the really long 5 miles to the West Bend, Iowa CO-OP Creamery, where his milk was accepted and then pasteurized to eliminate bacteria that could cause trouble for consumers.
I don’t know how the cream was pasteurized.
Good idea, don’t you think. Even if Grandpa Hugh took good care of his milk and cream, it wasn’t bacteria free. It needed to be pasteurized.
Kind of like old pizza–how old is too old? Right? I don’t like “natural” it covers too many prejudices and too much ignorance. Raw milk has a romantic gravity to it–but that doesn’t eliminate what we have learned about making the food supply safe.
The Dunn method would be to irradiate everything–easy, simple, foolproof, but the nannies are afraid of radiation–might produce Frankenfood?
Now, I might agree. In 1890 I would have disagreed.
“drinking raw milk protects you against illness from other foods!”
Raw milk . . . the Magic Food.
Risk is food preparation does not require government involvement.
Gamecock, you need to work in food prep for awhile. Things you can get away with, at very little risk, in your own kitchen become highly problematic in the commercial kitchen or food producer. A small culture of almost anything in the average home kitchen is a negligible risk to society. The same culture at the commercial level is magnified many many fold and constitute a risk any competent underwriter will not undertake.
Just saying . . .
42 government-reported illnesses from raw milk per year for the period 1999-2011. This number includes unconfirmed cases.
According to a 2007 CDC survey, there are about 9 million raw milk drinkers in the US (3.04% of population). (This number is probably higher today.)
Rate of illness from raw milk can be calculated at .00046%. The actual percentage is probably much lower.
There are about 48,000,000 confirmed cases of foodborne infections per year in the US.
Population about 300,000,000
Rate of illness from all foods can be calculated at 16%
Thus, you are at least 35,000 times more likely to contract illness from other foods than from raw milk. PLUS, drinking raw milk protects you against illness from other foods!
Source: http://www.realmilk.com/real-milk-pathogens.html
90% of food poisoning due to milk is from raw milk.
Raw milk consists of less than 10% of the milk supply.
There ain’t no “recantation” to go by. Basic math shows that raw milk is 100 times more likely to make you sick than pasteurized milk.
John, I agree totally. If we had universal irradiation, just about the entire problem would be solved. I tend to think that some day that will happen with the odd items here and there not irradiated. If we could only get rid of the Luddites.
I dunno Doc. I understand that milk for consumption by the general populous needs to be controlled. Anecdotally though, I have to say I can’t think of many things better than milk straight from the source. I did most of my growing up in rural Texas and while my dad was not a farmer per se, we did have a milk cow, feeder calves, pigs, chickens (what would be termed “free range” now) and a large garden. We would drink the milk right after separation, churn the cream to butter (YUM YUM) or make ice cream and never had an issue.
I am turning 54 this week and I take NO medications of any kind. I can’t help but think that growing up this way had an effect on my health today. Please don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of ‘organic’ anything. We used pesticides, fertilizers and antibiotics to maintain our little corner so I don’t buy into the current ‘organic’ fad nor do I believe ‘organic’ is any better but I do believe that the raw, unprocessed food contributed to my overall resistance to disease I enjoy today.
If I could find a source of fresh milk I could trust today, I would drink it every day.
I don’t get your argument. As a libertarian, I think you should be able to buy/sell whatever you want. Even heroin. But sellers have liability for what they sell. Middlemen/multiple farms changes nothing. They can sell it, but they are still responsible if it does harm.
So, I don’t care if people sell raw milk. I think they are idiots for doing it. Their liability far exceeds any profit they could make.
And I think consumers are idiots for buying it. Pasteurization is one of modern mans’ greatest accomplishments.
And while we’re on the subject, I say we get rid of government meat inspectors. Betcha can’t find them in the Constitution.
It’s not just TB that people need to think about, but also brucellosis.
Brucellosis is a disease that mimics other ailments and is extremely persistent in infected persons.
Sure John. But remember, Pasteur recanted at the end, and admitted that Bechamp was essentially correct – that is, it is that it is the state of the host that is ultimately important and determines the survival of pathogens.
The main problem with raw milk is that essentially it is meant for calves, not humans. We should use it in moderation. If you get a first degree burn though, drinking a couple of pints of it will promote a quick healing.
While I agree the aggregated milk supplies needs to be pasteurized I am libertarian enough that if some farmer wants to sell raw milk directly to the consumer of the product I don’t have a real issue with that. As soon as you combine it with another farm or add a middleman. All bets are off.