Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized
Selling Raw Milk is illegal in many parts of the world
When I was researching my article on butter a couple of weeks ago I got sucked into the raw milk vs. pasteurized milk debate. I asked my local earthy-crunchy grocery store if they had any raw milk and was told it’s illegal to sell in my state. As it turns out, it’s illegal to sell raw milk in 21 states unless it is purchased directly from the farm.
I was telling my amusing tale of making butter with pasteurized (not ultra pasteurized) heavy cream to a friend of mine, Mark. He’s a chemist and a drug researcher and he warned me about raw milk. ”There’s a reason it’s pasteurized, it has pretty harmful bacteria in there, it might be ok for you to take it, but I’d be really careful with your son. I wouldn’t give it to him.” My friend Mark is not usually a cautious guy. It gave me pause.
Pasteurized milk takes milk from cows and heats it to 145 to 150 degrees for half an hour and then chills it for distribution. This kills all bacteria in the milk and also helps preserve it longer in your fridge. Ultra pasteurized takes it up to higher temperatures 176 to 194 degrees fahrenheit and will allow your milk to be drinkable for up to 4 weeks in your fridge.
The FDA says pasteurization is crucial for milk and that no nutrient value is lost.
Proponents of raw milk say that pasteurization destroys critical nutrients like Vitamins A, D, E and C as well as B6 and B12.
I am definitely in favor of organic, pasture-raised milk with no added hormones or any other artificial injections. But I’m torn about pasteurized versus raw.
What are your thoughts? Do you give your kids raw milk? Have you ever had a problem with it? Have you tried raw but went back to pasteurized? What about pasteurized vs. ultra pasteurized?
Would love your input, thanks. By the way, you can pasteurize your own milk if you’d like. Here’s how from Mother Earth News. It’s pretty easy.
Lisa
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I actually have a Google alert set up for “raw milk” and that’s how I came across your post. My family is relatively new to raw milk, but I am becoming more and more convinced that it is definitely the right way to go for our family. It is such a personal decision, though, and I would encourage anyone interested in it to do a lot of research before coming to a conclusion. We own three cow shares as it is illegal to sell raw milk in our state, but owning a share in a cow and paying for it’s care and boarding allows us to get milk from our cow. I’m currently reading “Raw Milk Revolution” by David Gumpert (he also has a blog) and it is fantastic. I am fascinated by the stories of “contamination” and even how flawed many studies are that claim to shed light on the dangers of drinking milk the way people did for thousands of years. That being said, I do think there may be some potential risk of contamination of the milk, just as there is for pasteurized milk that is improperly handled. My husband is a physician and has looked through some of the research and basically came to the conclusion that raw milk is probably safer than lunch meat in most cases. But – we know and trust our farmers and their entire family drinks the milk every day and I think that is of critical importance to us. I’m not sure I would trust just any source for raw milk, especially as I do not trust just any source for where we get all of our food anymore. We know our farmers and we are supporting our local economy with at least 70% of our food dollars. Okay, I could go on and on…. I’m interested to read what kind of feedback you’re given! Oh, and we do feed the fresh milk to our kids. My oldest cannot get enough of it. (No hate mail, please).
Hi Rebekah, thanks so much for your comments. I like that you pointed out the risk of other products as well – procesed lunch meat is definitely something I gave up a long time ago! It’s obvious you put a lot of thought into sourcing good quality and reliable milk for your family, I’d be interested to know whether it was something you found easy, or if it took you a long time to find a supplier you were happy with – any advice for readers who are looking to do the same?
Lisa:
A very important issue.
I grew up in india and we did not have pasteurized milk till a few decades ago. But even now, our family and many others get regular unpasteurized milk. It is delivered morning by the milkman. See the pics in this post where the the milkmen are carrying the huge milk cans on their bicycles.
http://arunshanbhag.com/2004/11/19/mumbai-morning-delivery/
Yes, raw milk may contain dangerous bacteria and is not easy for humans to digest. So as soon as we get the milk at home, we heat it on the stove top till boils. Then we allow it to cool down, use for the morning tea/coffee/milk and then put in the refrigerator. That heating is sufficient to kill the bacteria. That is what babies are drinking every day, and even Meera gets the same milk.
But it doesn’t store for much more than a day (or two at most). That is fine in india where milk is delivered every morning. We just buy what we need for the day, and some left over which we either drink up at night or use the next morning. It would be difficult for that system to work here in the US.
Another important issue is: All the milk in the grocery stores is homogenized milk. I have personally not researched the issue, but one of my friends says that is more bad as the naturally occurring fats get processed and are absorbed differently in our digestive system. Thus the bad rap for whole milk.
Here is the milk guy delivering milk in our container – No plastic containers either
If the image does not show up, its the last image in this longish post:
http://arunshanbhag.com/2008/11/27/mumbai-blasts-day-2/
Phew! Sorry Lisa.
Arun
Arun, thanks so much for your comments. It’s great to have an international perspective. It sounds like your essentially pasteurizing the milk at home. I’ll have to research homogenization more as well. One of the reasons I started this. Log with Diane:-)
Thanks,
Lisa
We’ve been doing the raw milk thing for over a year now in my family. We are never going back! Raw milk from healthy cows and packaged in clean manner is perfectly ans so much healthier. My 7 yr old who was previously lactose intolerant drinks it with no problems. My toddler has never drank pasteurized milk (except what is in meals no prepared my me) and has no problems, and I drink a glass every day.
We have NOT had any stomach issues or illnesses because of raw milk.
My motto is “Never trust a rotten milk.” Raw milk does not rot, it sours and smells like cheese. Pasteurized milk rots and has a disgusting putrid smell. So which one do actually contains harmful bacteria?
I am a retired psychologist who worked with mind and body issues. When my son was a toddler, he almost died and physicians could not say what the problem was. I began to read and research health. In Atlanta, in the sixties, when I was raising my family, we had a wonderful Mathis Dairy. They delivered raw milk to my family and my children thrived on it. Now, the US has law suits going that is trying to outlaw raw milk. This is happening in Wisconsin, Georgia and other states. In Missouri, my own state, a recent sting operation shut down a wonderful small farm operation that sold raw milk. The children and their parents had a wonderful small farm operation. At this same time, the person in charge of our food and water is a former Monsanto executive. Monsanto owns most seed patents and seeks to control, via genetic engineering, our food supply. Several books, and extensive research shows the adverse affects on animal and human health with the consumption of genetic engineering. In Europe, GE products are identified so people have a choice. Our government protects the corporations from adverse impact of choice and challenges companies who have said their product contained no GE products. Price Pottinger Foundation has extensive research on the raw milk topic. William Campbell Douglas has written books about raw milk and the advantages. I am 74 and will not drink pasteurized milk and will not drink homogenized milk. People are getting sicker and sicker. Cancer is exploding. Where has THE WAR on cancer, poverty, drugs, or, for that matter, other countries gotten us? No where. The farther away from natural and organic foods, the sicker people become. The fresher, the purer, and the rawer foods are, the greater benefit to health. Your body uses over 3000 enzymes. Learn about these and how pasteurization destroys these. Read about Bechamp…you will learn about the hysteria over bacteria and how Pasteur lied and plagerized Bechamp’s works. Bechamp knew, as natural healers know today, that a healthy environment produces a healthy person and a healthy person takes care of pesky bacteria, etc. We now have plenty of research to show that antibacterial soaps and sprays actually make us more susceptible to disease and develop strains that are impervious to interventions. Remember when we were told to get mammagrams, take Estrogen (estrogen causes cancer), and eat lots of grains and don’t eat fats? We now know that it is carbs that primarily put the weight on. Remember when they told us not to eat eggs? Eggs are the most complete protein. Fear has been used to manipulate the americans. Why are Americans some of the fateset people in the world? It isn’t all about our gluttony…it’s about empty calories. Read about how all cancer cures are prohibited. Read about Ricky Simpson, Greg Caton, and scientists like Gaston Nassens (The Trial and Persecution of Gaston Naessens is a wonderful book), Royal Rife (I just used a modern version of his way to kill diseases), Wilhelm Reich. Money and greed are manipulating people with fear and we are becoming sicker and sicker while corporations and the allopathic health system gets richer and richer. Why do you suppose our government opposes health? What could be the reasons? Why are cancer cures like 714X outlawed in our country? Why are scientists who discover ways to eliminate disease hounded, persecuted, and jailed? Don’t be afraid of nature. Be afraid of the corporations that want you to get sick while they make money. Let go of your bacteria phobias and go as God, Allah, Jehovah, The Great Spirit, whatever, intended.
Wow Patricia, thanks for sharing such a strong story and example of raw dairy farming. I honestly see both sides of the argument and am still unsure where I land. You are persuasive however …
I appreciate the comments and hope you visit us again soon, thanks so much,
Lisa
I am just begining to do a little bit of research on this topic and ran across your blog. I probably don’t know much more than you do, but after reading up on everything, I realized the milk I grew up drining was raw milk. Not only raw milk, but raw milk that came from modern Holstiens meant for larger production (we just filled a pitcher from the holding tank before the milk truck came to take it away). While I obviously would want you to be more careful than that with your own children and buy from a farmer with older breeds who focuses on free feeding, I can tell you that I miss it. It was tastier and thicker, and even switching to Vitam D milk from the grocery store was a big change. I never had any health problems as a result, and neither did anyone in my family. As a matter of fact, my father, who had problems with lactoce (can eat in small amounts) had no issue with it unless consuming store products. Honestly, I try not to juump on too many bandwagons, but as a typically sickly kind of girl, I can tell you that I was healthier when I was younger and drinking raw milk and home grown beef and veggies. I am absolutely not telling you that there is a direct correlation, but I can tell you that it definitely didn’t have any negative effects.
Nicole thanks so much for sharing your story. I’m still torn about it. For me, raw milk isn’t sold in stores in Massachusetts. You can buy directly from a farm but I live in a big urban center and there aren’t any farms that close to me. I am actually descended from dairy farmers which is one of the reasons I wrote this post. All my aunts and uncles grew up on raw milk without any problems.
You make a good point that we all need to decide what’s best for ourselves. Thanks again.
As a student of biochemistry, I think it is irresponsible for those who prefer “raw milk” to legitimize their choice by knocking down the sound scientific principles of pasteurization.
As noted, Arun’s boiling/cooling procedure is very similar to the basics of pasteurization. Pasteurization is often done at lower temperatures than the boiling point of milk, so the idea that a lower temperature would “destroy nutrients” while boiling won’t is not logical. The production of yogurt is also similar to pasteurization, and it contains many desirable nutrients that are claimed to be destroyed. The effects of heating on vitamins have been measured, and at least Vitamins A (somewhat), D, E, and B12 are not affected by exposure to heat.
At its heart, pasteurization is a simple physical process that helps protect against many, not all, pathogenic organisms. If that weren’t the case, other heating processes (most cooking involves heating) would be just as deleterious. “Raw milk” is a misleading term when carelessly used to mean “unpasteurized”. Instead, milk that comes from healthy cows is probably going to be better, pasteurized or not, than milk from unhealthy ones, pasteurized or not. Conflating pasteurization with the many other parts of dairy production that affect quality only helps to demonize proponents of healthier dairies as being bio-Luddites.
I’ve lived across the street from a dairy farm my entire life and have been drinking raw milk for as long as I can remember. Neither I nor anyone else in my family have ever had trouble with raw milk.
A little fun fact about milk is that the human body isn’t adapted to digesting the proteins in milk, and some people have more problems than others (lactose intolerance). Raw milk actually contains enzymes that help you digest these proteins. When you pasteurize the milk though you denature these enzymes. People who are lactose intolerant can actually drink raw milk and be completely fine due to the presence of these enzymes.
I live in a rural community and with gas prices as they are, buying from local farmers just makes good economic sense and benefits my community. Now I’m determining whether I’m going to pasteurize the milk that I buy. I am still undecided, but I will say this much… rural people don’t get sick from things like e.coli, etc as much as urban people. Is it possible that small introductions of pathogens helps to strengthen immunity? Why is it that the kids and families that live around livestock are all healthy and fine, but the minute the fair/petting zoo comes around- the fair-goers from the suburbs get sick? Are we hurting ourselves by being TOO sterile? My question to someone in the medical field is– can we gain immunities from e.coli, listeria, etc. so that we aren’t so horribly affected than those who aren’t exposed in incriments? Why are rural people so much healthier and less prone to infection?
This JAMA article discusses immunity to pathogens through drinking raw milk. Interesting…
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/257/1/43.short
I don’t care what science claims on this subject. My toddler develops sever diaper rash, has face break outs, and after a single day of drinking ultra pasteurized milk, the regular gallon milk that lasts a whole month and smells like the cow died in the container once it goes bad, has hives all over her abdomen. I switched to local pasteurized milk and the side effects have significantly reduced: Occasional diaper rash because of lack of attention from the parents. Because of this dramatic change, I am seriously considering raw milk. Its reported that the reason pasteurization is needed is because there is puss and blood found in the milk distributed by large dairy farmers. That would likely not happen to hand expressed milk because a machine isn’t sucking the life out of the cow and a person can tell if he is handling a sick cow. I would like to know who has died from consuming raw milk because it seems our government finds it unsafe for consumption. We have been conditioned to think our lives are in jeopardy if the government doesn’t step in to tell us what to do. Boo to the lack of knowledge and wisdom. BOO!
Hi there… I know that this debate was from a year ago! I wondered what you ended up doing Lisa? I saw your site after I googled “how to pasturize raw milk.”
I did this Google search after picking up some raw cream today from some local Amish friends. They are wonderful people, the entire family drinks it…& all their kids seem healthy & happy. I’ve had raw cow’s milk & goat’s milk in the past a few times & have had no problem. The couple DID say to me that some people can’t tolerate raw milk. The man in the family had some kind of explanation for this that wasn’t at all something that I believed in; despite liking him.
However…. I also have seen in the past how dirty cow’s utters can become. They may wipe them down, wash them, etc. But I don’t want to take the chance. TO ME… (my humble opinion)… I don’t care a whit about homogenization…. let it all separate & that’s fine by me. But I don’t think I want to really take the chance in not pasturizing the cream I got. Sooooo…. I went ahead tonite & lightly scalded it, & am now re-cooling it. Better to be safe than sorry. Maybe I didn’t “need” to do this… but I don’t know. ANYWAY…. how did it all turn out for you?
Thanks
LizBeth
Christine that is a really interesting factoid … hunh.
My family has been consuming raw milk off and on for a couple years now. The farmer that provides us the milk used to have several hundred cows and explained why they pasteurized. He stated that the milk itself (from a healthy cow) does not contain harmful bacteria but bacteria can get into the milk during the milking process via contaminated milking equipment or utters. On some large older commercial dairies, proper sanitation can be difficult when you have hundreds of cows. Its best if consuming raw milk to visit the farm and see for yourself how sanitary the operation is.
A large portion of the worlds population stills consumes raw milk…
The reason they don’t want us drinking raw milk is because we would have natural immunity to numerous biological threats. for their plans to work, we need to have compromised immune systems as a result of consuming dead foods. The EU has outlawed natural herbs and healing agents and the US is following suit to insure we are all sick and cannot help ourselves naturally. they want us to be open for annihilation or be sick and in need of the help from big pharma for our Vitamin D3, so they can make a hefty profit delivering natural products that are PROVEN to work better than their man made garbage. follow the Money and check it out for yourself.
Baxter Bird flu contamination (Contamination impossible)
New FDA rules on supplements
New Pathogens resistant to 8 antibiotics (had to be engineered)
Sterility drug taintes tetanus shots in Philippines and elsewhere
Sterility from Monsanto GMO’s
the plan is elimination of most of the human race by the eugenicists.
Patricia, wow! Valerie, right on! Steveo, I have to admit I am leaning that way. Why are so many natural things restricted and prohited?
I switched to raw milk. That is what I give my toddler. I have never like milk, and I do like raw milk. I love it in fact. I like how it changes seasonally. You know, the color and scent of the milk actually changes a bit with the seasons and the diet available to the cows. To me, that is a beautiful thing. I know it is natural. I know that farm that produces it will let me look at their operation any time I want. I know it is not in their best interest to have a dirty operation either.
I think when it comes down to pathogens and bacteria in food, you would be safer eliminating cantelope and spinach from your diet than milk. There is some disgusting stuff in factory farmed milk. The cows never leave stalls just big enough for their bodies. They poop where they sleep. They have a machine attached to their udders always. On a common sense level, I believe that people have always consumed what we call raw milk (just called plain milk in the past), and they were not dropping dead, even with their primitive knowledge of hygiene.
Like Patricia said, there is a reason we are sicker today. I wish she left her email or web address because I would love to contact her and get her insight on more issues. And I just want to say why do we trust the government as the end all be all on this issue? We are better off trusting our grandparents and humanity than our government who is not lily-white on anything.
Rebecca our government has so failed us. They truly seem to support Big Food over it’s own people and that’s a sad, sad state of affairs. Hopefully little blogs like this one will open people’s eyes and get them thinking … thanks for your comment L–