Growing up as a millennial, you got your gallon at the store and that was that. In grade school each year at least a paragraph if not a chapter was dedicated to the heroics of Louis Pasteur and his world renown life saving pasteurization discovery. But now, local dairy farms are offering raw milk, and I’ve a few friends who are swearing by it, as tastier, helping with digestion, skin issues, etc. but the CDC would lead me to believe if we buy raw milk we will all get E. coli and die . So just knowing that so many of you are leap years ahead of me on such subject. What’s the deal? Raw milk yes? Raw milk risky business?
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Before pasteurization, all milk was unpasteurized. "Miraculously", millions drank it/used it.
That, in and of itself, says something.
Raw milk appears to be safe when proper procedures are in place and also appears to protect against allergies and asthma.
Raw milk producers with high levels of hygiene and safety
Excerpt:
“The aim of this paper is to describe practices that have been developed for safe raw milk production. The German Vorzugsmilch is a federally regulated programme for legal raw milk production that was established already in the 1930s to provide raw milk with high hygienic standards controlled for zoonotic diseases to consumers. The Raw Milk Institute is a non-profit organisation established in California that has developed a voluntary safe raw milk programme in North America. RAWMI has developed a risk analysis and management system for raw milk dairy farmers to assist farmers in making individually tailored solutions for various production systems. In British Colombia, Canada, small herd share farms have employed good manufacturing practices, a risk management approach and performed monthly samples for pathogens and indicator bacteria to demonstrate safety and consistency. The major components of the raw milk systems applied, and the results of regular milk microbial indicator bacteria are presented. For the German system, the results from standard monthly pathogen tests are compared to zoonotic pathogen tests from other milk sources. The overall results indicate that raw milk can be produced with a high level of hygiene and safety in various systems.”
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Raw Cow’s Milk and Its Protective Effect on Allergies and Asthma
Excerpt:
“Living on a farm and having contact with rural exposures have been proposed as one of the most promising ways to be protected against allergy and asthma development. There is a significant body of epidemiological evidence that consumption of raw milk in childhood and adulthood in farm but also nonfarm populations can be one of the most effective protective factors.”
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Raw Cow’s Milk Prevents the Development of Airway Inflammation in a Murine House Dust Mite-Induced Asthma Model
Excerpt:
“Raw milk prevented both HDM-induced AHR and pulmonary eosinophilic inflammation, whereas heated raw milk did not. Both milk types suppressed the Th2-polarizing chemokine CCL17 in lung homogenates and reduced lung Th2 and Th17 cell frequency. IL-4 and IL-13 production after ex vivo restimulation of lung T cells with HDM was also reduced by both milk types. However, local IL-5 and IL-13 concentrations were only suppressed by raw milk. These findings support the asthma-protective capacity of raw cow’s milk and show the importance of reduced local type 2 cytokine levels. Heated raw milk did not show an asthma-protective effect, which indicates the involvement of heat-sensitive components. Besides causal evidence, this study provides the basis for further mechanistic studies.”
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Raw Milk-Induced Protection against Food Allergic Symptoms in Mice Is Accompanied by Shifts in Microbial Community Structure
Excerpt:
“The mechanism underlying the allergy-protective effects of raw cow’s milk is still unknown, but the modulation of the gut microbiome may play a role.”
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Direct Inhibition of the Allergic Effector Response by Raw Cow’s Milk—An Extensive In Vitro Assessment
Excerpt:
“In conclusion, we demonstrate a direct inhibition of the allergic effector response by raw cow’s milk. Next, to the already described capacity to modulate T cell responses, the present study shows that raw cow’s milk is also able to directly influence mast cell activation. Mast cell activation was not affected by heated raw milk and shop milk, supporting the current evidence for a loss of allergy protection after milk processing and more specifically, after heat treatment.”
I can only speak from my experience. Me and my siblings had nothing but raw milk straight out of the cow our entire growing years. None of us to this day has had a broken bone. 13 of us kids. We had no major allergies or sicknesses when we were young. Not until we started eating an using processed foods did we start getting sick.
When my twelve kids were growing up, we switched to raw milk in '06, By then we only had 10 still home. I bought from local dairy, drove thirty min to pick up. Cost us $6/gal, I bought 4 gallons/ week. My hubby tried to help by drinking his "own" gallon of cheap milk. I drink almond milk sometimes. We thought the good stuff for the kids was worth it. None of them have ever had a broken bone, either, ptl.
Same and we had the best butter I’ve ever tasted in my life. Used to eat it as it flecked up from the churn and not a single kid out of 11 were fat. I’m still not, can’t say the same for the rest of the family
Oh, yeah! The butter was the best!
Really depends on the dairy. If they dont milk sick cows and keep everytjing sanitary it should be fine. I have seen some places that I wouldnt trust raw from. They never cleaned anything and didnt really wipe the cow before milking.
In most modern dairies, the milk should never see anything but the inside of the cow, tubing, pumps, and containers. But there is still a slight risk e coli or something could be on the utter when its milked. Contaminating a whole batch.
If you can milk your own, then its as safe as you want it to be. And in that case its up to you. If its from a dairy. Know the dairy well.
9 REASONS TO STOP DRINKING PASTEURIZED MILK
Pasteurization Used To Mask Low-Quality Milk Heat destroys a great number of bacteria in milk and thus conceals the evidence of dirt, pus and dirty dairy practices. It’s cheaper to produce dirty milk and kill the bacteria by heat, that to maintain a clean dairy and keep cows healthy. To combat the increase in pathogens milk goes through ‘clarification’, ‘filtering’, ‘bactofugation’ and 2 ‘deariation’ treatments. Each of these treatments uses heat ranging from 100-175 degrees Fahrenheit. Dairies count on many heat treatments to mask their inferior sanitary conditions: milk filled with pus, manure and debris. Consumer Reports found 44% of 125 pasteurized milk samples contained as many as 2200 organisms per cubic centimeter (fecal bacteria, coliforms)
Pasteurization Destroys Nutrients It destroys vitamin C, and damages water soluble B vitamins diminishing the nutrient value of milk. Calcium and other minerals are made unavailable by pasteurization. The Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction between proteins and sugars, occurs at higher heats and causes browning, discoloring the milk.
Pasteurization Destroys Enzymes Milk enzymes, proteins, antibodies as well as beneficial hormones are destroyed by pasteurization resulting in devitalized ‘lifeless’ milk. Milk enzymes help digest lactose and both enzymes and milk proteins help to absorb vitamins. Protective enzymes in milk are inactivated, making it more susceptible to spoilage.
Causes Asthma Pasteurized milk causes asthma, and as a result doctors prescribe a diet without pasteurized dairy products. Milk triggers asthma by destabilizing MAST cells, which release histamines that cause inflammation, mucus production and bronchial spasm. Pasteurized milk is a partial food product that is missing digestive enzymes and nearly all of its beneficial bacteria. Pasteurized milk (with rare exceptions) comes from cows fed a ration based on corn and soy rather than pasture and forage. Pasteurization warps and distorts fragile proteins, making them allergenic. Unpasteurized milk is the opposite and heals and prevents asthma by stabilizing MAST cells and reducing inflammation as shown by dramatic lowering of C-reactive protein levels. Unpasteurized milk rebuilds immunity by allowing the safe consumption of biodiversity in our diets. These bacteria then re-colonize the gut and become our immune protective and digestive ecosystem armies.
Allergenic and Disease Causing Food Cow's milk is the #1 allergic food in this country. The milk of each of the over 4,700 mammals on earth is formulated specifically for that species. There are special lactoferrins and immunoglobulins (cow specific immunizing stuff) that in humans serve as allergens. It has been well documented as a cause in diarrhea, cramps, bloating, gas, gastrointestinal bleeding, iron-deficiency anemia, skin rashes, atherosclerosis, and acne. It is the primary cause of recurrent ear infections in children. It has also been linked to insulin dependent diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility, and leukemia. The protein lactalbumin, has been identified as a key factor in diabetes (and a major reason for NOT giving cows milk to infants). 89% of America's dairy herds have the leukemia virus. Cows diagnosed with Johne's Disease have diarrhea, and heavy fecal shedding of bacteria. This bacteria becomes cultured in milk, and is not destroyed by pasteurization. Occasionally, the milk-borne bacteria will begin to grow in the human host, and the results are irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's Disease.
Kills Bone Density The dairy industy has been hard at work the last 50 years convincing people that pasteurized dairy products such as milk or cheese increases bioavailable calcium levels. This is totally false. The pasteurization process only creates calcium carbonate, which has absolutely no way of entering the cells without a chelating agent. So what the body does is pull the calcium from the bones and other tissues in order to buffer the calcium carbonate in the blood. This process actually causes osteoporosis. Pasteurized dairy contains too little magnesium needed at the proper ratio to absorb the calcium. Most would agree that a minimum amount of Cal. to Mag Ratio is 2 to 1 and preferably 1 to 1. So milk, at a Cal/Mag ratio of 10 to 1, has a problem. You may put 1200 mg of dairy calcium in your mouth, but you will be lucky to actually absorb a third of it into your system. Over 99% of the body's calcium is in the skeleton, where it provides mechanical rigidity. Pasteurized dairy forces a calcium intake lower than normal and the skeleton is used as a reserve to meet needs. Long-term use of skeletal calcium to meet these needs leads to osteoporosis. Dairy is pushed on Americans from birth yet they have one of the highes risk of osteoporosis in the world. The test for pasteurization is called the negative alpha phosphatase test. When milk has been heated to 165 degrees (higher for UHT milk) and pasteurization is complete, the enzyme phosphatase is 100% destroyed. Guess what? This is the enzyme that is critical for the absorption of minerals including calcium! Phosphatase is the third most abundant enzyme in raw milk and those who drink raw milk enjoy increased bone density. Several studies have documented greater bone density and longer bones in animals and humans consuming raw milk compared to pasteurized.
Antibiotic Effectiveness Pasteurization killed antibiotic effectiveness for all of us. By creating a commodity dairy market system that relies heavily on antibiotics fed to heifers and dry cows at CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) mega dairies to support massive milk production, the antibiotics now used in American hospitals for humans no longer work. Tens of thousands of Americans now die each year because of superbugs created by CAFO antibiotic abuse. MRSA and VRA drug resistance is now a major cause of death and there are fewer and sometimes no antibiotics left to kill the bad bugs and save human lives. FDA has conceded antibiotic use in farm animals must be phased out but refuses an outright ban or limit of the use of antibiotics in CAFO feed and instead testifies in defense of antibiotic use by the CAFO industry.
Cancer Fuel Of the almost 60 hormones, one is a powerful GROWTH hormone called Insulin- like Growth Factor ONE (IGF-1). By a freak of nature it is identical in cows and humans. Consider this hormone to be a "fuel cell" for any cancer... (the medical world says IGF-1 is a key factor in the rapid growth and proliferation of breast, prostate and colon cancers, and we suspect that most likely it will be found to promote ALL cancers). IGF-1 is a normal part of ALL milk... the newborn is SUPPOSED to grow quickly! What makes the 50% of obese American consumers think they need MORE growth? Consumers don't think anything about it because they do not have a clue to the problem... nor do most of our doctors.
Forces Cows Out Of Green Pastures And Into Diseased World Pasteurization kills cows on green pastures. 75 years ago there were friendly cows on green pastures all over America. Pasteurization has effectively paved the pastures and now forces the cows to be fed soy protein concentrates and 40 pounds of grain per day, along with antibiotics and hormones. These CAFO dairy feeds increase milk production to numbers never seen before in the history of earth. It is not uncommon for some CAFO dairy cows to produce twenty gallons of milk per day and be crowded into pens deep in manure with thousands of other cows. The stress of being milked up to 4 times and lying on on artificial rubber beds shortens their lives to just forty months. A cow on pasture will produce much less milk (4 to 5 gallons per day) and easily live 10 years or more in true happiness and health.
the vaxxmilk causes heart attacks.Great list. So much truth. I didn't know about the asthma connection. I've had episodes on and off since I was 15. No troubles since we switched to raw milk over a year ago.
I don't know much about the subject, but I'm pretty sure that pasteurised milk has alot of the actual good nutrients taken out by the process.
Don't take my word for it though as I'm a bit fuzzy on it all.
I know alot of people are squeamish at drinking fresh cows milk, but when I was a young kid I spent a bit of time on a dairy farm, getting fresh warm cows milk in a pail every morning. It was the tastiest & creamiest milk I've ever had in my life.
So taste wise I wish I still had access to fresh milk.
Just nursed my sick dog with jaundice back via raw goat milk
Mostly depends on your source. Bulk of the issue back when. An incomplete understanding of Germs/Bacteria and Some companies/dairies would cut corners and weren’t particularly sanitary. Which would lead to various sickness/illness in people who used their product. Pasteurization would help neutralize some bacteria at the expense of various vitamins/nutrients etc.
Pasteurization can also help increase shelf life for various products. So there was some economic incentive to adopt the process as products would last on the shelf longer. At the expense of some nutrients and other things of course. But larger profit. So the companies/dairies weren’t overly concerned.
Quite a lot of early decisions regarding food usually came down to making it last on the shelf longer. If you can find a reliable source you trust for unpasteurized milk. Go for it. Supposed to have better taste. Probably cost an arm and a leg unless you got your own cow though. Something to keep in mind.
9 Reasons To Stop Drinking Any Kind of Pasteurized Milk
by NATASHA LONGO
Pasteurization is a dangerous method of heating our foods with tragic side effects which are largely ignored bu the FDA and downplayed by the dairy industry. To accept these facts would be to surrender after a hundred-year war indiscriminately waged against all bacteria--a hundred-year war that has now turned to attack the immune systems of the public. Here are 9 reasons why pasteurization destroys the nutritional and enzymatic value of milk and why you need to avoid it.
Raw milk contains vast amounts of nutrients including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidolphilus, vitamins and enzmes, and only a very modest source of calcium (if left unpasteurized).
To understand what heat does to a good bacteria, we need to know about its structure. A bacterium is a single-celled organism. Think of it like a studio apartment, one room containing all the things a person needs to live: food, water, air. The walls of the apartment enclose the electrical wiring and gas pipes that deliver energy, along with the sewage pipes that get rid of waste products. In contrast to the size of this single-celled organism, even an animal as small as a mouse would be like a huge city with thousands of buildings and extensive infrastructure to keep it "alive."
When the temperature gets hot enough, the enzymes in the bacterium are denatured, meaning they change shape. This change renders them useless, and they're no longer able to do their work. The cell simply ceases to function.
Heat can also damage the bacterium's cell envelope. Proteins and fatty acids making up the envelope lose their shape, weakening it. At the same time, fluid inside the cell expands as the temperature rises, increasing the internal pressure. The expanding fluid pushes against the weakened wall and causes it to burst, spilling out the guts of the bacterium.
Pasteurization constitutes one of the milder forms of thermal processing. Ultra-high temperature and sterilization methods kill all microorganisms in the food, while milder heat treatments like thermization and pasteurization only kill some of them. Why not use a higher temperature if it will kill more pathogens? The answer is that higher temperatures change the characteristics of the food.
At higher temperatures, as with Ultra High Temperature Pasteurization, several things happen to milk that make it less desirable to consumers:
High-Temp Pasteurization - Milk is heated to 161F for 31 seconds in order to sterilize the milk. The problem is that this also kills enzymes, much of the healthy microorganisms, and more importantly it denatures the proteins. Essentially, high-temp pasteurization kills the milk and makes it much more difficult for your body to digest. This can typically lead to inflammatory bowel disease, among others.
Ultra-Pasteurized - This is the majority of our milk today, what you would typically find in a grocery store. Ultra-pasteurization heats the milk to 280F for only a few seconds. The reason for using ultra-pasteurization is because it kills everything. Ultra pasteurization not only kills potentially harmful bacteria in the milk, but also damages all of the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients originally contained in the milk. This process also kills the healthy enzymes which help your body digest the milk, and drinking it without the enzymes can lead to lactose intolerance.
Low-Temp Pasteurization - Milk is only heated to 145F. This is significant because it’s below the temperature that kills most of the beneficial enzymes and the proteins remain in-tact. The main downside to low-temp pasteurization is that some of the enzymes and probiotics can be damaged. But, by culturing (fermenting it with good bacteria) this dairy and making yogurt, kefir or amasai, many of those probiotics are added back. This also improves the digestibility of the dairy. Low-temp is the closest to raw milk products most of us in the US can get.
Most cow's milk has measurable quantities of herbicides, pesticides, dioxins (up to 200 times the safe levels), up to 52 powerful antibiotics, blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses.
Before pasteurization, all milk was unpasteurized. "Miraculously", millions drank it/used it.
That, in and of itself, says something.
In the 60's I lived on a dairy farm for about 3 years. (I was a foster child). The only milk we drank was raw milk. Now I've never been a fan of milk, but when I drank it, it was creamier and richer than any milk I had ever had. The milk was strained into a refrigerated stainless steel tank with a paddle that continuously stirred the milk. Don't know of any ill effects to anyone. The crap out there now is just white water in comparison. Hope this helps.
I'd bet it's delicious and I'd like to try some.
I've seen where milk comes from, I'd want to know it was handled as well as possible and I sure as hell wouldn't try to store it very long!
It is delicious, and very refreshing. Most farms that sell raw milk will give you a free half gallon to see if it agrees with you. Will last a week if you keep it cold.
Alas, no milk for me. Maybe a little swig here and there. It's a shame, I like it and miss it.
In the late 80's before I moved to Georgia I was able to buy raw milk from a dairy farm. It was delicious but unfortunately when we moved I did not continue. Now there are dairy farms where you can get raw milk but they are pretty far away. For a while our Kroger sold milk from a local dairy in half gallon bottles and I bought that but haven't really seen that for awhile. Things have really changed a lot in these last couple of years.
the good bacteria along with the bad bacteria is eliminated in the Pasteurization process. Raw milk from verified healthy cows does not last as long while refrigerated. The pasteurization process allows longer shelf life and that's the full reason why it's preferred - it covers the ass of liability claims and allows a farther reach in terms of market area which is about MONEY.
The ENTIRE dairy industry is something that is preferred - not required for humans.
Raw milk when it sours, doesn't "go bad"; it still has many uses.
https://bartlettfarms.us/learning/does-raw-milk-go-bad/
https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2013/05/20-ways-to-use-sour-raw-milk.html
Have a small annual "herd share" in a farmer's herd. The share gets around Michigan laws against unpasteurized milk. I pick-up 1-1/2 gallons of raw milk per week for my wife and I. Great stuff, but must be kept cold to last one week.
No plans to ever go back to flash heated and nutrient dead milk.
I grew up drinking raw milk, never broken a bone in my 40 years on this planet. I don’t have any allergies or major health issues either.
At 22 everything you've played with in your life is faster and more advanced than what we had as kids. And you guys are more extreme While we were jumping BMX bikes over trash cans and roller skating around an indoor rink, you guys are jumping bikes off of buildings and rollerblading down hand rails. Only 2 broken bones is probably low in your circle.
Raw milk is good and tasty, so long as the farm is using good practices with the cows, as others in this thread have said... imo pasteurization has been used to excuse poor practices.
It is said that even Pasteur expressed a change of mind on his death bed. http://www.susandoreydesigns.com/insights/pasteur-recant.html
The work of Westin A Price suggests that milk, real milk, from happy cows that primarily eat green growing grasses provides some of the best nutrition for people, particularly for teeth.
Well geeeze , I have the worst teeth! I brush and mouthwash and eat reasonably and yet every 4 - 5 years I’ve got some sort of issue needing a root canal (I’m only 33) I’ve always just chalked it up to bad genes
You have a localized self-devaluation conflict regarding your teeth. "I have the worst teeth".
If you can get yourself some Nigerian dwarf goats and get them prego so you can start getting raw goat milk. Nigerians produce the best milk ever
Recently posted this elsewhere, might be relevant here.
https://searchvoat.co/v/whatever/4138056
i drank raw goat milk from a small homestead with 6 goats and it healed me of severe illness that began when i moved to a mold infested house.
i can no longer get it so i drink pasteurized and it's not nearly as good.
Many consume raw milk because it still has live enzymes that carry Life's Force Energy and also help to digest it.
We had to have re-constituted milk while overseas with the military. It was nasty.
We slice and dunk freshly caught fish from the ocean into vinegar and eat it while it's still moving. You'll be fine.