I've been reading this hipster rubbish for years.
the vast majority of people in the first world live an urban life. we DONT live on, or near, farms. you cant just pop down to the end of your garden and pump a cow.
Food spoils. food can be contaminated by bacteria and it has to be regulated to avoid the problems that can occur when a large number of people are using the same supply.

raw milk is OK for hipsters who want to spend large amounts of money on a premium product.
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now, if you wanted to hit on GMO's or the number of antibiotics used in farming, I would be with you 100%

but if you're just hitting on pasteurisation..... GFY

Surely you would agree that lying as he did to get the law passed was not cool.

I do happen to have access to raw milk in a state that allows its sales in stores. I'm hardly a hipster, and have never become ill from it. My kids have fond memories of trips out to the farm for milk right from the cow's udder.

Yes, GMOs, and antibiotics are polluting our food supply. Do you try to drink milk from non-RBGH cows? Hopefully, you do, as the other type has pus in it from the mastitis the cows get from pumping excessive milk. It's a shame that factory farms, mass production, love of big profits, and excessive government control have all but eliminated our access to it.

Also, did you know that in places in Europe there are vending machines that dispense it to anyone who want's a nutritious snack?

Here in the U.S family farmers, such as the Amish and others, are afraid of when the next government raid will come. Oh, but tobacco, sickening sodas, and other crap are bulging off the shelves of the grocery stores, creating bulging waistlines in millions of Americans. Society is sick in more ways than one.

Carol Wrote:
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> Surely you would agree that lying as he did to get
> the law passed was not cool.

when talking with anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers, moon landing hoaxers, 911 truthers and other various nutcases, you will tend to find that the person will focus on a small single instance of an unexplained event, a singular problem or an instance which has been shown to be wrong (maybe a miscommunication or an early theory which is later discredited for instance)
the vast, vast body of scientific evidence that supports climate change or moon landings can therefore be ignored in favour of a mislabelled photograph or a graph with a detail missing.

the fact is that raw milk can contain deadly bacteria and pasteurisation is a proven, effective method of dealing with the modern phenomena of mass food production and an urban population.

your raw milk - hopefully - is bacteria free, and it doesnt need to be transported in bulk, with milk from multiple sources, and stored for a while before it is sold.

I did not know that, in Europe "there are vending machines that dispense it to anyone who want's a nutritious snack"
I live in the UK and have never heard of that, but I guess it may happen in some areas of Europe.... it's a big place.
I wonder how they deal with the inevitable sickness and hospitalizations (as per your link).

The queen and the royal family also visit homoeopaths
I think Homoeopathy is a nutty unscientific con job

if you are trying to use the royal family to convince me of anything, please be aware, I am an anti-monarchist and I dont think much of 'argument from celebrity' fallacies

You know what, it doesn't matter if it's poison. People have the right to drink what they want. If the seller is happy, and the buyer is happy, it was a free-will trade and each feels enriched by the transaction, then there should be absolutely no law against it. People are smart, they can do their own research and make their own decisions. If they choose to be stupid, well, their choice.

We don't need big government daddy policing our nutrition any more than our morality.

Per the link, 10,000,000 americanos say they drink raw milk. Also, "this still means fewer than 1,000 infected cases, 73 hospitalizations, and zero deaths."

Manhattan has 1.6 million people. If they all drank raw milk...
"fewer than 160 infected cases, 11.6 hospitalizations, and ? deaths" would be the result.

Actually, let's just scale this up to the nation:
87% of Americans drink milk, according to the USDA. Leaving out the 10 million raw milkers, 267 million apparently drink pasteurized milk. So, pasteurization is preventing "26,700 infected cases, 1949 hospitalizations, and an unknown number of deaths" in the US alone.

Again, pasteurization is preventing "26,700 infected cases, 1949 hospitalizations, and an unknown number of deaths" in the US alone. And most countries use UHT pasteurization, which is even safer than the US-standard HTST.

And once more: pasteurization is preventing "26,700 infected cases, 1949 hospitalizations, and an unknown number of deaths" in the US alone.

Yay math! And yay pasteurization!

Milk pastuerization was widespread well before whatever fake 1944 incident that might have been conjured up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_raw_milk_debate#History

And the shadowy conspiracy that is keeping those pathogens away from you in the US must be pretty powerful, because raw milk is banned or regulated in various other countries too.


Yay science! Yay first world public health!

As kids growing up in the countryside we used to laugh at the vacationing city folk. Also, in school we learned about the great service to humanity that was the work of Louis Pasteur.

Different worlds...

Drink your raw milk if you want. I call it natural selection at work in our time.

I am sorry but it is not a war on raw milk. It is risky. There are pathegens to consider. It is not a conspiracy.

As someone who got scarlet fever from unpasteurized milk when I was 5, I would prefer to follow the best advice from science/research which is pasteurizing these products.

Just wanted to add that unpasteurized cheese is extraordinarily tasty compared with the plastic blocks you buy in most supermarkets. The health advice is that they're generally safe for adults who don't have impaired immune systems.

Unfortunately you always get idiots who ignore the advice and give it to children cause it's natural and so must be healthier. We're all at the mercy of the stupid brigade.

As for me, I don't drink milk, except on rare occasions. If people want to drink raw milk, then they should be prepared for the possible consequences, just like with sushi, raw oysters, steak tartare, etc... Personally, the counter-culture backlash against smart health practices makes no sense to me, but, like, whatever, man.

Louis Pasteur ?

What an ass.

He prolly never even existed.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Louis_Pasteur

I grew up with raw milk. It was so disgusting to me that I haven't had a glass of milk of any kind for at least 35 years.

After milking the cow the milk gets put through a strainer. It's the only way to get those flecks of cow shit out of the milk before drinking it.

I've heard it's really slimy, too. Now, I will eat a lot of thinks, but really slimy stuff (like raw squid) sounds just gross. I forgot about the cow shit in the milk.

IDK what the problem with pasteurization is. As I recall, back in the late 90s a bunch of people were sickened from drinking contaminated, unpasteurized juice.

Slimy? What? Who are you talking to? It really is amazing stuff. I hate the taste of pasteurized milk. I would buy raw a lot more if I could afford it. As it is I have to settle for kefiring regular pasteurized milk. That gets some good bugs back in it.

Who else would I talk to about it? But different strokes for different folks, eh?

I like dairy products (like cheese and yogurt), but not a fan of milk except in cooking. However, should camel milk become available, I'll be the first in line for it. :)

Raw milk is unsafe.
There is a good reason for pasteurization.

I milk a Guernsey on my hobby farm. fantastic milk, somatic cell count is extremely low. happy, healthy cows and delicious, raw milk.

pasteurization destroys the good bacteria with the bad. our bodies need the good bacteria.

to each their own. much like the Mormon church, I guess.

People tend to get used to the microflora in raw milk if they are using the same healthy cow, with the same microflora each time.

Fine if you have your own guernsey and have been using he milk from it for a long time

my argument still stands Raw milk is useless for a massive urban population and mass transport.


the OP's original argument has been destroyed and the dangers of Raw milk have been been laid out

I'm leaving this thread, happy at that outcome

as a follow up, anybody ever look at how many deaths each year are from reactions to pharmacueticals prescribed and taken properly (dosage) by Americans each year? In 2011, it was over 100,000 deaths. From prescribed medicine given by a doctor. Add in hospital mistakes and WATCH OUT!

So, a little perspective. How many deaths attributed to 10,000,000 Americans in 25 years of drinking raw milk? How many in a year from prescribed medicine (62 million over 30 years--see below).

if you're passionate about "idiots" drinking raw milk or "thinning the genetic herd" you must really get riled up over prescribed drugs!!

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/26/prescription-drugs-number-one-cause-preventable-death-in-us.aspx

Seven years after the original article was written, an analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine3 on November 25, 2010 piqued my interest -- the researchers found that, despite efforts to improve patient safety in the past few years, the health care system hasn't changed much at all. So, earlier this year, I updated the original Death by Medicine article, which, unfortunately, shows more of the same:
•
In a June 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, study authors said that in looking over records4 that spanned from 1976 to 2006 (the most recent year available) they found that, of 62 million death certificates, almost a quarter-million deaths were coded as having occurred in a hospital setting due to medication errors.

•An estimated 450,000 preventable medication-related adverse events occur in the U.S. every year.

•The costs of adverse drug reactions5 to society are more than $136 billion annually -- greater than the total cost of cardiovascular or diabetic care.

•Adverse drug reactions cause injuries or death in one of five hospital patients.

•The reason there are so many adverse drug events in the U.S.6 is that so many drugs are used and prescribed – and many patients receive multiple prescriptions at varying strengths, some of which may counteract each other or cause more severe reactions when combined.

The following draws extensively on peer-reviewed scientific research and not agenda-driven hyperbole from the "I know it's true because I read it on the Internet" crowd.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/raw-milk-myths-busted/#.VTfqnigtVSp

>Myth #1. Raw milk has been consumed for thousands of years without a problem.

>This myth reflects a lack of understanding about the historical impact of infectious diseases transmitted by raw milk for centuries, especially tuberculosis, brucellosis (undulant fever), and scarlet fever (five footnoes). Raw milk has caused numerous deaths of infants throughout history. Pasteurization was developed to prevent these well-documented illnesses and deaths from contaminated raw milk. In developed countries, the use of pasteurization has been directly correlated to reduced infant mortality (footnoted).

>Myth #2. Pasteurization destroys all the nutrients in milk.

>Since the dawn of pasteurization (using heat to kill pathogens), this myth has prevailed without scientific evidence. When pasteurization started to become more mainstream early last century, some people were suspicious of the technology. Subsequent analyses of the nutritional components of raw and pasteurized milk revealed no significant differences for the major nutritional components such as proteins, carbohydrates, and vitamins (three footnotes)

>Myth #3. Homogenization produces dangerous changes in milk.

>This is another old myth dating back to the first years of milk processing during the last century. Homogenization is simply the process of physically breaking up the fat globules in cow’s milk to make a “homogenous” fluid milk beverage (two footnotes). Unhomogenized cows milk will develop a cream layer at the top of the container. Goat’s milk is “naturally homogenized” and does not form a cream layer during storage. There is no proven health difference between mechanically homogenized cow’s milk and naturally homogenized goat’s milk.

>Myth #4. Raw milk kills pathogens.

>This myth evolved from a partial truth based on experimental data where researchers inoculated “bad” bacteria into raw milk and measured its survival. In one experiment, a few strains of the bacteria Campylobacter died sooner in raw milk compared with sterile milk (13), but most strains survived long enough in both types of milk to make someone sick. Other experiments have shown survival and even growth of E. coli O157, Salmonella, and Listeria in raw milk and raw milk products (14-17). Live bacterial pathogens are routinely found in bulk tank milk on farms, which proves that “bad” bacteria are not reliably killed by “good” bacteria, enzymes or other components of raw milk (18-21). Raw milk also does not kill or reduce foodborne viruses or parasites.

Thanks for putting some rational facts into the discussion, SLC. :)

that's what my Guernsey is A2/A2 proteins. Jerseys imported from New Zealand (via semen) are dramatically influencing this protein in milk.

You fucking sissy ass clueless wienies gotta have your nanny corporate cooked milk?

Fine, but will you please leave my milk the fuck alone?

What about those raw eggs? God knows they're loaded with dangerous germs. Better ban raw eggs while you're at it!

So I bet you cooked milk assholes couldn't ever appreciate the joy of a real raw milk English Stilton. Better beware, it might kill you.