Raw Milk - What are your thoughts

[Takiap]

As many of you will know, I'm a million miles away from being a health conscious person, but I do have a lot of interest in the subject.


Anyway, my question is: what are your thoughts on drinking raw "untreated" milk?


I drank it for years at one point in my life and never experienced any problems whatsoever. The old man I got my milk from had drank raw milk all his life, and was still as fit as a fiddle despite being almost 90 years old.

I tend to view store bought milk as a refreshment, and raw milk as a food. The amount of goodness lost during pasteurization is astonishing, but the public have be told otherwise.

One interesting thing to think about is this: If you leave store bought milk standing, it goes bad and can no longer be consumed. If you do drink it, you WILL be sick.

Raw milk doesn't go the same way. Instead, it goes sour but can still be consumed. In fact it can even be bought in shops in some countries, including SA. When left standing, it thickens and sours, and then separates. The curd can then be used for making things like cream cheese; ricotta and/or paneer. Store bought milk on the other hand has to go in the bin.


Still having doubts? Here's some food for thought:

http://www.rawmilk.org/pdf/report-in-fa ... -06-07.pdf

PS: we've now been drink "fresh from the cow" for just over a month, and we're loving it.

[sand_dancer]

Takiap

I can remember when " Raw " milk was consumed in Scotland.....

Then along came pasteurisation.... Or sterlisation.... Depending on viewpoint.....

Certainly in the UK..... I would not dream of consuming raw milk.....

This is on the basis of modern farming techniques and the use of artificial animal feeds.....

[Winkie]

Interesting post

I too, am of a similar persuasion - i.e. Very Interested in Health issues, but not frequently a good example of such beliefs.

I detox frequently, I use Coconut Oil for many things, I Oil pull. I do keep a high content of fresh fruit and Veg in my diet. But then I do drink, smoke, and time to time, eat total crap. Generally I consider myself quite healthy, and cannot really remember the last time I went to the Doctor or took a sickie. I avoid the use of chemical medicines most of the time.

I have vivid memories of drinking milk fresh from the cow, when I was a littl'un. My Grand parents had a Dairy Small holding. I can still visualize the stainless steel jug, the steam coming off the top. But what a recall most, was the smell. The smell of fresh steaming milk, just from the cow's tit, is, well, quite powerful.

It was years before I tried raw milk again, many years. I was camping in the Lake District, and a local Farm was selling raw milk by the bottle. It was chilled and did not have the memorable smell. I drank it every day for the 2 weeks I was there. But never since then (tried raw goat's milk once, not sure I want to try that again, that's for sure!)

Just out of interest..... Where do you get your raw milk from? How much does it cost? How 'fresh' is it?

[brianks]

Humm, Raw Milk in Thailand? Do you think you could trust this product made in Thailand? My health is more important than trusting any health claims for any product made in Thailand.

[J.J.B.]

Sand_dancer has a point, it depends on where you are drinking raw milk from. Modern dairy farming techniques in Europe will produce a peak yield of around 35-50 litres of milk per day from a well-bred Holstein-Fresian cow. Milk production (lactation) generally lasts for around 300 days with a 'drying off' period of a further 60-odd before the cow drops a calf and the whole process is started again. During this dry-off period the cows are plied with antibiotics directly into the udder to clear any infections left over from the milking period.

This intensive level of milking throughout a 300 day period can cause irritation and inflammation or cows' udders not to mention infections picked-up by cows' teats dragging on the ground (covered in cow shit) and being trodden on by other cows in the milking parlour or elsewhere. These infections (collectively resulting in mastitis) are treated by antibiotics and the milk from treated cows is meant to be discarded during the treatment time and a safe period afterwards to stop drugs entering the food chain. This rarely happens, largely because farmers use the dilution effect of their 150+ herd that isn't being treated to mask the drug tests currently used; they are not that sensitive.

So, drinking raw milk from a large herd causes you the risk of ingesting unwanted antibiotics (regardless of where you live) while drinking raw milk from a single cow or a small herd leaves you vulnerable to drinking a pint of puss. If you have just one cow, whose provenance and care you can guarantee then perhaps you are alright but I wouldn't want to risk it as there are lots of very nasty bugs out there and pasteurisation does nothing more than kill them before they have a chance to colonise.

[MrPlum]

Drinking cows milk is like drinking pigs milk, horse milk or giraffe milk. It is unnatural. Reasons not to touch dairy at all...

Injections of growth hormone (care of 'the most evil company in the world', Monsanto)
overuse of antibiotics
contamination with feces and pus
cows being fed other cows and GMOs, by the mad scientists
the increased risk of hormone-dependent cancers
too much protein


What about the calcium for your bones? North America has one of the highest consumptions of dairy products, and also the highest incidence of osteoporosis. You have a 1 in 6 risk of prostate cancer. In China (with no dairy) it is 1 in 200,000.

Pasteurization allows the dairy industry to operate in filthy conditions with massive maltreatment of animals. By consuming it we support a truly terrible business.

Raw Milk

Raw cow's milk is a common Ayurvedic remedy in India, yet the CDC, filled with junk-science fearmongers and political prostitutes, claim it is 150x more dangerous than cow's milk. What gives?

Corporations and their lobbies have infiltrated and corrupted all the consumer protection bodies. Turning them into 'gatekeepers'. The war on raw milk, like so many 'wars', has nothing to do with the protection of the public, only killing off the competition. It's another assault on the basic human right to choose your own food.

[margaretcarnes]

I hate milk - probably due to it being left beside the radiator at school. It just made me feel sick. But that was in the 50's and I don't know if it would have been pasteurised then?
Despite that I love cheeses, and am planning to try a recipe for Paneer, which of course will be with shop bought full milk. So clearly pasteurised can also be used to make cheese at home. A friend has already made other cheeses from shop bought milk. Maybe it's the addition of live yoghurt that makes the difference?
But regards milk and bone strength/density, I do side with Mr P. There appears to be little evidence that milk helps increase bone density in adults. In fact the osteoporosis online advice available alleges that calcium is no help at all without using vitamin D as well.

[brianks]

Has this forum turned into a Nutritional Advise Forum??? What about Chitlins next?

[Nereus]

Arh, so that`s the reason!
.............................................................................

Thais drink little milk, stay short

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews ... -more-milk

Thai young people tend to be short in stature because they do not drink much milk, Public Health Minister Pradit Sintawanarong said on Thursday.
According to a study by the ministry, the average height of 18 and 19-year-old boys is 167.1 centimetres, and 157.4cm for girls. Their short stature is attributed to low milk consumption, Dr Pradit said.
Thai people consume less milk than other Southeast Asian countries, with Thais drinking about 14 litres of milk per head each year, compared to Southeast Asia's average of 60 litres and the world rate of 103.9 litres annually, he said.
Pornthep Siriwanarangsan, director-general of the Department of Health, said the ministry aims to raise the average height of Thai teenage boys over the age of 18 to 175cm, and to 162cm for teenage girls.
The ministry is also promoting breastfeeding for babies in the first six months of life, that young children drink two to three glasses of milk a day and that older children drink two glasses daily, Dr Pradit said.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has set the last Wednesday in September as annual World School Milk Day.

[PeteC]

When I was a kid and again in the early 80's living in the PNW we used to get glass bottled milk from a special shop where the 2" +- floating on top was pure cream. Is that considered raw milk? Pete

[Nereus]

When I was a kid and again in the early 80's living in the PNW we used to get glass bottled milk from a special shop where the 2" +- floating on top was pure cream. Is that considered raw milk? Pete

Not really. It was probably not homogenised, as that is what stops the milk from forming cream on top. Pasteurization has very liitle effect on the process.
Also, with homegenisation, very often a range of raw milk with different and lower degrees of butterfat content, is mixed together that lowers the overall content.

I really do not want to get invoved in this thread, as it has already morphed into a load of bollocks. I will just say that there is no way that I would feed a child raw milk in this country.

I grew up on a dairy farm in Australia and drank raw milk as a kid, as did my own kids. But like most things in Australia, the industry was and is highly regulated, both at the farm level, and upstream. The milk that we used was also fresh everyday, and that is where the problems come in with all milk in the market, the time and handling involved from the farm gate to the consumer.

[MrPlum]

The raw milk farms in the U.S. are extremely clean because they cannot afford contamination. Here, there is no such hygiene standards but the cows I see, are munching grass in fields and aren't stressed by being over-milked. If the locals are drinking it and not getting sick then perhaps it is not so bad after all. If you can eat fly-blown meat from the markets and survive, then raw cow's milk should be a doddle.

Not sure what is being referred to but on the basis that it is usually moi, here's some 'boll***s' from Harvard Medical School about prostate cancer... http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/ ... d_diet.htm

'In nine separate studies, the strongest and most consistent dietary factor linked with prostate cancer was high consumption of milk or dairy products. In the largest of these, the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, men who drank two or more glasses of milk a day were almost twice as likely to develop advanced or metastatic (spreading) prostate cancer as those who didn’t drink milk at all.'

[STEVE G]

I have to say that none of the Asians that I've lived with over the years have ever really consumed hardly any dairy products at all and I've never bought milk in Thailand. The only thing I buy it for in Europe is for breakfast cereals and that is only for the mornings when I have to get up so early that I don't have time to prepare a more elaborate breakfast.

[Vital Spark]

My sister nearly killed an unborn baby with unpasteurised milk. Sounds like a headline from one of the 'red tops', but it's true. This was in the UK, by the way. She was getting married to a farmer's son, and we all pitched in with the catering (future mother-in-law included) for the wedding reception. Husband's family had a dairy farm, and his mum decided to make some nice quiches with unpasteurised milk. It was a blazing June afternoon, and the buffet was sitting out all afternoon for the guests. A day later, or maybe it was the same evening, some of the guests came down with serious food poisoning - including a pregnant aunt. The amount of people going to the local surgery alerted the Health & Safety brigade, who had to try and find out the cause. It was traced to the quiches and the raw milk. The pregnant aunt had to be hospitalised because she was so ill, and the mother-in-law got a right ticking off.

Mr.VS uses raw milk to make his cheese, but he pasteurises it at home. It's nearly impossible to make decent cheese from shop bought stuff because it's been homogenised so much it's left with very little of the raw ingredients needed to get the process going. The place where we get the milk from is a very small family business. No milking machinery in sight, so I guess it's done by hand, and I can't imagine that there's much sterilising of the buckets or the cows. I really don't think I'd like to risk drinking it raw.

VS

[Siani]

I would not drink it. This raw, unpasteurized milk can carry dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, which are responsible for causing numerous foodborne illnesses.
Pasteurization is a process that kills harmful bacteria by heating milk to a specific temperature for a set period of time. First developed by Louis Pasteur in 1864, pasteurization kills harmful organisms responsible for such diseases as listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and brucellosis.