The debate is still going on. Should people be drinking raw milk? On one side you have very alarming claims like this:
“Raw milk can carry harmful bacteria and other germs that can make you very sick or kill you. Yes, it’s true that it’s possible to get “food poisoning” or foodborne illnesses from many foods, but raw milk is one of the riskiest of all. Raw milk and products made from raw milk (such as cheeses and yogurts) can cause serious infections, such as Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli.” [1]
Is raw milk dangerous, say, compared to cantaloupe? Here’s a site that says no:
Those favor of raw milk, though, argue that illness-related deaths attributed to the drink are remarkably low compared to other foods. For example, three big outbreaks involving peanuts, eggs, and cantaloupe accounted for 39 deaths from 2009 to 2011, while there were just two deaths caused by raw milk from 1998 to 2011, according to the CDC. [2]
People who look in detail at the actual data challenge the danger and suggest there are many benefits.
… A recent CDC study claims that unpasteurized milk and products made with unpasteurized milk cause 150 times more outbreaks than pasteurized milk or products made from pasteurized milk. After careful analysis, The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) finds the CDC study to be substantially flawed and misleading.
In 2013, bills to expand raw milk access are being introduced in as many as sixteen states. … Raw milk proponents say the CDC report could have an impact on a number of state bills in 2013 that aim to broaden consumer access to raw milk. Raw milk bills in Indiana, Iowa and Wyoming died in committee. Another example would be Wisconsin where Assistant Majority Leader Glenn Grothman plans to introduce a raw milk bill. Last week, Wisconsin public health officials and medical ‘experts’ put out an anti-raw milk statement that relied heavily on the CDC study.
The study by Langer et al can be viewed here [3]
“The CDC data released in the Langer paper, March 2012, actually showed no statistical difference in the rate of illness attributed to raw milk or products produced from raw milk compared to those produced from pasteurized milk,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, “so CDC used the number of ‘outbreaks’ to make raw milk look bad. CDC defines an outbreak as two or more illnesses, and outbreaks involving raw milk or raw milk products involve far fewer individuals than outbreaks involving pasteurized milk. What really counts is the number of illnesses.” See WAPF press release, February 2012, CDC Cherry Picks Data to Make Case Against Raw Milk.
The Weston A. Price Foundation is a worldwide nutrition education nonprofit. Their Campaign for Real Milk[4] works to restore this traditional food to its rightful place in the human diet.
The report has numerous scientific flaws that call in to question its credibility. For instance the report claims that there are more outbreaks in states that allow raw milk sales. The premise that allowing raw milk sales in a state leads to more outbreaks is not valid because the researchers lumped all dairy products together for analysis rather than limiting it to fluid milk. “Since they fail to present analysis that compares laws concerning fluid milk and outbreaks attributed to fluid milk, we must conclude that they didn’t find any statistical difference,” says Fallon Morell. …
“The CDC clearly documents the fact that it has no data to show a statistical increase in illnesses in those states that legalized sale. The real effect of changing these laws is to enhance the public health and increase the number of families that have access to wholesome, unprocessed milk with its vital nutrition and enzymes intact,” explains Fallon Morell.
A close examination of reports on illness associated with raw milk reveals that there are an average of 41 illnesses attributed to raw milk each year, of which about 23 are confirmed illnesses. According to a federal agency phone survey, 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk. The most recent figures from the CDC published in March 2013 report that there are an estimated 876,209 foodborne illnesses per year in the U.S. …The report confirms that there have been no deaths from fluid raw milk over the period of the report. By contrast, three people died from pasteurized milk in Massachusetts in 2007. …“We don’t want anyone to get sick from raw milk,” says Fallon Morell, “and with reasonable management practices by farmers and consumers, we could reduce the number of illness even more than the extremely low numbers now experienced. Continued government opposition to freedom of choice is unproductive. [5]
At one time, I feared raw milk. Then I had a period of a few years where I drank it from time to time. Now I just drink water. We may have evolved drinking raw cow’s and goat’s milk as a species in addition to human milk, and if we’ve been drinking it for 10,000 years raw milk can’t be all that dangerous…probably. Anyway, I survived it.
It was to me like a whole different food compared to processed milk. By flash heating raw milk to protect us from the pathogens, we also disable many immune system protective factors that would otherwise protect us. Raw milk, when left out does not become dangerous, for example.
The difference is that pasteurized milk is a dead food – there are no enzymes or probiotics present. So, when store milk goes bad, it becomes a huge food borne illness risk to consume it and it must be discarded. Raw milk, on the other hand, is loaded with enzymes and probiotics.
When raw milk starts to sour, it simply means that beneficial bacteria called probiotics have started to use up the lactose (milk sugar) which causes the milk to no longer taste as sweet. Raw milk that tastes sour is still very much safe to drink and is even more beneficial to health as the higher level of probiotics have initiated the fermentation or clabbering of the milk.[6]
When I started to get a cold years ago, raw milk did the trick. I even tried camels milk at one point. It wasn’t bad. I just don’t have a taste for any kind of milk these days. A bit of cheese, yes. The debate is academic because it’s pretty hard to find raw milk in most stores in the USA.
My impression is that the current situation is due to economic influences. This is a theme for anyone who tries to objectively get to the truth of health or other debates in the modern world. Follow the money and you will see why people can’t seemingly agree on facts which should be pretty easy to square up. A big source of disagreements is cherry picking of facts and data to support pre-existing views which a groups or person needs support to maintain economic interests. That pretty much sums up much of what makes a truth strange. It’s only strange that raw milk isn’t actually that dangerous in the context of a system that says with great certainty that it is.
To me, it’s like two groups disagreeing about how many pears are in a bucket. They each count them and reach very different numbers. What the heck? There’s only one right answer. They are not both right.
Integrity and truth are important to human survival, but at some point if a person or group has enough power behind some assertion, factually verifiable or not, it becomes counter-productive to fight.
Sure, some see only two pears in the bucket, but yes, there are over 1,000 pears, because powerful organizations say so. Not my fight. I don’t like pears anyway. Or milk these days.
Citations
[1] https://www.foodsafety.gov/blog/raw_milk.html
[2] https://www.healthhis.com/drink-raw-milk/
[3] http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/3/pdfs/11-1370.pdf
[4] https://realmilk.com
[5] https://www.westonaprice.org/flawed-government-report-thwarts-state-raw-milk-initiatives/
[6] https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/101-uses-for-soured-raw-milk/
