crazy society

[gwpoky]

Amen, Carl, Amen

[dlskidmore]

I could be convinced to convert to raw milk if I owned the cow/sheep in question, but as soon as you start pooling milk from multiple cows, it seems to me that the risk of less favorable microbes inhabiting the milk would go way up. One bad pail of milk contaminates the batch. I think this is a good deal of why big milk companies have to pasteurize and always will, they not only have to be confident of the biological security of their own herd and quarantine practices, they have to trust every single contributing farmer’s biological security and QT practices.

[jac]

Excellent Carl..Id forgot all about the homoginisation thing. Its like dl said.. we dont have a big powerfull milk lobby, all the laws on the planet wont stop me pouring real milk into my coffee….
John

[OldKat]

@Carl Russell 20949 wrote:

…

The reason we started pasteurizing milk was because farms began to grow in urban areas where there was a good milk market, but little open land. Confined and fed food stuffs other than grass these animals got ill and the milk became contaminated. Rather than changing the farming model back to small herds on grass, we found pharmaceutical and technological solutions. Vaccinate the cows and cook the milk. …

This is all true. I think the primary concern for pasteurizing milk was because tuberculosis was so prevalent at that time and it was thought that raw milk was an ideal medium for culturing it and transmitting it. At least that is what I remember from a dairy science class that I took in college. That said, tuberculosis has been nearly entirely eliminated in people and in dairy cattle in the US.* There is an easy, inexpensive test that can be run to see if a cow is TB clean or not.

I think if I wanted to keep a milk cow I would get her tested annually, keep her in a clean pasture away from any cows that might come and go & not worry about it one bit. Of course SELLING raw milk is another story in most states, though I have been told that we now have a raw milk sales permit in my state.

*TB is said to be making a comeback in several states with a high illegal immigrant population (like mine), as it was never controlled in many parts of the world … especially Mexico, Central & South America. Still, if I owned a milk cow I wouldn’t think one thing about drinking the raw milk; which I use to do regularly when I did have access to it.

[Phil]

dlskidmore;20954 wrote:

I could be convinced to convert to raw milk if I owned the cow/sheep in question, but as soon as you start pooling milk from multiple cows, it seems to me that the risk of less favorable microbes inhabiting the milk would go way up. One bad pail of milk contaminates the batch. I think this is a good deal of why big milk companies have to pasteurize and always will, they not only have to be confident of the biological security of their own herd and quarantine practices, they have to trust every single contributing farmer’s biological security and QT practices.

I guess it depends where you live. Farmers selling raw milk do pool the milk from their own cows, but I’m unaware of any raw milk that is pooled between farms. In my state (CT) raw milk sales are legal, and the farmer needs to be certified and inspected just like any other dairy, only the standards are even higher. So the bottom line is that the milk is tested regularly and often.

But raw milk is not just a petri dish waiting to be inoculated, the good bugs in it provide a protective element against contamination. Pasteurized milk is dead and can be easily contaminated.

[jac]

We had a visit from a friend today who is 8 months pregnant. I brought up the subject of her grandfathers house cow and she told me her midwife told her not to drink the milk !!!:eek:.. think I need to get a meeting with my local member of parliment and kick ass…
John

[near horse]

First, I have to say that, regardless of what/how my comments below are perceived, I support a person’s right to consume raw milk. IMHO – it is the milk industry that wants to make sure raw milk is not available. They are concerned about: 1)bad press if someone gets ill from raw milk – it’s still milk and it’s guilt by association 2)small as the raw milk market is when compared to industrial milk, they still don’t want competition for fear that they might have to change their model (even to just add raw to their line).

So, with regard to raw vs pasteurized milk – I do think it tastes very different and flash pasteurizing (hi temp short time) likely does destroy some vitamins and alters some fatty acids in the milk, changing flavor and probably nutrient profiles. Some have tried to go to a low and slow pasteurizing (I’d have to look up the time/temps) in an attempt to meet USDA req as well as maintain the integrity of the milk.. BTW – they are also bottling and marketing their product to retailers. The money in milk, although fluid sales accounts for a majority of sales, is still in the fat. So, for ease of uniformity of product, all the fat is removed and then added back to the skim milk in whatever percent the are producing.

As OldKat says, the main reason for requiring pasteurization of milk WAS tuberculosis, although I’m a bit skeptical about how dangerous milk was in the whole TB thing. It was more likely close living conditions transmitting the bacteria via respiratory routes combined with no antibiotic treatments available at the time. Now, we have come to use pasteurization to 1) increase the “shelf life” of milk. (As an aside, there was/is research into feeding high levels of Vit E and C to reduce oxidation in both milk and meat to increase shelf life as well). There has also been a movement (I hope unsuccessfully) to use radiation to sterilize milk. Irradiated milk can sit unrefrigerated on the shelf for 3 months or more – someone can make money with those savings. Also, IMHO pasteurization also “allows” and perhaps even encourages sloppy milking practices – which allows increased speed and production. Then just take care of the contamination with pasteurizing/irradiation.

As we are all probably aware, there are other pathogenic bacteria that can grow in milk (as well as on other foods) and we need to be aware of that and handle our food accordingly.

I do believe that some people are “intolerant” of lactose or milk proteins, for whatever reason. There are arguments that adult animals didn’t evolve drinking milk, as it was primarily a food for infants that needed the high quality for growth, and so may lose the ability to digest milk. I never thought about whether the intolerance was due to homogenization or pasteurization. Hmmm.

[dlskidmore]

@near horse 20998 wrote:

I do believe that some people are “intolerant” of lactose or milk proteins, for whatever reason. There are arguments that adult animals didn’t evolve drinking milk, as it was primarily a food for infants that needed the high quality for growth, and so may lose the ability to digest milk. I never thought about whether the intolerance was due to homogenization or pasteurization. Hmmm.

Many people who are lactose intolerant can have cultured milk products like sour cream, yogurt and Kiefer. The bacteria in the milk break down and predigest the lactose so it does not cause digestive upset. Raw milk is likely to contain similar bacteria, and after a little time in the distribution system or on a fridge shelf may break down in a similar manner.

[jac]

So how does the homoginization proccess work then ?? I know the principle is to seperate the cream off and then attach a partical of cream to milk again in the proportion that the producer thinks the public should be allowd… but what kind of machinery is involved ??…
John

[gwpoky]

To homogenize you put the milk though a small ‘hole” at very high pressure which brakes up the larger fat particles so everything is the same size and the fat will not separate out.:eek:

[CharlyBonifaz]

seems – as Asians buy and use more and more milk and cheese and…..- lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose-milk sugar) can be “trained” by beginning with a little at a time..

[Andy Carson]

An interesting thing about the pasturization of milk in the US (at least) is that it is the heat is not actually hot enough (or applied long enough) to actually sterilize the resulting milk. If subjected to the heat required for true sterilization, the taste of the milk changes dramatically. I experienced this first hand when I traveled to Europe, where much of the milk is “ultra” pasturized and does not require refrigeration. It was, at least to me, undrinkable. The food industry has gone so far as to set standards for total bacterial count as well as coliform (such as E coli) counts in milk after pasteurization. Grade A milk has less than 20,000 total bacteria with less than 10 coliforms per ml. Given that fresh milk from a healthy cow contains 100-1000 total bacteria per ml before processing and storage, one could make the argument that it is the freshness of the milk (rather than the processing) that is the primary determinant of it’s ability to produce disease.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/fse-fact/pdf/0003.pdf

[Tim Harrigan]

Countymouse;21021 wrote:

Given that fresh milk from a healthy cow contains 100-1000 total bacteria per ml before processing and storage, one could make the argument that it is the freshness of the milk (rather than the processing) that is the primary determinant of it’s ability to produce disease.

http://ohioline.osu.edu/fse-fact/pdf/0003.pdf

So is that 100-1000 the expected bacterial count of milk in the udder? It seems to me that the risk is in the handling and storage. That makes sense to me, the list of organisms is pretty heavily represented by fecal pathogens.

[Andy Carson]

Yes, milk in the udder of a healthy cow has very few (if any) bacteria. The key word here is healthy, as a diseased cow could have orders of magnitude more bacteria, and of kinds that do produce disease.

[near horse]

Interestingly, up until E. coli O157 H7 hit the scene (early 90’s ?), screening for fecal coliforms was more to indicate that there was some fecal contamination that might carry/transmit certain bacterial diseases that are transmitted via fecal/oral routes – the main one being cholera. With the emergence of O157 H7 – that now changes the picture somewhat.

Nobody wants poop on/in their food but bacteria are everywhere – that’s why there are such things as allowable numbers of various bacteria in food. In fact, it seems to me to be pretty unnatural for people to be consuming sterilized foodstuff. That’s not how living consumer organisms evolved.

Also, with the 100 -1000 organisms/mL in milk in the udder, is that from the first stuff usually stripped off, the rest is “let down” from further up in the mammary tissues of the “udder” and would not be very likely to carry much bacteria, if any, unless there was mastitis. Then you would see high SCC (somatic cell counts) as a result of the inflammatory response to the infection.

Bottom line – milk is good food (excellent amino acid profile), for a lot of creatures, including some microbes.

[Author]

Posts