I grew up on a dairy farm and we drank raw milk every day. I can remember my sisters bringing the milk pitcher to the barn and dipping into the bulk tank of raw milk every morning or so. No one got sick and no one died. We even made butter at home from it after separating the cream. But pasteurization is a good thing for all you urbane urbanites out there. It increases the shelf life and safety for consumption. Plus it reduces number of small dairies near population centers that used to exist. Dairies can be 100+ miles away now. After all, you wouldn’t want to be exposed to the smell of cow shit right?
Raw milk does taste very different from store bought pasteurized milk, (whole milk ain’t whole). And like shelf stable milk, I doubt anyone of you would like drinking it.
Those are also cows you personally owned and cared for. You knew their health, you knew their living conditions, and the milk wasn’t produced soley (or maybe at all) for big corporate profits where production is the goal, and the animals well-being isn’t.
I’m sure other people would be more supportive if the sources could be trusted, but that’s difficult when you’ve seen how livestock is treated.
You do understand that ALL dairy farms that sell milk are regularly tested for safety of the milk they sell. This is federally mandated. You miss the thresholds for bacteria counts, you will be dumping all your milk produced until it tests clean again. So those cows can’t be held in very dirty and vile conditions because your milk won’t pass those mandated tests. Slackers go broke and are out of business in short order.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for selling pasteurized milk in stores. The milk you buy in the store can be a week old before you see it on the shelf. But the unreasoning fear of raw milk is just plain ridiculous.
Those inspections are carried out by federal inspectors. The incoming administration wants to severely cut funding for pretty much “the government” (except the military). That means fewer inspectorsand less thorough inspections. That’s how things like the Boar’s Head thing, and listeria outbreaks in spinach happen. They’re happening more and more because of industrial farming processes coupled with more relaxed federal inspections.
They’re held in dirty and vile conditions, but they’re also pumped full of antibiotics.
After surviving one pandemic, it’s totally fair that some of us are a bit wary of raw milk now because multiple places have found bird flu in it. Judging us in the way you are isn’t okay.
PASTEURIZATION IS A GOOD THING
LOL… the downvoting. I think as usual people read the first sentence and that’s it. So you saying “pasteurization is a good thing” got lost.
PASTEURIZATION IS A GOOD THING
But totally agree - raw milk, in the right situation and handled appropriately, which means COWS YOU KNOW is just so much better. To the point where after our one neighbor we’d get it from moved away I just stopped drinking milk at all.
PASTEURIZATION IS A GOOD THING
