Is raw milk really better for you? It depends. If you are a cow, the answer is yes. But if you are among those readers who are human, it’s a little harder to say. As the L.A. Times points out, the big difference between raw milk and pasteurized milk is bacteria. Lots of bacteria. So we then have to ask: is the bacteria is good or bad? The answer, of course, is both: some bacteria is good, and some is bad.
The raw milk crowd argues that the beneficial bacteria and enzymes give the immune system a workout
and aid with digestion. Rusty Bishop, director of the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin, has a different opinion. He tells us that beneficial
bacteria (such as acidophilus and bifidobacterium) occur only in small
amounts in raw milk (whose sale is legal in 28 states and illegal in 22) and that any enzymes the milk contains have no
proven benefit for humans. Then there are the federal officials, who, the Times points out, maintain that
pasteurization is crucial because the risk of contamination with
harmful bacteria outweighs any potential benefits from beneficial, or
probiotic, bacteria found in unprocessed milk. Surely there are studies? Yes. The Times mentions a few, and the results are mixed, some suggesting that people who drink raw milk have fewer allergies,
some claiming to see a rise in E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria as the number of raw milk drinkers climbs.
Read more about the great raw milk debate in the Los Angeles Times.
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I was raised on raw milk, am 66 years old. My mother drank raw milk, she just passed away at the age of 98, guess it isn’t that bad for you. When you were raised on a farm you ate and drank what was put in front of you, if we didn’t raise it, we didn’t have it.
I remember the owner of the dairy farm right beside my Grandmother’s home handing 2 freshly bottled (still warm sometimes) gallon milk jugs over the fence for us. We had to shake the jugs because the cream rose to the top of the jugs.
We would drink our cow’s milk. It was my “chore” to separate the cream and make the butter. When married with children, we would go to a local rancher and get two to three gallons each week and cut it with NON-instant powdered milk to extend it. It was great to taste the different flavors as feeds would change…..
Great taste memories…..Now I drink Soy Milk (use).
I have a theory that all the additives we use, like pasteurizers and preservatives, that are added to our foods to protect ourselves from bacteria can ultimately make us sick or kill us.