First of all, I love milk and drank it all my life. I keep reading the nutritional value of raw milk is much higher than cooked store milk and would love to try it. I'm sure it tastes better but what are the risks?

Don't know of any risks. I grew up drinking it, and still think store-bought tastes weak. Can't imagine what the 2% tastes like.

Death is probably the worst side effect.

I'm gonna pass on raw milk. This happened very near me a couple years back.

Local Man on Life Support After Drinking Raw Milk:

Local Man On Life Support After Drinking Raw Milk | www.wpxi.com

The only "raw" milk I drank was from cows I saw every time I walked around their "cow patties" as I went around my Grandparents farm. Didn't do me any harm. ("Course I have friends who might question that statement! )

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Quando omni flunkus moritati.

I know the FDA is busy shutting down and fining/jailing outlaw purveyors of raw milk. It is a big no-no as to human consumption.

Most of what I have read about the dangers of raw milk seems to be unproven hype without facts to back it up. How food is handled before you use it could be as much a danger as the food itself.
Hard to get a straight answer to this one.

Salmonella,listeria and E.coli.

The state of SC allows raw milk sales to the public. There is an inspection process that I know nothing about. You can find a listing of all the diaries in the state that produce it by Googling 'SC raw milk'. I bought 2 gallons last week to make old timey buttermilk like I grew up with at my Grandma's house. And the buttermilk came out SUPERB!

This milk is from Guernsey cows and has a higher butter fat content than the milk I buy at Harris-Teeter. I also bought 1/2 gallon of the raw milk buttermilk to use as a starter culture. It is just like I remember from my childhood-has lots of semi-solid 'lump' in it and a great, sour, tart taste. But, the really big drawback is the cost. The gallons of raw cost $8.00 each, and the 1/2 gallon of buttermilk was $6.00.

So, I'll only be buying it to make buttermilk and not buying it everyweek. Too expensive for my budget.

There are so many foods that we never eat in any form other than ultra-processed, that we never get the antibodies into our bodies to counteract some of these illnesses. I am 71 now, and during my youth, I drink out of garden hoses everyday during the summer; we passed around soda bottle to share a drink; I carried lead BBs for my air rifle in my mouth for ease in reloading; I ate snack and bag lunches without washing my hands very, very often; I have drunk from streams without any filtration many times. The point is that the younger generations today are so protected that any little germ is liable to have drastic consequences, which wouldn't have bothered us at all. There were so unknown benefits to being ignorant.

I think the CDC has proven the risks of raw milk. IMO they far outweigh the potential benefits. I also put a lot of weight on what my dietitian wife says - and it's a huge no-go in our household.

CDC Features - Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk

Don't forget another biggie, tuberculosis from raw milk.

There is a dairy just down the road that advertises raw milk and they have a sign for it out on the state highway, so it is either legal or the law is unenforced here in my part of GA.

This is why milk is pasteurized.

Undulant fever definition - Medical Dictionary definitions of popular medical terms easily defined on MedTerms

Today, it is not often fatal, but can be.

When I was a kid down in the country we all drank raw milk. City folks drank pasteurized milk, but they were kind of wimpy anyway.
Then undulant fever came along and we all go wimpy. Most of us started drinking the store bought.

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NRA LIFE MEMBER

we had our own pasteurizing machine growing up. we'd take the milk straight from the barn & grandma would pasteurize it. I know how nasty the cows udder can get (splatter, ponds, calves sucking) and I didn't want that going straight into my body without some kind of processing !

now my family only drinks 2%. the wife tells me its healthier ?

Drank it whenever we were at Grandpa's farm, with no side effects. Best part was skimming the cream off the top of some and putting it in a jar with paddles and a hand crank-- the milk went to the hogs. You would turn the crank until it turned into BUTTER- this butter had NO salt in it that I know of-- what sells for butter these days is garbage- to say the least. What comes closest to this is sold by Costco-- Call 'KERRY GOLD', it is made in Ireland, and I have found NOTHING to beat it.

And the good old days when raw milk, raw beef, raw eggs, were eaten by us all the time, but we made sure we cooked the pig properly you know ya got Trichinosis from under cooked pork. Heck what can you eat, drink, or breath now that's not suppose to be bad for you geeze even sunlight is bad.

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Psalm 23:4

Sir,

When I was milking we had a bucket with water with some disinfectant in it and we washed the teats before we put the cups on. Three Surges and two Delavals.

Cousin had a herd of 1300 hundred cows that were milked three times a day. They came with a tractor trailer once a day to pick up the milk.

I liked raw dog but any more it seems risky. sushi? surprised i could spell it!

I drank raw cow and goat milk, until I was about 16 years old (we didn't have a cow after that), Mamma also made butter, cream and buttermilk. As far as I remember, there was never any problems from it but I don't believe I'd take the risks now. I did always prefer the goat milk.

I have had a few goats around for many, many years now and I love their milk. We milked as clean as possible, strained it and used it raw for a long time. A few years ago and just to be a little safer, I bought a small, relatively inexpensive, one gallon home pasteurizer. It didn't change the quality much but adds a lot of security to the end product. Ah, there's nothing like a good cold glass of goat's milk!

My advice to the OP would be to make sure the farm you get it from is sanitary (which it probably is if they're selling their milk), try it a few times and if you like it, buy a portable home pasteurizer.

I knew a guy that played Russian Roulette and lived through it, but that still doesn't make me want to try it.

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

Risks are as described, but many of the folks are ignoring the risks of pasteurized milk too. The worst milk contamination cases are not from raw milk but from big companies who do pasteurization so it's unfair to say that commercial heated milk is necessarily safe.

As to raw, know the farm you get it from. Show up unannounced and watch them milking, ease into is slowly. Lots of information on the benefits at eatwild.com including the scientific papers to back up the claims.

Milk is a near perfect medium for bacteria growth. Any contamination from handling, transport, etc. can lead to BIG trouble. Pasteurization not only adds to product safety but greatly extends shelf life.

A commercial milk pasteurizer is a 4 section plate style heat exchanger for constant flow processing. The first set of plates alternate cold milk in next to hot milk out. This section is pre heat & pre cool. The second section alternates milk being cooked next to hot water. For home pasteurizing, use a double boiler to keep from scorching the milk. Monitor the temp. with a thermometer, 160* F for 20 minutes or 161* F for 20 seconds is all the hotter you need to go (go to 165* F for a safety margin).

The homogenization process in the packaging of milk probably alters taste more than the pasteurization. It keeps the cream from readily separating and adds to the eye appeal of finished product.

Ultra pasteurized milk is dead. I raise dairy goats and drink raw milk daily. I grew up on a commercial cow dairy farm and we always pulled the family's milk before it went into the tank trucks to get hauled to the dairy. It was raw.
Is there an infection risk? Sure. Is there risk from the "chicken" you buy wrapped in plastic or the big 5lb. opaque plastic wrapped chubbies of ground "beef" you can't even SEE ? I would argue much more risk.
The key is sanitation, testing and milking procedures. I would not buy raw milk from a source I hadn't personally inspected and if I wanted to be a regular buyer I would do some reading on proper sanitation and procedures. I would ask any producer for recent test results.
Our milk is only a side product of producing show goat babies, and we milk by hand, but still follow scrupulous sanitation practices and send out test samples monthly. I get ten bucks a gallon for my raw goat's milk.
The benefits of raw milk are manifold, but the wise buyer does his homework.