Pure Pedantry : Raw milk stings?

Reality is always more complicated than you think.

Profile

Jake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.

Search this blog

Raw milk stings?

Category:
Posted on: June 29, 2006 7:54 PM, by Jake Young

I like my milk pasteurized like everyone else, but the Department of Agriculture is now actually conducting raw milk stings:

Last September, a man came to Stutzman's weathered, two-story farmhouse, located in a pastoral region in northeast Ohio that has the world's largest Amish settlement. The man asked for milk.
Stutzman was leery, but agreed to fill up the man's plastic container from a 250-gallon stainless steel tank in the milkhouse.

After the creamy white, unpasteurized milk flowed into the container, the man, an undercover agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, gave Stutzman two dollars and left.

The department revoked Stutzman's license in February. In April, he got a new license, which allows him to sell to cheese houses and dairies, but received a warning not to sell raw milk to consumers again.

"You can't just give milk away to someone other than yourself. It's a violation of the law," said LeeAnne Mizer, spokeswoman for the department.

Organizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the American Dairy Association have said that raw milk contains health risks because it has not been heated to kill bacteria, such as E. coli.

I realize that pasteurization is a public health issue. You can get a lot of stuff from unpasteurized milk. But frankly doesn't the government have a couple better things to do than mount sting operations on the Amish?

Comments

There is a reason that commercially available milk, especially those from factory farms, is pasteurized, but I fully support the ability to buy or use raw milk in products as long as it is explicitly labelled, since the pasteruization process does destroy some of the flavor compounds in milk. Try a taste test between regular pasteurized and UHT pasteurized milk sometime. Unfortunately, this ban on raw milk also extends to the cheese industry, which can only use raw milk in aged cheese products; not in young cheeses.

So if you want a better brie, head up to Quebec.

Posted by: Left_Wing_Fox | June 29, 2006 9:21 PM

I've heard of some locals buying "shares" in cows so that they can obtain raw milk for themselves legally. I've never tried it, but I'm told it's far superior in flavor to the pasteurized stuff.

Posted by: Davis | June 29, 2006 10:29 PM

I tried raw milk once (outside the US). It was delicious -- very creamy.

I understand it also has a lot of important enzymes that get destroyed by the high temperatures of pasteurization.

Posted by: GJ | July 15, 2006 9:02 AM