What’s Up with Raw Milk?

Food Safety News did a piece on raw milk worth reading as a reasonable summary of risks and benefits.

For starters, it polled readers on their concerns.  The results:

• 🦠 Pathogen risks – Raw milk can harbor dangerous bacteria (64%)
• ⚖️ Lack of regulation – Insufficient oversight of raw milk production (12%)
• 🧑‍🌾 Misinformation – Claims about raw milk benefits are misleading (17%)
• 🥛 Not worried – I think raw milk is safe if handled properly (7%)

Raw milk is a big issue right now, with the Secretary of Health and Human Services filmed downing shots of raw milk at the White House, where he was recording a podcast with Paul Saladino.

Saladino — who goes by the moniker Carnivore MD — posted a teaser for the upcoming episode, in which a cameraman presents Kennedy with shots of raw milk mixed with glyphosate-free honey. “I strongly believe diet is the biggest lever you can pull to heal and improve your health,” Saladino wrote in the caption for the clip, which shows him and the secretary for Health and Human Services chugging a product that the CDC warns “can expose people to germs such as Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella.”

What to say about all this?

Raw milk is generally safe until it isn’t, but when it isn’t, it is very unsafe.

As Food Safety News summarizes, “From 1998 to 2018, the CDC recorded 202 raw milk outbreaks, causing 2,645 illnesses and 228 hospitalizations, with many affecting children.”

Pasteurization has been highly effective in preventing transmission of illness from milk; it is one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.

If you want to drink raw milk, you are taking a risk, and one not readily predictable.

You can reduce the risk by drinking raw milk only from farmers you trust to produce it with:

• Rigorous hygeine and safety procedures (diligently followed)
• Frequent testing (although safety experts say milk can never be tested too often)
• Separation of cows (milk from one cow is less likely to be unsafe than milk pooled from many)

Is raw milk worth the risk?

I don’t think so but that’s just me.

If you choose to drink raw milk,

• Choose it carefully
• Understand and be willing to deal with the potential consequences.

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Published today!  Information is here.