Does anybody drink raw milk?

originally posted by Thor:
I sometimes use raw milk from a local dairy when I'm in Vermont, and it's actually sold in major grocery stores just across the border in New Hampshire (bedecked in dire warnings, of course) but the trouble is that there's another local dairy that pasteurizes yet still has better-tasting milk, and puts out a creamline version, which is milk as I remember it from my childhood. (Step one: root around for a while with a knife, punching holes in the thick cap of fat blocking the bottle. Step two: reseal and shake the hell out of it to semi-reintegrate the constituent parts. Step three: enjoy the fat globules.)

I'd like the second dairy to try raw milk, and they'd like to try it too, but they're a little scared.
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What the animals eat makes a huge difference in flavor. My wife, a trained cheesemaker, can pick out milk where the cows were fed silage and where the cows are pastured. Kind of like a natural v. industrial products.
 
originally posted by Thor:
I sometimes use raw milk from a local dairy when I'm in Vermont, and it's actually sold in major grocery stores just across the border in New Hampshire (bedecked in dire warnings, of course) but the trouble is that there's another local dairy that pasteurizes yet still has better-tasting milk, and puts out a creamline version, which is milk as I remember it from my childhood. (Step one: root around for a while with a knife, punching holes in the thick cap of fat blocking the bottle. Step two: reseal and shake the hell out of it to semi-reintegrate the constituent parts. Step three: enjoy the fat globules.)

I'd like the second dairy to try raw milk, and they'd like to try it too, but they're a little scared.
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There's a dairy just outside of Iowa City that does the light pasteurization/unhomogenized thing that's freakin' delicious. I'm really excited to get up to Decorah, in dairy country, to get my hands on some good raw stuff for cheesemaking experimentations. Can't wait, really. It's number 2 on my project list after getting some homemade sausage hanging. I've certainly got enough pig in the freezer...
Cheers,

Kevin
 
We've bought from Mennonintes in the past. I want the producers convinced they're going straight to hell if they fuck up. The stuff is delicious, and my son, who can't tolerate Pasteurized milk, can drink it without ill effect.
 
originally posted by Marc D:
I wonder if the families who don't get their kids vaccinated are the same ones feeding their infants raw milk. That is scary.
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Some folks aren't interested in the social contract. I guess they missed that part of Locke.
 
originally posted by VLM:
Some folks aren't interested in the social contract. I guess they missed that part of Locke.
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Yet those folks probably still think the Fire Dept should rescue them from fire, and hospital emergency rooms should take them when they're ill, etc.
 
My wife's uncle is retired and has 5 cows. They are all named and cared for as if they were his children, which he has null. We normally use the traditional method of boiling the milk before consuming (it also tastes great when warm from the cow). It does not last long, but the texture and flavour are fantastic. My mother in law whips the cream till it converts into an otherworldly butter...
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How did humanity survive several milennia without pasteurization? (add widget here (or did I not have to say that?))
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With incredibly short lifespans by modern standards, widespread disease and living conditions that you and I would consider intolerable?
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How did humanity survive several milennia without pasteurization? (add widget here (or did I not have to say that?))
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With incredibly short lifespans by modern standards, widespread disease and living conditions that you and I would consider intolerable?
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Milk pasteurization arose from the industrialization of our food system. Small family farmers using their own milk and supplying a few of their neighbors is not, and never has been, the problem. The problem is large, factory dairies which are impossible to keep sanitary, and the centralization of the industry which forces us to ship products great distances.

Before industrialization, raw milk was often proscribed by doctors to treat certain ailments. Of course, this could never happen today -- doctors are no longer able to simply help people, as they have become drug dealers for the pharma industry.

Modern medicine and technology certainly has prolonged our lifespans, and we do live relatively disease-free (new made-up diseases and syndromes notwithstanding) today, but I am not sure we are any healthier than before.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How did humanity survive several milennia without pasteurization? (add widget here (or did I not have to say that?))
Click to expand...
With incredibly short lifespans by modern standards, widespread disease and living conditions that you and I would consider intolerable?
Click to expand...

What role do you think vaccination has played in the epidemiological transition, leaving smallpox aside?
 
originally posted by Hank Beckmeyer:
...
Before industrialization, raw milk was often proscribed by doctors to treat certain ailments. Of course, this could never happen today -- doctors are no longer able to simply help people, as they have become drug dealers for the pharma industry.
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In fairness, before Robert Koch, small farms were no protection to the milk supply. TB was the major public health problem in Europe and the U.S.

originally posted by VLM:
Some folks aren't interested in the social contract. I guess they missed that part of Locke.
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I think you mean Rousseau. Locke would have had much greater reservations about asking some citizens to accept risks to protect others from diseases they themselves are not likely to contract (e.g. the Rubella vaccine). But the question is, what sort of coercion do you want to bring to bear to force compliance? The bitter fight to force vaccination in nineteenth-century England turned out to be counter-productive; it spawned a powerful anti-vaccination movement that ultimately compromised coverage rates. You see the same thing where the WHO forcibly vaccinated people in the eradication campaigns. Those campaigns were successful, but they compromised other public health efforts. To my knowledge, most countries that have allowed for some form of conscientious objection, but made it relatively difficult -- like New Zealand, and, ironically, Wilhelmine Germany -- have had more successful vaccination programs overall.
 
originally posted by Cliff:

What role do you think vaccination has played in the epidemiological transition, leaving smallpox aside?
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Well, don't know why we'd ditch smallpox, but let's offer as one example the steady decline in enrollment at schools for the deaf in the years since the introduction of the mumps vaccine.

We do give up the excitement of waiting to see if we have rabies or tetanus after a bite or an injury, I suppose.

It's all about tradeoffs.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Cliff:

What role do you think vaccination has played in the epidemiological transition, leaving smallpox aside?
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Well, don't know why we'd ditch smallpox, but let's offer as one example the steady decline in enrollment at schools for the deaf in the years since the introduction of the mumps vaccine.

We do give up the excitement of waiting to see if we have rabies or tetanus after a bite or an injury, I suppose.

It's all about tradeoffs.
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I would leave smallpox aside because it gave the medical community the idea, which has to this point turned out to be unrealistic, that it could be replicated. And yes, I do think there are trade-offs in depending on vaccines for public health problems like, say, salmonella. I think the overwhelming majority of people ought to be vaccinated. But I'm not convinced that the vaccination schedule we have makes sense. I don't think draconian requirements work; and I think it is a problem that big pharma pays for the major studies of vaccine safety.
 
What the animals eat makes a huge difference in flavor.
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Of course. I'm actually a little surprised that Strafford Creamery (the second producer mentioned in my post) isn't trying their hand at cheese, now that Jasper Hill Farms has made it easy for nearly everyone in VT to do so without building extensive facilities. But they not only make the best milk and cream I've had in a very long time, they make some the best ice cream I've had in the States.

There's a dairy just outside of Iowa City that does the light pasteurization/unhomogenized thing that's freakin' delicious.
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There's a cream available all over New England (I think it's from New Hampshire) that's made that way, and the difference between it and the fully pasteurized/homogenized versions is rather dramatic.
 
originally posted by Cliff:
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How did humanity survive several milennia without pasteurization? (add widget here (or did I not have to say that?))
Click to expand...
With incredibly short lifespans by modern standards, widespread disease and living conditions that you and I would consider intolerable?
Click to expand...

What role do you think vaccination has played in the epidemiological transition, leaving smallpox aside?
Click to expand...
I'm sure you missed the joke somewhere, but that's OK.
 
originally posted by Cory Cartwright:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How did humanity survive several milennia without pasteurization? (add widget here (or did I not have to say that?))
Click to expand...
With incredibly short lifespans by modern standards, widespread disease and living conditions that you and I would consider intolerable?
Click to expand...
Pasteurization did not change any of those. In any case, I hope you have enjoyed the conversation on immunization that I started. where are those damnable little icons?
 
Eventually you're going to get sick in any event. With attention and reasonable precaution, raw milk won't be the cause (if you are drinking it).
 
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