What first got me thinking about pasteurized vs. raw milk is the directions given for warming breast milk. Do not microwave, do not overheat, put into a bowl of warm water, if the milk is overheated the nutrients, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and healthy bacteria will be destroyed and your baby’s health will suffer.
Hmmm, could pasteurization of milk do the same thing?
I kind of forgot about it, we didn’t have any cows and the sale of raw milk wasn’t allowed in Nevada yet. But then a year ago James, age 2, became lactose-intolerant. Just like his daddy had, and luckily grew out of, he got bright red cheeks and unmentionable bathroom trouble. And then our little Lucy started with it just a few weeks ago, what’s a mom to do?! They have been drinking lactose-free milk and avoiding cheese and been ok, but when they were drinking raw milk from my sister-in-law in Oregon they could handle it just fine. And then last night they each had a cup of milk from our own cow and again, no issues.
So what’s the difference? Why can they drink raw milk without any allergic reaction?
It turns out that milk pasteurization damages the enzyme lactase – this enzyme is required to digest the milk sugar lactose. When we are babies all of us produce lactase but as we get older, we don’t produce as much lactase, and some of us not much at all.
Having no lactase in the pasteurized milk, or in the person drinking the milk, makes for digestive distress and what we all know as lactose intolerance. When drinking raw milk, this is not a problem because raw milk isn’t pasteurized and therefore the lactase is readily available.
So most people who are lactose intolerant to pasteurized milk can thrive on raw milk.
Unlike pasteurized milk, raw milk is a living food. Nearly all of milk’s natural components, including beneficial bacteria, food enzymes, natural vitamins and immunoglobulins, are heat-sensitive. Heat-sensitive components of raw milk are destroyed through pasteurization and aren’t present in pasteurized milk. Some of the vitamins and minerals are added back in but in a synthetic form that might not actually be absorbable by our bodies.
Pasteurization of milk was born out of necessity, as more cows started to be raised in confinement and there was not the knowledge of sanitation we have now, things were pretty rough with milk for a while. In fact, 1 out of every 4 babies were dying possibly from contaminated milk at the turn of the 1900s. So pasteurization was absolutely necessary to save lives. But now that we know how to prevent this by washing udders before milking, flushing milking equipment with sanitary solution, chilling milk immediately, having the milk tested, and keeping cows free of disease by staying out on pasture, it’s possible that we only need pasteurization for the confinement operations.
So is raw milk dangerous?
It’s possible. According to a CSPI report, about 5,000 people die every year from foodborne illness. But they’re dying from eating contaminated fruits, vegetables, nuts, eggs, meat, poultry, fish and shellfish – not from drinking unpasteurized milk. There hasn’t been a single death attributed to raw fluid milk since the mid-1980s even though an estimated 11 million people are currently drinking raw milk in the US.
In April of this year the Nevada Senate passed that the sale of raw milk is now legal in our state. It is limited to those farms who are milking 5 or less cows and the milk must be sold directly from the farm property to the customer.
So what do you think? Is it crazy? Have you tired raw milk or would you drink it?
