where can I find a non-emotional description of raw milk dangers

[cathleenc]

I'm hand milking and we're drinking it all raw and wonderful. I keep reading about the dangers of raw milk and think perhaps I should be aware of what they are. Seems foolish to not self-educate. Info is good. Hyperbole can be not so good.

Can you recommend a good place to read up about raw milk concerns? Perhaps even info designed to help hand-milkers achieve the best quality, safest raw milk to feed their families?

I would appreciate any links you can help me find very much.

thanks!

[tinknal]

With one cow the dangers are minimal. Bear in mind that store-bought milk is the resulting mixing of the milk of thousands of cows. Get your cow vet checked for TB and bangs, make sure she is bangs vaccinated, And keep your cow as clean as possible and your equipment spotless.

[topside1]

Cath, go to this site and read about raw milk verses processed....
http://www.drmercola.com/

[topside1]

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar.../raw-milk.aspx

just use the sites search feature to find more....Topside

[Cliff]

I doubt you will find a non-emotional source of the dangers of raw milk. The proponents of pasteurizing milk usually have a lot invested in it so much fear-mongering is used.
Basically, as another poster said, as long as the cow is tested for brucellosis (bangs) and tb and you use clean milking practices you're good. And since she came from a dairy I'm sure she had a brucellosis vaccine - should be a tattoo in one of her ears indicating such.

[ACountryMomma]

Basically the concerns about raw milk stem from industrial dairy operations where huge numbers of cows are milked as fast as possible and all the milk from all the cows is combined together for shipping. If any one cow has an infection, allowing bacteria or puss into the milk it contaminates the entire tank, if fecal matter gets into the milk - it contaminates all the milk. The strains of bacteria the FDA are primarily concerned with are all commonly found in fecal matter.

We hand milk our goats and drink the milk raw. I believe it has a better taste and feel that the live enzymes are beneficial. However, I also know exactly how our milk was handled and that our healthy does live in a clean environment (read: not a feed lot with manure up to their pasterns).

Here are a couple of links to the National Dairy Council explaining why they believe no one should drink unpasteurized milk:

http://www.nationaldairycouncil.org/...stions.htm#fs2

http://www.nationaldairycouncil.org/...kFactSheet.htm

It is very hard to find emotionless arguments for raw milk - it really is one more area of our lives that is controlled by laws passed for the benefit of the large factory operations. To help reduce law suits against them for negligence for filthy practices while also reducing the ability of family farms to supply consumers with the unmodified foods they may desire.

Oops - a little emotion from me! But the links will give you info on why the gov wants pasteurized milk on the store shelves.

[Jennifer L.]

It's not really from big dairies. Yes, it seems that way today because of all of the regulation built up, but it stems from the past when there were NO regulations and there were problems. Way back when, say, turn of the 20th century, they hardly had refridgeration let alone testing for cows. I think the first refridgerated rail cars were around 1904, but don't quote me on that, it was a long time ago in college when I actually studied it.

Brucellosis is a bad disease in milk, but it has been eliminated in a lot of states, AFAIK. NYS is Bangs free.

Yes, there can be problems in milk. Here's a recent one in the Netherlands:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...wTG1AD9CGGHKO0

Q fever is extremely rare and I've never heard of anyone around here getting it. But if you take a course in milk science you'll read about it, and it's one the anti-raw people jump up and down about.

The one disease that can be in milk that I would take the most seriously is Listeriosis, which can cause abortions in both cows and humans who drink the milk. I consider this one the worst because it is around in the wild deer population and deer can be with your cows in the pastures. So I would make sure I vaccinate for this if I were a woman who is pregnant or would like to be. Again, it's rare, but you hear about it more in this country than any of the other problems.

Having said all that, this is a dairy area, and everyone I knew growing up drank raw milk. Everybody.

If your cow is healthy you should be fine. If you are jumpy about it, make sure everything is vaccinated.

Jennifer

[springvalley]

I`m not going to say much here as most of you know how I feel, but there have been alot of good points allready mentioned. Thanks Marc.

[adadriga]

Cathy here are some great sites. I've been using raw milk products for several years, and now I'm just about to have my own cow so I can have all I want of these great products. The big problem is big business. Follow the money.
http://realmilk.com/why.html
http://www.raw-milk-facts.com//
http://www.rawmilktruth.com/Raw-Milk...ng-Debate.html
In California you can buy raw milk in grocery stores. Here's some interesting info http://www.politicsfromtheheart.com/...es-cancer.html
For me it's about the fundamental freedom of choice, which has been basically taken from us. People have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years. My mom drank and used raw milk products her whole life. There's a lot of info out there. If your milking procedure is clean than the milk will as good as it could possibly be.

Mark

[Chixarecute]

http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pre.../listeria.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lis...ents-and-drugs

http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factshe...isteriosis.pdf
See page 4, there is no vaccine for listeriosis.

[haypoint]

Small operations are not magicly immune to bacteria and disease. Likewise, large operations do not have contaminations just because they are large. That is just class envy.

Small cow dairies can have disese problems. Even with careful observation, you can have mastitus and have your family drinking puss. Listeria and Campy-somthing can "just happen".

Regular testing limits the amount of time you may be drinking pus, bacteria or disease.

Many cows seem predisposed to mastitus. In a common small farm situation, missed or late milkings can agrivate it. Rough milking from inexperienced hands or incomplete milkings bother them, too.

A mindset against medications often delays treatment, exacerbating a common problem.

It can be an emotional topic. Read what you can, believe what you want.

[garnetmoth]

Neat thread, thanks to all the contributors!

Milk is high protein, its a happy ground for several organisms that can make you very sick. Folks who are pregnant, young, old, or chronically ill or on meds are at higher risk of getting any illness, including food borne.

for very perishable foods, 3 days is the longest I keep them in the fridge. I would do strict dating and rotating stock if you choose to consume it raw.

Happy reading and be well!

[ladycat]

Originally Posted by haypoint

Small operations are not magicly immune to bacteria and disease. Likewise, large operations do not have contaminations just because they are large. That is just class envy.

A one or two cow operation is much easier to control conditions. There's no rush rush to hurry up and get it all done and the milking over with. I've watched youtube videos of milking time in commercial dairies, and oh my, it's an assembly line at lightning speed.

[cathleenc]

thanks, everyone. I am aware of the benefits of raw milk - but what the actual potential dangers to my family and how to avoid them - not so clear. So much gets lost in the 'battle! between raw milk and pasturized milk camps.

We have one cow - she came to us 'clean' and tested, we keep her in good health, we have pretty intuitive/close watches over our critters so keep a decent handle on maintaining health. Yes, sometimes some animals get sick - but not too often nor too bad. Always trying to improve.

Seems, from this discussion, that listeria is the number 1 challenge to watch out for given you are starting with a clean cow. Now I have info that I can respond to - modify our practices to target listeria contamination prevention - and help keep drinking raw milk safe for us.

thank you!

[Chixarecute]

Assembly line or highly developed efficiency?

Just because there are large farms with 100s even 1000s of cows, doesn't mean those cows aren't care for, and cared about. The way the US economy has developed, there is less and less profit margin, requiring more and more volume to try to make a living.

[haypoint]

Over the years, I've had a chance to reflect on my beliefs. I've found that I often wanted to believe things that in reality just weren't true or there were at least more variables in real life.

Big dairies milk fast. But that isn't nessessarily bad. Small one or two cow "dairies" can have the extra time to give more time and personal time to their livestock. But in real life, we've got a busy schedule and we rush through the chores. I want to believe that big factory farms are disease ridden. Real world facts don't support that. We express class envy without admitting it.

We know having a milk cow means being there every morning and every night and milking on a set schedule. But in the real world, there are school programs, out of area soccer games, last minute changes in our off-farm work schedule, etc. So the cows don't get milked as timely as we'd originally thought.

We know what the protein and roughage needs are and that any changes in feed must be gradual. But in the real world, we let the grain bin run out and forget to get a bag on our way home from work, etc. Real world cows break into the grain. We keep a watch the hay we feed, but there are times when there might be some mold that "doesn't took too bad".

When we planned on getting a milk cow, we imagained our cow resting on a bed of bright wheat straw. After awhile, we switched to old or poor quality hay as bedding. Manure gets cleaned out twice a day, but to really keep the cow clean, I'd have to do it every couple hours.

In my imaginary world, my livestock doesn't get sick because I feed them good feed and once they are wormed and tested for listeria and a bacteric count done, I'll have pure healthy unpasturized milk. In the real world, we know that by the time we notice clumpy or stringy milk, we've been feeding the family pus for at least a day or two.

We want to believe we are feeding a superior product, but our family is healthy mostly because we have built a tolerence to the e coli inherent to our raw milk.

Unregulated milk from a homestead cow can vary in quality. Individuals draw the line in different places.
Do you wash the teets every time or just when there is noticable dirt on them? How far up do you wash? How do you control dander? Do you wash with an approved anti-bacterial soap or is Dawn good enough? If a piece of straw falls into the pail do you pick it out, let the filter get it or dump the milk and start over? How about a piece of dried manure, pick it out or dump the milk? How big does a "flake" have to be to warrent dumping the whole pale?

If a 3,000 head dairy had 50 cows come down with listeria, that sounds real bad. But when our single cow catches something, our "dairy" has a 100% contamination.

How often do you send in a sample for testing? We'd be safe with weekly testing, but that gets costly. Do you test after the problem is obvious?

Not all commercial dairies run a clean operation. But, they generally get shut down or become unprofitable. Not all small or single cow dairies run a clean operation, either.

[cathleenc]

Haypoint, many good points. I appreciate the reality of having respect for larger dairies (my neighbors work so hard!) and for the 'dream meets reality' of having a single cow.

And even when our own households have developed a good healthy immunity to the live stuff in our raw milk - what happens when I bring raw cream to my inlaws holiday dinner for topping the pie? Or share some raw cream butter as holiday gifts. Serve raw milk hot cocoa to the kids and their friends after sledding?

With the goats I don't bother washing nor stripping. But the cow - hmm - she seems to LOVE laying in a fresh cow patty, despite our best efforts to keep her bright wheat straw bedding clean and fresh, 2x a day minimum. What is clean then? And if I do wash her entire udder - what about my hands after I am done washing her fecal matter off - aren't they just full of it now? How far do I need to go to keep risks to a minimum? It all sounds so obvious and so simple till you're in the thick of it and then all the ambiguous issues get bigger and bigger and the obvious/simple becomes elusive.

I guess my real question is 'What are the risks associated with raw milk from my cow and what do I need to do to minimize them for my family/friends' safety?"

and I think that my commercial dairy neighbors milk is undoubtedly cleaner than mine.

[DJ in WA]

I don't understand the idea that a single cow is no safer than cows in a herd.

As I understand it, the most common cause of mastitis in cows is Staph aureus, a contagious bacteria passed from cow to cow through the milking equipment or milk crew. If you only have one cow, from where will she get it? While this bacteria is not harmful to humans (many dairies have it), it shows how diseases can be spread between cows. Edit: Just read of a case of illness from Staph aureus illness from pasteurized milk. Of course, this requires mishandling of food - leaving it out in the warmth.

I spent some years working in public health in the military. I have no use for news telling me that something caused sickness or death. Why? Because there is risk in everything. If you want zero risk, stay in bed, but then you'll die of bed sores and obesity.

You want to know the incidence rate, i.e. of all those who consumed such and such, how many got sick. One in ten, one in 100,000, or one in ten million? Ideally, you focus on the highest risk problems. Of the people I know, I have added up over 700 person-years of raw milk drinking without known illness or death. And I will say our sanitation wasn't real great when I was growing up.

A year or two ago, someone was stating that many children were dying from raw milk, so I asked the board to report any raw milk deaths they knew about, and I got no replies.

Raw milk does not have zero risk, but neither does pasteurized milk. With some googling, you'll find many outbreaks of disease from pasteurized milk when that prcess fails. False sense of security. Seems that raw milk outbreaks make more exciting news than those from pasteurized milk. Google: "outbreak from pasteurized"

I find it funny that people will get on the highway to drive a death-mobile to the store to buy milk to avoid getting sick. I don't know why our government, who cares so much about our well-being, allows us to drive on a highway.

[haypoint]

How can you acknowledge that it is the percentages of sickness that we should concern ourselves with, then try to equate the few cases of illness blamed on pasturized milk to the illnesses from raw milk? Millions of gallons of pasturized milk are safelky consumed every day, while the amount of raw milk consumed is a tiny fraction of that.

All cows carry various bacteria, just as all people do. The cows and people are able to fight it off, most of the time. Single cow or 6,000 head dairy are all susceptible to outbreaks.

Trouble is when it is your cow or your family, it doesn't matter that you had a million to one chance of getting listeria from raw milk if your child contracts meningitius from it.

[Lizza]

I really like this book. I haven't read the newest edition, I have the older one. It basically gives you the history of milk and why it was ever pasteurized to begin with. Education about the history of milk I think is a key in deciding the best way for your family to drink milk.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/097...cm_rdp_product