Raw Milk Products

So I have been looking at Raw Milk vs Pasteurized, and trying to reconcile some facts.

Apparently the CDC says you are 150 times more likely to get ill from Raw Milk. So curiously I looked up some facts.

Apparently 1% of Americans consume Raw Milk.

From 1998 to 2008 there were 1.3 million illnesses, and 10% of all deaths caused by food products attributed to dairy products.

Yet a CDC study was only able to link 1,571 cases, 202 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths to Raw Milk from 1996 2006.

I am trying to figure out how to reconcile these two studies. Please do not post me propaganda from either side. I am only looking for how these two studies are reconciled.

www.jsonline.com...

www.cdc.gov...

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


I don't think the study sheds much light on the subject. If their own number of 1% of the population consuming the product is correct we are talking about 3,500,000 people. Citing the numbers they gave regarding illness, the risk is less than 1%. Of course, it's difficult to say if those are the correct numbers as most people who get food poisoning don't go to the doctor anyway. I can't agree with their 150 times number in any way.

reply to post by antonia


as adults, in a free and democratic society, why cant i choose what i drink

if i am aware of the risk, why cant i accept the responsibility to make that decision?

this is how i know we are really slaves. prisoners. the guards decide what we can and cannot eat.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


From your first link:

The data didn't distinguish between pasteurized and unpasteurized products, which critics said was a flaw in the study.

From your second link (Discussion section):

Because consumption of nonpasteurized dairy products is uncommon in the United States, the high incidence of outbreaks and outbreak-associated illness involving nonpasteurized dairy products is remarkable and greatly disproportionate to the incidence involving dairy products that were marketed, labeled, or otherwise presented as pasteurized.

The first was comparing different types of food (such as dairy vs produce) and the second was comparing pasteurized dairy to nonpasteurized. The two studies cannot be reconciled in any meaningful way.

reply to post by NiteNGale2


Completely false. Both talk about dairy and illness, therefore can be compared.

1.3 million illnesses. According to the CDC 960,000 of those should be from Raw Milk.

There are 315 million people. 1% consume raw milk products. 3.15 million people.

This means if the CDC statistics are true, 30% of all consumers of raw milk should get sick on average.

This does not seem to match reality, since the CDC did not find anything close to this.

RAW (milk) RAW (milk) SIS-BOOM-BAH!!

Raw milk is good stuff folks.
I'd advise you to get it while you still can.

-Peace-

Please no propaganda. I see lots of useless posts saying "Raw Milk gooooooddddd". Stay on topic and address the statistics please and don't drop propaganda.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04


As long as the animals are healthy that the raw milk is coming from you should be fine.

This website is biased but I have the same opinions so of course I am in favor of that bias. I think the whole scare tactic against raw milk is horse #. So far I have found no compelling evidence linking raw milk to adverse health effects.

Between the antibiotics to sick cows, I'd take raw milk from a healthy cow in place of the stuff in grocery stores any day.

www.realmilk.com...

Honestly I can't really drink milk as my stomach doesn't like it if I eat other foods at same time. If I have to choose a type of milk I like would be goat milk.

Understanding something about raw milk is understanding the history behind milk production:

Pasteurization involves heating foods, then rapidly cooling them again to kill off any microorganisms living in the food. The process, invented by biologist Louis Pasteur in 1864, can prevent people from contracting many kinds of foodborne illnesses like salmonella or E. coli.

But what did people do before pasteurization? Did they just get sick? In many cases, yes, they did. That’s why pasteurization was invented in the first place. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all. But that’s not quite the whole story

Actually, people had been drinking raw milk, straight from their own cows, sheep, and goats, for millennia without getting sick. Milk has long been one of the most nutritionally complete foods in the human diet, and has been an important part of nearly every culture’s cuisine. If it had always made people sick, we would have stopped drinking it long ago. So, what happened? Why did raw milk, something we’d been drinking for thousands of years, suddenly start making people sick?

The Industrial Revolution is what happened. People began moving from the country to large cities, and the world’s population began to explode. People were no longer getting milk from the cow in their own, or their neighbors’, backyards. They were buying it from stores or having it delivered by dairies. Farms, once the center of a community’s food supply, became businesses. And, like most businesses, they grew larger and larger, and more and more interested in making a profit, even, at times, to the detriment of the quality of their product. Soon, dairy cows, which had always lived in open fields and grazed on fresh grass, were herded into cramped, unsanitary pens and fed grains – sometimes even waste grains from alcohol distilleries – that weren’t a part of their natural diet. The result was increasingly unhealthy cows that produced sometimes infected milk. To make this milk safe for human consumption, it had to be pasteurized.

This guy puts it best:

My uncle Mark was a dairy farmer in kansas. His operation was rather large and had a milking barn with several levels. The smell was indescribible. Horrible doesn’t even touch it. He fed his cows silage and it wasn’t the most sanitary place you ever saw. I wouldn’t drink his milk raw (that would be suicidal!). For raw milk I recommend checking out your local smaller farms if possible. Visit them to see how they care for their bovine buddies! It helps to support the local economy and small farmers. They need it!

www.farmersalmanac.com...

In short, a small community of fresh grown foods and free range animals for meat and dairy would be ideal, but that just isn't plausible when you factor in our modern day conveniences/populationdemand.

The way the world is developed from the want and need for what we have. While you can argue they are too hard on raw milk, having no regulations for it at all would see people getting ill just the same as it did when they first tried to meet supply and demand, and make as much as possible doing so. If the major milk producers were pumping out their teat sludge and not pasteurizing it, you probably wouldn't want to drink it. And if they tried to put a heard of free range cows in every few sq miles, the cities would have a bit of a problem accommodating this.

Every time there is a Milk thread I always wanna ask the following and I'm gonna do it now!

Why cant we get Human milk?

Why does the thought of getting a gallon of human milk gross some people out but the thought of drinking milk from a Cow doesn't?

bonchoIn short, a small community of fresh grown foods and free range animals for meat and dairy would be ideal, but that just isn't plausible when you factor in our modern day conveniences/populationdemand.

This somewhat sums up what it looks like to me. Raw Milk is not inherently bad. It becomes bad due to the agricultural industry, and thus pasteurization is needed. Raw milk from an industrial cow most likely is harmful.

Specifically though, when I look at the numbers presented in these two studies, the CDC's position simply does not seem possible, or everyone drinking Raw Milk would be sick. It would mean 30% of ALL people throughout history would have been ill from milk every year. Simply seems untenable.

reply to post by SLAYER69


As a woman,I don't think that I could have produced a gallon
of milk while lactating.I didn't breast feed because it wasn't popular back in the 70's.

SLAYER69
Every time there is a Milk thread I always wanna ask the following and I'm gonna do it now!

Why cant we get Human milk?

Why does the thought of getting a gallon of human milk gross some people out but the thought of drinking milk from a Cow doesn't?

edit on 16-12-2013 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

Sold! I will take a 5'2 110 lb D cup provider. Where can I get this? Wonder what my coffee will taste like?

On top of that, the CDC claims pasteurization does not remove nutritional value. Yet many studies show babies fed pasteurized milk do not fare as well. How can the position of nutrition be reconciled with these studies?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...

reply to post by SLAYER69


I think that probably has more to do with the sexualization of breasts. We have this idea that fatty boobs are sexual objects instead of food production organs.

The public health benefit of having human milk for sale would be so mothers can buy it for their babies. There used to be wet nurses etc. but nowadays working mothers have to choose formula or their babies starve. To me that would be the biggest benefit of having it for sale.



Also:

Either way I'm sure there are plenty of weird men and women out there who fancy that sort of thing and actively seek out women who are down. I don't think they probably do it in the context of what you're talking about however.

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Specifically though, when I look at the numbers presented in these two studies, the CDC's position simply does not seem possible, or everyone drinking Raw Milk would be sick. It would mean 30% of ALL people throughout history would have been ill from milk every year. Simply seems untenable.

That's under the presumption that the agriculture industry has never changed over the years. Which clearly it wasn't as you pointed it out just above this paragraph.

SLAYER69
Every time there is a Milk thread I always wanna ask the following and I'm gonna do it now!

Why cant we get Human milk?

Why does the thought of getting a gallon of human milk gross some people out but the thought of drinking milk from a Cow doesn't?

edit on 16-12-2013 by SLAYER69 because: (no reason given)

You can get cheese and ice cream, apparently.

boncho
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

Specifically though, when I look at the numbers presented in these two studies, the CDC's position simply does not seem possible, or everyone drinking Raw Milk would be sick. It would mean 30% of ALL people throughout history would have been ill from milk every year. Simply seems untenable.

 

That's under the presumption that the agriculture industry has never changed over the years. Which clearly it wasn't as you pointed it out just above this paragraph.

Which is the point I was making, the problem is not Raw Milk, it's the industry. So Raw Milk from a farm that is organic/pasture fed/not full of antibiotics, should in no way give the results that the CDC says ALL Raw milk gives.

mamabeth
reply to post by OccamsRazor04

 

I have a D cupsize but I went dry years ago.

If you are 5'2 maybe we can work on that and be in business!

I think the reason people are having trouble reconciling the studies is because one is a cross section and the other is comparative of multiple types of food. In other words, the study that compares leafy veg vs. dairy, is looking at overall figures. In the milk study pasteurized vs non, they are specifically looking at outbreak events.

The below shows us that there were some outbreaks where it seems they were unaware of pasteurization:

We found 121 outbreaks for which the product's pasteurization status was known; among these, 73 (60%) involved nonpasteurized products and resulted in 1,571 cases, 202 hospitalizations, and 2 deaths. A total of 55 (75%) outbreaks occurred in 21 states that permitted sale of nonpasteurized products.

So in other words, in 121 outbreaks they knew many of the outbreaks were coming from non pasteurized milk.

During 1993–2006, 121 outbreaks reported to CDC were caused by dairy products where the investigators could determine if the dairy product was pasteurized or unpasteurized (raw). These outbreaks included 4,413 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations, and 3 deaths.

www.cdc.gov...

The milk study is by no means the final word on the issue, but it's numbers are still relevant and I don't find it disingenuous. Sadly some people see "study" and automatically assume its a new law or something… Whether or not you are being discouraged from drinking raw milk, the CDC has a valid point, and where you get your raw milk from is entirely relevant, as are the numbers of illnesses from the product you are consuming.