A word about raw milk, if you will

The BBQ Pit
161

[QUOTE=Una Persson]

I’m not disputing that your symptoms are gone, if you say they are. I’m not saying with certainty that the remedy given to you did not work. I’m saying that your method for assessing the effectiveness is not scientific.
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:rolleyes: Good riddance. You know, it’s one thing to be rude. It’s another thing to be rude and not realize it. And yet entirely another thing when you are rude and it is pointed out to you and you still don’t see it. Don’t let the door hit you in ass on the way out. Sweetie.

162

[QUOTE=Autolycus]
All this tense bickering… I need a warm glass of unpasteurized milk to calm down.
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Yes! I’ll have mine with extra chunks, please!

163

[QUOTE=alice_in_wonderland]
Yes! I’ll have mine with extra chunks, please!
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Speaking of chunks, I’ve heard you’re no slouch in the casaba department. Do you owe your hooters to good old fashioned moojuice? People want to know.

164

[QUOTE=Pullet]
History shows it’s not a hypothetical small risk.
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As you just said, we keep our cows healthy in other ways now. Unless someone is calling for a return to old milk production and consumption habits in other ways (getting rid of refrigeration, for example), it’s not helpful to depend on history entirely as a way to assess the risk.

Daniel

165

[QUOTE=Pullet]
…Would a violent shift such that everyone was drinking raw milk cause the same mortality rates as yesteryear? Probably not, but only because we keep the cows healthy in other ways. Would it increase the disease incidence overall? You betcha. Would it create a situation where an outbreak of disease in cattle would pose a significant threat to the human population? You betcha. With more people sick, are their increased odds of people who do not drink raw milk getting sick too? Of course…
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Fear mongering or hyperbole or exaggeration?

[QUOTE=Pullet]
I don’t consider the position Miss Purl and I and other have as fear mongering. I consider us to be providing a layman’s interpretation of the science available so that folks who aren’t up to evaluating the studies themselves can come to their own informed opinion.
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so your layman’s interpretation for folks who aren’t up to figuring it out themselves is " raw milk drinkers are idiots" That’s easy enough for the stupid people to remember, I think…

166

Wait, I’m the Straight Dope? Cool! :cool:

167

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
As you just said, we keep our cows healthy in other ways now. Unless someone is calling for a return to old milk production and consumption habits in other ways (getting rid of refrigeration, for example), it’s not helpful to depend on history entirely as a way to assess the risk.

[/QUOTE]

LHoD, why, exactly, are you and I fighting over the same thing? We appear to both agree that drinking raw milk carries risk and that this risk, while not as great as it once was, is certainly something to consider before engaging in the activity.

For me, that risk is enough that I’ll avoid it by the simple step of pasteurization. For you, it seems, the risk is enough to shape your personal food choices, but not enough to support legislation at large.

I guess that’s where we differ; on how much responsibility the government has to protect people from themselves. IMHO, mandating that all milk for sale be pasteurized is a small step which safeguards lots of people without depriving them of anything. Most importantly, mandating that all milk for sale be pasteurized does not deprive people who want to drink raw milk. It just means they have to get it themselves, which is not difficult.

So, again, I don’t see where legislation is hampering anyone’s desire to live life on the edge. But if the idea of any law designed to protect people from themselves chafes you that hard, then I guess we have to agree to disagree.

Farmerchick, I don’t understand your first point.

Yeah, if someone is dim enough that they need the science distilled down to my personal interpretation, then that’s the answer I’ll give them. I’ve met folks who thought that black people have never milked cows, that the unborn calf was gestated in the udder with one leg down each teat, that cows just make milk all the time without having to have a birth first, and that milking cows is incredibly painful and we have to keep them druged or beaten into submission to do it. Since our society has moved away from its agricultural roots, people are marvelously ignorant about a lot of things. Doesn’t mean they are stupid, just that they don’t know. And because they are ignorant, they are vulnerable to exploitation by others who have agendas.

168

Why in hell would any nation do away with pasteurizing milk? Who in this thread has even suggested that pasteurizing milk is bad?

Marketing product has always relied on stupidity, and anyone with a product to sell has an agenda, including you and the OP. I do agree that people need to be better informed, but please be honest about your information. In the OP, the claims were stupid, she was called on it, and eventually had to retract the more outrageous ones. So would you agree that the OP is guilty of having her own agenda?

169

Farmerchick, I haven’t accused anyone here of proposing a ban on pasteurization. All I am saying is that a groundswell of support based on misinformation would more than likely lead to a situation that increases food born illness. I don’t understand how you drew any other interpretation from my posts.

The OP and I, if I might put words in your mouth Miss Purl, have agendas only so far that we dislike it when people ignore the science in a situation. The science shows that frequent consumption of unpasteurized milk causes an increase in food born illness. Science also shows that when there are more members of a population shedding infectious organisms, there is an increased risk for healthy people to become sick.

Now, some folks feel that this increased risk is not enough to justify the presence of laws preventing the sale of raw milk. I think it is. <— this part is my personal informed opinion.

The OP might have got a tad ambitious in her lists of potential diseases, but she apologized for that. And the other diseases she mentioned are valid.

Have you found something in my posts where I have put forth dishonest information? Or where I have been selling a product?

170

Farmerchick, I haven’t accused anyone here of proposing a ban on pasteurization. All I am saying is that a groundswell of support based on misinformation would more than likely lead to a situation that increases food born illness. I don’t understand how you drew any other interpretation from my posts.

The OP and I, if I might put words in your mouth Miss Purl, have agendas only so far that we dislike it when people ignore the science in a situation. The science shows that frequent consumption of unpasteurized milk causes an increase in food born illness. Science also shows that when there are more members of a population shedding infectious organisms, there is an increased risk for healthy people to become sick.

Now, some folks feel that this increased risk is not enough to justify the presence of laws preventing the sale of raw milk. I think it is. <— this part is my personal informed opinion.

The OP might have got a tad ambitious in her lists of potential diseases, but she apologized for that. And the other diseases she mentioned are valid.

Have you found something in my posts where I have put forth dishonest information? Or where I have been selling a product?

171

I just got back from Whole Foods with a container of Goat’s Milk (pasteurized). EeewwwwwwwYUK! That is some nasty stuff. Definitely not for me. I am glad I tried it though. Thanks for the suggestion.

172

[QUOTE=Pullet]
LHoD, why, exactly, are you and I fighting over the same thing? We appear to both agree that drinking raw milk carries risk and that this risk, while not as great as it once was, is certainly something to consider before engaging in the activity.

For me, that risk is enough that I’ll avoid it by the simple step of pasteurization. For you, it seems, the risk is enough to shape your personal food choices, but not enough to support legislation at large.

I guess that’s where we differ; on how much responsibility the government has to protect people from themselves. IMHO, mandating that all milk for sale be pasteurized is a small step which safeguards lots of people without depriving them of anything.
[/QUOTE]

You’re right; I agree that it’s a small difference between us. I think the key is your claim that mandating pasteurization doesn’t deprive people of anything. It’s not your call, IMO, whether it’s depriving people of something: it clearly is, it’s depriving them of the fulfillment of their desire. How much you may like or dislike that desire is immaterial: their desire for raw milk is real. I’m also upset that nobody’s responded to post 145.
And saying that they can get it, just not buy it, seems odd to me. Are you suggesting that only folks who can afford to buy, feed, pasture, and milk a cow ought to be able to fulfill this desire? Or are you suggesting that raw-milk charities who give away raw milk will pop up? I don’t mean to be facetious; I’m really not sure how you’re suggesting people could realistically obtain raw milk if it weren’t sold.

Daniel

173

[QUOTE=magellan01]
For what it’s worth, I drink raw milk—have been for about two years. The reason is that I can’t drink any other milk. I even tried all the permutations of Lactaid. As it was explained to me by a chiropractor who also practices Chinese medicine, that raw milk might work for me because it has the things (enzymes) that my body needs to digest the milk. In pasteurized milk they are killed in the pasteurization process. I love milk and missed not having it so I gave it a try. Low and behold, zero problem. Any other type of milk and my stomach went into serious conniptions. There are only two places in San Francisco that carry it, and I’m very careful with both going right home and putting it in the fridge and watching the date.
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This is my WAG, based upon also having Lactose intolerance- if Lactaid (and all the other versiosn) does nothing for you, then neither would the far weaker enzymes in raw milk. I am sorry, but this sounds like it’s in your mind, not your gut. :frowning:

174

[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington]

And now that you’re arguing that gastronomy is an art, and a visceral pleasure is much more important than something that’s a substantial risk to 40 percent of the population, well. I can hardly argue with art, can I?

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The problem is that it isn’t a substantial risk. It’s a very remote risk. A substantial risk would be, for instance, smoking a pack of cig/day. I’ll take gastronomy over a 0.00001% risk of death every day (estimate of risk based of the last case of lehal poisoning caused by e coli in a non pasteurized milk product dating back to several years ago in my country IIRC, the population of the country, and a wild guess about how many people eat such products).

You’re making two assumptions in your diatribe :

  1. That choosing to drink only pasteurized milk and eating milk products made with pasteurized milk is cost-free. It isn’t. I’m french, and a lover of cheese. If I were to eat only cheeses made with pasteurized milk, my quality of life would be impacted (and if you know anything about cheese making, you probably know too that it’s impossible to produce with pasteurized milk a cheese that tastes the same as a cheese produced with unpasteurized milk). Maybe it is cost free for you, because you don’t care about cheese. Knowing that it isn’t for me, I’m not sure why I would be labelled an idiot for being unwilling to renounce to something I find pleasurable.
  2. That somehow this peculiar risk you’re ranting about is especially important by comparison to the thousands of risks we’re exposed to everyday. For instance, you’re comparing it with driving without a seatbelt. Nope. You could compare it to simply ever usin a car when you don’t absolutely have to. Driving is dangerous. Way, way more people, even cautious drivers, are killed every year because they were driving a car than beause they ate non pateurized milk products. Since I don’t drive and don’t really need to, I could call you an idiot if you ever do so when you could avoid it. You don’t have to visit a friend or relative, for instance. You could stay safely at home, couldn’t you? Or you’re comparing it with having unprotected sex wih a stranger. Nope. Given the level of the risk, you should rather compare it with having sex with your husband. How do you know he isn’t cheating on you with an AIDS-infected partner? That’s surely much more likely than me eating a rabies infected cheee. Why don’t you just give up sex just to stay on the safe side?
    Contrarily to some high-risk behaviors (like, for instance, smoking, as I said before), what you’re ranting about is a very minimal risk, and if you can call idiots people who choose to take it, I’m certain I could equally call you an idiot a thousand times because I can be sure that, like everybody else, you’re “playing russian roulette”, as you said, a thousand time every month, by doing things that do include some minimal risk. And especially since amongst those things, there are surely some that I personnally would find pointless or uninteresting, or that I just couldn’t do. So it would be quite easy for me to point at you and call you an idiot for indulging in something that I think isn’t worth taking even the most incredibly small risk.

Now, maybe I’m wrong about you, and you’re actually very consistent in your reasonning. If so, I’m waiting for your next rants, for instance about idiots who enjoy skiing (you can fall and you can DIE! Plenty of people are KILLED while skiing), or about women who have kids (you know that childbirth is very dangerous, don’t you? Women DIE every year during it. It might KILL you!), or actually about almost all conceivable human activities. You’ve an endless supply of topics to rant about. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Even though you should probably abstain. Computers run on electricity, and this stuff is very dangerous.

(Edited to add a missing word)

175

LHoDIf this is as close to accord as you and I are going to get, I’ll take it welcomely. :cool:
And I would have replied to the woosh sound your post 145 made to me, but it didn’t seem helpful.

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]

And saying that they can get it, just not buy it, seems odd to me. Are you suggesting that only folks who can afford to buy, feed, pasture, and milk a cow ought to be able to fulfill this desire? Or are you suggesting that raw-milk charities who give away raw milk will pop up? I don’t mean to be facetious; I’m really not sure how you’re suggesting people could realistically obtain raw milk if it weren’t sold.

[/QUOTE]

What I mean is that anyone with a yard to keep a dog could keep a goat instead. Or a sheep. There are miniature goats, for folks who only need to provide raw milk for a couple people. Hell, there are even strains of miniature cattle now, if someone found goat’s milk objectionable.

:Aside: Sorry that didn’t work out for you, magellan.

So yeah, it would be reasonably easy to procure raw milk for yourself if you had a mind to get it.

176

[QUOTE=Pullet]
…What I mean is that anyone with a yard to keep a dog could keep a goat instead. Or a sheep. There are miniature goats, for folks who only need to provide raw milk for a couple people. Hell, there are even strains of miniature cattle now, if someone found goat’s milk objectionable.

:Aside: Sorry that didn’t work out for you, magellan.

So yeah, it would be reasonably easy to procure raw milk for yourself if you had a mind to get it.
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Jesus H Christ! Are you for real?

177

[QUOTE=FarmerChick]
Jesus H Christ! Are you for real?
[/QUOTE]
So you want a potentially dangerous foodstuff with no fucking health benefits just so you can satisfy your urge to live free? How many sick people would it take before you’d give a shit?

You know once upon a time you had the right to toss your shit, piss and menstrual rags out of your window too. But in the interest of public health we’ve curtailed that particular right.

Are *you *for fucking real?

178

[QUOTE=Lobohan]
So you want a potentially dangerous foodstuff with no fucking health benefits just so you can satisfy your urge to live free? How many sick people would it take before you’d give a shit?

You know once upon a time you had the right to toss your shit, piss and menstrual rags out of your window too. But in the interest of public health we’ve curtailed that particular right.

Are *you *for fucking real?
[/QUOTE]

I think she was asking that question to express shock that he was seriously suggesting that those that want raw milk should get puppy-goats.

I have to say, I was kinda wondering if he was for real, too.

179

[QUOTE=Nzinga, Seated]
I think she was asking that question to express shock that he was seriously suggesting that those that want raw milk should get puppy-goats.

I have to say, I was kinda wondering if he was for real, too.
[/QUOTE]

I’m a she.

So now it has to be convenient for people to put themselves and others at risk of food born illness?

180

[QUOTE=Pullet]
I’m a she.

So now it has to be convenient for people to put themselves and others at risk of food born illness?
[/QUOTE]

My apologies presuming you a he. I am not sure why I did that.

As for whether or not it has to be convenient for people not to put themselves and others at risk of food born illness, I will believe that raw milk drinkers should have puppy-goats when all the pasturized milk drinkers cease driving cars ever again so as not to risk ever striking a pedestrian.

But, hey, whatever. Raw milk, pasturized milk, chocolate milk…none of it is ever going in my glass again.