Raw milk

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. While proponents have stated that there are benefits to its consumption, the medical community has warned of the dangers. Availability and regulation of raw milk vary from region to region.

Cattle have been domesticated for some 10,500 years. Europeans first started consuming milk from cattle around 7,500 years ago.

Pasteurization is widely used to prevent infected milk from entering the food supply. The pasteurization process was developed in 1864 by French scientist Louis Pasteur, who discovered that heating beer and wine was enough to kill most of the bacteria that caused spoilage, preventing these beverages from turning sour. The process achieves this by eliminating pathogenic microbes and lowering microbial numbers to prolong the quality of the beverage.

After sufficient scientific study led to the development of germ theory, pasteurization was introduced in the United States in the 1890s. This move successfully controlled the spread of highly contagious bacterial diseases including E. coli, bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, (all thought to be easily transmitted to humans through the drinking of raw milk). In the early days after the scientific discovery of bacteria, there was no product testing to determine whether a farmer's milk was safe or infected, so all milk was treated as potentially contagious. After the first tests were developed, some farmers took steps to prevent their infected animals from being killed and removed from food production, sometimes even falsifying test results to make their animals appear free of infection. Recent advances in the analysis of milk-borne diseases have enabled scientists to track the DNA of the infectious bacteria to the cows on the farms that supplied the raw milk.

The recognition of many potentially deadly pathogens, such as E. coli 0157 H7, Campylobacter, Listeria, and Salmonella, and their presence in milk products has led to the continuation of pasteurization. The Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and other health agencies of the United States strongly recommend that the public do not consume raw milk or raw milk products. Young children, the elderly, people with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women are particularly susceptible to infections originating in raw milk.

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