“What if we put the same amount of money and energy into ensuring that all milk is clean and safe from the time it leaves the cow?”

Yes! Dear God, yes!

(The answer is, of course, “because it’s not as profitable to big dairy.” But that sounds cynical so I won’t say it.)

This is one of my pet issues. Thank you for reporting on it.

I trust the woman I buy raw milk from in a way that I don’t think I’d trust any kind of commercial operation. I’ve only been drinking Colette’s milk for a couple of months, but the odd GI issues I’d been plagued with are clearing up, and the yogurt I can make from her milk is a thing of beauty. But like I said -- I trust her. I know how meticulous she is, and I know that if she showed up to do a weekly delivery and I was sick, it would be personal. A commercial dairy -- where they don’t know me (and likely don’t know their cows)? I would be much less willing to buy raw milk that way.

I grew up amidst the dairy farms of Wisconsin; my father is a large animal veterinarian. In the years that he practiced he saw the average daily milk production of a cow more than double. During those same years there was a surplus of milk. The government began paying those who owned small family farms to leave dairy farming. Conventional dairy farmers have had to increase production to stay profitable.

My dad’s clients always drank their own cows’ milk, of course, and of course it was not pastuerized. I think it’s fine to drink raw milk if you do not have lowered immunity, and if you can visit the farm where the cows are milked. I recall from trailing along with my dad that barns are like people’s homes, with a range of housekeeping standards.

It is so nice to see increasing coverage of this issue. I wish the usda was able to recognize that if the milk starts out clean and is handled safely there is no need for pasteurization. Of course this is the same organization that thinks that instead of requiring meat packing plant to be clean we should just tell consumers to cook their meat to a higher temperature; so it’s not really a surprise.
Holly is entirely correct. If it were possible for raw milk to be safely produced cheaply on a large scale it would be perfectly legal and large dairy companies would be charging a premium for it.

I question your underlying assumption that dairy milk is not only beneficial to human health but required for a healthy pregnancy. Why in principle would the mamary secretions of another species, one which has only existed in its current form for the last 10,000 years, be an integral part of the human diet? There have been numerous studies over the years which indicate correlations between milk consumption and the onset of a variety of cancers and chronic disease. I think you may need to reconsider your position on milk consumption in general, beyond any raw vs. pasturized debate.

Also, Weston Price was not a reputable scientist and his work has been discredited by the mainstream medical community. If you want another perspective on him and his theories check out: http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/holisticdent.html.

I have been blogging about my experiences joining a raw-milk group in my neighborhood:

http://izzyeats.blogspot.com/2007/10/dabbling-in-raw-milk-on-trail-of.html

Thank you for providing a more complete historical perspective. I find this entire dairy business fascinating.

“Why in principle would the mamary secretions of another species, one which has only existed in its current form for the last 10,000 years, be an integral part of the human diet?”

Because we’re omnivores, and we can. In some areas, milk (and not merely cow’s milk) is the most reliable source of protein and fats available to the human population. Aside from humans, most carnivores that I know of will consume milk from their prey if given the chance.

“There have been numerous studies over the years which indicate correlations between milk consumption and the onset of a variety of cancers and chronic disease.”

For many people, those correlations are not compelling enough to override the perceived benefits of milk consumption. I, for one, find the inavailability of safety information about soy-based products, and particularly GM soy products, far more worrisome than any recent “correlations” about the safety of a food that humans have been consuming for 10,000 years.

“If you want another perspective on Price and his theories check out ...”

I did, however I find it not relevant to this discussion, because that article is about holistic dentistry. The fact that the men who wrote the article disagree with the actions and beliefs of some of Price’s scientific progeny does not automatically render all of Price’s observations and reseach inacurate or irrelevant.

One might, perhaps, assume that the readers here are well-informed and curious enough to have heard the counter-arguments and come to their own conclusions, already.

Well, I live in New Zealand, where all of the cows live in paddocks (fields, pasture) and eat grass. And are exposed to all sorts of pathogens in the environment - notably tuberculosis, which, despite all the efforts of all the farmers and conservation people, is endemic amongst the umpty-million-odd possums our country is infested with. Milk is a wonderful food - but I’m damned if I’d eat unpasteurised commercial milk. I HAVE had raw milk while at the farms of friends, but only from the pampered house cow who lives out the back of the house, never from the commercial herd. They’re tested, of course, and any cow with TB (a rare occurrence) is excluded, but I like to make doubly sure.

And I don’t know about your dairy companies in America, but I’m sure ours would do away with pasteurisation if they could - it’s just more expense for them.

Thank you for your thorough article, Sona. It’s interesting how circumstances in our lives make us look at something from a new perspective. I have been thinking about and researching where my milk comes from a lot lately. My Whole Foods sells raw milk and I often wonder about it. It makes perfect sense that pasturization of milk would have become so prevalent once we were shipping it hundreds if not thousands of miles away. Again, I think the best option is to get to know where our food comes from and create relationships with those people, animals and that land.

What a great article. Congratulations on the baby, and thanks for writing this. I lost my source for raw milk for a while, but recently got a new one. I made butter with my first batch this week, and blogged about it at lifelovefood.com