raw milk

Regular readers will know that I do not condone the raw milk hysteria. To read the holistic press, you’d think it was the best food ever invented. In fact I’m on record with the BBC (1986) as saying that if there was one food on Earth I would ban it would be milk. I would make hundreds of millions of people well within a week. I’d be famous! Seriously, though, milk is DEADLY. I don’t care what Joe Mercola says. And please don’t write and tell me YOU can drink raw milk and you are fine. That’s like saying you live in a pit of snakes and you haven’t been bitten so far! New and sobering statistics show that raw, or unpasteurized, milk causes 150 times more dairy product-related disease outbreaks than pasteurized milk. And states where the sale of raw milk is legal have twice as many outbreaks as states where it is illegal, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study (CDC). The 13-year review looked at more than 120 dairy product-related outbreaks that occurred between 1993 and 2006. The outbreaks caused more than 4,400 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations and three deaths. Raw milk products — including cheese and yogurt — caused 73 of the outbreaks (60 percent) and most of the 239 hospitalizations. Unless milk is pasteurized — heated to kill harmful bacteria — bacteria can accumulate in collected milk, multiply and cause illness, the researchers said. The study found that 13 percent of patients in what they called the “raw milk outbreaks” were hospitalized, compared with 1 percent of those made ill by pasteurized milk products. That’s 1300% more dangerous, if you want to play at silly statistics.

Regular readers will know that I do not condone the raw milk hysteria. To read the holistic press, you’d think it was the best food ever invented. In fact I’m on record with the BBC (1986) as saying that if there was one food on Earth I would ban it would be milk. I would make hundreds of millions of people well within a week. I’d be famous! Seriously, though, milk is DEADLY. I don’t care what Joe Mercola says. And please don’t write and tell me YOU can drink raw milk and you are fine. That’s like saying you live in a pit of snakes and you haven’t been bitten so far! New and sobering statistics show that raw, or unpasteurized, milk causes 150 times more dairy product-related disease outbreaks than pasteurized milk. And states where the sale of raw milk is legal have twice as many outbreaks as states where it is illegal, according to a new U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study (CDC). The 13-year review looked at more than 120 dairy product-related outbreaks that occurred between 1993 and 2006. The outbreaks caused more than 4,400 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations and three deaths. Raw milk products — including cheese and yogurt — caused 73 of the outbreaks (60 percent) and most of the 239 hospitalizations. Unless milk is pasteurized — heated to kill harmful bacteria — bacteria can accumulate in collected milk, multiply and cause illness, the researchers said. The study found that 13 percent of patients in what they called the “raw milk outbreaks” were hospitalized, compared with 1 percent of those made ill by pasteurized milk products. That’s 1300% more dangerous, if you want to play at silly statistics.