Raw Milk: Getting Past the Hype

The debate over whether unpasteurized milk is a health benefit or health hazard is one that has been going for years, and it shows no sign of letting up anytime soon. Healthy food advocates often speak of it as a miracle cure for all sorts of chronic ailments, and public health officials seem to think it may as well be a tall glass of Salmonella. With such high stakes, who do you believe? People on both sides seem convinced that the issue is as black and white as a Holstein’s hide, but as with most debates, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I stumbled into the raw milk debate when I decided to try milk from Organic Pastures in Fresno, CA, whose herd is fed 100 percent well, organic pasture, but one quick glance at their website will tell what their real passion is raw milk. I’d never really given raw milk much thought, and so I had the same questions most people do about it. Is it safe? Is it really better for you? A cursory surf around the internet revealed a highly polarized debate. One side claims raw milk is deadly dangerous, and the other claims there’s no risk at all. Neither was convincing. So I dug further.

It turns out that they are both wrong, but only partly. While most of the evidence supporting the health benefits of raw milk is anecdotal (and there are a lot anecdotes), there are indeed several scientific studies confirming some of the claims of raw milk devotees. This study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in 2006, attempted to isolate why it was that children who grew up on farms had significantly fewer symptoms of asthma, allergies, hay fever, and eczema. The unequivocal conclusion: unpasteurized milk consumption.

Similar findings were reported a year later in the journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy. It’s not all roses though; the CDC had indeed tracked 45 food-borne outbreaks, from 1998 to 2005, associated with raw milk or cheese, resulting in more than 1,000 illnesses and two deaths. Defenders are quick to remind us that you can get sick from any food, including pasteurized milk, but raw milk does seem to be somewhat more of a risk, leading government health officials to proclaim that the health benefits — which they maintain don’t exist — are outweighed by the risks.  But isn’t that a judgment consumers should be making for themselves?

Raw milk advocates often point out that not just any old unpasteurized milk is safe and good for you. It is crucial that it come from a clean, healthy, grass-fed cow free of hormones, and that the milk handling processes be meticulously clean. Mark McAfee, the owner of Organic Pastures, is fond of boasting the fact that in all the testing he is subject to, not once has any pathogen been found in his milk, and no human pathogen has ever been found on his farm, even in the cows’ droppings. With raw milk, disease must be stopped before it happens, not dealt with after the fact. And here, perhaps, is the best case for supporting the availability of raw milk: shouldn’t all our cows and milk be handled that way?

Photo credit: Kristen Taylor via Flickr