Bought Uncooked Milk? UCLA Professor of Medication Says ‘No Thanks’

Throughout the previous few years, bureaucrats and public well being officers have been quiet about uncooked milk, however then Iowa legalized its sale in Might. The accompanying publicity — in The New York Instances and USA Right this moment,^1,2 plus many different publications — has resulted in a flurry of pro-pasteurization, anti-raw milk Web posts.

One among these appeared on December 8, 2023,³ written by Claire Panosian Dunavan, professor emeritus of medication and infectious ailments on the David Geffen Faculty of Medication on the College of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and previous president of the American Society of Tropical Medication and Hygiene. Dunavan can’t perceive the “dangerous attract” of uncooked milk. “Is it patrons’ religion in ‘nature’s excellent meals’ or sellers’ pure, bare greed?” she asks. The primary claims in her article:

Are Uncooked Milk Farmers Pushed by Greed?

Let’s have a look at these factors one after the other, beginning with the accusation that uncooked milk farmers are motivated by pure, bare greed. (Within the spirit of full disclosure, I’m a dairy farmer who sells uncooked milk.)

Standard dairy farmers in the present day obtain about the identical value as they did throughout World Struggle II, even whereas their prices have skyrocketed. Usually, they get $1.45 per gallon, which prices them $2 to provide.⁴

This explains why the variety of licensed dairy operations within the U.S. has steadily declined by greater than 55%,⁵ from 70,375 in 2003 to 31,657 in 2020. Greater than 3,000 dairy farms stopped manufacturing throughout 2020 alone — that’s eight per day.

A few of these farmers have prevented going bankrupt by switching to uncooked milk gross sales. Usually, shoppers are glad to pay from $5 to $10 per half gallon — sufficient to save lots of the household farm, particularly if the farmer reduces his prices by nourishing his cows on grass (the pure meals for cows) moderately than feeding grain.

Dunavan refers to farmers’ need to make a good dwelling as “pure, bare greed,” however let me offer you an instance of actual greed. Dairy firm CEOs sometimes make salaries upwards of $3 million per yr. They do that by retaining milk costs as little as doable — therefore the heartbreak of shedding the farm inflicted on hundreds of dairy farmers. That’s what most of us would name pure, bare greed.

True Causes of Toddler Mortality

About Nathan Straus shedding his son to typhus and blaming it on uncooked milk, in keeping with that font of standard data, Wikipedia, typhus is attributable to micro organism unfold by lice, chiggers or fleas.⁶ Since Dunavan is a public well being knowledgeable, she ought to know this. (I’ve not been capable of finding any reference to uncooked milk inflicting typhus, aside from the case of Straus’ son.)

Typhus reigns in filthy circumstances and it was an actual drawback, particularly in cities, earlier than the arrival of recent housing, sewage programs and washing machines. Even in the present day we see outbreaks of typhus, however public well being consultants sometimes blame them on rats, by no means on uncooked milk!⁷

As for the decline in toddler mortality within the U.S. on the flip of the twentieth century, it was throughout this era that public officers labored to scrub up our cities with the set up of sewage programs, garbage assortment and clear water.

This was additionally the interval when the automobile step by step changed the horse and mule — earlier than the automobile, our cities have been stinking cesspools of manure and dirt. Immigrants huddled in crowded housing with out operating water and refrigeration, and with solely rudimentary sanitation. The dying price by the age of 5 was 50% — and this was blamed on uncooked milk moderately than unsanitary circumstances — officers known as it the “milk drawback.”

Manure piled up on a New York Metropolis avenue creating lethal unsanitary circumstances — well being officers known as this the “milk drawback.”

Uncooked milk could certainly have contributed to the excessive dying price as a result of it got here from distillery dairies — internal metropolis confinement dairies of unimaginable filth the place cows have been fed distillery waste. The milk was so poor and watery that chalk was typically added to make it look white — this was the milk that Straus wished to pasteurize.

Nonetheless, pasteurization can’t take the credit score for the decline in toddler mortality because it was round this time that distillery dairies have been banned. The true hero was not Nathan Straus, who did nothing for public clean-up efforts, however Dr. Henry Coit, who labored to deliver clear uncooked milk from the countryside to the cities.

Public well being officers on the time lauded Coit’s licensed uncooked milk with saving youngsters’s lives and famous that youngsters in orphanages introduced up on uncooked milk have been more healthy than these given pasteurized milk.

Questioning the Experiences

About uncooked milk security, Dunavan repeats the current declare that individuals who drink uncooked milk are 840 instances extra prone to contract food-borne sickness than those that don’t.⁸

However an evaluation by epidemiologist Peg Coleman, primarily based on information thought-about by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Meals Security and Inspection Service (FSIS), discovered that on a each year foundation, out of 23 meals thought-about, pasteurized milk ranked second highest and uncooked milk ranked seventh highest in inflicting extreme sickness.⁹ The true query that one should ask, nevertheless, is how correct are stories of sickness and dying from uncooked milk?

The Weston A. Value Basis analyzed a 2007 PowerPoint presentation by John F. Sheehan, then director of FDA’s Division of Dairy and Egg Security, who contended that pasteurization is the one manner to make sure the security of milk.¹⁰

Desk 1 exhibits that the 15 research Sheehan referenced (via 2005) both have been methodologically flawed or that bias or outright fabrication guided the conclusions that he drew; not one of many research cited by the FDA truly proved that uncooked milk precipitated the sickness.

We have to do the identical evaluation for stories of uncooked milk sickness from 2005 to the current — one that features the claims of sickness from uncooked milk in California, Idaho and Utah. It’s protected to imagine that a lot of them are bogus, given the alacrity of public well being officers responsible uncooked milk for any sickness with out a thorough examination of all the information.

Desk 1: Unfounded Conclusions From Uncooked Milk Research

In line with the late Dr. Ted Beals, who analyzed stories of foodborne sickness from 1999 to 2011,¹¹ authorities information report a mean of 42 sicknesses from uncooked milk per yr out of 90,771 sicknesses from all sources.

Utilizing these figures, Dr. Beals concluded that one is 35,000 instances extra prone to turn into ailing from different meals than from uncooked milk. Beals additionally famous that there isn’t a approach to quantify whether or not anybody meals is safer than one other from the information we’ve got, however on the identical time, it’s clear that there isn’t a foundation for singling out uncooked milk as “inherently harmful.”

Not too long ago, melons have ranked excessive in inflicting sickness — together with an outbreak from cantaloupe that resulted in over 300 sicknesses, over 100 hospitalizations and 4 deaths. The place is Dunavan’s outcry in opposition to grasping melon growers? And what about uncooked oysters, which kill 15 individuals per yr?¹² The place are the warnings to oyster lovers to not eat these horrible issues?

Pathogen Information

Dunavan implies that uncooked milk could cause Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) — a degeneration of the nerve cells that causes muscle weak spot and paralysis — as a result of uncooked milk can carry campylobacter, and campylobacter typically will get the blame for GBS.

After all, many, many meals harbor campylobacter. In 2019, there have been over 100,000 reported circumstances of GBS worldwide;¹³ a fast Web search doesn’t discover any of those circumstances related to the consumption of uncooked milk.

By the way in which, campylobacter and salmonella, the 2 pathogens mostly related to uncooked milk, don’t develop in refrigerated uncooked milk. In a pilot examine sponsored by the Uncooked Milk Institute, refrigerated uncooked milk inoculated with excessive and average counts of those pathogens suppressed their development.¹⁴

Inoculated listeria did develop in uncooked milk, however an affiliation of this pathogen with uncooked milk is extraordinarily uncommon. Furthermore, a current systematic evaluation discovered that the dangers of extreme listeriosis an infection have been higher for pasteurized milk merchandise than for uncooked milk merchandise.¹⁵

Customers Shunning Pasteurized Milk

Dunavan wonders why individuals would indulge within the dangerous habits of consuming uncooked milk. There are excellent causes for consuming uncooked milk, however first, let’s contemplate why fewer and fewer individuals are consuming pasteurized milk. In each the UK and the U.S., consumption of pasteurized milk has declined by 50% since 1974 (Determine 3). (I’d like to know whether or not Dunavan herself drinks pasteurized milk!)

Determine 3: UK per capita liquid milk consumption, 1974-2018

To search out out why consumption of pasteurized milk is declining, let’s contemplate a 2019 examine out of China, entitled “Processing milk causes the formation of protein oxidation merchandise which impair spatial studying and reminiscence in rats.”¹⁶

The researchers subjected milk to 4 processing strategies: boiling, microwave heating, spray-drying and freeze-drying. (Boiling takes milk to 212 levels F; ultra-pasteurization takes milk to 280 levels F. Most milk offered in the present day is ultra-pasteurized.)

All 4 strategies (even freeze-drying) precipitated oxidative injury to the milk proteins and resulted in “numerous levels of redox state imbalance and oxidative injury in plasma, liver, and mind tissues.” Feeding broken milk proteins to rats resulted in studying and reminiscence impairment — no marvel IQ ranges are falling!

The researchers concluded, “people ought to management milk protein oxidation and enhance the processing strategies utilized to meals.” However the best way to enhance these processing strategies? What forms of processing strategies would they recommend? How about no processing in any respect? Why not simply deal with milk fastidiously and cleanly and let the numerous pure antimicrobial compounds in uncooked milk do their work?¹⁷

Milk Proteins Are Simply Broken

Milk proteins aren’t powerful like muscle or collagen proteins; they’re extraordinarily fragile and simply broken by warmth and strain (as in heated drying). No marvel the consumption of business pasteurized milk is declining — the physique sees processed and broken milk proteins as international proteins and mounts an immune response.

This explains why milk protein is the number-one allergy and why research hyperlink consumption of pasteurized milk with digestive problems, rashes, bronchial asthma, diabetes … and even sudden dying.

Primarily based on statistics supplied by the Allergy & Bronchial asthma Community,¹⁸ one can deduce that pasteurized milk causes roughly 20 deaths from anaphylactic shock per yr! The kind of milk that’s actually harmful is pasteurized milk. Sure, certainly, “cause to not” drink pasteurized milk is allergy — life-threatening allergy. Dad and mom are determining that they shouldn’t give this junk to their youngsters … or drink it themselves.

Pasteurized milk is the milk that causes well being issues, whereas uncooked milk is certainly Nature’s Excellent Meals — in spite of everything, it’s the meals in Nature that nourishes all mammals, loaded with nutritional vitamins and minerals, every one in all which has a particular enzyme that ensures 100% assimilation. When milk is pasteurized, these vitamins are largely destroyed, or rendered very tough to soak up (Desk 2).

Desk 2: Destruction of Vitamins and Nutrient Assimilation by Pasteurization

Causes to Go Uncooked

Extra causes to drink uncooked milk: much less bronchial asthma and respiratory infections, fewer allergy symptoms and rashes. These are the conclusions of a variety of European research, which pasteurization proponents within the U.S. dismiss, however which public well being officers in Europe have taken critically. These embody:

• A 2001 examine printed in The Lancet — Much less bronchial asthma, fewer allergy symptoms²⁷
• The 2006 PARSIFAL examine (Medical & Experimental Allergy) — Much less bronchial asthma, fewer allergy symptoms²⁸
• The 2011 GABRIELA examine (Journal of Allergy and Medical Immunology) — Much less bronchial asthma, fewer allergy symptoms²⁹
• A 2012 examine (Present Opinion in Allergy and Medical Immunology) — Much less bronchial asthma, fewer allergy symptoms³⁰
• The 2014 PASTURE examine (Journal of Allergy and Medical Immunology) — Much less respiratory an infection^31,32

Within the U.S., bronchial asthma kills 9 individuals per day, a lot of them youngsters. When dad and mom see that uncooked milk relieves bronchial asthma of their youngster, they exit of their approach to acquire this magical product from grasping farmers.

There’s extra: early research point out that uncooked milk given to rising animals confers longer and denser bones in comparison with pasteurized milk.³³ I’ve heard from a number of gals recognized with osteoporosis who began consuming uncooked milk every day and handed their bone density take a look at two years later.

Uncooked milk additionally contributes to sturdy, wholesome enamel.³⁴ And many individuals who can’t tolerate pasteurized milk can get pleasure from uncooked milk with out issues. I’ve even had dad and mom inform me that their youngsters’s habits improved after they made only one change of their weight loss program — switching from pasteurized to uncooked milk.

Seeking to the Future

For these and different causes — corresponding to the truth that uncooked milk tastes so good — uncooked milk gross sales are booming. Our web site realmilk.com will get nearly 400,000 visits per 30 days, most of them to the Uncooked Milk Finder web page.

After we arrange realmilk.com in 1999, we had solely a handful of listings; in the present day, the web site lists over 3,000 locations to get uncooked milk within the U.S., and there are various extra not listed. Uncooked milk farmers inform me that they’ll’t produce sufficient uncooked milk to fulfill the demand — which signifies that these grasping farmers aren’t charging sufficient for it.

The reality is, pasteurization is a Rust Belt know-how — a bit like hitting a pile of manure with a sledgehammer. It lets the trade get away with elevating cows in filthy, crowded circumstances, however it doesn’t make milk any safer, and it ruins Nature’s excellent meals.

We’ve got come a great distance because the days of Nathan Straus. We’ve got the know-how to provide clear uncooked milk — stainless-steel, fast cooling, on-farm testing, an environment friendly nationwide chilly chain — and get it to each rising youngster within the nation.

Uncooked milk is the long run. I predict that inside 20 years, pasteurized milk might be a factor of the previous. Small, grass-based dairy farms will proliferate to fulfill the demand, and no couple will begin a household with out ensuring there’s a provide of uncooked milk close by. Well being officers like Professor Dunavan can protest all they need, however fewer and fewer individuals are listening.

Concerning the Creator

Sally Fallon Morell is writer of the best-selling cookbook “Nourishing Traditions” and lots of different books on weight loss program and well being. She is the founding president of the Weston A. Value Basis (westonaprice.org) and a founding father of A Marketing campaign for Actual Milk (realmilk.com). Go to her weblog at nourishingtraditions.com.

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