In the debate about drinking raw milk, it’s either a serious health risk or one of the most nutritious unadulterated foods known to man. Raw milk advocates insist the FDA has an unfair bias against raw milk. This stance deprives people of health benefits that include everything from reduced allergies and autism in children to enhanced fertility in adults.
Pasteurization or nutrition?
The Food and Drug Administration’s official stance is that unpasteurized raw milk is “an inherently dangerous food.” Last month the American Academy of Pediatrics called for a nationwide ban on raw milk, citing dangers posed to pregnant women and children.
Today 30 states in the U.S. allow raw milk sales within their borders. Since 1987, any milk transported across state lines has to be pasteurized, a process which heats milk to kill bacteria such as salmonella, listeria and E. coli that are involved in most food borne illness outbreaks.
Raw-milk advocates say pasteurization also kills healthful bacteria and nutrients, unnecessarily altering a highly nutritious food. Most doctors will tell you that because a baby’s or child’s immune system is still developing, they are ill prepared to fight off an infection from drinking contaminated raw milk.
Naturally antipathenogenic?
According to Real Milk, an organization dedicated to liberalizing state raw milk laws, many components in raw milk actually kill pathogens and strengthen the immune system. These components include anti-microbial enzymes, white blood cells, “special” carbohydrates fats and proteins, as well as, benefical microbes. Apparently this protective system is so powerful that even when you add pathogens to raw milk, they disappear.
On its website, Real Milk says homemade formula made from raw milk is safe for babies. Because it has allowed hundreds of babies from having to consume commercial infant formula, raw milk has saved many lives. For this claim, it cites cases in China where babies developed kidney failure after consuming infant formula tainted with melamine.
Miracle elixr
Real Milk also says recent European studies show children who drink raw milk are much less likely to develop allergies and asthma, especially if the raw milk is consumed in the first year of life. The organization also says it has received many testimonials that raw milk has had beneficial effects for adults with osteoporosis, arthritis, digestive disorders, fatigue, weight loss and cancer.
Raw Milk does concede that raw milk’s “magnificent anti-microbial system can be overwhelmed by highly unsanitary conditions.”
When risk becomes real
What happens then? Bill Marler a foodborne illness attorney writing in Food Safety News, offers some harrowing examples of drinking raw milk. He cites two cases involving a seven-year old boy and nine-year old girl infected by E. Coli who developed kidney failure. Hospital bills totaled hundreds of thousand of dollars. Both children could face a kidney transplant later in life.
The FDA says that non-pasteurized dairy products are 150 times more likely to cause illness than pasteurized products, according to a study of 121 dairy-related disease outbreaks from 1993 to 2006 by the Centers for Disease Control. Raw milk advocates say the FDA is in bed with the dairy industry, which contends that if more raw milk is sold, more people will get sick.
Take a chance
Are you thinking about trying raw milk? Marler gives this advice: “If you are a healthy adult, go ahead and flip a coin, but do not feed it to your kids.”
Source: Food Safety News, Real Raw Milk Facts, Real Milk, Washington Post