Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Raw milk

There was a post on the Fat head blog about raw milk, and I thought I'd take a little bit of time to do some research on it.

The basic position of raw milk proponents is that pasteurized milk is not as digestible as raw milk. The pasteurization process kills off beneficial enzymes and changes the protein structure of the milk.

I can buy that. Ultra high pasteurized milk doesn't even need to be refrigerated. That's kind of disgusting.

My main concern with raw milk is about the possibility of contamination with e. coli and other pathogens. There are several disease outbreaks attributed to raw milk.

Weston A. Price says that bias does exist here. That may be true.

Now, I'm not saying that all raw milk producers make contaminated products. The risk may be low, but it's still there.

And if you're following the SCD, chances are you have a compromised immune system. A compromised digestive system goes hand in hand.

So if you have compromised digestion, you should probably avoid raw milk. If you wish to use it for yogurt, you should heat it yourself slowly to kill pathogens, as Elaine recommended in Breaking the Vicious Cycle.

I have even more reason to avoid raw milk products, because I am on long-term antibiotic therapy.

If I were to be exposed to e. coli, my antibiotic use could destroy my kidney function, land me in the hospital, and/or kill me. Antibiotics are expressly contraindicated in e. coli infection.

Please keep these concerns in mind, should you decide to try raw milk products.

5 comments:

HealBalanceLive said...

Great info...thanks for posting your thoughts. My local health food store sells raw milk and has you sign a waver to purchase it. I had been debating as many of my friends who cannot tolerate pasteurized swear by the raw. You helped me make my decision, my immune system has been compromised and I don't want to take the risk. Thanks!

Unknown said...

No problem!

I believe that heating the milk slowly on your stove will not affect the protein structure as much as if you were purchasing pasteurized milk. So if you wish to use raw milk for yogurt, it doesn't take long; the milk only needs to be held at a temperature of 161 degrees for 15-20 seconds. It will probably taste better too!

Anonymous said...

If you are concerned about bacteria in raw milk, simply add 1 tsp colloidal silver per gallon of raw milk and shake it up. It is a natural antibiotic and will neutralize any existing bacteria in the milk. Also, I recommend visiting the farm because the cleanliness of each farm varies greatly. I've seen both extremes. Certified organic dairy farms are the best because they have strict standards to adhere to. My son, who cannot tolerate dairy products, handles raw milk just fine.

Unknown said...

I would never recommend colloidal silver to be ingested by anyone. Many commonly marketed colloidal silver products have been found to be contaminated with bacteria. Interesting that something touted as an antibacterial product would be able to harbor bacteria, now isn't it?

I agree however that cleanliness varies among farms. It is much safer for those of us with compromised immune systems to avoid raw milk entirely.

Anonymous said...

The collodial silver that my genuis integrative medical doctor said, is Argentyn 23 ultrafine dispersion 23 ppm. I was given this for my sort throat which was gone in few of hours after use From what I gather from my conversation with the doctor is this brand has powerful nano particles silver was the one that big pharma wanted to make prescription ONLY YES IT IS TRUE but luckily for all of us this did not happen. I use it in my raw milk yogurt along with one drop of lugols and HCI