Is unpasteurized milk truly loaded with harmful bacteria? Does the pasteurization process truly strip milk of all nutritional value? Let’s weigh the risks and benefits of both raw milk and pasteurized milk.
Raw milk and raw milk products seem to catch a lot of heat for overall safety and consumption. But pasteurized milk is said to have little to no nutritional value. Is there a balance we can strike in processing, quality, and consumption so that we, as consumers, can make the decision that’s best for our family?
Let’s compare the risks and benefits for both and see if we can make an educated choice to feed our families well.
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Where We Stand on Raw Milk
Here at The Learning Life Blog, we are all for shortening the gap that exists between food and consumers. That means if I can get a product from a local farmer and avoid a shipment, processing plant, another shipment, and a grocery store, I will.
For us, that includes raw milk. We purchase our raw milk from a fourth-generation dairy farm that thoroughly cleans their animals and equipment before and after every milking.
I am going to touch on the importance of knowing and understanding source material in this blog post. So before you continue reading, it’s important that you know we (the source you are currently reading) are biased in favor of raw milk consumption.
The Gist
Cow’s milk for human consumption can be safe and healthy or a death sentence. We, as a raw milk drinking family, have heard both sides of the coin. I got tired of hearing about opinions and decided to throw myself into experiment-based research to find answers.
The only argument friends and family approach us with, whether they are for or against raw milk, is pasteurization. So, for the purpose of this blog post, that will be a focal point that I discuss.
The overall contribution to health is also a talking point. While this isn’t a blog about health and isn’t intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent illness and injury, I will be touching on a few points because they take center stage in the overall argument.
Finally, I want you to truly consider where your information is coming from and how that data was collected. I reference several scientific studies in this post, and I link them within the blog post so you can independently read them (after you finish this post, of course!)
I point this out because while these studies are related to cow’s milk, the focus of the study usually doesn’t have anything to do with the pasteurization or contribution to health arguments. In fact, some studies fail to properly record data that could help us understand both of those points in relation to cow’s milk!
Frankly, if food safety is what this boils down to, changes must be made in the way studies are conducted and the information is dispersed to the public. But until that happens, it’s up to you as the consumer to understand the information that’s provided to you.
What is Pasteurization?
Pasteurization, for cow’s milk, is the process of heating the milk to either 145 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 seconds or 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds to kill potentially pathogenic bacteria and pathogens found in milk.
High-temperature, short-time pasteurization is considered standard practice in the United States.
It’s important to note that bacteria are always found in milk. But harmful pathogens are not always found in every batch. I touch on how they get introduced later in this blog post.
This heat treatment was developed by a French scientist in the 1860s for beer, but was introduced in the United States in 1895. This prompted a lot of change in the early 1900s.
Chicago was the first city to pass a mandatory milk pasteurization law in 1909. This is because consuming raw milk was considered a public health concern, largely due to how milk was processed. States soon followed in the 1940s.
I go further into the history of raw milk in this blog post!
In order for milk to be sold under the “pasteurized” label, it must pass the United States Food and Drug Administration’s Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. This is one of many federal regulations imposed on pasteurized dairy farmers. State departments also enforce the PMO rules.
Raw milk laws are usually governed by states. The only federal law against raw milk is that raw milk sales cannot cross state lines.
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The Core of the Raw Milk Argument
You hear it over and over and over again – “Raw milk will make you sick.”
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has an entire page on its website devoted to the importance of pasteurizing raw milk. It claims, “Drinking or eating products made from raw milk can expose people to germs such as Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella.”
The idea is that pasteurizing milk removes these germs that cause foodborne illnesses.
The CDC continues, “Symptoms of foodborne illness from raw milk can include diarrhea, stomach cramping, and vomiting….more severe outcomes…can occur, potentially leading to paralysis, kidney failure, stroke, or even death.”
In 2022, Cambridge University Press published a study in Epidemiology and Infection, a scientific journal, that examined the correlation between foodborne illness outbreaks in raw milk and the availability of raw milk according to state laws.
The study used the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System, which collects data from state, local, and health departments on pathogens and other characteristics of foodborne disease outbreaks submitted through the CDC’s outbreak reporting system. The study only focused on unpasteurized milk and not products made from unpasteurized milk, like cheese and yogurt.
The study found that between 1998 and 2018, there were 21,919 foodborne outbreaks and 423,595 outbreak-associated illnesses reported to the outbreak surveillance system. Of those, 202 outbreaks (0.9%) and 2,645 illnesses (0.6%) were related to unpasteurized milk. This included 228 hospitalizations and three deaths.
The study found that 9 outbreaks (0.04%) and 2,133 illnesses (0.5%) were related to pasteurized milk. This included 33 hospitalizations and three deaths.
Examining the Data – Fresh Milk
I used this study because the CDC used the study (it’s linked in the raw milk section of the website). If this, or any organization or person, lays the claim to something, it’s well within your right to examine where they are getting their information from.
What is important to note is the focus of the study. The focus isn’t truly on foodborne illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths related to unpasteurized milk. It’s what states did in response to those reports.
The study continues to outline which states wrote or rewrote policy for interstate sales and herd shares. It didn’t examine what conditions the raw milk was processed under, the health of the cows, the state of the farms, or anything else that would help us better understand why outbreaks are so much higher within the unpasteurized milk community.
However, we can’t deny that bacteria can get into milk, whether that’s through contaminated fecal matter, a sick cow (usually suffering from mastitis), or bacteria already on a cow’s udder or cleaning equipment.
The Core of the Pasteurized Milk Argument
Raw milk consumers like to point out that the high heat in pasteurization kills the bacteria – Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, Brucella, and Salmonella – in milk, but also strips away key nutrients like Vitamin C and B Vitamins like B1, B2, and B12.
The Journal of Food Protection published an article in 2011 that reviewed 2,199 articles supporting the claim that pasteurization strips milk of vitamins and minerals, and that raw milk can aid in the health of those who suffer from asthma or allergies.
For various reasons – like the article didn’t actually reference pasteurization, raw milk, or stripping nutrients, or the article was in another language – only 40 articles were approved for further review. The studies were published from 1936 to 2008.
Of those 40 studies, 25 included data on a single vitamin impacted during the pasteurization process, 13 included data on multiple vitamins, and 22 studies examined vitamin concentrations under more than one pasteurization condition.
In several of these studies, proper results could not be recorded because 1) results weren’t recorded in the first place; 2) results were recorded in a way that couldn’t be standardized to compare to other studies; or 3) the study didn’t provide numerical results.
Because of these reasons, the study published in the Journal of Food Protection could not conclude the effects of pasteurization on vitamins A, B12, and E. However, it did find that pasteurization seemed to reduce concentrations of B12 and increase Vitamin A.
Pasteurization also decreases, substantially, Vitamin C and folate. However, milk is not a recommended source for either one of these, so the scientific community doesn’t count this toward anything profound when we consider building appropriate dietary recommendations for North Americans.
North Americans usually get Vitamin C from citrus or peppers and folate from enriched foods, like breads and cereals.
The study concluded that the nutrient quality of milk is impacted by many factors, including the breed of the cow, how often the cow is milked, and vitamin concentrations in the cow’s feed.
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Examining The Data – Regular Milk
It’s hard to make the claim that pasteurization kills beneficial vitamins and minerals in milk when the studies that have been done don’t record data monitoring that impact.
As a raw milk supporter, this doesn’t give your argument much of a leg to stand on. But as a consumer, this doesn’t give you any information to make an informed decision.
It’s also important to note that the pasteurization process for milk is different from that for meat. In fact, a quick search would show you that Campylobacter actually dies at 165 degrees Fahrenheit, not 145 or 161 degrees in monitored pasteurization, per the CDC. Cryptosporidium parasites lose infectivity when heated to 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 60 seconds, not the recommended 15 seconds in pasteurization. Listeria dies at 165 degrees Fahrenheit, but can also die at 158 degrees Fahrenheit when held for at least 2 minutes, per the United States Department of Agriculture.
The differences in times and temperatures usually reflect the fact that bacteria are spread throughout milk because it’s a liquid, but live on the surfaces of meat because they are too dense to penetrate.
To Drink or Not to Drink? The Health Issue
Supporters of raw milk say that raw milk can support people with asthma and allergies. Lucky for us, studies have actually been done on it, so we can investigate these health claims.
The National Library of Medicine houses a 2019 study specifically on raw cow’s milk and its effect on allergies and asthma. And it found that raw milk drinkers, especially starting in childhood, do in fact develop a protection against allergies and asthma. Several examples were examined.
First, the alpine region, or Europe. The ALEX (allergy and endotoxin) study looked at whether or not European children exposed to farms had decreased rates of developing allergies. The key though being exposure to things such as hay, animals, and the like would help them develop immune systems.
While the study concluded there were too many factors on a farm to confirm the theory, they did find that children who did not live on a farm but consumed raw milk from a farm had lower frequencies of asthma and hay fever. Continual, long-term exposure until they were five years old was associated with the lowest frequencies of both.
In Poland, the results were the same. But this study concluded that consumption of raw milk was beneficial for older adults as well.
A study in the United States concluded that exposure to the farming environment in utero didn’t impact asthma, but rather reduced the odds of atopy, or the predisposition to develop allergic conditions. The study didn’t cite what part of farming helped this.
The GABRIELA study tried to nail down what it was about raw milk that protected children in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland from allergies and asthma. It concluded that boiled farm milk did not have a protective effect because heating the milk denatures the whey protein. Shockingly, there was no correlation between bacterial counts and health outcomes, meaning heated milk wasn’t associated with asthma and allergy outcomes.
That finding is a huge blow to the raw milk movement. Yes, we can confirm that heating milk strips it of its nutrients. Yes, we can confirm that raw milk can decrease the likelihood that children and adults will struggle with asthma and allergies. But that doesn’t mean that heated milk will impact asthma and allergy outcomes.
However, all of these studies confirm that the beneficial bacteria raw milk advocates talk about are there and making an impact.
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More To Consider – Animal Welfare
Our safety concerns should be linked to the care of dairy cows. Specifically, the cleanliness of their environment and how their milk is processed.
There are several ways milk cows can get sick. This study examines a few. Illnesses spread from dairy handlers to the cows, or tick-borne illnesses, made the list. But properly cleaning equipment and every surface that comes into contact with processed dairy – cooling vats, shipping crates, truck beds, packing materials, and packing machines – was the key takeaway for ensuring food safety.
Keeping a clean environment for the cows is also key. Access to clean water troughs, properly disposing of manure, and cleaning udders before milking are all ways to ensure cows (and humans) stay healthy.
Grappling with Milk Safety
We raise chickens, quail, and dogs on our backyard homestead. I am routinely cleaning and administering supplements, and if necessary, medication, to keep my animals happy and healthy.
When we selected a raw milk farmer, we asked questions to see if they treated their cows the same way we would treat our puppies or chicks. How often do you clean milking equipment? Are your cows fed a diet that keeps up with their physical needs? How do you treat a sick cow?
If you have been on the fence about drinking raw milk, these are the questions you can ask any raw milk farmer. And the answers can help you determine what’s best for your family. Not an AI-generated summary on the internet or a homesteader sharing their journey on social media.
Remember – the breed of the cow, living conditions, feed, season, and milking equipment will all impact the overall quality of raw milk that’s produced in your area. It’s time to start asking questions and getting answers!
The same questions can, and should, be applied to pasteurized milk farmers.
We know that the agencies and organizations overseeing the management of pasteurized dairy are doing little to report on the nutritional value of pasteurized milk. That begs the question – are cows milked for pasteurized dairy afforded the living conditions, feed, supplements, and medication they need to produce a quality product from a healthy animal?
Don’t misunderstand me – you can’t assume the cows are being poorly managed just because there isn’t any data published about the quality of the milk. I’m saying that if there isn’t data about the quality of the milk, is there data to support what we know produces good quality milk?
Was This Information Mooooooving?
Y’all know I had to throw a cow joke in there somewhere. Hah!
You can get lost in the percentages and scientific jargon when it comes to food safety. If you’re looking for relatable content that’s easier to digest, consider signing up for my newsletter. I share a behind-the-scenes look at how I use what I talk about.
Lucky for you, I tend to keep the science out of it. And whether you like raw milk or pasteurized milk, my newsletter is a great source for a cookie recipe that goes great with both.
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