Comment by jmclnx
5 days ago
One thing to be aware of, pasteurization adds costs to dairy products. So it is being done for a real reason, not just "because".
Companies will never pay to do anything unless not doing it will open them up to a law suit. So, raw milk does have some risks just based upon the the fact it costs to pasteurize milk.
> One thing to be aware of, pasteurization adds costs to dairy products. So it is being done for a real reason, not just "because".
I expect this strongly depends on the dairy product in question. For cheese made at the farm, sure. But for plain milk sold in a supermarket, I expect the improvement in logistics far more than makes up for the cost in pasteurization. People don’t UHT-pasteurize their milk for fun — UHT milk is easier to transport and can be shipped and stored in larger lots and rarely spoils on the shelves.
Where I live, you can buy raw milk but only at a substantial premium.
Pasteurized != UHT
Pasteurization is heating to 70C and cooling it down quickly to kill pathogens. The milk needs to be refrigerated afterwards and used within 2 weeks.
UHT is heating it to 140C for 2s a cooling it to kill pathogens and their spores. It significantly changes flavor, destroys 90% of vitamins and changes some of the proteins structure. Lasts a year afterwards
> destroys 90% of vitamins
Gonna make you cough up a reliable citation on that one.
The kombucha folks don't seem to have a problem with vitamins of aseptic purees after processing and generally seem to have converged to aseptic as being superior in terms of nutritional content than any other mechanism including freezing and preservatives. And Vitamin C is notoriously fragile to heat. Generally, Vitamin C is far more fragile than anything in milk (standard pasteurization knocks down Vitamin C by about 50%!).
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Presumably, you’re American? In many parts of the world we regularly consume cheese made with raw milk. For many cheeses, raw milk is preferable.
European cheese producers have their own costly methods of managing raw milk cheese safety. They have much more surveillance of the entire process, like rapid testing of milk for STEC (the microbe involved in this outbreak) and adding bioprotective cultures during milk production. In France there is an extensive monitoring/alert system. They aren't just YOLO-ing it.
Currently the law requires substantially more testing (and lost product) for raw milk sales. It is hard for be to believe that pasteurization is a significant cost such that the choice is based on cost rather than a product goal.
Well if you harm someone by your contaminated product I believe that coming lawsuit could potentially be more expensive than warming the milk to 70 degrees for a minute. Especially in US.