Comment by amluto

4 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".

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%!).