I've been making cheese at home for a few years now, and was lucky enough to find a local source of raw milk a few months ago, at the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, I've made cheese exclusively with raw milk.

While I'd read about the differences previously, they're understated by most sources -- I can only assume many people are passing on accounts they've heard rather than speaking from experience. The texture of the finished cheese and how the milk acts while being processed into cheese is incredibly different from even fresh low-temperature pasteurized milk with added calcium.

Even a simple cheese like mozzarella is very noticeably different -- and in my opinion, better -- when made from raw milk. So while I'm willing to believe commercially produced cheeses are closer to their raw-milk counterparts than my homemade cheeses are, I still feel we've lost a lot when it comes to the experience of eating cheese just by using pasteurized milk.