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Comment by tjr | Hacker News Reader

I had been largely oblivious to raw milk until just a few weeks ago when someone suggested I look into it.

From what I can tell, raw milk per se is not likely to be problematic, but problems can get injected if the cows and/or general milking operation are not handled well. Pasteurizing milk could plausibly be seen as a quick fix to not have to deal with such things well. On the other hand, who would I trust to actually handle raw milk with excellence?

Sounds to me like low-temperature pasteurization might be the best compromise? Kills off what is harmful, but supposedly retains more of the original nutrients?

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> raw milk per se is not likely to be problematic

Part of the issue is that the current farms doing it are heavily regulated and also specialize in this product. If there's deregulation, you're going to see a free for all in states with light regulation.

I personally think the whole thing is very stupid, and considering all of the raw milk illnesses that have been occurring (especially with bird flu), the status quo is fine. But if exposure is expanded...

I've heard a few people mention the lack of vitamins in pasteurized milk. I get that heat could destroy some chemicals, so that sort of makes sense, but isn't most milk fortified? I'm not sure it's a huge deal. I don't really care that the vitamin A in my cheese didn't come out of the cow, personally.

I do care that it won't give me food poisoning though, that's a lot higher up the list of concerns than vitamin provenance.

It is broadly accepted that pasteurized milk is lower in vitamin C, but there generally isn't much in dairy products to begin with. There are also reportedly small reductions in vitamins B2 (riboflavin), B12 and E, and folate. However, no reputable nutritional authority has identified these reductions as being physiologically significant.

More controversial assertions circulate around protein and enzyme content, but studies have failed to find anything making raw milk more "digestible" or causing any detectable contribution to immunity or allergy. The FDA has an extensive discussion on this: https://www.fda.gov/food/buy-store-serve-safe-food/raw-milk-...

Interesting, thanks! I'll give it a read. I didn't know about the "contains probiotic bacteria that secrete lactase" claim with raw milk. It would be weird if lactase/lactase producing bacteria were in big enough quantities in milk, considering how cows (and people) produce it themselves as babies. Seems like wasted effort that would probably be evolved away.

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