Raw Milk

[naomi24]

A farmer friend tells me that raw milk is very beneficial to people with digestive problems, IBS, etc. Has anyone else heard this - or tried it and found it helpful?

[Peter Pedant]

He made us a small cup each to drink. A few days later, we both were very unwell and had jaundice.

I can find nothing in the lit about this ( doesnt mean it didnt occur of course). defeated by the distracting info crowding out the data I wanted. Thousand of entries for breast feeding and jaundice

but hey ! they say camel milk help in cancer !

[theprof]

Peter, can't be certain but brucellosis and leptospirosis are two candidates given the fairly rapid onset of symptoms. Could the small cup offered for consumption tie in with reduced milk yield which would point to....? Jaundice is not unusual in these zoonosis.

MrsProf and I spend some time each year on various narrowboats on the UK canal network and lepto and Weil's Disease awareness is becoming increasingly important.

[Peter Pedant]

Brucella is heere
https://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/zoonoses-data-sheets/brucellosis.pdf
incredz rare I think is "nil" - and one is Melitensis - from Malta

Leptospira - I keep on thinking is Rat Bite fever, but it isnt - Rat wee fever. One of my colleagues managed to get it - not from milk but digging out a ditch down the bottom of his garden. Where the rats are. Diagnosed in cas. which I thought was a good call. classic setting sun sign.

more than you ever want to know ( even I flagged at the endless bact) here
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037011/

[theprof]

Peter, providing links to contemporary documents with regard to brucellosis is not really appropriate here. It was far from the case years ago.

Given that Patsy33 mentions that she recalls reading about these unpasteurised milk matters several years ago and the event cited occurred when she was young, it's evident that she was taken ill in excess of several years ago. Brucellosis was certainly not rare in days gone by. The current disease status is immaterial.

Leptospirosis and Weil's are not quite the same thing for reasons I'll not go into here but there's lots of info on the web if you're curious. Nevertheless, ultimately, rat wee is not the only method of transmission of leptospirosis. Leptospira often occur in ruminant milk and remain easily demonstrated nowadays.

[theprof]

A regular monthly stocktaking event occurred at PD last week Peter, which included stockholdings of Brucella spp and Leptospira spp. These were kept in containment laboratory settings below those that I normally work in so I rarely get involved. I won't provide the figures, but I can assure you that that the pathogens are still effectively alive and kicking in our laboratories. But then I shouldn't have to tell you how much credence you should attach to claims that specific pathogens have been eliminated should I?

[pastafreak]

I think that raw milk available to purchase in the UK has to come directly from the farm...which in turn needs to be registered to sell it.

[theprof]

You're absolutely right pastafreak. The Food Standards Agency publishes a spreadsheet as a .csv file which can be viewed with Excel, Open Office etc online listing all the "Registered Raw Drinking Milk Establishments "regularly online. Currently, there's around 150 of them.

It's a load of formality for these establishment and is intended to keep raw milk drinkers safe but it's by no means foolproof as may be seen by close inspection of the list. Many people assume that the these places are wholesome and meet what they consider to be organic requirements and even Red Tractor requirements. They don't.

Many efforts have been made to tighten the regulations after some truly appalling incidents all the same.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/raw-milk-trend-blamed-one-9646719

I think we have to concede that many people who don't live in rural communities try raw milk out of curiosity and want to experience the different taste. These lists are there for their benefit.

However, no formal regulations will stop or make people think twice who live in rural communities from drinking raw milk if that's what they want to do

[Old_Geezer]

Do they treat raw milk differently to other types ? I ask as it seems to me one could get some infection from a single milking, and if you mix that in a huge vat with others it'd mean the whole batch was infected and it'd be left raw. Sounds dodgy.

[theprof]

OG, farms that trade in raw milk have to keep any equipment used in the collection and packaging separate from that used for the milk that goes for pasteurisation etc. They can disinfect the equipment if wish as a lot of farms can't afford to duplicate the stuff used. The regulations on the chemicals they can use to disinfect and the way it's done are pretty strict.

Traceability is also important as regulations insist that all milk can be traced back to the farm at the processing plant. You'd think that this would be useless when all the milk from tankers at the processing plant is mixed together but it does sometimes bring issues to light for the processor.

With raw milk, regulations insist that it can be traced back to the herd at worst and the cow(s) at best via compulsory milking records. It's not considered difficult for the farmer to sort this out purely because raw milk is sold in relatively small quantities.

[Zacs-Master]

I remember walking in the Dales in the early 80s and being able to ask for a glass of milk from farms we passed. Usually Goat’s tho.