Raw milk outbreak sickens 14 in Utah—a state with loose laws, bad track record

Pooga

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,354
Subscriptor++
It's all about risk vs reward. There is vanishingly close to no payoff for drinking raw milk. But licking the beaters on chocolate chip cookie dough, that is very close to manna from heaven.
One time when my sister was baking chocolate chip cookies I stole a spoonful of raw dough and she scolded me for it. I told her I was building up my resistance to salmonella.
 
Upvote
11 (11 / 0)

Rainywolf

Ars Tribunus Militum
1,931
Ah yes I recall watching a "health" food documentary about scams. There was an outbreak I think at a California dairy farm. Bunch of BS claims about how its good for/cures autism nonsense. Some kid ended up getting an infection that destroyed his brain. The dairy was still in operation when the documentary was made.
 
Upvote
17 (18 / -1)

Astro-CCD

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,256
The secret is to find dairies that slow pasteurize their milk, instead of the far more common fast or ultra pasteurization process. Slow pasteurization happens at a lower temperature, for longer. It's just as safe, but it breaks down the proteins and enzymes FAR less. It's noticeably more delicious, IMO. You'll often find that local and small dairies do this because it helps justify their higher costs. You'll definitely pay more for the milk, but it's worth it. (IMO)

http://www.farmerscreamery.com/our-process/low-temp-pasteurization/
Why then is organic milk often flash pasteurized more often? We tend to get that more often not because it is organic but because the shelf life is MUCH longer meaning fewer trips to the store.
 
Upvote
6 (6 / 0)

Jeepdon

Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
117
Because they were sickened by ignoring basic scientific knowledge that has been available for centuries in favor of their "it's better because it's natural" mindset? The kind of thing that is exactly encompassed by Dr. Mole's regular beat on Ars?
Dunno. Personally, raw milk ain’t my thing. But raw fish is. And I love a good steak tartare. And oysters, yum. Those carry not-dissimilar risks and I bet bad sushi sickens more people than bad raw milk. I wonder if the raw milk fuss isn’t more because it’s not our cultural norm, so when people get sick it’s more noticed or remarked upon? I definitely got sick from oysters one time and didn’t report it to anyone.
 
Upvote
-15 (6 / -21)
Live in Utah and did not know this was a thing. Not even sure where you’d go to buy your raw milk. shudder
It isn't a Utah thing, it's an everywhere thing. This just so happened to be in Utah this time. Few years back there was a dozen or so kids that got E. coli from raw milk in California. In today's news there were a few kids in Wyoming that got E. coli from raw milk. Last month it was Minnesota. People who think more natural means more healthy are everywhere.
 
Upvote
22 (22 / 0)

Lemurs

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,467
Subscriptor++
That's a very longwinded way of saying: if you're used to standard/fast-pasteurized stuff, and you get your hands on some slow-pasteurized to try, keep in mind that it probably won't keep nearly as long as you're used to. So enjoy it fast I guess :)
You're 100% right. I went from buying gallons or half gallons of "regular" supermarket milk and keeping them in the fridge for multiple weeks, to buying a quart of slow pasteurized stuff and knowing that I had to finish it in a week or it'd start turning. The taste improvement is worth it to me, but I have definitely had to throw more of it away than I used to. Smaller quantities and drinking it consistently has stopped most of my waste though.
 
Upvote
8 (8 / 0)

Lemurs

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,467
Subscriptor++
Why then is organic milk often flash pasteurized more often? We tend to get that more often not because it is organic but because the shelf life is MUCH longer meaning fewer trips to the store.
"Organic" is a label that has meaning and value to the average consumer. Flash pasteurized milk keeps longer and results in less spoilage and higher profits. So producers offer "organic" because consumers say they want it, not because it improves the taste. Organic is a gigantic market at this point, while slow-pasteurization has virtually no mindshare or demand from the average consumer. If the faster, more cost-efficient method meets consumer demand, they're going to use it.

Smaller producers often have a hard time competing with co-ops and conglomerates, so they have to find ways to differentiate themselves beyond just "organic"...offering a product that is creamier and tastier to some palates and then attributing it to how they make it is one way of doing that. (This is my read of the market dynamics, at least. It could also be that the slow-pasteurization equipment is cheaper to acquire and run, but I doubt it.)
 
Upvote
13 (13 / 0)
Son of a dairy farmer here. Yeah, don't drink raw milk. Poop and pee sometimes splash on the milking equipment. I grew up on raw milk without any problems but then we had an incident with raw milk we gave to the farmhands and that was it. Low heat pasturization is the way to go if you want to not destroy the milk fat during processing. Cook it at 145 degrees for 30 minutes and you're good to go. The flavor can't be beat.
 
Upvote
36 (36 / 0)

Pooga

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,354
Subscriptor++
Dunno. Personally, raw milk ain’t my thing. But raw fish is. And I love a good steak tartare. And oysters, yum. Those carry not-dissimilar risks and I bet bad sushi sickens more people than bad raw milk. I wonder if the raw milk fuss isn’t more because it’s not our cultural norm, so when people get sick it’s more noticed or remarked upon? I definitely got sick from oysters one time and didn’t report it to anyone.
Okay, how about: It's a story Dr, Mole chose to cover now because, as the first sentence says:

At least 14 people in Utah have been sickened with a serious gastrointestinal infection after drinking "raw," unpasteurized milk, the Salt Lake County Health Department reported this week. (emphasis mine)

If that report came out last year or next month, I'm sure she would have covered it at that point. I don't think all those Goop products, or the family selling bleach, or TB Mary running around Washington state lead to widespread deaths. Why does this story need a body count to be covered?
 
Upvote
9 (10 / -1)

OoklaTheMok

Ars Tribunus Militum
2,147
Subscriptor
I'm in Utah and there's a raw milk place down the road. Setting science back 159 years, ugh.

I understand wanting a more authentic milk than the "make all skim milk and then add milkfat back to whole milk" process that commercial dairies use, but come on. Even if you don't homogenize the milk, zap it so it's safe!
 
Upvote
13 (14 / -1)

alansh42

Ars Praefectus
3,670
Subscriptor++
Ah yes I recall watching a "health" food documentary about scams. There was an outbreak I think at a California dairy farm. Bunch of BS claims about how its good for/cures autism nonsense. Some kid ended up getting an infection that destroyed his brain. The dairy was still in operation when the documentary was made.
Yeah, they're not drinking raw milk because they think it tastes better. They're attributing magic healing powers to it.
 
Upvote
26 (28 / -2)
When I see a cow in the middle of a field, I immediately think, "I want some of their unfiltered goo."

It's clearly a health food!
Better yet, watch the cow closeups where the full udder drags the teats through fresh manure that dries to a crust. Then the farmer does an indifferent job of stripping that crust off the teat before attaching the milking machine hose ...

You start to get a very visceral feel as to why all those bacteria types end up in the milk. It's probably something everyone should see before they are allowed to join the dairy co-ops.
 
Upvote
26 (26 / 0)

AdamWill

Ars Scholae Palatinae
970
Subscriptor++
When I see a cow in the middle of a field, I immediately think, "I want some of their unfiltered goo."

It's clearly a health food!
There's a fantastic scene in Becky Chambers' "The Galaxy and the Ground Within" where a group of non-humans is sitting around, one of whom is friends with some humans. The others ask that one to explain this whole "cheese" thing to them...
 
Upvote
8 (9 / -1)

Geffrey T. Mongoose

Seniorius Lurkius
32
Subscriptor++
I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I lived on a farm. While we didn't have cows, our neighbors did, and we got whole milk from them all the time. Not a big dairy farm or anything, but they had a few milk cows. And even THEY pasteurized their milk. Don't know WTF this whole raw milk craze is.
I grew up in the 60s and 70s and lived on a farm. We did have cows and it was my job from the time I was about 8 years old or so to get up before dawn, milk the cows and slop the pigs.

I lived with my Grandparents who were old mountain people in their 60s at the time and THEY knew and believed that pasteurization was important. I don;t know that I could stomach what these idiots call "raw milk".

To this day, when I take a carton of milk from the fridge, I give it a few good shakes just from reflex. It's a holdover from the days when it would clump up in the bottles and you'd basically have white water with streaks of fat floating through it.
 
Upvote
24 (24 / 0)

crepuscularbrolly

Ars Tribunus Militum
1,875
Subscriptor++
I grew up in the 60s and 70s. I lived on a farm. While we didn't have cows, our neighbors did, and we got whole milk from them all the time. Not a big dairy farm or anything, but they had a few milk cows. And even THEY pasteurized their milk. Don't know WTF this whole raw milk craze is.
I grew up in a developing nation. If we had fresh cow's milk from the farm down the street, it was boiled before it was consumed.
 
Upvote
23 (23 / 0)

Martin123

Ars Scholae Palatinae
677
Subscriptor
Just curious, which of the "legal to buy" things that you're thinking of cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, headache, nausea,and vomiting, which can last for up to a week?

I'm struggling to think of any.
Well, the side-effects of being shot with a gun can be even worse to be fair...
 
Upvote
8 (10 / -2)

Shavano

Ars Legatus Legionis
69,534
Subscriptor
I've often idly wondered what raw milk is like, as I am a person who very much enjoys a tall glass of so-cold-it-has-little-ice-crystals-in-it whole milk if I am lucky enough to get to have cookies or a brownie or something.

But unfortunately I already have experience with salmonella so I know what it's like to shit and puke so much for a week that I would accept the bony embrace of the reaper, so I'm not really willing to chance it.
It tastes almost like pasteurized milk, with just a hint of Campylobacter.
 
Upvote
16 (16 / 0)
I thought of a couple of answers to this. Cigarettes might not cause all of those, but they've certainly got a nice list of side effects. Then again, I'd be totally okay banning cigarettes, especially because somebody's choice to smoke cigarettes affects not only themselves, but everybody around them.

Then I thought - raw meat. Raw meat would do all of that. Then that got me to wondering - I wonder how many folks who insist on raw milk are cooking their meat? I'm sure I've got a raw chicken somewhere for the "processing my milk is bad" crowd.
This a good time to remind everyone that USDA considers it unsafe to eat any meat cooked to less than 165 degrees F. For reference, that’s well-done on a steak. Since only barbarians eat steak well-done, I’d say that it shouldn’t be THAT surprising that a lot of people don’t actually pay much attention to what the health department says or not.

It just turns out, this is one of those times when maybe they should.

Edit: someone above mentioned cookie dough, which contains raw eggs, which are also verboten, yet oh-so-common (with occasional negative consequences).
 
Upvote
21 (22 / -1)
Upvote
13 (13 / 0)

Shavano

Ars Legatus Legionis
69,534
Subscriptor
I imagine just-squeezed stuff is relatively safe, instantly chilled there might be an argument for some kind of novel taste. Not convinced about any "wellness" babble any time soon.

Interestingly, the above seems to generally be scenarios where you wouldn't be paying for it. If people are buying some for-profit product it suggests scenarios where it has been sitting the f*** around. Unless it was frozen you're just buying rotten milk.

Know what? Let them sell it. With an "Infected milk." labeling mandate.
It's available in multiple flavors: Salmonella, Cryptosporidium (popular with the Crypto Bros), Listeria, Campylobacter and the old standard E Coli.
 
Upvote
4 (4 / 0)

Cyberax

Ars Scholae Palatinae
1,257
Subscriptor
I've often idly wondered what raw milk is like, as I am a person who very much enjoys a tall glass of so-cold-it-has-little-ice-crystals-in-it whole milk if I am lucky enough to get to have cookies or a brownie or something.
It's very creamy, and has a somewhat unique taste. You can get an approximation of it if you melt plain ice cream and drink it. Except that the real milk is not nearly as sweet.

I lived on an actual farm, so I drank it quite a bit. And once got a serious food poisoning (most probably) from it.
 
Upvote
2 (4 / -2)

dagar9

Ars Tribunus Militum
1,923
Subscriptor
According to my mom, when I was little (5 years or younger) I used to love buttermilk. Years later, I was curious if I still liked it. Not only no, but HELL no.
When I was a kid, we had a rellie in South Carolina who'd make clabber. Clabber is a version of sour milk that has curdled under particular conditions, in this case the particular condition being my rellie's root cellar. They gave it to me once, damn it was nasty. Or, presumably, an "acquired taste". But I never liked milk anyhow. I've acquired taste for many things not native to where I grew up (to be honest, food was pretty boring there) but not that one.
 
Upvote
2 (2 / 0)

Shazster

Ars Scholae Palatinae
888
A classmate's family owns a dairy farm and converted to raw milk a while back. There are a whole bunch of regulations they have to follow, including frequent testing, but they've still managed to have at least a couple recalls due to various things being found in their products that sickened people.

I tried their milk once and didn't find it to be all that different from regular milk. Certainly not better to the point where I could see taking that big of a risk of a nuclear war inside your digestive system.
And you drank it once.
Long term consumers need to be lucky every time. Bacteria only need to get lucky once.
 
Upvote
14 (14 / 0)