How tough are you? Have you ever drunk milk straight out of a bulk tank? What about straight from the teats of a cow?

If you haven't grown up on a dairy farm, and drinking raw milk, you will probably be repulsed by the strong taste of raw milk. And even if you like the taste of raw milk it can make you very sick.

Why Pasteurize

To protect the public, most states require that milk be pasteurized. The most common version of pasteurization, high temperature/short time (HTST), passes milk between a series of closely spaced plates that heat the milk to exactly 161 °F for 15 seconds. This minor heat treatment reduces microorganisms in the milk by 0.00001 times (log-5 reduction) the raw milk.

Contaminated milk has long posed a serious risk to the young and others. Long before the mega-farms of today with hundreds if not thousands of head of milking cattle, milk could become contaminated easily putting the young, old, and frail in danger of sickness. Milk is an ideal fluid for transferring dangerous bacteria from the farm to the human.

It only takes a little of common milk pathogens to make a person very sick. Ensuring an animal's teats are properly washed, and that the milking lines, bulk tank, or milking bucket is properly sanitized you can avoid these dangerous pathogens. Still, a little bit of manure or mud on crusted on cow's teats that you missed when cleaning them off could easily contaminate a whole bulk tank of milk, making dozens of people sick and even killing the some vulnerable people.

The pathogens that can be in milk but killed by pasteurization are varied. Some are relatively minor and will cause diarrhea or an upset stomach for a couple of hours. Others can last for weeks or can kill you like pathogens that create meningitis or Cronin’s disease. So if your not very careful with your milking, whoever drinks raw milk can become very sick or die.

Pasteurization Kills Bad and Good Alike

Pasteurization kills all bacteria in milk, including many so-called probotic bacteria that helps fight infection and promote digest. Some argue that existence probotic bacteria can make immune to some of the more harmful bacteria’s in milk. Indeed, People who drink raw milk tend to be healthier. That may in part be part because they choose healthier lifestyles, but also because the probotic bacteria keeps their immune system.

Some people say that raw milk tastes better. They claim it tastes more like what you would expect dairy product, strong more cow like. Yet, that may not be from the bacteria killed in pasteurization, but how the cattle are raised. Grass-fed diets make milk taste stronger and sour, versus feed rations that contain heavier diets of corn, silage, and alfalfa. Raw milk also not usually homogenized, which also changes the taste.

In addition, raw milk production is far more carefully produced. If your not going to be pasteurizing the milk, you have to be sure that your milk is pure and the milk house is sanitary. You spend much more time cleaning the teats of cattle and making sure your lines are totally clean, beyond what you would normally do on a dairy farm. You realize that even a slight contamination problem could kill.

Cleaner milk with lower bacteria counts reduces the chance of contamination of milk that isn't killed by pasteurization. Indeed, many dangerous contaminates have been known to not to be killed by the pasteurization, particularly as bacteria evolve in ways to survive heat pasteurization and the increasing number of antibiotics being used to keep cows healthy.

Moreover, big dairies simply can't compete in the raw milk market. Moving so many cattle through a milk house means that there is a greater chance of minor contamination. When you have 200 or 300 cattle moving through a milkhouse in a couple of hours, and your running from cow to cow—milking as many as seven eight cows at once per person every eight minutes—you don't have the time or concentration to ensure things are sanitary as they should be.

Un-homogenized Grass-Fed Milk Might Be An Alternative

There is no question that raw milk is dangerous. There is substantial evidence that pasteurization; at least HTST pasteurization does little to change the taste of milk. Indeed, for people who claim that raw milk tastes better there may be a product that is better. Milk that is un-homogenized from largely grass-fed cattle tastes much the same as raw milk.

Grass-fed milk is not as profitable or palatable as mixed ration milk for many consumers. Hay doesn't provide the energy density or output per acre that is in corn or alfalfa based feed ration. While, most feed rations typically have a significant portion of hay or other silage anyways as corn is so sweet it will give cattle deadly bloat or gas in the stomach, the higher corn content makes milk sweeter. In contrast, higher hay rations in a dairy cattle, makes milk have a more sour or bitter taste due to the lower lactose or sugar content.

Homogenization mixes the cream and milk together in a consistent fashion. Dairy cattle, unlike most other dairy animals have cream that tends to float to the top of their milk. Consumers like this, as they don't have to shake milk up in the morning to mix the cream and milk together. It does take the sweetness out of the top of the milk and make it more consistent—something that old-timers miss.

More dairy processors would probably go for un-homogenized milk if there were more of a market. Right now though, processors tend to prefer to sell homogenized milk as stores know that most consumers don't want to shake up their milk and mix the cream with the milk every time they want to drink—regardless of the taste benefits.

Be Careful With Raw Milk

Raw milk is deadly if it's not made properly or given to people with compromised immune systems. It's truly the whiskey of the milk drinking population. It might burn on the way down, but drinking it makes you stronger inside if it doesn't kill you first.

Milk is not milk like some of the supporters of mass milk production like to claim. Different feed rations and different processing methods such as homogenization or pasteurization do change the taste of milk. Yet, of all post-production methods pasteurization seems to have the smallest impact of them all.

Could regulated raw milk be sold at the store like other kinds of milk? It's possible but it would a much more aggressive inspection and labeling program that is currently available. While milk is already very aggressively regulated, most regulators are scared to be putting their stamp on raw milk as the dangers are simply too high.

If you want to get raw milk in New York State there are still many options. You can know a dairyman and go to his farm to buy it straight from the source. New York unlike other states doesn't put limits on on-farm sales, however there are no sanitary regulations for raw milk either. Or you can raise your own dairy cow to produce more raw milk then your family ever is able to consume everyday—if you don't mind spending an hour of each day milking, feeding, and taking care of the cow.

For the rest of us there are a variety of alternatives. There are specialty milks from local dairies like un-homogenized milk that is pasteurized but doesn't have the cream mixed in. This will make the top of the milk taste sweeter, and you can easily get the cream off the top for your coffee.

You can also get organic milk, which the cattle have never been given antibiotics, even when the cattle are sick, and no non-organic chemicals were used on the pastures or crops fed to the cattle. Depending on the feed rations will depend on the taste of this milk. Then there is milk from cows fed on largely grass-rations or hay, which is going to be more sour or bitter tasting.

Farms Need To Make More Options

Farms can make more options available to consumers without putting them at risk. They can make our milk sources more diverse, by making it easier to get new milk processors both on-farm and off-farm online. This can be done by a simplification and clarification of the unnecessarily complicated milk processing regulations.

Dairy farms can do better by getting into the direct milk sales business. While the capital cost of producing dairy products on farm can be very high, it's clear that consumers want more products then are available through the mixed-fluid milk products sold through the big processors.

When a single farm or a few farms get together and sell milk either direct to the consumer or at local retailers, they can control feed rations and the specifics of the milk—within the law. They can provide safe or even safer milk, with more flavor then what we get from ever larger processors like Agrimark / (Cabot of Vermont), that have grown beyond a healthy size.