May 6, 2025 • 60 mins
Last week, we started this two-parter with a big picture view of pasteurization and the raw milk movement. In this episode, we address the alleged health claims made by proponents of raw milk and dive into the very real risks carried by its consumption. Is raw milk actually better for you? Does it have more vitamins or prevent allergies? What deadly pathogens does it harbor? How much does drinking raw milk increase your chance of contracting a milk-related disease? (Spoilers: A LOT). We tackle these questions with reliable data that paint a very different picture of raw milk than that shown by many raw milk influencers. Tune in for all this and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sarah and her husband Brandon, had decided to switch their
family to raw milk because their oldest son had had
some health issues. When they did, his health seemed to improve.
The kids loved it, said Sarah, talking about her other
two children. It seemed to be better for their immune systems.
We drank it for five years. The kids thrived on it.
The family also had complete faith in the dairy's sanitary practices.
(00:22):
In switching over to raw milk. They had been advised
to know their farmer. They believed they had done the
right research to make sure the milk they were buying
was safe to drink. But then one day, Jubilee got sick,
very sick. She was vomiting and suffering from a severe
case of diarrhea. Instead of improving over the next several days,
she got sicker and sicker. Her worried mother took her
(00:45):
to the emergency room, taking along a pull on diaper
that had blood in it. The results of the test
came back it's E.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Coli.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She was told Jubilee's kidneys are in danger. Meanwhile, her
son Titus, who had just turned six, was also sick.
It seemed to be handling it better, but then he
got sicker and joined his sister in the hospital. He
too developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, although he didn't need to
undergo dialysis, but he did develop pancreatitis from the Equali
(01:13):
infection he had contracted from the contaminated raw milk, and
then a staff infection. Watching them in pain was the
absolute hardest thing I've ever done as a parent, she said.
The amount of needles for blood draws, medications, transfusions is scary,
and the fear of each one only grew, making it harder,
not easier. It was three weeks before the children were
(01:36):
well enough to go home. I was in the hospital
with them the entire time, said Sarah. I felt like
a bat. It was still summer when they went in,
and the stores were selling school supplies. When I came out,
there were Christmas decorations in the stores. And while the
children are doing well now and playing with the best
of them, memories persist.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I know that is absolutely heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking. It's
so heartbreaking. So that story was excerpted from an article
on food safetynews dot com. It was also written up
in a Michigan food safety website as well. But it's
about the story of Jubilee and Titus Combs who got
sick in Kentucky in twenty sixteen from e coli from
(03:05):
contaminated raw milk.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Hi, I'm Aeron Welsh and I'm erin Oman Updike.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And we're still talking about raw milk today.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
We are still talking about raw milk. There is so
much more still to talker. Yeah, yeah, So if you
haven't listened to last week's episode on raw milk, really
what that was was a history of pastorization and some
of the pushback that pastorization received early on and then
continued to receive as the as the decades went.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
On, continues to receive today, received today, and we also
wrapped it up with a look at some of the present.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Day drivers of raw milk. So in that we were
talking primarily about the people who are pushing raw milk
and some of the reasons that might be not all
of the reasons that people, you know, push raw milk.
And then the other thing too is that like you know,
to separate out to just re emphasize, to separate that
there is a very big difference between the people buying
raw milk and people who are pushing raw milk.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Right at like a large level.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, and so just like to not conflate the two.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right, there's so much mis and disinformation out there that,
like it is really hard and we'll get into that.
I'm going to get into a lot of detail today
on like what are the claims that people are making
about raw milk? Is there any validity to any of them?
How do we distinguish what is real and what is
not real? And how do we balance these supposed risks
(04:36):
and supposed benefits, Like how do we do that? So
that's what we're going to talk about today. I'm excited
about it.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
But first I it at quarantine time. Yet again we're
drinking the same thing yet again. It is milking it
milk in it, you know. Obviously it's based on a
cocktail called the Pink Squirrel, which has let me pull
up my notes. It has a bunch of things, actually
(05:02):
only a few things. Has heavy cream obviously, has creme
de cacao, and it has kremedon noyo, which is a
challenge to find. But you know what, will persist. We
will persist. But we will post the full recipe for
our quarantine as well as the non alcoholic Placyberrita on
our website at this podcast will Kill You dot com,
(05:24):
as well as on all of our social media channels,
which if you're not following us on there, what are
you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
What are you even doing?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Who are you following?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
On our website, you can also find a whole bunch
of other stuff that you might enjoy. You can find
transcripts from every one of our episodes. You can find
our bookshop dot org affiliate account, and our Goodreads list.
You can find merch that we have which is phenomenal.
You can find a bloodmobile who does the music for
all of our episodes. You can find sources from every
(06:00):
single one of our episodes so that you know where
this information is coming from.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, so many sources, so many sources.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, well rate review, subscribe.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
There you go check us out on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, are we done with the business part of things?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I think, so let's take a break and then get started.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So, Aaron, you talked a lot about what the landscape
was like prior to the requirements, prior to the development
of pastorization and requirements for pastorization. But I just want
to frame ourselves there. Prior to like nationwide requirements that
all milky passed in the US, most of the estimates
(07:02):
that I saw were that milk borne outbreaks overall constituted
at least twenty five percent of all disease outbreaks that
were due to contaminated.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Food and water.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Right, so that's like a really huge number. Today, milk
and milk products are associated with on average, and this
varies a little bit year to year, but usually one
percent or less of these types.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Of outbreaks, thanks, which isization phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, And as we'll see, that does not mean that
milk itself is a low risk food, because, like we
talked about last week, milk is a beautiful medium for
bacterial growth.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It is.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It means that pasteurization and the widespread use of pasturization
is the thing that has been preventing these outbreaks. Yep.
So what I am going to do in this episode
is like lay the view of the land of what
the risks of unpasteurized milk actually are today.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Okay, I keep hearing, do you how do you pronounce milk? Okay?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I know I was waiting for you to say this
because I get made fun of how I pronounce it
every single It's gonna, it's gonna keep going.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Aron, it's milk. And I feel like this is feeling
very deja vous to me, and I think that we
may have had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Absolutely we did.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Do you say milk right? I don't hear.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Between what you're saying and what I'm saying. Milk?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Where is? Where does milk come from? What do you
say like a dialect milk? I still milk milk. I'm
sorry there's a vowel change there for for certain.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, I'm sorry everyone's going to be so annoyed with
how many times I say the word milk today.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I just I have to know. I need to look
at like a dialect map to know where milk comes from.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Did you I could have in Illinois, Southern California? I
don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Okay, I don't know either, But I get made fun
of for it on the regular so Apology. I'm shocked
that it didn't come out last week. Honestly, that's fair.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, it's probably.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Just because I didn't talk about milk as much.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Sorry to like kick off this whole episode making you
feel self conscious.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's okay, I only say it one hundred more times
one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Okay, listen, but that's where we're going to start. Okay,
we'll talk about the raw product that comes out of
a cow. Primarily we're mostly talking about cow milk, and
then related to that, I'll also talk a little bit
about what the current legal landscape looks like when it
comes to rawn pasteurized milk, not just at the US
(09:47):
but across the globe, Like how easy or how hard
is it to actually get your hands on raw milk?
Are there any associations between whether raw milk is legal
and easy to get and its potential for causing harm?
And then what the differences are truly between raw and
pasteurized milk, and hopefully break down some of the very
(10:07):
egregious misconceptions that exist on the internet right now about this,
because there are some differences, but it is not what
TikTok would like you to believe.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
No, I feel like calling the misconceptions is very generous.
I know, flat out lies.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
A lot of them really are, and we'll get into
I think how those like why I don't know, it's
very effective lies, and we'll get into it totally. So
one of the things that makes comparing the number of
infections or the numbers even of outbreaks of disease from
raw milk versus past durise milk difficult today in our
(10:45):
modern system is that there are huge disparities in the
number of people who are drinking raw milk versus past
durise milk. So in the US, it's estimated that somewhere
between one to three percent of the population is drinking
raw milk, whereas close to eighty percent of Americans drink milk. Like,
(11:07):
that's a huge I didn't know that so many of
us drink milk, And.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
That's like, what does that mean? Does that mean like
you're having a glass of two peron? No.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
This is based on surveys from like MMWR and like
a bunch of other places that are just like have
you drink milk in the last seven days?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And then sometimes it's quantified like how many glasses do
you drink and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Right, right, so I guess do I count as that?
Would I check yes? Because I had half and half
in my cop Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, okay, absolutely, yeah, okay, yeah, But I don't know
if you answered the survey, would you have clicked yes
or no.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I don't know, well, I just mean, like I guess
it's for such a like a binary outcome, right, like
yes or no. It's like how much milk anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Aaron, you're getting into, Like this is a huge part
of it, right, how much milk are you drinking? Are
people who are drinking raw milk drinking this same amount
as people who are drinking pastdriized milk? Like, there is
a lot of variability in any kind of like nutritional
study that we're looking at. But if we just take
a bird's eye view, probably about eighty percent or so
of Americans drink milk. Only one to three percent of
(12:16):
Americans are drinking raw milk. The vast majority of people
who are drinking milk are drinking past durised milk. So,
if we're looking at numbers of people who get disease
or the number of outbreaks, you cannot just compare the
total number of outbreaks or the total number of cases
in raw versus past durized milk. That will not give
(12:37):
you an assessment of risk, because that is not how
statistics works. You have to compare the proportion of cases.
You have to look at how many people are drinking
raw milk, how much are they drinking, how many people
are drinking pasturized milk, how much are they drinking? And
then figure out what is the likelihood that you would
get sick from raw milk versus the like that you
(13:00):
would get sick from pasteurized milk. That is what you
have to do. We often do not see the data
reported in that way. So that is the first problem
with how we report the differences in risk. But don't worry,
we're going to today. Okay, So if we just look
at those numbers first, there was a paper and there's
(13:23):
I cited a bunch of different papers that looked at
outbreak rates over different time periods, but I just picked
the one that's the most recent. So a paper that
looked at outbreaks in both the US and Canada, where
by the way, it's totally illegal to buy.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Raw milk or sell raw milk.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Oh like entirely.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, it's it's not legal there. It still happens, but
it's not legal. If you look at outbreaks in the
US and Canada from twenty seven to twenty twenty in
raw milk, there were twenty outbreaks confirmed outbreaks of disease
associated with raw milk that resulted in four hundred and
forty nine confirmed cases, one hundred and twenty four hospitalizations,
(14:03):
and five deaths. In pasteurized milk products around the same time,
there were twelve outbreaks, one hundred and seventy four confirmed cases,
one hundred and thirty four hospitalizations, seventeen deaths, and seven
fetal losses. And the majority of outbreaks in that time
period twenty seven to twenty twenty were listeria in pasteurized products,
(14:25):
and so that likely accounts for the increased number of hospitalizations,
feudal losses, and deaths because listeria can be very serious. Yeah,
see our listeria episode for more. Yes, so just a
few things right off the bat. Overall, even just the numbers,
those raw numbers were higher in raw milk, right, But
if you were to ignore statistics, you might say, well,
(14:45):
it's much more dangerous to be drinking pastureized milk. There
were more deaths in pasturized milk. Right, But you would
be wrong if that is the conclusion that you drew.
And we do not have to air in math this
because I wouldn't trust myself to do these statistics.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's a shame. Though I miss some Aaron Math. Aaron Math,
I wish I.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Could have done it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I thought about it, but luckily I found a paper
that did the math for us, and they were looking
at data. It was from a slightly different set of years.
I think it was like twenty nine to twenty fourteen
or something like that. Based on US data, they looked
at how much milk and what type of milk products
are people drinking, and based on all the outbreak data
from that time, they estimated that a person consuming raw
(15:29):
milk is eight hundred and forty times more likely to
become ill and forty five times more likely to be
hospitalized from that illness compared to somebody drinking pasteurized.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Milk eight hundred and forty eight hundred.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And forty times more likely to become ill forty five
times more.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Likely to be hospitalized.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Most years, over ninety five percent of outbreaks and cases
of disease from milk is from raw milk, not from
pasteurized milk. Right, And it is true that milk is
not the biggest contender when it comes to food born
diseases overall, whether raw or pasteurized, But again that is
because of pastorization and because the vast majority of people
(16:12):
are drinking pasturized milk. Prior to pasturization, twenty five percent
of food born illnesses were coming from milk because that
milk was primarily raw milk. It's also estimated, and this
is really important, for every case that is associated with
an outbreak, like an identified, recognized outbreak associated with milk,
(16:34):
there are likely twenty six to one hundred other illnesses
that are never reported.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So these are all.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Underestimates, for okay, for milk born disease.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
For milk born disease, right, okay, So it might be
a bit early to ask this go ahead. Anyways, you
(17:04):
mentioned listeria. What are the other pathogens or diseases associated with.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So glad you asked, it's not too early. That's exactly
what I was going to talk about next.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You're welcome for the segue.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
There are a lot of different pathogens that can be
transmitted via milk. You talked about a lot of them
last week. There are a few that constitute the majority
each year of the outbreaks and the sporadic cases that
are associated with milk. Salmonella and Cablobacter are two really
big ones. Both of these can cause gion beret syndrome,
which is a long term neurologic complication that arises after infection.
(17:39):
Listeria is a very big one in pasturized and raw milk.
The bysteria, of course, can cause very severe infection in
older people and in young babies, but it also, most
severely if a person is pregnant when they're infected, can
cross the placenta and result in fetal death or severe
fetal complications.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Is also very common in raw milk, including the zero
of R one five seven H seven, which can cause
severe illness, including something called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is
very devastating, can cause internal bleeding, kidney failure, and death,
and is far more likely to happen to children than.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Adults just because of like susceptibility, vulnerable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And really across the board. All of these illnesses are
more likely to result in severe disease in children because
their microbiomes, their immune systems are just not as you know,
equipped to deal with these infections. Most of these infections
cause like diarrheal illness, so nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Sometimes, especially
with E. Coali, we can see bloody diarrhea or dysentery.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Okay, yeah, but milk can.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Also harbor brucellosis, cryptosporidium, mycobacterium which causes tuberculosis, Staphylococcus streptococcus,
and a ton of other pathogens as well, but those
tend to be the top causes of disease in humans.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It's it's interesting and part of the reason I know
that I talked about it last week, but part of
the reason I was very curious about the specific pathogens
today is like what has changed or which ones have
come to light in terms of being more more seen
as a as a risk or threat. And I think
part of it is just that a lot of the
diseases that used to be such a huge driver we vaccinated,
(19:24):
like diph theoria, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
We don't see THEORYA and milk, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Now, of course, this year, in particular and last year,
we've also seen a lot of reports of dairy cows
and their raw milk being contaminated with H five N
one or avian influenza, so.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Viral the most curious about Aaron.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yes, Viral illnesses including avian influenza and other influences can
absolutely be found in the milk. Thus far, the only
people who have gotten sick from raw milk are from
those handling and processing it, as far as I could tell.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So there have been.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Outbreaks in dairy workers, they think from getting that raw milk,
like in their eyes and things like that during the
processing process.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
You mean getting sick with H five N one, yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yes, becoming ill from H five N one from milk,
but not from consumption of raw milk yet, okay. And
there have been a number of daiies that have had
to recall them their milk because it was found to
be contaminated with H five N one.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Though, And so what does what does contamination with H
five N one mean? Are we finding you know, just
genetic material? Are these viable viruses? Like, I mean, obviously
some of them are at least there if they're causing
illness in people who are handling the cows. But what, yeah,
what does that mean from like It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I don't know, and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I think what what this highlights is that you can't
necessarily test for everything right right right.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You can test for the things that you know that
you are testing. You can look for things, but you
can't find everything exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
You can't find everything. I don't know exactly what the
methods are that they are using to test for even
influencers specifically. I did not look into that. I'm sure
that there's a protocol, but I don't know what it is.
For all of the bacterial species, it's usually that they.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Are, you know, plating and culturing.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
These, which is a fallible system. You might have things
that are present in low levels or only in certain
batches that you're not testing and therefore not catching. So
just because you have a facility that is testing their
milk does not mean that that milk is guaranteed to
be free of pathogens if it's not pasturised right, and
these pathogens are introduced in a bunch of different ways
(21:34):
right into the milk. Milk itself is not really a
sterile fluid, right, But even if it were, as soon
as it leaves the teat.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Is that the right word? By the way utter tat.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
The individual individual nubbin like the nipple of the cow,
I think it's the teat pretty sure.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
As soon as it leaves, it's coming into contact with
the skin of that tea and the utter, which is
teeming with bacteria. It can very easily be contaminated with
fecal matter from the cow, which can be anywhere on
its skin. You can have bacteria that are introduced from
the environment itself, from the milking equipment, from storage equipment,
(22:16):
from the milk handlers, or down the line from improper
processing or storage conditions that allow the bacteria that are
already present to multiply into quantities that could now cause harm.
So there are a lot of ways that milk can
end up contaminated. So that kind of bleeds into the
question of what are the regulations surrounding raw milk and
(22:40):
who is allowed to have it, where does it come from?
And is it only in the US our FDA that
has brainwashed us into thinking that our milk needs to
be pasteurized. No, is the short answer of that. The
legality of raw milk or the requirements of pasturization across
(23:02):
the globe do vary, just like they very state to
take within the US.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
But they are fairly global.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So in Canada it's illegal to sell on pasturized milk,
though you can get soft cheeses made from unpasturised milk.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Okay can I ask a question about that, like, is
there a risk difference between cheeses made from raw milk
versus consuming just raw milk straight out of the tea.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
There definitely are outbreaks that are associated with both soft
cheeses and with unpasturized milk products. Most of the papers
that I looked at they tried to focus just on
milk itself, just to not conflate the two, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So I don't know exactly, like, is soft cheese much
more risky than just raw milk? I mean, they all
pose a potential risk. I don't know, like the numerical
differences necessarily.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I just didn't know if there was anything in the
process of making I don't know anything about making cheese,
and if there's anything in the processing aspect that or
like the culturing aspect, if that changes the risk profile.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I don't know. Okay, that would be a milk expert question.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Okay, you're not a milk expert. I mean you're a
milk expert.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Parin stop it.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
In the UK, it is legal to sell unpasteurized milk
only from certain places, like at the farm or farmer's markets.
Or direct online sales or something like that, and they
have to come with a health warning label on it.
And then there's requirements in terms of annual expections. Animals
have to be free from TB and brucellosis back to
your accounts, have to be under certain loads, et cetera. Apparently,
(24:40):
though in Scotland it's illegal period. In Ireland it's mostly legal.
There are some regulations regarding registration and inspection, and the
EU laws very very significantly in all the different member states.
Australia pretty strict is illegal to package, deliver or sell
unpasteurized milk, and in New Zealand it has to be
bought only by home delivery or direct farm sales.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
In the US things have been changing very rapidly, very rapidly,
so this data is probably a little bit outdated. But
I tried to get, like, you know, an assessment that
was like seemed reliable. So there was a paper from
twenty nineteen that said that as of then, twenty three
states and Washington d C. Prohibited all sale of unpasteurized
(25:24):
milk for human consumption.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, which is there's a workaround, right, Yes, I can
see it.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, for a dog and cats, and then and then
your cat dies, but no one is in your house
telling you that you can't drink it once you have
it in your house.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Twenty seven states at the time in twenty nineteen, and
I think this has changed allowed the sale of unpasteurized milk,
with variation in what those requirements work. Like some like
here in California, you can buy it in retail stores.
In some places it can only be sold on the
farm where it's produced. Some you can sell it farmer's markets.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Et cetera.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So there's a lot of variation. But here's what's really important.
There are a lot of people who say, well, the
only way that raw milk is risky is if you're
not getting it from the right source. If you get sick,
it's your fault because you didn't do your research. Yea,
that is untrue. An analysis from twenty twenty two showed
that the vast majority of outbreaks that were associated with
(26:21):
raw milk are happening in states where it is easier
to buy legal raw milk. We're not talking about black
market raw milk that's causing illness, especially in states where
it is legal to be sold in retail stores. The
easier that it is to get raw milk, the more
risk there is of raw milk causing illness and peace.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
These states this include the ones where it says not
for human consumption.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I believe so no, I mean this was mostly in
places where it is made for human consumption.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Got it okay?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So presumably farms are having to be tested to more
rigorous standards if they are selling something for human consumption,
and yet they are then causing more illness, like that
is what we see.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
So not that is surprising, I guess.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Right, it's not surprising, but it is like contrary to
what a lot of the rhetoric is about raw milk,
and that if you just do your research, if you
know that the farm is clean, if you know your farmer,
if you trust them, and that's just not the reality.
You cannot guarantee that raw milk is free from pathogens.
You can't guarantee that anything is completely free of pathogens.
(27:34):
But we can greatly reduce the pathogen burden by pasteurizing milk.
There are other ways that things can get contaminated. That
is why we can still see occasional outbreaks in pasteurized
milk products because it can be contaminated after the pasteurization
process itself in other parts of the processing, handling, and
storage of milk. But without that step to ensure that
(27:59):
the first product that you're getting is not contaminated, you
cannot guarantee that that milk is not going to make you.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Sick period period.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
So are there.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Any benefits to milk period or to raw milk compared
to pasturized milk?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
I was like just talking about again, like it's still
I can't get over how strange it is if you
think about it, that we are still drinking like a
food of milk that is made for another species, babies,
baby food. As adults.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
We're so weird we just drink baby food all day.
There's also, i will say, been a lot lot of
debate in the like literature at large about like is
milk even good for us?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Should we be drinking it? Should we not?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Like there's too much, there's too much, there's too much
to think about in the world exactly. Yeah, I think
about that question so across.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
The board though globally, milk is an important source of
nutrition for a lot of people. Yes, it is a
good source of fat, it is a good source of protein,
It has a lot of calcium, which is important for
our bone health. And it's a good source of vitamin
B twelve. It has other vitamins in it, It's got
other B vitamins, it has some vitamin C, maybe a
(29:37):
little sprinkle of vitamin D. But it's actually not great
sources of any of those other vitamins. It's like B
twelve calcium, fat, protein, that's what you're really getting from milk. Yeah,
there's nothing inherently magical about it. There's nothing that we
need that we can only get from cow's milk. Everything
that you get from cow's milk you can get from
(29:58):
other nutritional sources.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Right, What are some other good sources of B twelve
and calcium?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
B twelve is literally any animal product any if you
are totally vegan, then that's when it becomes an issue
worth Where are you getting your BEE twelve? But like eggs, meat,
any other dairy product like cheese, is anything else that
comes from an animal has B twelve in it.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Calcium you can.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Actually get like shellfish have a lot of calcium in them.
You can also get calcium from lentils. Like you do
not need milk to get your calcium. There's lots of
other places.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I didn't know that shellfish have calcium.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Should I feel like when I double check myself to
make sure I'm not crazy, I'm pretty sure that's right. Yep,
shellfish is a fair source of calcium.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yep, amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay, just to make sure I'm not telling anyone lies.
So what then, if milk can give us things that
are beneficial for us, what are the differences between raw
milk and pasturised milk in terms of its nutritional quality?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
The short answer is that due to the effects of
pasturization alone, there are are essentially no major changes to
overall protein content or digestibility, no changes to fat content,
minimal changes to vitamin and mineral concentration and bioavailability including calcium,
no change in calcium bioavailability, and in short, there are
(31:17):
no substantive differences that occur due to the process of pasteurization.
The nutritional quality overall of pasteurized milk versus raw milk
is very similar. But this is this podcast will kill you,
so we won't just broad strokes it.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Let's take shall Let's get the details.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I already said milk has a lot of different
vitamins in it, fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A and E,
also B one two six twelve fold eight, which is
B nine, vitamin C. You might recall from our Ricketts
episode that milk is actually naturally rather deficient in vitamin D.
I do recall, which is why it's often added to
(31:58):
commercial milk products. Yeah, because vitamin D and calcium work
really well together, and they're both important for your bone health,
and so it's added to pasturized milk products after the
point of pastoralization so that you can get enough vitamin
D from your milk. So if you're drinking raw, unpasteurized
milk straight from the tea, you are actually going to
be getting less vitamin D than somebody who's drinking store
(32:20):
bot milk.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But that's not.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Because of pasteurization. When it comes to the rest of
the vitamins A, but most of the other B vitamins,
the C and E, there is maybe some evidence that
there's a slight decrease in vitamin B twelve, but this
is less than a ten percent decrease, and so pasteurized
milk is still considered a very good source of B
twelve in your diet. The rest of the bee vitamins,
(32:44):
some studies don't really show any significant change. Some studies
show slight declines in some of the other vitamin concentrations.
But again, milk is not necessarily the best source of
these other bee vitamins to begin with, and so our
diets are not reliant on milk to obtain these vitamins
and vitamin C. I think I mentioned in last week's episode,
milk is not a good source of vitamin C, and
(33:04):
vitamin C is easily ruined via heat as well as oxidation.
It's photosensitive, and so milk that is stored for any
length of time is going to be a very poor
source of vitamin C. There are some studies that show
an increased in vitamin A with pasteurization.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Why I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, but interesting there's that. So the bottom line is
that the process of heating milk and then cooling it
back down, which is what pasteurization is, does very little
to affect the overall nutritional profile of milk. There is
a lot of variation that is possible in vitamin content
of milk between cows, between farms, within one individual cow
(33:48):
at different phases of its life. Yeah, so it could
be that milk from one particular farm has significantly higher
concentrations of some of these vitamins than milk from other farms.
These differences are not due to pastorization.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Okay, So real quick question about pasteurization, and maybe this
is again jumping ahead, or maybe it's the perfect segue
take two, but the pastorization. There are different types of pastorization.
Are the half and half in my fridge is ultra
pasteurized okay as an example, and then there's also UHT
(34:27):
What are the differences between these? And do these different
types of pasturization impact the nutrient differences between the two?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Great question. Let me scroll to where I have some
data on that.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
The perfect segue.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So, yes, there are different types of pastorization. It's going
to differ like farm to farm or company to company,
as well as like country to country.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
So the US, most.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Of our milk is pasteurized by what's called ht ST
high temperature short time, which is just like a standard pasteurization,
which means that the milk is heated to about seventy
degrees celsius or one hundred and sixty one degrees fahrenheit
for at least ten to fifteen seconds and then rapidly
cooled down to less than forty degrees fahrenheit. Ultra high
temperature or ultra pasteurize, those are the same things. So
(35:16):
that's UHT or ultra pasturized that is heated to a
much higher temperature, so at least two hundred and eighty
degrees fahrenheit or one hundred and thirty seven celsius and
sometimes even higher for two to three seconds, so shorter time,
higher temperature, Okay, and then there and that milk can
sometimes actually be shelf stable. So that's why in a
lot of other countries when you buy milk, it's not
(35:37):
in the refrigerated section, you don't have to refrigerate it
until after you open it, because it was pasteurized and
then packaged in a way that it is essentially like
considered sterile.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Really, I remember that in Finland and Panama.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yes, and then some small batch farms might use even
lower temperatures for pasturization. But the lower the temperature, the
longer time that you have to leave it at that temperature.
So yes, there might be differences in the amount We'll
talk in a little bit about proteins, and so there
might be differences in the amount that vitamin levels are affected,
(36:10):
like versus ten percent versus whatever declines and in the
amount of changes to the proteins in milk that we
see with ultra high temperature versus lower temperature pastorization, and
a lot of studies don't necessarily distinguish between these when
they're looking at the effects of raw versus pasteurized milk.
They're not distinguishing lower temperature pastorization versus higher temperature pastorization.
(36:32):
They're lumping all pasturized milk products together. Okay, so there's
not as much data on the differences between ultra high
and regular pasteurized versus lower temperature pasteurized.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But it's a really good question if we get back
into the concentrations of different vitamins and minerals. Total calcium
content bioavailability of calcium not changed with pasturization, though the
amount of free calcium might be slightly decreased after pasteurization.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
There is also no substantial difference in lactose concentration in
raw versus pasteurized milk.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, this is such a common It really is a
claim that people make.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Someone who is lactose intolerant is not any more likely
to tolerate raw milk compared to pasteurized milk, and I
have a study to back myself up. I'm not making
this up. The idea is in raw milk proponents that
there is so called good bacteria which produce lactase enzyme
in raw milk. And while there are a lot of
(37:32):
bacteria in raw milk, and some of them might include Lactobacillus,
which can produce a lactase enzyme. Some of them might
include Biffidobacterium, which is a marker for fecal contamination in
your milk. But both of those can produce a lactase enzyme,
they are not present to an extent that it changes
the lactose concentration of raw milk. To do that, you
(37:55):
add back in bacteria in order to make yogurt, and
yogurt does have significantly less lactose because of the amount
of Lactobiscillus or human derived Bifotobacterium that are added after
pasteurization of that milk.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
That makes sense, It makes total sense.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, milk is across the board, pasteurized or on a
great source of protein. Eighty percent of the protein in
milk is in the form of casin, which is incredibly
heat stable, does not change with pasteurization. The rest of
the proteins in milk.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
A lot of them are.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Whey proteins, which is a whole group of proteins, and
these are more heat labile, so they can denature and
break into smaller pieces or change their shape after the
process of pasteurization. Okay, but there is no evidence that
this increases the allergenicity of milk. Like kids who are
allergic to milk are usually allergic to whey protein, and
(38:52):
they are no more likely to tolerate raw milk than
they are pasteurized milk. They're still allergic either way. And
there are a lot of other proteines in this milk
that some people who love raw milk get really excited
about because they're like, oh, some of these proteins are
like bacteriocytal and these are things like lactoferin, lysozymes, lactoperoxidase, bacteriocytins.
(39:15):
These are things that are present in milk as an
immune response in the cow to help protect the cow
against infection. So they might be there in higher concentrations
if that cow, say, has subclinical mastitis or something like that.
But these proteins are all still present in pasteurized milk,
and much of them retain seventy percent or more of
(39:36):
their activity after pasteurization. So in short, protein content is
not significantly changed, though some way proteins do change their
shape or structure due to the heating processes.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Right, but there are no consequences.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
To digestibility, to protein availability, or to allergenicity of the milk.
Milk I have so much more airin is a really
good source of fat as long as you're drinking whole milk. Now,
this is where we can get into some really big
differences between commercially produced milk and raw milk. The milk
(40:11):
that you get straight from a cow can vary anywhere
from like three to over six percent milk fat, which
is huge variation.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, it is huge.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
But if you're.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Producing something commercially in large batches, like the milk that
you're buying from a store, you don't want variation. You
can't reliably test variation. You need standardization. So in the
process of making like big quantities of milk to sell
in stores, milk from a bunch of cows and sometimes
even from a whole bunch of farms is mixed and
then often it is skimmed, which means the fat is
(40:43):
removed and then fat is added back in to make
standardized versions of milk. So you can buy non fat
milk where all the milk has been removed. You can
buy milk where it was skimmed and then one percent
of fat was added back in, or two percent or
whole milk is usually standardized at about three and a
half percent. Interesting, okay, okay, But raw milk can vary
(41:07):
drastically in its fat content, and it can vary batch
to batch. That doesn't have anything to do with pasturization.
Pasturization is not significantly changing the fat content of milk
right period.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
It's just milk processing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's just part of the milk processing process. Another part
of the milk processing process that's not pasteurization is.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
That the milk process is hilarious.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Processing process.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Is that milk in stores is generally homogenized, and that's
an entirely separate process from pasturization. It entails reducing the
size of the milk fat globules to really tiny so
that they are more well evenly suspended in the milk
so it doesn't settle out with gravity.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Not getting that.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, that increases the stability of milk. Also makes some
people like think it looks less gross because it's not chunky.
But this is not due to pasture. That's due to homogenization.
You can buy not homogenized pasturised milk. I used to
buy it all the time in Hawaii. That's the milk
that we bought. So I'm just saying and yeah, so
(42:11):
that's that's all of the major difference is the biggest
difference between raw and pasteurized milk, Like, the true big
difference is the bacterial loads. Yes, raw milk has significantly
higher loads of bacteria across the board every single time,
and that is why it poses a higher risk of infection.
Not all of those bacteria are pathogenic, but some of
(42:32):
them are.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You're right, right, And so how does that like what
sort of is the inspection process? And I know that
there are standards that farms have to meet whether that
milk ends up being pasteurized or not correct, but what
is what is the acceptable level of bacteria in aerial milk?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
That varies across the board, It varies country to country,
it varies state to state. Same thing with how often
does your farm need to be inspected? How often do
you need to be reporting that? Who are you reporting it?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
To all of that is going to vary.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
So yes, there are requirements that are supposed to be
in place for farms that are producing raw milk for
consumption and farms that are producing milk to be pasteurized
for consumption. Okay, but it's really like it's a patchwork, right,
It's going to very place to place. So I don't
have like a good summary of what the general requirements are.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Got it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And so let's say that you are selling raw milk
and of course it has bacteria in it, and let's
just say it happens to have some disease pathogenic bacteria
that lead to an outbreak, and your base in the US,
what happens.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Oh gosh, If that outbreak is identified, then usually it's
going to be the either FDA and or CDC working
together to piece together where that outbreak originated from. And
sometimes that's really hard. Sometimes it's really hard to pinpoint
it back to a single farm or to a single producer.
But if it can be, then usually that milk has
(44:01):
to be recalled and then there's steps in place where
that farm has to be inspected things like that. But
I will confess I didn't dig deep into what the
step by set details are of what happens after that point.
But I do know from looking at all of this
outbreak data that a lot of times we don't necessarily
get what was the one farm for a lot of
different reasons. Sometimes people just aren't forthcoming with that kind
(44:23):
of information and things like that.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Yeah, okay, But the last thing that I want to.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Talk about before we end here is a big claim
that a lot of raw milk proponents make that may
or may not have merit. We'll get into it, but
every time I've seen it presented online, it is presented
without any nuance or it is exaggerated to the point
of being untrue, like not true at all. And that
(44:48):
is this claim that raw milk, the consumption of raw
milk reduces the risk of asthma or allergies.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
I'm so glad that you're getting into this because there
is so much yeah, misinformation and just like drawing conclusions
that are not appropriate there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, So let's get into what the data actually does show,
shall we. Twenty plus years ago there were a few
really big landmark studies, most of them done in Europe,
that were digging into this association that we've talked about
before on the podcast, where people started to notice that
there was a big difference in kids who grew up
(45:28):
on farms living on a farm, were exposed to farms
who had a decreased risk of atopic diseases like allergies,
asthma and exzema later in life. At this point now
in twenty twenty five, there have been a bunch of
papers that have shown this association. And because of this
observational association, people understandably are trying to drill down into
(45:49):
what is it about farms, Like, what are the exposures
that people are being exposed to that reduce the risk
We'd love to reduce the risk of allergies in asthma.
Is it the diversity of microbes? Is it the number
of microbes they're being exposed to? Is it the animals?
Is it the plants or the animal feed? Is it
the dirt or is it the milk?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Is it the milk?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Is it the milk?
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And I will confess I wrote and rewrote this section
about a thousand times because the truth is that this
data is a little bit messy. It does not fit
into a ninety second Instagram reel, and it's very easy
to skip the nuance.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
But that's not how.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I roll, so that's not this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
There are several large studies. They have names like Alex, Parsifhael, Gabrielle,
and Pasture. Those are the biggest ones. There are several
others I know.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They all have acrin like hurricane.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Hilarious, and they're really big studies. They're like several hundred
to sometimes several thousand kids across Europe, mostly Germany, Austria,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Switzerland, France, and there might
be a few countries I missed that have been looking
into these associations, and by and large they have looked
(47:06):
at kids who live on farms, kids who don't live
on farms, kids who drink farm milk, and kids who
drink what they call shop milk. Okay, and looking at
are their associations here.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
And farm milk does not necessarily mean raw milk, So
this is the first part where we get into New York. Okay, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Farm milk means milk that comes from a farm and
is not sold in a store. Most of the time
this is drunk raw from like the kids on the
farm are drinking the majority of farm milk. Kids who
don't live on farms drink much less farm milk. It's
much less likely for them to drink farm milk. It's
(47:48):
usually raw, it is not always raw. In different studies,
different percentages of families say that they boil their farm
milk before drinking it. So I'm going to say farm
milk for right now, and that could be boiled or raw.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Farm okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
On the whole, consumption of farm milk does seem to
confer a lower odds of developing asthma, allergic rhinitis, and ezema.
How much lower odds it depends in the big analysis
when they lumped all the kids together and just looked
at like across a bunch of this. This was from
(48:24):
a meta analysis from twenty twenty. If they lump all
of the different studies all of the kids and just
say do you drink farm milk? Do you not drink
farm milk? The odds of developing asthma if you drink
farm milk were point seven compared to if you didn't
drink farm milk. Now, odds ratios are also really hard
to interpret. Yeah, because if that were a risk, we
(48:45):
would say it was a thirty percent reduction in risk,
but you can't say that because odds ratios overestimate the
risk reduction.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yes, so that's.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Why it's even confidence.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
And yeah, yeah, these were all significant associations, so I
will yeah, okay, and it's similar. So it was a
point six y' eight odds ratio for allergic rayinitis and
then point six y five for atopy or exemak. But again,
these are it's really difficult to interpret this into risk,
but it is a reduction in the odds, a significant
(49:17):
reduction in the odds that you would develop these atopic diseases.
Now in these studies and in this meta analysis, if
they because there's only a few studies where you could
actually stratify the data by whether the kid who's trinking
this milk lives or doesn't live on a farm, which
you kind of have to do, yeah, because there's a
lot of other things going on on farms that we
(49:39):
know are also associated with reduction and the risk of
atopic diseases. And once you stratify by whether or not
the kid lives on a farm, you actually lose the
significance of this protective effect for everything except asthma. There
still seems to be regardless of whether or not you
grew up on a farm, if you're drinking farm milk,
you have a slightly lower odds of developing app and
(50:00):
it's about the same about point seven.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Okay, So it seems like most of the differences can
be explained away simply by living on a farm and
whatever that entails, not necessarily milk itself, with the exception
of asthma.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Potentially, yes, potentially potentially.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
And again we're still not distinguishing farm milk from raw milk,
boiled roiled milk that's been boiled, et.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
Cetera, exactly that, and that's really hard to do. I
will also say that all of these studies that are
frequently cited that have this really great data have been
done in Europe, where milk is also primarily treated with
ultra high temperature pasteurization. None of these studies that I
could tell, looked at how much milk kids are drinking,
whether they're kids who drink farm milk versus non farm milk,
(50:46):
And there's some data that maybe kids who are drinking
farm milk also drink more of it. So is it
also just that you're drinking more milk. We're also not
looking at if you're drinking shop milk. Is it whole milk?
Is it one percent? Is it two percent? There are
are a lot of people who have looked at this
and said, Okay, well, this is observational data. What do
we think is in the milk? What could possibly be
in the milk? In this farm milk, that's that's contributing
(51:09):
to this. And so the one of the big hypotheses
is that it's the ratio of fat types. So like
farm milk seems to have a higher proportion of Omega
three fatty acids compared to Omega six fatty acids. This
is so detailed arid. Now why is that? Is that
(51:30):
changed with pasteurization? Like all of these are still open questions.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
And what is homogenization? Also what role does that?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
What role does that play? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
I haven't seen any papers on it. I will say
there was a study from twenty seventeen that looked into
the same association in the United States and they did
not find a significant protective effect of raw cow's milk
on the development of asthma, allergies or any other atopic
diseases in the US.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
That's just one study.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
But even if this is true, there is no evidence
whatsoever that you can cure allergies or asthma or ezema
by using raw milk. That is how it is interpreted,
and that is just not true.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yike's okay, period. Yeah, that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
And the problem is all of this data is that
exposing kids to farm milk, much of which is raw,
early in life is what confers the protection. And we
know that kids, especially young kids, are the highest risk
for severe outcomes from milk born disease.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
This is messy, but this is also like what I
want to point out is that this is what so
many of these disinformation campaigns do, and they do it
so effectively. They will take this finding that unprocessed farm
milk can assumption in children under five in Europe might
(53:03):
be associated with a decreased odds of developing childhood asthma,
and amplify that without any nuance, without any context, and
lead to a claim that raw milk will cure your asthma.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
Right that from that to raw milk cures asthma. Race
is such a leap that in a dangerous one at that.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah, and it's not, So that's straight up not true.
But even if this association is true, it's not an
either or Farm milk may decrease the odds of developing
allergies or asthma, and it definitely increases the risk of
milk boorn infection by what eight hundred and forty times.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
And forty times?
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah, So I think that the conclusion that I want
to come to is that there may be some, as
yet not well described people are still looking into it,
features of relatively unprocessed, non homogenized, skimmed, maybe even non
pasteurized milk that for some children might reduce the odds
(54:06):
that they develop atopic diseases later in life. At this point,
based on all of this data, we don't know if
it is pasteurization that is like negating that effect, that
is blunting this effect, right, we do know that pasteurization
is the one and best tool that we have to
(54:27):
reduce the risk that your kid it's really sick or
dies from the milk that they're drinking.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Yeah, the end it is. I feel like the hygien
hypothesis is so attractive because it seems to answer so
many questions. It's like, oh, well, that's that's the problem
of our modern society. That's what happened. And it's just
it's a really it's a really catchy hypothesis. Yeah, just
(54:56):
is not does not seem to be very well supported,
well say.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
People of because the hydrot hypothesis is more specifically like oh,
the number and diversity of microbes and stuff like that,
and like there isn't in these papers that have looked
at like what is it in the milk? There's no
evidence that it's the bacteria in the milk that are
protecting you from atopic diseases. If anything, it's maybe these
like micro rna is another hypothesis, and or the fat
like you know, distributions and like ratios and that likely
(55:23):
is way more influenced by what your cows are eating
and how much and how old they are, and how
much milk are they producing and like all of that
kind of stuff than it is from pasturization, because the
effects of pasturization itself on fat content are very minimal.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
That was an excellent deep dive erin thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I was so like, I, yeah, thank you, I'm really
glad that you enjoyed it. I know.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
I mean, first of all, I always do second of all,
I really didn't like there's so much out there, and
you know, and we've talked about like watching various tiktoks
to be like, Okay, what is what's the vibe, what's
going on? What are people saying? And I think that
the most frustrating thing, which again is parallel to our
(56:12):
episodes on vaccines, what we've talked about with vaccines is
that people want to be healthier, they want to do
to make the right decisions right, and so there is
a very understandable, I think, psychology of if I change
this one thing, then my whole life will be different.
And that's very attractive idea, but it's not. It's not
(56:33):
the reality, just in the way that like something like
the rise in asthma and allergies overall is not going
to be readily explained by one single single factor, right,
And so I think it's I think it's really important
to go into the nuance especially, and I think what's
really what's really challenging about all of that is that
(56:56):
there is not room, in short form, no video, to
go into that nuance, and so the conclusion just gets
presented as fact when it is a false entirely.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Well And the other thing that I see a lot
of online and it's very compelling, is it's a bunch
of first hand accounts, right, And we know because we
use them in our podcast that first hand accounts are
very compelling and they're an important part of the story.
But when you see over and over again first hand
accounts of people saying I could never tolerate milk, I
(57:30):
could never drink it, and I switched to raw milk,
and now everything is better and I feel better and
I look better, and I'm everything is better, and I like,
I don't want to negate somebody's personal experience. And at
the same time, we know that raw milk is significantly
higher risk, and what else is different about either other
things that you changed in your diet at the same time,
(57:51):
or about the other things going on in that milk
besides just the pasteurization process, Like why do we have
to demonize the thing that has prevented so many kids
from dying?
Speaker 2 (58:03):
I'm sorry, but like.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Oh no, absolutely, And also just the power of hope.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
I know, well, I've got lots of sources to back
up everything that I said, and also so that everybody
can read more do your own research as they say.
There was a really great overview actually that I loved
by Lucy in twenty fifteen called raw Milk consumption Risks
(58:31):
and Benefits from the Journal Nutrition Today. Really just like
sums up everything that I went over. The paper that
looked at the actually comparing risks of raw versus unpasteurized
milk directly was from Emerging Infectious Diseases from twenty seventeen
and that was titled Outbreak related Disease Burden associated with
conception of unpasteurized cow's milk and Cheese, United States twenty
(58:53):
nine to twenty fourteen. There was literally, I mean just
countless others. So you can find the sources from this
episode and every single one of our episodes on our website,
This podcast will Kill You dot Com.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Thank you so much to Bloodmobile for providing the music
for this episode and all of our episodes. Totally forgot
where I was with the outro here.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
Thank you to Tom and Leanna and Brent and Pete
and everybody on the audio and video editing and mixing
teams we love.
Speaker 3 (59:25):
Thank you to all of these teams that exactly right,
And thank you to you listeners for listening. I am
watching now weird still Hi, Let us know what you
think and send us your recommendations for other topics to cover.
We you know, we're really leading into this.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Yes days we are. We are.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
It's fun and thank you, as always to our patrons.
Your support means so so so much to us. We really,
we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (59:54):
We do, we do. Until next time, wash your hands.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
You feelthy animals.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Buba Buba, Buba
Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Buba bu
Sarah and her husband Brandon, had decided to switch their
family to raw milk because their oldest son had had
some health issues. When they did, his health seemed to improve.
The kids loved it, said Sarah, talking about her other
two children. It seemed to be better for their immune systems.
We drank it for five years. The kids thrived on it.
The family also had complete faith in the dairy's sanitary practices.
(00:22):
In switching over to raw milk. They had been advised
to know their farmer. They believed they had done the
right research to make sure the milk they were buying
was safe to drink. But then one day, Jubilee got sick,
very sick. She was vomiting and suffering from a severe
case of diarrhea. Instead of improving over the next several days,
she got sicker and sicker. Her worried mother took her
(00:45):
to the emergency room, taking along a pull on diaper
that had blood in it. The results of the test
came back it's E.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Coli.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
She was told Jubilee's kidneys are in danger. Meanwhile, her
son Titus, who had just turned six, was also sick.
It seemed to be handling it better, but then he
got sicker and joined his sister in the hospital. He
too developed hemolytic uremic syndrome, although he didn't need to
undergo dialysis, but he did develop pancreatitis from the Equali
(01:13):
infection he had contracted from the contaminated raw milk, and
then a staff infection. Watching them in pain was the
absolute hardest thing I've ever done as a parent, she said.
The amount of needles for blood draws, medications, transfusions is scary,
and the fear of each one only grew, making it harder,
not easier. It was three weeks before the children were
(01:36):
well enough to go home. I was in the hospital
with them the entire time, said Sarah. I felt like
a bat. It was still summer when they went in,
and the stores were selling school supplies. When I came out,
there were Christmas decorations in the stores. And while the
children are doing well now and playing with the best
of them, memories persist.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I know that is absolutely heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking. It's
so heartbreaking. So that story was excerpted from an article
on food safetynews dot com. It was also written up
in a Michigan food safety website as well. But it's
about the story of Jubilee and Titus Combs who got
sick in Kentucky in twenty sixteen from e coli from
(03:05):
contaminated raw milk.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Hi, I'm Aeron Welsh and I'm erin Oman Updike.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
And this is this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
And we're still talking about raw milk today.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
We are still talking about raw milk. There is so
much more still to talker. Yeah, yeah, So if you
haven't listened to last week's episode on raw milk, really
what that was was a history of pastorization and some
of the pushback that pastorization received early on and then
continued to receive as the as the decades went.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
On, continues to receive today, received today, and we also
wrapped it up with a look at some of the present.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Day drivers of raw milk. So in that we were
talking primarily about the people who are pushing raw milk
and some of the reasons that might be not all
of the reasons that people, you know, push raw milk.
And then the other thing too is that like you know,
to separate out to just re emphasize, to separate that
there is a very big difference between the people buying
raw milk and people who are pushing raw milk.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Right at like a large level.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah, and so just like to not conflate the two.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Right, there's so much mis and disinformation out there that,
like it is really hard and we'll get into that.
I'm going to get into a lot of detail today
on like what are the claims that people are making
about raw milk? Is there any validity to any of them?
How do we distinguish what is real and what is
not real? And how do we balance these supposed risks
(04:36):
and supposed benefits, Like how do we do that? So
that's what we're going to talk about today. I'm excited
about it.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
But first I it at quarantine time. Yet again we're
drinking the same thing yet again. It is milking it
milk in it, you know. Obviously it's based on a
cocktail called the Pink Squirrel, which has let me pull
up my notes. It has a bunch of things, actually
(05:02):
only a few things. Has heavy cream obviously, has creme
de cacao, and it has kremedon noyo, which is a
challenge to find. But you know what, will persist. We
will persist. But we will post the full recipe for
our quarantine as well as the non alcoholic Placyberrita on
our website at this podcast will Kill You dot com,
(05:24):
as well as on all of our social media channels,
which if you're not following us on there, what are
you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
What are you even doing?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Who are you following?
Speaker 1 (05:38):
On our website, you can also find a whole bunch
of other stuff that you might enjoy. You can find
transcripts from every one of our episodes. You can find
our bookshop dot org affiliate account, and our Goodreads list.
You can find merch that we have which is phenomenal.
You can find a bloodmobile who does the music for
all of our episodes. You can find sources from every
(06:00):
single one of our episodes so that you know where
this information is coming from.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, so many sources, so many sources.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, well rate review, subscribe.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
There you go check us out on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Okay, are we done with the business part of things?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
I think, so let's take a break and then get started.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
So, Aaron, you talked a lot about what the landscape
was like prior to the requirements, prior to the development
of pastorization and requirements for pastorization. But I just want
to frame ourselves there. Prior to like nationwide requirements that
all milky passed in the US, most of the estimates
(07:02):
that I saw were that milk borne outbreaks overall constituted
at least twenty five percent of all disease outbreaks that
were due to contaminated.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Food and water.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Right, so that's like a really huge number. Today, milk
and milk products are associated with on average, and this
varies a little bit year to year, but usually one
percent or less of these types.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Of outbreaks, thanks, which isization phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, And as we'll see, that does not mean that
milk itself is a low risk food, because, like we
talked about last week, milk is a beautiful medium for
bacterial growth.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
It is.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It means that pasteurization and the widespread use of pasturization
is the thing that has been preventing these outbreaks. Yep.
So what I am going to do in this episode
is like lay the view of the land of what
the risks of unpasteurized milk actually are today.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Okay, I keep hearing, do you how do you pronounce milk? Okay?
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I know I was waiting for you to say this
because I get made fun of how I pronounce it
every single It's gonna, it's gonna keep going.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Aron, it's milk. And I feel like this is feeling
very deja vous to me, and I think that we
may have had this conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Absolutely we did.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Do you say milk right? I don't hear.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Between what you're saying and what I'm saying. Milk?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Where is? Where does milk come from? What do you
say like a dialect milk? I still milk milk. I'm
sorry there's a vowel change there for for certain.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Well, I'm sorry everyone's going to be so annoyed with
how many times I say the word milk today.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
I just I have to know. I need to look
at like a dialect map to know where milk comes from.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Did you I could have in Illinois, Southern California? I
don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Okay, I don't know either, But I get made fun
of for it on the regular so Apology. I'm shocked
that it didn't come out last week. Honestly, that's fair.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Yeah, it's probably.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Just because I didn't talk about milk as much.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Sorry to like kick off this whole episode making you
feel self conscious.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's okay, I only say it one hundred more times
one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Okay, listen, but that's where we're going to start. Okay,
we'll talk about the raw product that comes out of
a cow. Primarily we're mostly talking about cow milk, and
then related to that, I'll also talk a little bit
about what the current legal landscape looks like when it
comes to rawn pasteurized milk, not just at the US
(09:47):
but across the globe, Like how easy or how hard
is it to actually get your hands on raw milk?
Are there any associations between whether raw milk is legal
and easy to get and its potential for causing harm?
And then what the differences are truly between raw and
pasteurized milk, and hopefully break down some of the very
(10:07):
egregious misconceptions that exist on the internet right now about this,
because there are some differences, but it is not what
TikTok would like you to believe.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
No, I feel like calling the misconceptions is very generous.
I know, flat out lies.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
A lot of them really are, and we'll get into
I think how those like why I don't know, it's
very effective lies, and we'll get into it totally. So
one of the things that makes comparing the number of
infections or the numbers even of outbreaks of disease from
raw milk versus past durise milk difficult today in our
(10:45):
modern system is that there are huge disparities in the
number of people who are drinking raw milk versus past
durise milk. So in the US, it's estimated that somewhere
between one to three percent of the population is drinking
raw milk, whereas close to eighty percent of Americans drink milk. Like,
(11:07):
that's a huge I didn't know that so many of
us drink milk, And.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
That's like, what does that mean? Does that mean like
you're having a glass of two peron? No.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
This is based on surveys from like MMWR and like
a bunch of other places that are just like have
you drink milk in the last seven days?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes or no?
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And then sometimes it's quantified like how many glasses do
you drink and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
Right, right, so I guess do I count as that?
Would I check yes? Because I had half and half
in my cop Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Yeah, okay, absolutely, yeah, okay, yeah, But I don't know
if you answered the survey, would you have clicked yes
or no.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
I don't know, well, I just mean, like I guess
it's for such a like a binary outcome, right, like
yes or no. It's like how much milk anyway.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Aaron, you're getting into, Like this is a huge part
of it, right, how much milk are you drinking? Are
people who are drinking raw milk drinking this same amount
as people who are drinking pastdriized milk? Like, there is
a lot of variability in any kind of like nutritional
study that we're looking at. But if we just take
a bird's eye view, probably about eighty percent or so
of Americans drink milk. Only one to three percent of
(12:16):
Americans are drinking raw milk. The vast majority of people
who are drinking milk are drinking past durised milk. So,
if we're looking at numbers of people who get disease
or the number of outbreaks, you cannot just compare the
total number of outbreaks or the total number of cases
in raw versus past durized milk. That will not give
(12:37):
you an assessment of risk, because that is not how
statistics works. You have to compare the proportion of cases.
You have to look at how many people are drinking
raw milk, how much are they drinking, how many people
are drinking pasturized milk, how much are they drinking? And
then figure out what is the likelihood that you would
get sick from raw milk versus the like that you
(13:00):
would get sick from pasteurized milk. That is what you
have to do. We often do not see the data
reported in that way. So that is the first problem
with how we report the differences in risk. But don't worry,
we're going to today. Okay, So if we just look
at those numbers first, there was a paper and there's
(13:23):
I cited a bunch of different papers that looked at
outbreak rates over different time periods, but I just picked
the one that's the most recent. So a paper that
looked at outbreaks in both the US and Canada, where
by the way, it's totally illegal to buy.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Raw milk or sell raw milk.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Oh like entirely.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yeah, it's it's not legal there. It still happens, but
it's not legal. If you look at outbreaks in the
US and Canada from twenty seven to twenty twenty in
raw milk, there were twenty outbreaks confirmed outbreaks of disease
associated with raw milk that resulted in four hundred and
forty nine confirmed cases, one hundred and twenty four hospitalizations,
(14:03):
and five deaths. In pasteurized milk products around the same time,
there were twelve outbreaks, one hundred and seventy four confirmed cases,
one hundred and thirty four hospitalizations, seventeen deaths, and seven
fetal losses. And the majority of outbreaks in that time
period twenty seven to twenty twenty were listeria in pasteurized products,
(14:25):
and so that likely accounts for the increased number of hospitalizations,
feudal losses, and deaths because listeria can be very serious. Yeah,
see our listeria episode for more. Yes, so just a
few things right off the bat. Overall, even just the numbers,
those raw numbers were higher in raw milk, right, But
if you were to ignore statistics, you might say, well,
(14:45):
it's much more dangerous to be drinking pastureized milk. There
were more deaths in pasturized milk. Right, But you would
be wrong if that is the conclusion that you drew.
And we do not have to air in math this
because I wouldn't trust myself to do these statistics.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
That's a shame. Though I miss some Aaron Math. Aaron Math,
I wish I.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Could have done it.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I thought about it, but luckily I found a paper
that did the math for us, and they were looking
at data. It was from a slightly different set of years.
I think it was like twenty nine to twenty fourteen
or something like that. Based on US data, they looked
at how much milk and what type of milk products
are people drinking, and based on all the outbreak data
from that time, they estimated that a person consuming raw
(15:29):
milk is eight hundred and forty times more likely to
become ill and forty five times more likely to be
hospitalized from that illness compared to somebody drinking pasteurized.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Milk eight hundred and forty eight hundred.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
And forty times more likely to become ill forty five
times more.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Likely to be hospitalized.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Most years, over ninety five percent of outbreaks and cases
of disease from milk is from raw milk, not from
pasteurized milk. Right, And it is true that milk is
not the biggest contender when it comes to food born
diseases overall, whether raw or pasteurized, But again that is
because of pastorization and because the vast majority of people
(16:12):
are drinking pasturized milk. Prior to pasturization, twenty five percent
of food born illnesses were coming from milk because that
milk was primarily raw milk. It's also estimated, and this
is really important, for every case that is associated with
an outbreak, like an identified, recognized outbreak associated with milk,
(16:34):
there are likely twenty six to one hundred other illnesses
that are never reported.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So these are all.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Underestimates, for okay, for milk born disease.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
For milk born disease, right, okay, So it might be
a bit early to ask this go ahead. Anyways, you
(17:04):
mentioned listeria. What are the other pathogens or diseases associated with.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
So glad you asked, it's not too early. That's exactly
what I was going to talk about next.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
You're welcome for the segue.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
There are a lot of different pathogens that can be
transmitted via milk. You talked about a lot of them
last week. There are a few that constitute the majority
each year of the outbreaks and the sporadic cases that
are associated with milk. Salmonella and Cablobacter are two really
big ones. Both of these can cause gion beret syndrome,
which is a long term neurologic complication that arises after infection.
(17:39):
Listeria is a very big one in pasturized and raw milk.
The bysteria, of course, can cause very severe infection in
older people and in young babies, but it also, most
severely if a person is pregnant when they're infected, can
cross the placenta and result in fetal death or severe
fetal complications.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Yeah, it's heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Is also very common in raw milk, including the zero
of R one five seven H seven, which can cause
severe illness, including something called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which is
very devastating, can cause internal bleeding, kidney failure, and death,
and is far more likely to happen to children than.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Adults just because of like susceptibility, vulnerable, yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
And really across the board. All of these illnesses are
more likely to result in severe disease in children because
their microbiomes, their immune systems are just not as you know,
equipped to deal with these infections. Most of these infections
cause like diarrheal illness, so nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. Sometimes, especially
with E. Coali, we can see bloody diarrhea or dysentery.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Okay, yeah, but milk can.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Also harbor brucellosis, cryptosporidium, mycobacterium which causes tuberculosis, Staphylococcus streptococcus,
and a ton of other pathogens as well, but those
tend to be the top causes of disease in humans.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
It's it's interesting and part of the reason I know
that I talked about it last week, but part of
the reason I was very curious about the specific pathogens
today is like what has changed or which ones have
come to light in terms of being more more seen
as a as a risk or threat. And I think
part of it is just that a lot of the
diseases that used to be such a huge driver we vaccinated,
(19:24):
like diph theoria, right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
We don't see THEORYA and milk, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Now, of course, this year, in particular and last year,
we've also seen a lot of reports of dairy cows
and their raw milk being contaminated with H five N
one or avian influenza, so.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Viral the most curious about Aaron.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yes, Viral illnesses including avian influenza and other influences can
absolutely be found in the milk. Thus far, the only
people who have gotten sick from raw milk are from
those handling and processing it, as far as I could tell.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So there have been.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Outbreaks in dairy workers, they think from getting that raw milk,
like in their eyes and things like that during the
processing process.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
You mean getting sick with H five N one, yes, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Yes, becoming ill from H five N one from milk,
but not from consumption of raw milk yet, okay. And
there have been a number of daiies that have had
to recall them their milk because it was found to
be contaminated with H five N one.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Though, And so what does what does contamination with H
five N one mean? Are we finding you know, just
genetic material? Are these viable viruses? Like, I mean, obviously
some of them are at least there if they're causing
illness in people who are handling the cows. But what, yeah,
what does that mean from like It's a good question.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I don't know, and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I think what what this highlights is that you can't
necessarily test for everything right right right.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
You can test for the things that you know that
you are testing. You can look for things, but you
can't find everything exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
You can't find everything. I don't know exactly what the
methods are that they are using to test for even
influencers specifically. I did not look into that. I'm sure
that there's a protocol, but I don't know what it is.
For all of the bacterial species, it's usually that they.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Are, you know, plating and culturing.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
These, which is a fallible system. You might have things
that are present in low levels or only in certain
batches that you're not testing and therefore not catching. So
just because you have a facility that is testing their
milk does not mean that that milk is guaranteed to
be free of pathogens if it's not pasturised right, and
these pathogens are introduced in a bunch of different ways
(21:34):
right into the milk. Milk itself is not really a
sterile fluid, right, But even if it were, as soon
as it leaves the teat.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Is that the right word? By the way utter tat.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
The individual individual nubbin like the nipple of the cow,
I think it's the teat pretty sure.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
As soon as it leaves, it's coming into contact with
the skin of that tea and the utter, which is
teeming with bacteria. It can very easily be contaminated with
fecal matter from the cow, which can be anywhere on
its skin. You can have bacteria that are introduced from
the environment itself, from the milking equipment, from storage equipment,
(22:16):
from the milk handlers, or down the line from improper
processing or storage conditions that allow the bacteria that are
already present to multiply into quantities that could now cause harm.
So there are a lot of ways that milk can
end up contaminated. So that kind of bleeds into the
question of what are the regulations surrounding raw milk and
(22:40):
who is allowed to have it, where does it come from?
And is it only in the US our FDA that
has brainwashed us into thinking that our milk needs to
be pasteurized. No, is the short answer of that. The
legality of raw milk or the requirements of pasturization across
(23:02):
the globe do vary, just like they very state to
take within the US.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
But they are fairly global.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So in Canada it's illegal to sell on pasturized milk,
though you can get soft cheeses made from unpasturised milk.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Okay can I ask a question about that, like, is
there a risk difference between cheeses made from raw milk
versus consuming just raw milk straight out of the tea.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
There definitely are outbreaks that are associated with both soft
cheeses and with unpasturized milk products. Most of the papers
that I looked at they tried to focus just on
milk itself, just to not conflate the two, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
So I don't know exactly, like, is soft cheese much
more risky than just raw milk? I mean, they all
pose a potential risk. I don't know, like the numerical
differences necessarily.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
I just didn't know if there was anything in the
process of making I don't know anything about making cheese,
and if there's anything in the processing aspect that or
like the culturing aspect, if that changes the risk profile.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I don't know. Okay, that would be a milk expert question.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Okay, you're not a milk expert. I mean you're a
milk expert.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Parin stop it.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
In the UK, it is legal to sell unpasteurized milk
only from certain places, like at the farm or farmer's markets.
Or direct online sales or something like that, and they
have to come with a health warning label on it.
And then there's requirements in terms of annual expections. Animals
have to be free from TB and brucellosis back to
your accounts, have to be under certain loads, et cetera. Apparently,
(24:40):
though in Scotland it's illegal period. In Ireland it's mostly legal.
There are some regulations regarding registration and inspection, and the
EU laws very very significantly in all the different member states.
Australia pretty strict is illegal to package, deliver or sell
unpasteurized milk, and in New Zealand it has to be
bought only by home delivery or direct farm sales.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
In the US things have been changing very rapidly, very rapidly,
so this data is probably a little bit outdated. But
I tried to get, like, you know, an assessment that
was like seemed reliable. So there was a paper from
twenty nineteen that said that as of then, twenty three
states and Washington d C. Prohibited all sale of unpasteurized
(25:24):
milk for human consumption.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Right, which is there's a workaround, right, Yes, I can
see it.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Yeah, for a dog and cats, and then and then
your cat dies, but no one is in your house
telling you that you can't drink it once you have
it in your house.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Twenty seven states at the time in twenty nineteen, and
I think this has changed allowed the sale of unpasteurized milk,
with variation in what those requirements work. Like some like
here in California, you can buy it in retail stores.
In some places it can only be sold on the
farm where it's produced. Some you can sell it farmer's markets.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Et cetera.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
So there's a lot of variation. But here's what's really important.
There are a lot of people who say, well, the
only way that raw milk is risky is if you're
not getting it from the right source. If you get sick,
it's your fault because you didn't do your research. Yea,
that is untrue. An analysis from twenty twenty two showed
that the vast majority of outbreaks that were associated with
(26:21):
raw milk are happening in states where it is easier
to buy legal raw milk. We're not talking about black
market raw milk that's causing illness, especially in states where
it is legal to be sold in retail stores. The
easier that it is to get raw milk, the more
risk there is of raw milk causing illness and peace.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
These states this include the ones where it says not
for human consumption.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I believe so no, I mean this was mostly in
places where it is made for human consumption.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Got it okay?
Speaker 1 (26:54):
So presumably farms are having to be tested to more
rigorous standards if they are selling something for human consumption,
and yet they are then causing more illness, like that
is what we see.
Speaker 3 (27:08):
So not that is surprising, I guess.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Right, it's not surprising, but it is like contrary to
what a lot of the rhetoric is about raw milk,
and that if you just do your research, if you
know that the farm is clean, if you know your farmer,
if you trust them, and that's just not the reality.
You cannot guarantee that raw milk is free from pathogens.
You can't guarantee that anything is completely free of pathogens.
(27:34):
But we can greatly reduce the pathogen burden by pasteurizing milk.
There are other ways that things can get contaminated. That
is why we can still see occasional outbreaks in pasteurized
milk products because it can be contaminated after the pasteurization
process itself in other parts of the processing, handling, and
storage of milk. But without that step to ensure that
(27:59):
the first product that you're getting is not contaminated, you
cannot guarantee that that milk is not going to make you.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Sick period period.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
So are there.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Any benefits to milk period or to raw milk compared
to pasturized milk?
Speaker 3 (28:33):
I was like just talking about again, like it's still
I can't get over how strange it is if you
think about it, that we are still drinking like a
food of milk that is made for another species, babies,
baby food. As adults.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
We're so weird we just drink baby food all day.
There's also, i will say, been a lot lot of
debate in the like literature at large about like is
milk even good for us?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Should we be drinking it? Should we not?
Speaker 3 (29:07):
Like there's too much, there's too much, there's too much
to think about in the world exactly. Yeah, I think
about that question so across.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
The board though globally, milk is an important source of
nutrition for a lot of people. Yes, it is a
good source of fat, it is a good source of protein,
It has a lot of calcium, which is important for
our bone health. And it's a good source of vitamin
B twelve. It has other vitamins in it, It's got
other B vitamins, it has some vitamin C, maybe a
(29:37):
little sprinkle of vitamin D. But it's actually not great
sources of any of those other vitamins. It's like B
twelve calcium, fat, protein, that's what you're really getting from milk. Yeah,
there's nothing inherently magical about it. There's nothing that we
need that we can only get from cow's milk. Everything
that you get from cow's milk you can get from
(29:58):
other nutritional sources.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Right, What are some other good sources of B twelve
and calcium?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
B twelve is literally any animal product any if you
are totally vegan, then that's when it becomes an issue
worth Where are you getting your BEE twelve? But like eggs, meat,
any other dairy product like cheese, is anything else that
comes from an animal has B twelve in it.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Calcium you can.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Actually get like shellfish have a lot of calcium in them.
You can also get calcium from lentils. Like you do
not need milk to get your calcium. There's lots of
other places.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I didn't know that shellfish have calcium.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Should I feel like when I double check myself to
make sure I'm not crazy, I'm pretty sure that's right. Yep,
shellfish is a fair source of calcium.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Yep, amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Okay, just to make sure I'm not telling anyone lies.
So what then, if milk can give us things that
are beneficial for us, what are the differences between raw
milk and pasturised milk in terms of its nutritional quality?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:55):
The short answer is that due to the effects of
pasturization alone, there are are essentially no major changes to
overall protein content or digestibility, no changes to fat content,
minimal changes to vitamin and mineral concentration and bioavailability including calcium,
no change in calcium bioavailability, and in short, there are
(31:17):
no substantive differences that occur due to the process of pasteurization.
The nutritional quality overall of pasteurized milk versus raw milk
is very similar. But this is this podcast will kill you,
so we won't just broad strokes it.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
Let's take shall Let's get the details.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
So I already said milk has a lot of different
vitamins in it, fat soluble vitamins like vitamin A and E,
also B one two six twelve fold eight, which is
B nine, vitamin C. You might recall from our Ricketts
episode that milk is actually naturally rather deficient in vitamin D.
I do recall, which is why it's often added to
(31:58):
commercial milk products. Yeah, because vitamin D and calcium work
really well together, and they're both important for your bone health,
and so it's added to pasturized milk products after the
point of pastoralization so that you can get enough vitamin
D from your milk. So if you're drinking raw, unpasteurized
milk straight from the tea, you are actually going to
be getting less vitamin D than somebody who's drinking store
(32:20):
bot milk.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
But that's not.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Because of pasteurization. When it comes to the rest of
the vitamins A, but most of the other B vitamins,
the C and E, there is maybe some evidence that
there's a slight decrease in vitamin B twelve, but this
is less than a ten percent decrease, and so pasteurized
milk is still considered a very good source of B
twelve in your diet. The rest of the bee vitamins,
(32:44):
some studies don't really show any significant change. Some studies
show slight declines in some of the other vitamin concentrations.
But again, milk is not necessarily the best source of
these other bee vitamins to begin with, and so our
diets are not reliant on milk to obtain these vitamins
and vitamin C. I think I mentioned in last week's episode,
milk is not a good source of vitamin C, and
(33:04):
vitamin C is easily ruined via heat as well as oxidation.
It's photosensitive, and so milk that is stored for any
length of time is going to be a very poor
source of vitamin C. There are some studies that show
an increased in vitamin A with pasteurization.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Why I don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, but interesting there's that. So the bottom line is
that the process of heating milk and then cooling it
back down, which is what pasteurization is, does very little
to affect the overall nutritional profile of milk. There is
a lot of variation that is possible in vitamin content
of milk between cows, between farms, within one individual cow
(33:48):
at different phases of its life. Yeah, so it could
be that milk from one particular farm has significantly higher
concentrations of some of these vitamins than milk from other farms.
These differences are not due to pastorization.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Okay, So real quick question about pasteurization, and maybe this
is again jumping ahead, or maybe it's the perfect segue
take two, but the pastorization. There are different types of pastorization.
Are the half and half in my fridge is ultra
pasteurized okay as an example, and then there's also UHT
(34:27):
What are the differences between these? And do these different
types of pasturization impact the nutrient differences between the two?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Great question. Let me scroll to where I have some
data on that.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
The perfect segue.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
So, yes, there are different types of pastorization. It's going
to differ like farm to farm or company to company,
as well as like country to country.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
So the US, most.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Of our milk is pasteurized by what's called ht ST
high temperature short time, which is just like a standard pasteurization,
which means that the milk is heated to about seventy
degrees celsius or one hundred and sixty one degrees fahrenheit
for at least ten to fifteen seconds and then rapidly
cooled down to less than forty degrees fahrenheit. Ultra high
temperature or ultra pasteurize, those are the same things. So
(35:16):
that's UHT or ultra pasturized that is heated to a
much higher temperature, so at least two hundred and eighty
degrees fahrenheit or one hundred and thirty seven celsius and
sometimes even higher for two to three seconds, so shorter time,
higher temperature, Okay, and then there and that milk can
sometimes actually be shelf stable. So that's why in a
lot of other countries when you buy milk, it's not
(35:37):
in the refrigerated section, you don't have to refrigerate it
until after you open it, because it was pasteurized and
then packaged in a way that it is essentially like
considered sterile.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Really, I remember that in Finland and Panama.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yes, and then some small batch farms might use even
lower temperatures for pasturization. But the lower the temperature, the
longer time that you have to leave it at that temperature.
So yes, there might be differences in the amount We'll
talk in a little bit about proteins, and so there
might be differences in the amount that vitamin levels are affected,
(36:10):
like versus ten percent versus whatever declines and in the
amount of changes to the proteins in milk that we
see with ultra high temperature versus lower temperature pastorization, and
a lot of studies don't necessarily distinguish between these when
they're looking at the effects of raw versus pasteurized milk.
They're not distinguishing lower temperature pastorization versus higher temperature pastorization.
(36:32):
They're lumping all pasturized milk products together. Okay, so there's
not as much data on the differences between ultra high
and regular pasteurized versus lower temperature pasteurized.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Got it.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
But it's a really good question if we get back
into the concentrations of different vitamins and minerals. Total calcium
content bioavailability of calcium not changed with pasturization, though the
amount of free calcium might be slightly decreased after pasteurization.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
There is also no substantial difference in lactose concentration in
raw versus pasteurized milk.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, this is such a common It really is a
claim that people make.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Someone who is lactose intolerant is not any more likely
to tolerate raw milk compared to pasteurized milk, and I
have a study to back myself up. I'm not making
this up. The idea is in raw milk proponents that
there is so called good bacteria which produce lactase enzyme
in raw milk. And while there are a lot of
(37:32):
bacteria in raw milk, and some of them might include Lactobacillus,
which can produce a lactase enzyme. Some of them might
include Biffidobacterium, which is a marker for fecal contamination in
your milk. But both of those can produce a lactase enzyme,
they are not present to an extent that it changes
the lactose concentration of raw milk. To do that, you
(37:55):
add back in bacteria in order to make yogurt, and
yogurt does have significantly less lactose because of the amount
of Lactobiscillus or human derived Bifotobacterium that are added after
pasteurization of that milk.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
That makes sense, It makes total sense.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Yeah, milk is across the board, pasteurized or on a
great source of protein. Eighty percent of the protein in
milk is in the form of casin, which is incredibly
heat stable, does not change with pasteurization. The rest of
the proteins in milk.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
A lot of them are.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Whey proteins, which is a whole group of proteins, and
these are more heat labile, so they can denature and
break into smaller pieces or change their shape after the
process of pasteurization. Okay, but there is no evidence that
this increases the allergenicity of milk. Like kids who are
allergic to milk are usually allergic to whey protein, and
(38:52):
they are no more likely to tolerate raw milk than
they are pasteurized milk. They're still allergic either way. And
there are a lot of other proteines in this milk
that some people who love raw milk get really excited
about because they're like, oh, some of these proteins are
like bacteriocytal and these are things like lactoferin, lysozymes, lactoperoxidase, bacteriocytins.
(39:15):
These are things that are present in milk as an
immune response in the cow to help protect the cow
against infection. So they might be there in higher concentrations
if that cow, say, has subclinical mastitis or something like that.
But these proteins are all still present in pasteurized milk,
and much of them retain seventy percent or more of
(39:36):
their activity after pasteurization. So in short, protein content is
not significantly changed, though some way proteins do change their
shape or structure due to the heating processes.
Speaker 3 (39:48):
Right, but there are no consequences.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
To digestibility, to protein availability, or to allergenicity of the milk.
Milk I have so much more airin is a really
good source of fat as long as you're drinking whole milk. Now,
this is where we can get into some really big
differences between commercially produced milk and raw milk. The milk
(40:11):
that you get straight from a cow can vary anywhere
from like three to over six percent milk fat, which
is huge variation.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah, it is huge.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
But if you're.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Producing something commercially in large batches, like the milk that
you're buying from a store, you don't want variation. You
can't reliably test variation. You need standardization. So in the
process of making like big quantities of milk to sell
in stores, milk from a bunch of cows and sometimes
even from a whole bunch of farms is mixed and
then often it is skimmed, which means the fat is
(40:43):
removed and then fat is added back in to make
standardized versions of milk. So you can buy non fat
milk where all the milk has been removed. You can
buy milk where it was skimmed and then one percent
of fat was added back in, or two percent or
whole milk is usually standardized at about three and a
half percent. Interesting, okay, okay, But raw milk can vary
(41:07):
drastically in its fat content, and it can vary batch
to batch. That doesn't have anything to do with pasturization.
Pasturization is not significantly changing the fat content of milk
right period.
Speaker 3 (41:18):
It's just milk processing.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's just part of the milk processing process. Another part
of the milk processing process that's not pasteurization is.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
That the milk process is hilarious.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Processing process.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Is that milk in stores is generally homogenized, and that's
an entirely separate process from pasturization. It entails reducing the
size of the milk fat globules to really tiny so
that they are more well evenly suspended in the milk
so it doesn't settle out with gravity.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Not getting that.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
Yeah, that increases the stability of milk. Also makes some
people like think it looks less gross because it's not chunky.
But this is not due to pasture. That's due to homogenization.
You can buy not homogenized pasturised milk. I used to
buy it all the time in Hawaii. That's the milk
that we bought. So I'm just saying and yeah, so
(42:11):
that's that's all of the major difference is the biggest
difference between raw and pasteurized milk, Like, the true big
difference is the bacterial loads. Yes, raw milk has significantly
higher loads of bacteria across the board every single time,
and that is why it poses a higher risk of infection.
Not all of those bacteria are pathogenic, but some of
(42:32):
them are.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You're right, right, And so how does that like what
sort of is the inspection process? And I know that
there are standards that farms have to meet whether that
milk ends up being pasteurized or not correct, but what
is what is the acceptable level of bacteria in aerial milk?
Speaker 1 (42:51):
That varies across the board, It varies country to country,
it varies state to state. Same thing with how often
does your farm need to be inspected? How often do
you need to be reporting that? Who are you reporting it?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
To all of that is going to vary.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
So yes, there are requirements that are supposed to be
in place for farms that are producing raw milk for
consumption and farms that are producing milk to be pasteurized
for consumption. Okay, but it's really like it's a patchwork, right,
It's going to very place to place. So I don't
have like a good summary of what the general requirements are.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Got it? Okay?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
And so let's say that you are selling raw milk
and of course it has bacteria in it, and let's
just say it happens to have some disease pathogenic bacteria
that lead to an outbreak, and your base in the US,
what happens.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Oh gosh, If that outbreak is identified, then usually it's
going to be the either FDA and or CDC working
together to piece together where that outbreak originated from. And
sometimes that's really hard. Sometimes it's really hard to pinpoint
it back to a single farm or to a single producer.
But if it can be, then usually that milk has
(44:01):
to be recalled and then there's steps in place where
that farm has to be inspected things like that. But
I will confess I didn't dig deep into what the
step by set details are of what happens after that point.
But I do know from looking at all of this
outbreak data that a lot of times we don't necessarily
get what was the one farm for a lot of
different reasons. Sometimes people just aren't forthcoming with that kind
(44:23):
of information and things like that.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
Yeah, okay, But the last thing that I want to.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Talk about before we end here is a big claim
that a lot of raw milk proponents make that may
or may not have merit. We'll get into it, but
every time I've seen it presented online, it is presented
without any nuance or it is exaggerated to the point
of being untrue, like not true at all. And that
(44:48):
is this claim that raw milk, the consumption of raw
milk reduces the risk of asthma or allergies.
Speaker 3 (44:54):
I'm so glad that you're getting into this because there
is so much yeah, misinformation and just like drawing conclusions
that are not appropriate there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
Yeah, So let's get into what the data actually does show,
shall we. Twenty plus years ago there were a few
really big landmark studies, most of them done in Europe,
that were digging into this association that we've talked about
before on the podcast, where people started to notice that
there was a big difference in kids who grew up
(45:28):
on farms living on a farm, were exposed to farms
who had a decreased risk of atopic diseases like allergies,
asthma and exzema later in life. At this point now
in twenty twenty five, there have been a bunch of
papers that have shown this association. And because of this
observational association, people understandably are trying to drill down into
(45:49):
what is it about farms, Like, what are the exposures
that people are being exposed to that reduce the risk
We'd love to reduce the risk of allergies in asthma.
Is it the diversity of microbes? Is it the number
of microbes they're being exposed to? Is it the animals?
Is it the plants or the animal feed? Is it
the dirt or is it the milk?
Speaker 3 (46:09):
Is it the milk?
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Is it the milk?
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And I will confess I wrote and rewrote this section
about a thousand times because the truth is that this
data is a little bit messy. It does not fit
into a ninety second Instagram reel, and it's very easy
to skip the nuance.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
But that's not how.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I roll, so that's not this podcast will kill you.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
There are several large studies. They have names like Alex, Parsifhael, Gabrielle,
and Pasture. Those are the biggest ones. There are several
others I know.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They all have acrin like hurricane.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Hilarious, and they're really big studies. They're like several hundred
to sometimes several thousand kids across Europe, mostly Germany, Austria,
the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Switzerland, France, and there might
be a few countries I missed that have been looking
into these associations, and by and large they have looked
(47:06):
at kids who live on farms, kids who don't live
on farms, kids who drink farm milk, and kids who
drink what they call shop milk. Okay, and looking at
are their associations here.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
And farm milk does not necessarily mean raw milk, So
this is the first part where we get into New York. Okay, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Farm milk means milk that comes from a farm and
is not sold in a store. Most of the time
this is drunk raw from like the kids on the
farm are drinking the majority of farm milk. Kids who
don't live on farms drink much less farm milk. It's
much less likely for them to drink farm milk. It's
(47:48):
usually raw, it is not always raw. In different studies,
different percentages of families say that they boil their farm
milk before drinking it. So I'm going to say farm
milk for right now, and that could be boiled or raw.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
Farm okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (48:03):
On the whole, consumption of farm milk does seem to
confer a lower odds of developing asthma, allergic rhinitis, and ezema.
How much lower odds it depends in the big analysis
when they lumped all the kids together and just looked
at like across a bunch of this. This was from
(48:24):
a meta analysis from twenty twenty. If they lump all
of the different studies all of the kids and just
say do you drink farm milk? Do you not drink
farm milk? The odds of developing asthma if you drink
farm milk were point seven compared to if you didn't
drink farm milk. Now, odds ratios are also really hard
to interpret. Yeah, because if that were a risk, we
(48:45):
would say it was a thirty percent reduction in risk,
but you can't say that because odds ratios overestimate the
risk reduction.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yes, so that's.
Speaker 3 (48:54):
Why it's even confidence.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
And yeah, yeah, these were all significant associations, so I
will yeah, okay, and it's similar. So it was a
point six y' eight odds ratio for allergic rayinitis and
then point six y five for atopy or exemak. But again,
these are it's really difficult to interpret this into risk,
but it is a reduction in the odds, a significant
(49:17):
reduction in the odds that you would develop these atopic diseases.
Now in these studies and in this meta analysis, if
they because there's only a few studies where you could
actually stratify the data by whether the kid who's trinking
this milk lives or doesn't live on a farm, which
you kind of have to do, yeah, because there's a
lot of other things going on on farms that we
(49:39):
know are also associated with reduction and the risk of
atopic diseases. And once you stratify by whether or not
the kid lives on a farm, you actually lose the
significance of this protective effect for everything except asthma. There
still seems to be regardless of whether or not you
grew up on a farm, if you're drinking farm milk,
you have a slightly lower odds of developing app and
(50:00):
it's about the same about point seven.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Okay, So it seems like most of the differences can
be explained away simply by living on a farm and
whatever that entails, not necessarily milk itself, with the exception
of asthma.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Potentially, yes, potentially potentially.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
And again we're still not distinguishing farm milk from raw milk,
boiled roiled milk that's been boiled, et.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
Cetera, exactly that, and that's really hard to do. I
will also say that all of these studies that are
frequently cited that have this really great data have been
done in Europe, where milk is also primarily treated with
ultra high temperature pasteurization. None of these studies that I
could tell, looked at how much milk kids are drinking,
whether they're kids who drink farm milk versus non farm milk,
(50:46):
And there's some data that maybe kids who are drinking
farm milk also drink more of it. So is it
also just that you're drinking more milk. We're also not
looking at if you're drinking shop milk. Is it whole milk?
Is it one percent? Is it two percent? There are
are a lot of people who have looked at this
and said, Okay, well, this is observational data. What do
we think is in the milk? What could possibly be
in the milk? In this farm milk, that's that's contributing
(51:09):
to this. And so the one of the big hypotheses
is that it's the ratio of fat types. So like
farm milk seems to have a higher proportion of Omega
three fatty acids compared to Omega six fatty acids. This
is so detailed arid. Now why is that? Is that
(51:30):
changed with pasteurization? Like all of these are still open questions.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
And what is homogenization? Also what role does that?
Speaker 2 (51:36):
What role does that play? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
I haven't seen any papers on it. I will say
there was a study from twenty seventeen that looked into
the same association in the United States and they did
not find a significant protective effect of raw cow's milk
on the development of asthma, allergies or any other atopic
diseases in the US.
Speaker 2 (51:54):
That's just one study.
Speaker 1 (51:57):
But even if this is true, there is no evidence
whatsoever that you can cure allergies or asthma or ezema
by using raw milk. That is how it is interpreted,
and that is just not true.
Speaker 3 (52:12):
Yike's okay, period. Yeah, that's dangerous.
Speaker 1 (52:15):
And the problem is all of this data is that
exposing kids to farm milk, much of which is raw,
early in life is what confers the protection. And we
know that kids, especially young kids, are the highest risk
for severe outcomes from milk born disease.
Speaker 3 (52:37):
Yeah, so.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
This is messy, but this is also like what I
want to point out is that this is what so
many of these disinformation campaigns do, and they do it
so effectively. They will take this finding that unprocessed farm
milk can assumption in children under five in Europe might
(53:03):
be associated with a decreased odds of developing childhood asthma,
and amplify that without any nuance, without any context, and
lead to a claim that raw milk will cure your asthma.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
Right that from that to raw milk cures asthma. Race
is such a leap that in a dangerous one at that.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah, and it's not, So that's straight up not true.
But even if this association is true, it's not an
either or Farm milk may decrease the odds of developing
allergies or asthma, and it definitely increases the risk of
milk boorn infection by what eight hundred and forty times.
Speaker 3 (53:44):
And forty times?
Speaker 1 (53:45):
Yeah, So I think that the conclusion that I want
to come to is that there may be some, as
yet not well described people are still looking into it,
features of relatively unprocessed, non homogenized, skimmed, maybe even non
pasteurized milk that for some children might reduce the odds
(54:06):
that they develop atopic diseases later in life. At this point,
based on all of this data, we don't know if
it is pasteurization that is like negating that effect, that
is blunting this effect, right, we do know that pasteurization
is the one and best tool that we have to
(54:27):
reduce the risk that your kid it's really sick or
dies from the milk that they're drinking.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
Yeah, the end it is. I feel like the hygien
hypothesis is so attractive because it seems to answer so
many questions. It's like, oh, well, that's that's the problem
of our modern society. That's what happened. And it's just
it's a really it's a really catchy hypothesis. Yeah, just
(54:56):
is not does not seem to be very well supported,
well say.
Speaker 1 (55:00):
People of because the hydrot hypothesis is more specifically like oh,
the number and diversity of microbes and stuff like that,
and like there isn't in these papers that have looked
at like what is it in the milk? There's no
evidence that it's the bacteria in the milk that are
protecting you from atopic diseases. If anything, it's maybe these
like micro rna is another hypothesis, and or the fat
like you know, distributions and like ratios and that likely
(55:23):
is way more influenced by what your cows are eating
and how much and how old they are, and how
much milk are they producing and like all of that
kind of stuff than it is from pasturization, because the
effects of pasturization itself on fat content are very minimal.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
That was an excellent deep dive erin thank you.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I was so like, I, yeah, thank you, I'm really
glad that you enjoyed it. I know.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
I mean, first of all, I always do second of all,
I really didn't like there's so much out there, and
you know, and we've talked about like watching various tiktoks
to be like, Okay, what is what's the vibe, what's
going on? What are people saying? And I think that
the most frustrating thing, which again is parallel to our
(56:12):
episodes on vaccines, what we've talked about with vaccines is
that people want to be healthier, they want to do
to make the right decisions right, and so there is
a very understandable, I think, psychology of if I change
this one thing, then my whole life will be different.
And that's very attractive idea, but it's not. It's not
(56:33):
the reality, just in the way that like something like
the rise in asthma and allergies overall is not going
to be readily explained by one single single factor, right,
And so I think it's I think it's really important
to go into the nuance especially, and I think what's
really what's really challenging about all of that is that
(56:56):
there is not room, in short form, no video, to
go into that nuance, and so the conclusion just gets
presented as fact when it is a false entirely.
Speaker 1 (57:09):
Well And the other thing that I see a lot
of online and it's very compelling, is it's a bunch
of first hand accounts, right, And we know because we
use them in our podcast that first hand accounts are
very compelling and they're an important part of the story.
But when you see over and over again first hand
accounts of people saying I could never tolerate milk, I
(57:30):
could never drink it, and I switched to raw milk,
and now everything is better and I feel better and
I look better, and I'm everything is better, and I like,
I don't want to negate somebody's personal experience. And at
the same time, we know that raw milk is significantly
higher risk, and what else is different about either other
things that you changed in your diet at the same time,
(57:51):
or about the other things going on in that milk
besides just the pasteurization process, Like why do we have
to demonize the thing that has prevented so many kids
from dying?
Speaker 2 (58:03):
I'm sorry, but like.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
Oh no, absolutely, And also just the power of hope.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
I know, well, I've got lots of sources to back
up everything that I said, and also so that everybody
can read more do your own research as they say.
There was a really great overview actually that I loved
by Lucy in twenty fifteen called raw Milk consumption Risks
(58:31):
and Benefits from the Journal Nutrition Today. Really just like
sums up everything that I went over. The paper that
looked at the actually comparing risks of raw versus unpasteurized
milk directly was from Emerging Infectious Diseases from twenty seventeen
and that was titled Outbreak related Disease Burden associated with
conception of unpasteurized cow's milk and Cheese, United States twenty
(58:53):
nine to twenty fourteen. There was literally, I mean just
countless others. So you can find the sources from this
episode and every single one of our episodes on our website,
This podcast will Kill You dot Com.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
Thank you so much to Bloodmobile for providing the music
for this episode and all of our episodes. Totally forgot
where I was with the outro here.
Speaker 1 (59:17):
Thank you to Tom and Leanna and Brent and Pete
and everybody on the audio and video editing and mixing
teams we love.
Speaker 3 (59:25):
Thank you to all of these teams that exactly right,
And thank you to you listeners for listening. I am
watching now weird still Hi, Let us know what you
think and send us your recommendations for other topics to cover.
We you know, we're really leading into this.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
Yes days we are. We are.
Speaker 1 (59:47):
It's fun and thank you, as always to our patrons.
Your support means so so so much to us. We really,
we really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (59:54):
We do, we do. Until next time, wash your hands.
Speaker 2 (59:58):
You feelthy animals.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
Buba Buba, Buba
Speaker 3 (01:00:15):
Buba bu
Hosts And Creators
Erin Welsh
Erin Allmann Updyke
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