Raw milk

I am convinced that most of the E. coli problems in cows milk comes from feeding them too much grain, in particular Corn. Just another bad side affect of subsidizing, like corn syrup in humans. God made cows to eat grass and small amounts of grain heads that grow on the grass not a bunch of Corn.

Jack Hall wrote:I may be missing something in your post but I have had homemade yogurt all my life and have never seen it turn pink. I would be interested to know what kind it is?

I was told it is from penicillium and would love to know more myself!
It was not all pink, some hues in some places, the sort of color that you can get with rocou, like some color you find on the crust of some cheese, like munster cheese. I will have to see if I can get enough of this and take a pic before stiring it, as then the color is almost invisible.

Edit: I will visit this neighbour that makes this goat cheese...

I'm not sure about the effects of centrifugal separation on the fat globules Xisca.  As regards the yoghurt going pink, are you brewing nearby, or keeping unwashed apples?  I've seen cheeses washed in cider that get a pink tinge to the rind - I assume it's the same yeast causing the issue.

As regards constipating effects of raw milk, I've heard of this, but I wonder about whether this is down to being nearly 100% absorbed by the body.  I know that if I down 2 litres of goats' milk in one sitting that .... it's certainly not a cause of constipation  

Not apples but citrus!
I was told it was penicillium... I have still not checked...

I was said constipation is from casein that is not absorbed. But I also have the personal ideas that there are some "elements" that act on the nervous system, because a lot of people are helped by milk for going to sleep! So if it slows us...

Then of course, the body can also have the reverse reaction, lol 2 liters of raw goat milk!!!

darin glorioso wrote:I've an "if"/"and"/"then" sort of question.

If cows,especially organic and biodynamic cows not wearing insecticidal ear tags,are being fed on by deer ticks

And they have the bacterias/parasites which causes lyme disease in their blood

Then might those organisms be in the raw milk and be able to live outside the body?

Anyone know of data gathered regarding lyme bacteria and parasites in raw,even pasterized,milk products?

Btw,the cow here is Gheeta,a rescue from the slaughterhouse and perhaps america's one and only commercial ahimsa dairy cow.

Hello, just joined forum for this specific topic. In Lithuania, we do have several deaths each year from raw milk, that has been infected by ticks. As I live in Denmark problem is still here(not sure about actual death statistics here though). We're thinking of getting cow, finding source nearby of raw milk. How do I ensure that miln has not been infected?

Romintė Niedvaraitė wrote:

darin glorioso wrote:I've an "if"/"and"/"then" sort of question.

If cows,especially organic and biodynamic cows not wearing insecticidal ear tags,are being fed on by deer ticks

And they have the bacterias/parasites which causes lyme disease in their blood

Then might those organisms be in the raw milk and be able to live outside the body?

Anyone know of data gathered regarding lyme bacteria and parasites in raw,even pasterized,milk products?

Btw,the cow here is Gheeta,a rescue from the slaughterhouse and perhaps america's one and only commercial ahimsa dairy cow.

Hello, just joined forum for this specific topic. In Lithuania, we do have several deaths each year from raw milk, that has been infected by ticks. As I live in Denmark problem is still here(not sure about actual death statistics here though). We're thinking of getting cow, finding source nearby of raw milk. How do I ensure that miln has not been infected?

I agree with you Romintė.The risks with raw milk is far more bigger then the perhaps good things.Not to mention the risk with Tuberculose.

I'm still open to ideas, with a hope that in this technology age it is possible to make Raw milk safe. Or at least minimize risks. For instance it would be OK for me to know that I  risk of having food poisoning at some point, but if it comes to deadly disease I will have to say no.

It's illegal here because Canadians are too stupid to determine what goes into our bodies and, instead, must be told by people who've probably never even ridden a cow (they're not very comfortable, nor terribly accommodating).  If you've got your own cow, though, it may be legal to consume raw milk.

I grew up in dairy country and didn't even know there was an issue with raw milk until I was 16, when my mom told me.  I'd been drinking raw milk for about 10 years whenever I went to visit friends who either had a dairy farm or a milk cow, usually after we'd been sent out with a bucket.  As well, many countries allow raw milk consumption.  I've also consumed raw milk, cottage cheese, sour cream, and hard cheeses all made at home from raw milk from cows that I personally milked, and only in areas that permit such activities legally.

I think that raw milk is generally safe to consume, with some exceptions.  I think it's best to know where the milk is from and how the milking is done, with respect to proper sanitation and animal care, though that may be hard in some areas.  I think that sickness and death from raw cow's milk is akin to sickness and death from lettuce contaminated with E. coli, though I haven't actually looked up the stats of either.  Personally, I think if raw milk is illegal, raw lettuce should be too.

Raw milk has a number of advantages.  I don't really know the health benefits, though I think less processing in anything is healthier, but I do know that raw milk is an absolute joy to work with.  I was spoiled (I'm very punny) by drinking raw milk, so I've never really liked store milk.  I have also never liked sour cream until I made it from raw milk.  It's pretty hard to do.  I collect the milk in a bucket, put a clean towel over it, then skim off the sour cream a day later.  The next complicated process involves putting the cloth back on and then straining out the cottage cheese that forms.  The whey is great for animals, weightlifters (same thing), or gardens.  Actual cheese, that you have to put some effort into, is much, much easier with raw milk and tastes so much better, at least to me.  

Please do your own reading on handling and processing raw milk as my comfort level is different than yours, and I've usually been the one to milk the cows for the raw milk.  Proper sanitation and handling is important.

I drink raw milk and the risks are very small but you can get really really sick.People must be allowed to make their own choise based on knowledge.I drink it myself but I would never pour it in another persons glass or sell it.Never because I am aware of the small but very dangerous risks,potential deadly risks.

Timothy Markus wrote: I've usually been the one to milk the cows for the raw milk.  Proper sanitation and handling is important.

What do you do when you milk, apart from washing your hands?

Here I have just been told to send the 1st stream out of the bucket.

Xisca Nicolas wrote:

Timothy Markus wrote: I've usually been the one to milk the cows for the raw milk.  Proper sanitation and handling is important.

What do you do when you milk, apart from washing your hands?

Here I have just been told to send the 1st stream out of the bucket.

With vacuum milkers, you don't express each udder, and the teat is in the cup, so you wipe the teat with a warm, clean wet cloth.  You have to clean the dirt/plug from each teat opening, too, which is more thorough than just hoping all the dirt comes out with the first shot.  It's usually not hard to get clean, but Spring can bring muddy udders, or farms where they're in a muddy holding area.  I like to keep the milking area as clean as possible, too.  I think the cleanest way would be to milk in the pasture after cleaning the teats with a cloth.  If the udder's really bad, I'll clean it, but that's far more critical when milking into an open bucket and not really much of an issue with vacuum cups and pasteurisation.  If you're milking into a bucket, clean the whole udder and even around it if it's dirty, as that stuff WILL drop into the bucket.  It can be time consuming, but it's usually only 1 cow if you're hand milking and it teaches you to manage the cows for cleaner udders.  After that, I'll apply balm if needed and teat dip.  

If you're sharing milk with the calf, they can really cut up the teats, making the cows more prone to infection/mastitis.  That's one of the reasons calves don't usually nurse at all from the dam.  I've only experienced it where the fencing is inadequate to keep the two separated.  Calves will nurse as long as they can, if you let them.  

Edit:  Some girls, usually not holsteins,  have hairy udders, so using clippers to keep the hair short helps keep their udders clean.  It's a pain in the ass trying to milk 50 cows when you've got to clean clumps of mud off because they're stuck to hair.  If I had wool sheep I'd probably trim their anuses like I do for poodles to keep it cleaner.  Just for clarification, I don't just walk down the street shaving dog butts, only my dogs' butts.

Hi Rominte,

I can't say for sure regarding Lyme disease.  I've done a quick search and found this article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/19/5/12-1442_article which links consumption of raw milk with tick-borne encephalitis (maybe no relation?  I'm not a disease specialist).  However, from the extract available, it appears to me that this is one of these cases where correlation does not imply causation (just because the goat had TBE in the milk doesn't mean that those who consumed it got sick *from the milk*).  From everything I've seen of the CDC's publications regarding raw milk, it seems that breast feeding is inherrently safe in nearly all cases, yet consumption of a glass of raw ruminant milk will cause the loss of 50% of the human population.  Maybe an overstatement, but in this case there's nothing in the article at this location which addressed the fact that these people live in a TBE area, yet there is no mention whatsoever of whether they suffered tick-bites themselves or not, or whether there was a possibility that they had TBE before drinking the milk, or that the sickness that they experienced was directly caused by TBE.

I do note a number of articles online of how someone (maybe the same person, maybe not) cured themselves of Lyme disease by drinking nothing but raw milk.  However, I personally give little credence to the idea that raw milk is actually a cure for Lyme disease without a lot more evidence.

Regarding how you make sure raw milk that you purchase is safe, go to the farm and speak to the person providing it.  They're probably getting at least occasional lab tests done on their milk, and unless there's a problem, the farmer will probably be happy to pull these out to prove that there's *not* any problem with their milk.

Best of luck,

Stuart.

Since cows are grazing ruminants and evolved along the side grasses and forbs that the bovines have been eating for many millennia, I recently learned that feeding grain to a cow alters the rumen and can make an environment hospitable to e. coli. Cows grazing grass and forbs have rumens that are inhospitable to e. coli. (From Grass, the Forgiveness of Nature by Charles Walters)

In my experience (what academia would disregard as anecdotal), my wife and I have been consuming raw milk from cows on pasture for 6 or 7 years now without any ill effects. I would never drink raw "factory" milk from confined cows or industrial dairy operations.

Adding keffir grains to any kind of milk makes it much more nutritious, whether the milk is raw or not.

Keffir has dozens of different strains of beneficial bacteria (yoghurt in contrast has only about 1-4 strains). When some people say their health problems have all been solved by switching to raw milk, it reminds me of people who say everything was solved when they tried keffir.

I don't really drink milk, except for in coffee, but have a jar of kefir every morning- highly recommend it. It's also really easy to make and keep going since it ferments at room temperature. Also, I believe the fermentation would kill any dangerous pathogens, making it safer than milk.
We lost our source for raw milk a few years ago, but recently I've been searching and found a local farm that delivers close to where I live. If you buy from out of state, usually you just have to purchase a "herd share". It's a way to get around the legal issues of transporting/selling raw milk across state lines since you technically own part of the cow.

Number one thing is to know your dairy farmer.  Visit the farm (in Texas, you have to, anyway--only place you can buy raw milk products).

For me, it tastes way better than the junk at the grocery store.  And it has completely eliminated my respiratory allergies.

I know this is very old, but I am at a loss:

I have been trying to make a cultured cream. I'm a bit frustrated, because I remember having read in many comment sections and forums (though, somehow I can never find those by looking for THEM, it was only after reading the original post that I stumbled across them) about how raw milk is superior to pasteurized because it does not on its own spoil. MANY people who seemed to have experience with farm life or raw milk growing up seem to remember mothers or grandmothers leaving their milk out to sour or clabber, and know that it is unnecessary to add a culture for cultured cream, or making true buttermilk, etc.

What I also cannot find is a good recipe and trouble shooting guide for making cultured cream or really anything this way. Once again, when I go looking for this information...

More than that, I seem to be able to easily find many posts by people claiming the only way to make this or that IS by adding a culture, heating to desired temperature, etc.

And even though I haven't done many experiments, I'm a bit desperate because we don't own our cow. Cream is $40 a gallon, and from what I hear, that is a GOOD price. I can't afford to waste a few quarts with this or that.

I left a jar out, sealed, in my pantry. New cream, new jar. I washed the jar before used and dried with a clean towel. Every time I've opened the jar, the smell has been decidedly yeasty. It's been sitting for the maximum amount of time recommended, so I think this one is a lost cause, but I don't want to do this again. I know there are people here who are knowledgeable about the hundreds of ways to properly use their own raw milk, and I also know that many of those people want to be self-sufficient enough to not need to order a special culture to make them. In years past, I also have tried culturing yogurt in jars on the counter with just bacteria from capsules, and that was a loss, too. I know the answer shouldn't be that we need fancy equipment, because people for years have been doing this without.


Can anyone with experience speak to this?

Hi Lanie,

I am no expert, just would like to give you my opinion.

I do make “cultured” cream all the time, without added culture.

I leave it on the counter, in the kitchen, or wherever it’s warmer in my house - in winter that’s the living room -, and then I make butter with it. I will leave it for a week sometimes, sometimes less.

I also make my sour cream that way, but for that it doesn’t need to sit very long.

A few things that I think are important: cream has to be fresh. The freshest the better. Though I did have good results with cream that is a few days old.

The other thing that’s important is when the cow “freshened”, meaning how long ago did it give birth.

The milk changes throughout lactation, and, for example, the butter will separate in minutes from milk from a fresh cow, and it could take 40 minutes from milk from a cow that freshened say, 10 months ago.

More important than what I just said, is the cows udder health. No nasties like mastitis or sub-clinical mastitis, and also the cleanliness of the milking process. Stuff can get in milk during milking if no good hygiene is used, and from improperly cleaned equipment.

I realize if you don’t milk your own cow, you don’t have control over these. But you can choose where you purchase the milk from.

Is it from a reputable farmer, who tests their milk and has a good milking procedure?

I can’t think of anything else right now.

Maybe someone else has ideas.

Sometimes milk/cream just doesn't have the right cultures already in it to ferment it as you'd like - the cultures in my raw goats milk change according to season and what they're eating.

To make cultured cream, I always add some viili yoghurt or milk kefir, at the rate of 1 tablespoon culture to 1 cup cream, adding a small amount of culture this way means that there's a supply of good bacteria ready to grow quickly and outcompete any unwanted bacteria and yeast. You can also just add kefir grains to cream, 1 teaspoon kefir grains to 1 cup cream.

If I'm culturing it for taste rather than for fridge-free keeping quality, I will try and culture for 8-12 hours at a warm room temperature before moving it to the larder. I culture my cream in a heat-sterilised jar with the lid on.

Lanie Veazey wrote:
I left a jar out, sealed, in my pantry. New cream, new jar. I washed the jar before used and dried with a clean towel. Every time I've opened the jar, the smell has been decidedly yeasty.

I dunno, it might be that the milk you are using is so naturally sweet that yeasts grow more than lactobacilli. I think that happens with the milk from local cows here in the Himalayas where I live. They produce very low volumes of milk, but very delicious and sweet. The way people make butter is to collect the extra milk in the churn (at room temperature) for a couple of days and then churn it by hand. The resulting buttermilk is pretty yeasty-sour, and can be used to make good bread. The churns are rough wood so I guess the microbes live in the cracks of the churn, even though it gets cleaned with hot water from time to time. Or if it smells wrong, they add some yogurt as a starter.

When people want to make yogurt here, they boil and cool the milk, and then add some of the previous batch of yogurt. In that case the lactobacilli outnumber the yeast, I guess; I don't know but it works. If you haven't tried using yogurt as a starter rather than tablets, maybe give that a try.

The reason for boiling milk here and not consuming it raw, is that occasionally (and we wouldn't know it in time) there can be serious diseases carried by cows and transmitted in the milk -- tuberculosis (TB), brucellosis, and various tick-borne diseases. If the cow is carrying one of these, then transmission can't be prevented by hygiene around milking: it is in the milk itself. That said, I still gulp down a little raw milk once in a while, accepting the risk.

I can't taste a difference between cold milk that is raw or boiled and cooled. And the cream separates nicely on the boiled and cooled milk.

Grew up drinking raw milk. My gut has always been bulletproof, I get a fraction of the stomach bugs that others seem to. Not a scientific study, just one person's experience, but my two cents.