WINNEMUCCA - Recently, Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed a bill that would allow the sale of raw milk. He cited "significant public health risks" as the reason for his veto.
Milk from healthy cows contains relatively few bacteria (102-103 /ml), and the health risk from drinking raw milk should be minimal. However, milk is a natural food that has no protection from external contamination and can be contaminated easily when it is separated from the cow.
Raw milk normally has a varied micro flora arising from several sources, such as the exterior surfaces of the animal and the surfaces of milk handling equipment, such as milking machines, pipeline and containers. Therefore, milk is susceptible to contamination by many pathogenic microorganisms, which can result in infection and a threat to a consumer's health.
Raw milk has been, and continues to be, a staple in the epidemiological literature; it has been linked to campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis, tuberculosis, brucellosis, hemorrhagic colitis, Brainerd diarrhea, Q fever, listeriosis and toxoplasmosis, to name a few.
Many claims are made about the nutritional differences between raw milk and pasteurized milk. Pasteurization is a thermal process widely used in the food and dairy industry with the objective of minimizing health hazards from pathogenic microorganisms and to prolong product shelf life.
The bacteria standards for Grade "A" pasteurized milk are 20,000 bacteria/ml and less than 10 coliform/ml. The claim is that heat from pasteurization may denature milk proteins. This effect is not considered a disadvantage from the nutritional point of view because it only involves changes in the specific arrangement of the casein protein.
Pasteurization does not impair the nutritional quality of milk fat, calcium and phosphorus. Pasteurization temperature does not affect fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, and E), as well as the B-complex vitamins riboflavin, pantothenic acid, biotin, and niacin. The losses of vitamins, such as thiamin (less than 3 percent), pyridoxine (0-8 percent), cobalamin (less than 10 percent), and folic acid (less than 10 percent) are considered lower than those that take place during the normal handling and preparation of foodstuffs at home.
Each year in the United States, food borne disease causes an estimated 76 million illnesses. Of these, an estimated 1.4 million are caused by Salmonella, resulting in approximately 16,000 hospitalizations and 580 deaths. Raw bulk tank milk can contain one or more species of pathogenic bacteria, including salmonella spp. During 1972-2000, a total of 58 raw milk-associated outbreaks were reported to CDC, of which 17 (29 percent) were caused by salmonella spp.
The chances are about one in four that raw milk taken from bulk tanks is contaminated with bacteria that can cause food borne illness. More than 25 percent of milk samples collected from bulk tanks on 131 farms in Minnesota-South Dakota had one or more types of bacteria that can cause food borne illness. The most common pathogenic bacteria were campylobacter (9 percent of samples), followed by salmonella (6 percent of samples).
In a study conducted in Tennessee, two of 268 milk samples (0.75 percent) contained E. coli O157:H7 bacteria cells. Even if the contamination rate is low, there is a high probability that a dairy family using milk from the bulk tank will drink contaminated milk over a period of one or two years.
If we assume that a family removes a pitcher of raw milk from the bulk tank 300 times per year and that 1 percent of the time their bulk tank is positive for pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli O157:H7, it is almost certain that at least one of those pitchers will contain salmonella, E. coli O157:H7 or other pathogenic bacteria.
Scientific research has shown that the detrimental effects of pasteurization on the nutritional and physiological values of milk are negligible considering the safety benefits in regards to consumers' health. So now that you have some scientific facts about raw milk, you can make your own decision or weigh the risk vs. benefits of raw milk for you and your family.
[[In-content Ad]]
