Unpasteurized milk

[geraldc]

Selfridges now have an unpasteurized milk dispenser in the food hall. You ask for a bottle, they give you one, you put your money in the machine and it fills the bottle. As the machine is owned by the farmer, you're buying the milk directly from him, hence how they can sell you unpasteurized.

Having heard so much about it, how the taste differed etc, we bought some. £2 worth, it's £3.50 a litre. Had a sip, tasted like normal milk to me. However I am pretty lactose intolerant, and so I haven't really drunk milk since I was a child. But if anyone wants to try unpasteurized milk, now you know where.

[Feline]

There's nothing quite like milk straight out of the bulk tank when you have just finished milking at 5am and take a jug back to breakfast with you 

[Kim]

Public health disaster waiting to happen, IMHO.   

No doubt combined with the ridiculously high wastage common in 'organic' products.  I mean, they've got to be chucking all the unsold milk down the drain within a day or two, haven't they?  Unless they're irradiating it or something...

Bloody hippies.  Humbug.  Etc.  If you really want it fresh from the cow, find a cow!

[LindaG]

My friend got me a pint of unpasteurised milk from their farm, insisting I try it as it was so delicious.  It was, but no more delicious than the normal stuff.  What's the point of this?  Novelty?

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

When I was a kid all our milk was green top from the local dairy. It was nicer than pasteurised, and it even looked different - pasteurised looked grey beside it.

[Charlotte]

Julian used to work just up the road from a place that sold "raw milk lattes".  They took a jug of raw milk, then shoved a steam nozzle into it, heating it up and frothing it ready for the espresso.

[Morrisette]

My grandparents used to be dairy farmers, so I have had unpasturised milk that was in a cow half an hour ago many times. It's very creamy and not actually white - more a pale cream. But aparently some people are horribly allergic to it - I had no idea until discussing this with someone at work who reckoned to have been laid up for two weeks after drinking some. She isn't dairy intolerant normally.

[clarion]

Back in the 80s, I got raw milk delivered to the doorstep in central Sheffield.  I liked it.  Since being vegan, all milk smells and tastes 'on the turn', especially full fat, so I don't think I'd have it now.

[pcolbeck]

Hmm.Mrs Pcolbeck had to get tested for TB as a kid as did her sister and Mother due top a scare with the local unpasteurised milk (she lived in a small village and they got milk direct from the farm). Unpasteurised milk is just daft, TB isn't funny.

[Cudzoziemiec]

If you really want it fresh from the cow, find a cow!

That's exactly what Mrs Cudzo and family did when she was a kid. Well, a bucket or jug intervened between udder and mouth. They only had the one cow, which presumably cuts down on the chance of infection, and it wasn't for sale.

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

Hmm.Mrs Pcolbeck had to get tested for RB as a kid as did her sister and Mother due top a scare with the local unpasteurised milk (she lived in a small village and they got milk direct from the farm). Unpasteurised milk is just daft, TB isn't funny.

They do test the herds for TB, brucellosis and the like to ensure the milk is ok.

[Feline]

I think one of the reasons it tastes different is that these days our milk is not just pasteurised, its homogenized to suspend all the creamy or fatty particles uniformly around the plastic bottle rather than have a 'cream' on top.

I don't worry too much about catching TB because I am vaccinated (although this is admittedly only about 80% effective) and was tested at medical school to check my immunity. These days we have a whole generation of kids growing up who didn't get the BCG vaccine at school. This was because they decided in 2005 it was more cost effective to treat the occasional case of TB rather than vaccinate 12,000 children to prevent that one case 

[Kim]

Unpasteurised milk is just daft, TB isn't funny.

They do test the herds for TB, brucellosis and the like to ensure the milk is ok.

Yeah, because nobody ever contracted E.Coli, Campylobacter, Listeria or Salmonella from milk.  It doesn't have to be the interesting stuff.

It's not that the milk is hazardous at source - as I say, if you drink it fresh from the cow, it's fine - it's that it has no real shelf-life, and most of that will have been used up in the supply chain to the vending machine.  It's a boutique step backwards.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Hmm.Mrs Pcolbeck had to get tested for RB as a kid as did her sister and Mother due top a scare with the local unpasteurised milk (she lived in a small village and they got milk direct from the farm). Unpasteurised milk is just daft, TB isn't funny.

They do test the herds for TB, brucellosis and the like to ensure the milk is ok.

+1

We used to get green top from the farm up the road. It was great stuff, much better taste. The milk delivered to our doorstep was the milk taken from cows that morning. If we ran out, we could walk up to the farm and get some more. Ah, happy days. Didn't have a lock on our door, either!

[geraldc]

I way prefer homogenized milk.

I was forced to drink milk at school, it put me off it for life. I still have nightmares about little third of pint bottles and, thin blue straws, and the smell of slightly sour milk.

Can they not filter non pasteurized milk like they do with that Cravendale stuff. That stuff lasts weeks.

[Kim]

Can they not filter non pasteurized milk like they do with that Cravendale stuff. That stuff lasts weeks.

That would detract from its hippy appeal, thobut.  This is a triumph of marketing over common sense, remember.

[Biggsy]

I like my milk to be clean, clean-smelling and clean-tasting, unlike this lady...

(click to show/hide)

[geraldc]

yes, but she's no doubt safe from small pox

[barakta]

A friend of mine works in public health and they're really cross about this raw milk.  There's a reason we have strict rules on pasteurisation and so on.   It may only be one in a hundred or some other low minority number of people, but when dealing with populations that is still a lot of people and a serious issue.  They feel the vending machines are bending the law and not in a good way.

I've had milk in Romania in ex lemonade bottles which my hosts often got from the person who had the cow that day.  That and metal jugs with milk + lumpy creamy stuff in it which you poured through a sieve onto your cornflakes or whatever.  It tasted weird but I did get used to it.

Now I'm virtually 90% lactose intolerant it's a bit of a moot issue tho *scowls at lactase fail* I can only really drink lactofree milk.

Oh and cravendale milk is foul, really foul, I don't know how anyone drinks it, tastes like water gone /wrong/!

[Cudzoziemiec]

That and metal jugs with milk + lumpy creamy stuff in it which you poured through a sieve onto your cornflakes or whatever.  It tasted weird but I did get used to it.

That sounds like curds and whey. Used to drink it in Poland. Like you say it tastes a bit weird at first, but is rather good once you're used to it.

[Biggsy]

http://ulocal.wtae.com/_Courtney-38-Brittney-as-Little-Miss-Muffet-38the-Spider/photo/15170939/62962.html

[Cudzoziemiec]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgh!
Biggsy, you will be held responsible for posting that monstrosity!

[geraldc]

As soon as curds got mentioned, things went whey out of control

[Marco Stefano]

Yeah, because nobody ever contracted E.Coli, Campylobacter, Listeria or Salmonella from milk.  It doesn't have to be the interesting stuff.

It's not that the milk is hazardous at source - as I say, if you drink it fresh from the cow, it's fine - it's that it has no real shelf-life, and most of that will have been used up in the supply chain to the vending machine.  It's a boutique step backwards.

But people have contracted toxigenic E.coli, Campylobacter, Yersinia, Group A streptococci, etc. from raw milk, as well as TB & Brucella, straight from the farm. It certainly can be very hazardous at source (taking that as the farm, not the udder - it's not just the animal which might be the source of organisms).

I think it's only a matter of time before someone gets ill from this; wonder what the local EHOs think? I wouldn't touch it with your bargepole, let alone mine. Raw milk cheeses, yes (fermented products) - raw milk, no.

[Si_Co]

Raw milk is the foodstuff of the gods.....so sweet.....so yummy........years of drinking the stuff on a dairy farm did no harm