Been drinking raw goat's milk for about a year and LOVE it!

I belonged to a semi-underground raw milk CSA for almost two years. I loved the milk, and it made the best yogurt ever. It took my son some time get used to the taste and texture. That said, I have never been sure if it was its raw nature or the fact that it was un-homogenized milk from pasture-based cows that made the real difference. Or maybe the extra butterfat after years of nothing more than 2%. When my mother became ill with kidney disease I stopped-- even the most ardent fans usually agree that it is not appropriate for anyone immuno-compromised. I miss that milk and have been thinking about looking for something similar now that I have moved someplace where legal raw milk is more available.

The holdup is that government hates the word "raw", as evidenced here:

http://www.grist.org/article/food-five-tips-for-surviving-a-raid-on-your-farm-or-food-club/P1

Apparently our law enforcement agencies have solved all the other problems, i.e., rape, murder, theft, drunk driving, fraud, etc., etc. and need something else to do.

My children were raised on raw milk. A Menonnite Dairy was just outside of town and would deliver two gallons a week. We have it some times now, but we loved it and drank regularly for years. My children are grown and healthy and have never had any major health issues...

I moved to Pennsylvania last year (from Florida) and found the local farms much more developed and willing to accept visitors to show off their goods. It was during this time that I found Bear Meadows Farms, a raw milk and free range egg producer not too far from where I live. I stopped by one day, driving up the gravel road, past new McMansions and beside the cows belonging to the farm, holding fast to this old land.

I then met Jeff, the owner and operator of the farm. He has 42 milk producing ladies which he and his wife personally milk (machine milking) twice daily. I asked about the raw milk, in terms of bacterial content and contamination issues. Jeff was straight with me and showed me the reports from the PA certification agency. His numbers were FAR below the state standards for the number of harmful bacterial colonies/chemicals/free radicals permitted both on the cows and in the milk (these numbers were even below those allowed for pasteurized/homogenized producers). He runs a really clean operation, which is saying something when the cows come in muddy from the fields.

Jeff let me come to a milking one night. He and his wife rounded up the cows and lined them up in the milking pavilion. I had only ever seen a cow being milked on TV, specifically, an episode of Reading Rainbow when I was younger, but this experience was like no other! Jeff explained that the sweet bovines act like a bunch of second graders on a field trip! They know their names and each one has a personality. I could see this as they corralled them into the milking stations, Annabel (no lie, that was one of the girls' names) would saunter up without a care in the world while Nell would almost skip up to be milked. It was so special for me to see EXACTLY where my milk comes from.

Jeff gave me my first half-gallon for free to let my stomach get used to the new bacteria. It's like eating a lot of yogurt, in terms of reacting to the addition of good bacteria. After that sample, I was hooked! It tastes great, but even better than that, the milk directly supports a local farmer with a small operation.

I realize that not all raw milk farms are like Bear Meadows, small and personable, but I feel that supporting the raw milk cause supports the community AND my health.

I'm not sure what raw milk means. I assume it means milk straight from the cow -- otherwise know as milk.

I grew up (in the Caribbean) drinking milk straight from the sheep or goat. My grandmother insisted on it.

I wouldn't do it in the USA. Too much risk from something or the other. This country seems to have a fracked up natural food supply.

I lived in East Java, Indonesia for a year while on a Fulbright teaching fellowship and had "raw" milk delivered every other day. I just boiled it before using. Was the best tasting milk I've ever had and never caused any health problems.

I love raw milk! I buy mine from a coworker, so I completely trust her.

Raw milk is available at my local farmers' market (open weekly year round). As bluetrek31 indicated, it's regulated and certified in the state of PA, which means it's widely available. My corner market sometimes carries it!

It's definitely a different mouth-feel than the homogenized and pasteurized stuff but WOW is it good! Such a full flavor. I had no idea milk was supposed to taste like that. :) If there's none available (and it's not there every week), I'll get "low temp" pasteurized and non-homogenized milk from another farmer.

I did have to get used to shaking my milk to mix in the fat/cream. My cat now knows the sound of me shaking my non-homogenized milk carton and comes running, hoping for a few drips or a tablespoon in a little dish. :)

Growing up here in the States every bit of food sold in the stores is very sterile, I would never expect to find bugs or anything of the sort on something I bought from the grocery store. It has taken some getting use to that when I go and gather something from the garden it will mostly have bugs on it (and it does not mean that it is bad). So I think there is sort of a knee jerk reaction when Americans see something that has not been sterilized, that it must be contaminated, even though it is perfectly safe.

I get raw milk through an "underground" dairy club in NYC. I first got hooked on fresh dairy products a few years ago while working on a farm upstate and was pleased to find that the same Amish and Mennonite farms delivered to NYC.

I have been to one of the farms for a customer appreciation picnic and found it to be a pleasant and healthy ecosystem.

I am not sure whether I would drink raw milk during pregnancy but it would be for irrational personal reasons, not science/statistics based health reasons.

I drank raw milk every so often as a kid, having grown up in a farming community. It's quite tasty, but I'd be wary of getting it through any supply chain (even a very short, local one) that doesn't bottle into sterilized containers immediately after milking. Too much risk of contamination otherwise.

Don't conflate good growing practices and homogenization with pasteurization.

You can have excellent pasteurized whole milk that is non-homogenized (you shake it b/c the cream separates), that is from cows that are not given any antibiotics or non-organic feed, that are grass-fed, that are free pastured...all that good stuff.

Pasteurization is simply the last step of the process. For instance, the above poster who said "I drank raw milk, I just boiled it before I drank it," was actually drinking pasteurized milk! Boiling milk IS pasteurization!

The one clear downside is pasteurization definitely changes the taste of milk--it's more "gamey" when it's not pasteurized, and a lot of people like this taste for the same reason they like raw milk cheeses.

If raw milk is PERFECTLY handled and comes from guaranteed healthy animals, it's probably only a little more dangerous than pasteurized milk. But it's really not reasonable to expect perfection, and there have definitely been e. coli outbreaks and other diseases associated with raw milk.

My bottom line is if you're a healthy adult, a bad batch of raw milk won't take you down the same way nothing short of poison will take you down. If you like the taste of raw milk better and it makes you happy, go for it--odds are you'll never get sick, and if you do, you just get food poisoning. You'll live. But don't expect magic health benefits--something like 4/5 of the world's population can't digest lactose as adults, so it's not like human health needs raw milk. And it's a bad idea for kids under the age of 8, the elderly, and for anyone who's pregnant or has a health condition. Odds are if they drink it nothing will go wrong. But if they do get a bad batch, the health outcomes can be really devastating.

I've been drinking raw milk for 2 years now... I'm in the best health I've ever been in! Raw milk is delicious - rich, alive and deeply satisfying.

My advice to others is to find a dairy, visit it, see how the cows live, see how clean the operation is and talk to the farmers. The milk I drink and trust is from Hendricks Farms and Dairy in Telford, PA - highly recommended! http://www.hendricksfarmsanddairy.com/

Also, the Weston A. Price Foundation is a great source for information about raw milk, be sure to check out their Real Milk website: http://www.realmilk.com/

While I agree that raw milk tastes better, I still come down on the side of safety and only drink pasteurized.

http://www.slate.com/id/2260389/

I don't really have a preference either way. I admit I tend to drink whats more affordable. I think neither is going to kill you but in a country where its slowly seems to be growing more and more taboo to drink milk at all let alone anything fattier than 2% milk, we have different laws on fat contents for our cream than other countries, etc...I think we're going to have a while to go before the big milk concern is getting raw milk on the shelves. I'd try it if they do though.

I drink raw milk because of my lactose intolerance. I've read and researched a lot on lactose intolerance, and a lot of it is caused during the pasturization process. Since switching to raw milk about 4 months ago, I have had NO significant episodes because of it and my husband and I drink it/eat it with cereal/etc., almost every day. I firmly believe that raw milk is the way to go, especially for people with lactose intolerance!

Been drinking raw milk now for about 3 years but can't get it legally in NC. It's the only milk I'll let my toddler drink, too. Don't trust the pasteurized stuff. It can get awful superbugs that you can't smell. If I don't drink the raw stuff fast enough, my nose tells me not to consume it!

My grandmother grew up on a dairy farm. She never drank milk much because the boys who helped out on the farm would squirt milk in the pail, wet their dirty hands in it and start milking the cows. Obviously that was before they had milking machines but I still want my milk pasteurized to kill any harmful dirt or bacteria that may have accidentally gotten into the milk.

And make it skim milk (what she said they didn't drink but fed to the cat!) I'm watching the cholesterol early.

Alfieds, as someone else above pointed out, the milk you drank in Java was *not* raw. Pasteurisation is not some high-tech procedure that can only be done in a sterile factory - it is literally just heating the milk to a temperature high enough to kill bacteria but not so high that it curdles the milk. Boiling raw milk makes it not raw.

Here in Australia my household drinks organic, grass-fed, pasteurised but not homogenised milk. It has a beautiful, full taste, both because the cows are not being fed corn and other shit, and because of not being homogenised. I am deeply skeptical of the idea that the benefits of drinking raw milk that is not absolutely fresh (as in, you or your neighbour milked it within the last few days) are enough to outweigh the risks. Whenever there is any sort of middleman involved the risks immediately increase manifold, because when the chain of supply is lengthened, accountability is lessened and the time it takes the milk to go from udder to mouth is potentially lengthened as well. So it might be all well and great for people who live in the country and have regular access to fresh, local milk, or for those particular dedicated urban housewives with enough time and inclination to buy a share in a cow. And of course it should be made viable for small dairies to be able to supply a small, local clientele without getting into legal trouble. But I disagree with the push to make raw milk more mainstream and accessable for cities, because of the chain-of-supply problem. And I find it unbearably sanctimonious and un-considered when people talk about how 'everyone' should drink raw milk because it's so healthy. It's so healthy *because* it has such a limited market, which means small production scales and short-to-non-existent chains of supply.

raw milk is delicious and healthy! the only reason i'm not drinking it this year is budgetary [it tends to be more than double the price of organic pasteurized milk].

i felt the npr article was really out of context, emphasizing the risks of drinking raw milk while entirely overlooking the fact that when cows are on pasture and eating a grass diet, their immune systems are much stronger and stomachs far more acidic, killing off nearly all instances of e. coli.

source a dairy that raises healthy cows, practices grass feeding, and you'll get safe, delicious milk. if your city has a farmer's market where the dairy can sell direct, it's often cheaper than stores [my favorite milk is $7 per half gallon at the farmer's market vs. $10 at whole foods].

I originally purchased a herdshare (the only way to get raw milk legally in Michigan) so I could make cheese. I had no intentions of drinking it; I planned to pasteurize it at home if I was going to drink it (which we really don't, it's more for cooking/making cheese, yogurt, etc.). But then I did some research and was also really impressed by the farm's commitment to cleanliness and testing. It made me feel more at ease and now I use it in cooking, smoothies, etc. and don't worry about the safety.

I have to admit I don't really taste that much of a difference between good pasteurized whole organic milk and raw milk. It's pretty easy to get either here in Vermont. I would never buy raw milk that I couldn't be sure of its age. It spoils faster than pasteurized milk. I also would never drink it if I were under the age of 8 or pregnant or immune compromised. Listeria is too risky for those groups and raw milk isn't worth the risk.

We visit our dairy weekly to purchase our raw milk (as well as eggs and our meat). I feel safer buying milk from a family I trust than buying milk from the supermarket. Plus the milk tastes better - my kids love the raw milk so much I have to ration it!

My best friend grew up on a dairy farm down the road from me so I always had fresh milk when I was there. I can't remember noticing a huge difference in taste but I usually drink whole milk to begin with. She swears by it though and even though she's moved off the farm and is married she stills wants a cow of her own to have fresh milk everyday.

When I lived in Southern California I bought raw milk from a health food store. THey were very careful about sterilizing the bottles and the cows were all the safe happy healthy cows as the article described. Once you factor out the bottle sterilization worries, there isn't too much to be concerned about. The raw milk I drank tasted better than any other milk and I never had a problem while drinking it. As heatherparlato pointed out, cows raised organically have better natural defenses than the regular American dairy cow.

Raw milk is illegal where I live, but there's still plenty of organic milk from pastured, grass-fed cows to go around.

If you trust your farmer and are willing to take on the risk, great, but nationwide, pasteurization has caught on for a reason. (After all, the infant death rate in the US plummeted when pasteurization was rolled out nationwide.) Like with any other raw food, food poisoning can be serious and in rare cases deadly, and given the f*cked-up state of factory farming and food shipping/storage in this country I don't think there's any really safe way to bring raw milk to the majority of the population.

So, good for you if you have firsthand access to a farm and can pay $5 a quart for milk, but I don't think it will ever be a popular or safe option for the American population as a whole.

we have been drinking raw milk for the past 1 1/2 years, from a neighboring farmer in the berkshires. it makes the best yogurt, taste delicious in general, and is healthier than pasteurized. and i know the names of the cows and can come see them anytime.

I love non-homogenized milk when I can get it but I'm very wary of non-pasteurized milk. I've had it directly from cows relatives have raised and milked because I know how they do it and trust the cleanliness they use. However I'd never buy raw milk from anyone I didn't know and would absolutely never ever give it to a young child. People used to die, on a regular basis, from milk-born pathogens which is why the pasteurization process was developed in the first place. Homogenization on the other hand I think is seriously detrimental to the taste and texture of milk and since it's not a safety measure at all I'd like to see it more readily available.

I noticed someone else posted the Slate article from this week on this exact subject and I thought it was very informative and worth a read.

http://www.slate.com/id/2260389

I love making yogurt at home with the raw milk we get from the farmers market.

If cows are fed what they are naturally supposed to eat like grass instead of corn they are less likely to get sick. People used to get sick from non-pasteurized milk because first the cows weren't given a good diet, and second they used to cut the milk with all kinds of milk to save money. Google "Swill milk".

Here in AZ we have a licensed raw milk supplier so it's totally legal. And contrary to what was said above it doesn't spoil, it just gets yogurty. It's actually still totally safe to ingest.

I have found that while I am lactose intolerant of regular supermarket milk, I have no problem with raw milk or the non-homogenized milk in the supermarket.

i just got my first half gallon of raw milk. I rarely drink milk because I am lactose intolerant but when I do, I would usually get 2%. I drank a little of it straight. It was fairly rich but maybe that is because I am used to 2%. Flavorwise, I don't really pick up grassy notes or whatever but I also don't pick up the chalkiness I usually associate with milk. I drank about 4 oz of it in an iced chai. We'll see how my stomach behaves over the next hour or so.

Anyone have suggestions on what to do with it besides drink it straight? I don't really see myself drinking a half a gallon of milk but I would like something that would appreciate the flavor and freshness of it.

Here in Maine, most of our health-food stores carry raw milk from two different local dairies, in either glass or plastic jugs. After hearing that raw milk is more tolerable to those with lactose intolerance, I decided to try some. I hadn't drunk milk since I was a child, as it made me so ill; now I drink it all the time, with no problem.
A smoothie made from raw milk, a banana, and a big handful of wild blueberries picked from my backyard is the best breakfast in the world.

I grew up on a small dairy farm and we got our milk from the bulk tank (where the milk is stored after milking), not the store, so I grew up drinking raw milk. My parents had seven children and we all made it to adulthood with no serious childhood health problems. I don't think that raw milk is any sort of miracle food, I much prefer the taste of skim , and I really don't like the idea of buying raw milk from the store because I don't know how old the milk might be (raw milk spoils faster than pastuerized milk). The only reason I miss the milk of my childhood is that we always had the best cream!

Here in Florida, raw milk can only be sold for pet food purposes and the nearest distributor is several hundred miles away. I would love to try it, but a friend just moved in with us who is pregnant and I don't feel comfortable having her drink raw milk while pregnant because of the risks of unpasturized milk (especially since we don't know the farmer so I can't be sure how well he keeps track of his cows and what they graze on). Once it is just normal, healthy adults in the house again I may make the switch! :)

When I was a child, a friend had some dairy goats, and I got "hooked" on raw goats' milk. As an adult, I moved to a farm. We bought several dairy goats. At that time, I was dealing with an illness that left me weak and drained, and my prospects didn't look very good. A short time after I started drinking the goat milk, my health dramatically improved, and I haven't been hospitalized since. For me, raw goats' milk succeeded where medicine didn't.

As a precaution, let me stress here that I've only had raw milk from goats or cows of my own or that were raised by personal friends. I knew the health histories of these animals, etc., and knew the process used (cleaning the udders, straining and storing the milk). Unless it was certified, I wouldn't consume raw milk bought from a stranger.

We drink raw milk. We learned of the milk diet cure and when my husband had a chronic, potentially fatal disease, we started drinking more and more fresh raw milk from a local cow. We decided to get our own cow so that we would never run out. We have learned a lot about cows and milk and the people against it. The USDA sent 2 people to our house to inspect our cow and ask us why we got a cow. At first I thought it was just the big agriculture dairy industry against people having their own cow, but now, after watching my husband's health dramatically improve, it dawned on me that the prescription drug company is against the benefits of raw milk, too, because it heals so much that it would put the drug industry at risk if people found out - so they villainize milk. Sure there are safety needs that must be met, but they are easy to meet and test. Our cow is healthy, eats green grass all day and is a family pet. Did you know one of the founders of the Mayo Clinic believed in curing disease with raw milk and reported "excellent" results. But big government and big business does not want us to be self-sufficient and healthy and that's why they are pushing disease ridden or unhealthful foods our way.

P.S. All my husbands seasonal allergies cleared up from drinking raw milk, too! First year he has not had extensive sinus problems. In Dr. Porter's book "The Milk Diet" he explains how unpasteurized milk restores the organs and blood in the body. He practiced it for 41 years with his patients. My husband drinks a gallon and a half each day and it has brought him back from what looked to be the brink of death.