When I was a child growing up on the farm, we drank raw milk – raw milk being unpasteurized. That’s because my dad refused to buy milk when he milked 60 head of cattle every day. None of us got sick, but maybe we were just lucky.
Drinking raw milk has become fashionable again with some consumers who prefer natural foods. According to the Orlando Sentinel, some proponents of it “think it contains beneficial microbes that treat everything from asthma to autism.”
The FDA, however, warns against drinking raw milk.
“Raw milk should not be consumed by anyone for any reason,” said John Sheehan, head of the FDA’s dairy office. “It is an inherently dangerous product.”
The FDA bans shipping raw milk across state lines and is currently investigating several farms who supply only raw milk to determine if any interstate sales laws have been violated.