That’s funny. For the first 15 years of my thus far rather long life I drank raw milk at least three times a day, had ice cream - totally uncooked - made from it every Sunday for dinner and ate it on my oatmeal or Cream of Wheat every morning for breakfast. Everyone in our small town also consumed raw milk and if I still lived there would be doing the same thing. They all did fine and still are.
I have no problem with that. But I presume that you lived on a farm and drank the raw milk that came from your own cows – yes? So you had control over how clean you kept your cows, how much you washed and sanitized the udders before milking them, you could observe first hand if a cow looked or was acting sick and could isolate that cow and choose not to milk it? And that’s what any responsible dairy farmer should do whether they are pasteurizing their milk or selling it raw.
The problem as I see it is that “raw milk” just like the “organic” and “sustainable” or the “whole foods” trend: is just that, a food trend, a fad. And with its increasing popularity, there comes a good many inexperienced and in some cases not so ethical farmers who are looking to cash in by selling raw milk to the greenies and foodies who think that it must be more “natural” and “healthier” and can charge the gullible a hefty premium for it. Let the buyer be ware.
The truth is that pasteurized milk is just as “healthy” as raw milk but without the risks of getting Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria.
But heck, if anyone wants to drink raw milk, by all means be my guest. I’m not all for criminalizing its sale or consumption, but with the facts on my side, I’ll pass on the raw milk, thank you. The “alleged” and rather dubious claims of the health benefits of raw milk do not outweigh the very real risks.
I would also add that the “good ole days” were not all that good in many cases. Just walk through an old cemetery, one that goes back 100+ years, a time before “modern” medicine, immunology, vaccinations, antibiotics and advancements in food safety and food handling, and look at the grave stones – all the infants and young children who died, all the people who didn’t live to a ripe old age because they succumbed to now treatable and preventable illnesses and better overall nutrition.