This week’s health alert is a two part look at the dangers and benefits of drinking raw milk. Raw milk is unpastuerized, straight from the cow. The pastuerization process is used currently to kill any bacteria before the milk is chilled and sent to stores. Raw milk devotees say that process, which cooks the milk to a very high temperature, kills are the good stuff you drink milk for! They claim the nutrients, vitamins, and yes, even bacteria in fresh, raw, milk help you stay healthy and ward of disease. State health experts aren’t sold. Many fear that without killing off bacteria, milk drinkers will get sick and if their health were already compromised in some way, they could die. In fact, they feel so strongly about it, raw milk is illegal to sell in Georgia. As you may have seen from our stories, that doesn’t stop people from getting it, it just makes it a little harder. You can buy raw milk in some places here but it must be used for your pets. And that’s the excuse some people use in order to have it for themselves! I tasted it and it tastes like well, milk. Compared to skim, which is what I drink, it’s much heavier, like whole milk tastes but really you can’t tell a difference. It also looks and smells the same. Yes, there are risks involved but given the health scares involving salmonella and peanuts and pistachios lately, we’ve learned there’s a risk with everything. Those who love raw milk say it’s worth it.
