Greater than 20 individuals, together with some youngsters, had been not too long ago contaminated with E. coli and Campylobacter micro organism after consuming uncooked milk from the identical Florida farm. Some had been hospitalized with extreme sickness.
Uncooked milk, which refers to dairy that hasn’t been pasteurized, has turn out to be standard in recent times, with some social media influencers on TikTok suggesting it provides extra well being advantages than pasteurized milk. Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stated that he drinks uncooked milk, which he claims “advances human well being.”
However most well being specialists disagree, and say uncooked milk truly poses well being dangers.
“With social media, these fads might be extraordinarily harmful, when there is no such thing as a actual proof that uncooked milk is healthier for you than pasteurized,” says Anthony Ognjan, DO, an osteopathic doctor specializing in infectious illnesses in Sterling Heights, Michigan. “People who find themselves consuming unpasteurized milk are actually placing their lives and total well being in danger.”
Uncooked Milk vs. Pasteurized Milk: Which One Is More healthy?
Uncooked milk isn’t pasteurized, that means it doesn’t endure a course of the place the milk is briefly heated to a excessive temperature to kill germs that may make you sick. Due to this, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) notes that “uncooked milk could be a supply of foodborne sickness.”
Pasteurization was invented within the early 1900s and has “tremendously decreased milk-borne diseases,” in keeping with the CDC. Milk accessible at grocery shops is often pasteurized.
However most states permit the sale of uncooked milk in some kind — whether or not in retail shops, through farmer-to-consumer gross sales, or marketed as pet meals.
Though states permit uncooked milk gross sales, Dr. Ognjan says that doesn’t imply the milk is protected. Even when farms have good practices for dealing with milk, the CDC notes they will’t “assure security from dangerous germs.”
“It doesn’t matter how wholesome the animal is or how hygienic the farm that the milk comes from is — all uncooked milk poses a danger of carrying dangerous micro organism,” says Amy Edwards, MD, an affiliate professor of pediatrics on the Case Western Reserve College Faculty of Drugs in Cleveland, who focuses on infectious illnesses.
What Are the Dangers of Consuming Uncooked Milk?
As a result of uncooked milk doesn’t endure pasteurization, Dr. Edwards says it may well include germs together with:
Signs of sickness from contaminated milk could embody:
Diarrhea
Abdomen cramps
Vomiting
Headache
Fever
Physique aches
Most wholesome individuals will probably recuperate from the sickness, Edwards says, however youngsters beneath 5, older adults, and folks with compromised immune techniques could also be vulnerable to extra extreme illness from consuming uncooked milk.
Between 1998 and 2018, there have been 202 outbreaks linked to uncooked milk that precipitated greater than 2,600 diseases and 228 hospitalizations. Whereas uncooked milk could make you sick, pathogens like E. coli may also unfold from individual to individual, increasing the breadth of diseases, in keeping with the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration.
There’s No Proof That Uncooked Milk Is Higher for You
“There isn’t a change within the high quality and diet of meals when you pasteurize it, so individuals shouldn’t imagine that they’re ingesting a greater product once they drink uncooked milk,” Ognjan says.
There’s no proof to counsel uncooked milk provides extra well being advantages, he provides. The CDC notes that “pasteurized milk provides the identical dietary advantages with out the dangers of uncooked milk consumption.”
It’s additionally vital to notice that milk isn’t the one meals that’s pasteurized, Ognjan says. Beer, comfortable drinks, cheese, juice, yogurt, eggs, canned meals, and condiments like ketchup and mayonnaise are additionally pasteurized.
“Throughout Christmas, I get pleasure from eggnog, however there is no such thing as a means I’m consuming it with uncooked milk,” Ognjan says.
