got milk? are you sure it is really milk?

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/01/27/f-health-raw-milk.html

[raeofsunshine]

i really got to stop agreeing with you about things. but in the states where it is legal to sell raw milk there is stricter control on raw milk than pasteurized and more harmful things are in pasteurized. (due to how the milk is collected not to mention the mastitis the factory cows tend to get from getting milked for too long and too much.) as for how it is collected it is assumed that since it will be pasteurized the tubes and what not don't need to be cleaned often enough and are cleaned in place. not to mention the levels allowed are much lower for raw. pretty much nill. while pasteurized is allowed a certain parts per million. the thought behind it is the pasteurization will kill it. but that isnt the case for some of them it takes much longer and higher temps to kill some of them. to the point of browning the milk.

raw  milk collection is an open system that is cleaned very frequently and properly sterilized (if done right) thus collecting less harmful bacteria.

[Darren Dirt]

i really got to stop agreeing with you about things.

I didn't say anything just the usual post-interesting-link watch-tumbleweeds-roll-by ... lately I'm surprised if anything not directly related to TV or movies or videogames gets any kind of response at all   ... but it doesn't hurt to keep trying to "open the minds" of my friends, right? Not saying what "position" I hold on an issue is to me more likely to encourage honest expression from others' ... the opposite of therapy, lol.

[Tom]

but it doesn't hurt to keep trying to "open the minds" of my friends, right?

Um, you know what I find fascinating? Most people that try to "open minds" are usually the most closed minded. They tend to absolutely refuse to budge their position even in the slightest, even when provided with overwhelming evidence against them.

I'm not saying that's you, but when someone say something like that, it rubs me the wrong way. Nearly as much as when some religious zealot tries to convince me of something.

[Darren Dirt]

but it doesn't hurt to keep trying to "open the minds" of my friends, right?

Um, you know what I find fascinating? Most people that try to "open minds" are usually the most closed minded. They tend to absolutely refuse to budge their position even in the slightest, even when provided with overwhelming evidence against them.

I'm not saying that's you, but when someone say something like that, it rubs me the wrong way. Nearly as much as when some religious zealot tries to convince me of something.

LOL, that's the vibe I used to get from most of the people who regularly phoned in to shows like Alex Jones (infowars.com), and so early on in my "journey for the troof" I vowed to not become one of those guys.

When I read or hear from some expert or controversial dissenter about an issue, I like to listen to their reasons for holding their position, rather than filtering out what doesn't "fit" with my current worldview, and especially without presuming their motives*... I am equally open to rigid sensory-experience-based materialism as I am to solipsism along the lines of Robert Anton Wilson and Alan Watts. Busy life lately has prevented me from delving further into that kind of stuff, but the real foundation of What Actually "Is" can sure alter how you interpret viewpoints expressed all over the place.



*although with anything related to nutrition and health, it's tough, because it seems to almost always have The Almighty Buck elephant sitting in the room, whether the viewpoint is essentially supporting Big Pharma or is promoting Natural Alternatives or whatever... only time will tell, I guess, but choice and information availability can never be a bad thing.

[Thorin]

i really got to stop agreeing with you about things.

I didn't say anything just the usual post-interesting-link watch-tumbleweeds-roll-by

See, to me that behaviour is irksome.  When you post a link that clearly covers a controversial subject and then don't post an opinion, it appears that you are simply waiting to see what opinions other people state so that you can oppose them.  Better to state why you post a link and what you think about it - then we know where you sit on that subject.  And don't worry, we'll still debate with you about it.  But debating with an opponent on a subject when the opponent won't state their position is irritating.  And when things are irritating, people don't do them.  Hence, people don't bother replying to posts that have a link to a controversial subject but no opinion or position stated.

it doesn't hurt to keep trying to "open the minds" of my friends, right?

This comes across as a real you-know-nothing, I-know-better, holier-than-thou statement.  Do you really think that your friends need their minds opened?  Do you really consider them all closed-minded people?  Do you consider yourself better than the "closed-minded masses"?  That's the impression gained from such a sentence in a post.

Randall Munroe pretty much summed up my opinion on this statement:


source: http://xkcd.com/610/

So...  What is your opinion on raw milk production and consumption?

Here is mine, for the record, in several paragraphs:

Cows are not clean animals; they don't wash their bodies, they eat where they poop, they sleep where they poop.  This makes it very possible that their bodies aren't clean, inside and out.  In turn, this makes it very possible that dangerous bacteria, protozoa, etc, can contaminate the milk taken from those cows.

Now, people know and guard against bacteria these days, whereas when pasteurization was invented a lot of people still thought they could die from a miasma (for instance, the bad smell of sewage water).  Back in the 1860s, killing all those bacteria in the milk was a good idea.  Things like sterilizing the bucket before putting the milk from the cow in it weren't done back then.  The equipment nowadays is kept much cleaner, mostly because of our understanding of germs.

Rae has a very good point, though - niche markets like raw milk production will take better care of their product (for instance, cleaning and sterilizing the equipment better and more often) than mass markets like pasteurized milk production.  This is because there is a much greater chance of failure in a niche market than in a mass market.  In turn, this leads to significantly reducing the risk of contamination in raw milk, simply because the raw milk producers know they have to keep their product clean.

My opinion is that if raw milk became a mass market consumption item, standards would slip and we would start seeing people catch (and possibly die from) listeriosis, tuberculosis, and other such diseases that can be carried in unpasteurized milk.

Ultimately, though, raw milk is just unpasteurized milk, and every year there are hundreds of thousands of human babies in North America who spend the first six to twelve months drinking unpasteurized human milk on the advice of physicians, and because the milk isn't contaminated they do just fine.

[Darren Dirt]

When you post a link that clearly covers a controversial subject and then don't post an opinion, it appears that you are simply waiting to see what opinions other people state so that you can oppose them.

Woah. woah. woah. woah. woah. woah.


Woah.


I don't know if there's a history of me choosing an opposing side *after* someone has taken the time to chime in with their opinion. Or at least, there's never been a "causal" relationship, just a surface temporal one, methinks. I think that often, I was already holding to a position that's less conventional, and those who agree with me have said nothing before someone else responds, then I respond to that post with my opinion. I guess I can see how it might come across as "hey what do they think? well, I'm gonna say I think the opposite...". By your wording, it sounds like I don't really have an opinion about most of these post-and-run threads I start, then essentially set a "trap".

Yeesh, I'm not a stereotypical wife in a movie or TV show... I don't like arguing for the sake of arguing. I like to stir up discussion and critical thinking and debate, but I certainly don't get any joy out of being told I am wrong and/or crazy and/or wasting the my time or that of others.

/storms off and sulks



/not really





and btw, my opinion on the topic of unpasteurized milk is similar to many others in the fields of nutrition, health etc... buyer/user beware, but I'm glad the choice is out there for people to even make, instead of being shouted down as idiotic/dangerous for even considering the Status Quo might be less than ideal (or even more dangerous) ... I guess I've watched enough Bill O'Reilly to have a solidified impression that far too many people spend far too little energy questioning what energetic/charismatic/rich/powerful people shout/sing to them to believe ... I think of Bono and Jenny McCarthy on equal terms, they are using their fame as a sounding board for issues that lots of people don't really think much about, but just because they say the opposite about Issue X than what Fox News says, doesn't automatically make them right, either.

re. milk in general: well, discovering and visiting "notmilk.com" a few years ago sure sickened me (it's basically pus+glue+hormones) but I still presently drink 1% pasteurized (mainly in cereal or when cooking), and grew up drinking 2%. But re. unpasterurized whole milk, over the years I have read enough to believe that, when a customer has an interest and open access/ability to judge for themselves the quality of the local producer, it is not as dangerous as all the mainstream media "journalists" seem to think. I say let people choose, and the marketplace will grow and adapt to ensure their safety. It's not like this is a brand new virtually-untested product (like Aspartame was when it was fast-tracked in certain western countries, while others to this day refuse to allow its consumption by human consumers).

hope that clears things up... I may have developed an impression of @%&#-disturber on this forum, but that was never my intention, and I certainly don't think of myself as smarter or better than others any time that I have spent a few hours on a Saturday reading "alternative" health news sites that gave a perspective on something that 24 hours previous I had no idea even existed I just like to share stuff, but what does it matter, this forum has virtually died compared to what it used to be pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter

[Thorin]

See, if you'd given that opinion right from the start this whole thread would've had a different tone to it.

NotMilk.com strongly suggests that unpasteurized milk is worse than pasteurized milk, even as it makes the claim that pasteurized milk is horrible.  Specifically, NotMilk.com points out the various milk-borne diseases that have happened in the past and that will happen in the future if people return to unpasteurized milk.  Perhaps not the best link to use in a debate about pasteurized vs unpasteurized milk, as their opinion is all milk is evil.

I would say that the average customer does not have the time or ability to properly judge the quality of the local producer - when's the last time you visited the farm where your local produce is grown, to see if the lettuce gets any crap on it before they sell it to you?  Same goes for milk - I wouldn't know whether the equipment is properly sterilized and whether the cow has lesions on her udder.  I expect the experts (farmers and veterinary inspectors) to know this for me, just as they expect me to know how to keep their business software humming along.

As for the marketplace providing the customer's safety, pfft.  Look at the housing crash in the state - the market did everything it could to extract money from the customer (the people who qualified for mortgages), but did nothing to provide safety to customers (ensuring they could afford the mortgages they qualified for).  Because our society is so specialized, it is easy to pull the wool over a customer's eyes; the customer doesn't know what the salesman knows, be it milk salesman or car salesman.  And the salesman, who makes money off selling, not off providing safety happily sells whatever the customer will buy.  This is where regulators step in; with no money at stake, they're much more likely to provide safety to the customer.

An' yeah, Facebook and Twitter have taken away a lot of postings and users.  As has infighting and name-calling (it's been a long time since Shayne or TheDruid or SilverSurfer or Ustauk have posted here).

[Darren Dirt]

See, if you'd given that opinion right from the start this whole thread would've had a different tone to it.

NotMilk.com strongly suggests that unpasteurized milk is worse than pasteurized milk, even as it makes the claim that pasteurized milk is horrible.

lol -- that's kinda why I at the present time drink 1% pasteurized... I can't quit it "cold turkey" (cereal, cooking, and kids like to drink it after cookies or salty/spicy meals ... like I used to enjoy as a kids after eating KFC, mmmm... milk memories)

[Mr. Analog]

See, if you'd given that opinion right from the start this whole thread would've had a different tone to it.

But that would interfere with the trolling 

I think things have gotten a bit OT with this thread.

[Thorin]

I think things have gotten a bit OT with this thread.

The original post didn't have enough content for me to say with a large degree of certainty what the original topic was...  There appeared to be implied topicality, and it appeared to be one of these three: is raw milk good or bad, is milk in general good or bad, or is enforcing regulation in a marketplace good or bad.  Based on DarrenDirt's third reply, this thread seems to have been about whether enforcing regulation in a marketplace is good or bad.

DD, I'm not telling you to stop posting your links, I'm just asking you to add in your opinion on the subject right away.  Remember that we're not mind-readers and that your train of thought sometimes follows a convoluted track that we're not aware of.

[Mr. Analog]

So, having read the article and some of the comments here I'll put in my two cents:

So as I see the topic:

• Farmer broke the law under the Food and Drug act
• Farmer then challenged the law through contempt of court
• Debate whether or not Raw Milk should be illegal under the Food and Drug act

These are the things I know:
-Pasteurization kills harmful bacteria
-It also kills potentially beneficial bacteria
-Some people can't digest milk (my sister, my dad, a lot of Asian people, etc)

So, there are a couple of things at play here.

1. Farmer Jerkass flaunted the law, a law designed (perhaps in an overtly hamfisted way) to protect milk drinkers
2. There may be some benefits to non-pasteurization which should be re-examined

So, I'm going to have to lean more toward the government's stance but there probably should be another look into safety procedures for producing raw milk if there are benefits and a potential market for it.

To address some other concerns about the Dairy industry standards for health and safety, if things are lax and unsafe WITH the pasteurization process I'd really hate to see how things would go down WITHOUT it 

[Darren Dirt]

There appeared to be implied topicality, and it appeared to be one of these three: is raw milk good or bad, is milk in general good or bad, or is enforcing regulation in a marketplace good or bad.  Based on DarrenDirt's third reply, this thread seems to have been about whether enforcing regulation in a marketplace is good or bad.

Actually, my reply was only posted in response to what you were saying -- certainly no intention on discussing deeper fundamental society-level issues, really only wondering what the rest of you have heard about, or think about, non-pasteurized milk -- and whether it should be essentially "banned" by the nanny state. I'm all about choice, if regulation can help add to the marketplace of choices I'm okay with that... if someone thinks raw milk is bad I'm okay with that too as long as they ain't using lies and fearmongering to remove the choice from interested parties.


PS: sure I deserve it, but how come nobody else gets the "you have to state your opinion before any of us will share ours" treatment? Countless other threads on this forum, including in recent months, are literally title + link + smileyface or something similar... Didn't know there are some "rules" that's breaking

[Mr. Analog]

nobody else gets the "you have to state your opinion before any of us will share ours" treatment?

Not many other people post articles without at least some context.

Countless other threads on this forum, including in recent months, are literally title + link + smileyface or something similar... Didn't know there are some "rules" that's breaking

I went back looking through each post all the way back to September or so in The Lobby and I didn't find any examples where it was just a title + link + smileyface. The closest I got was this http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php/topic,6618.0.html but even that has SOME context (i.e. it would seem I was excited about the Android at the time).

We like you Darren, we like you a lot, but your forum etiquette is somewhat lacking occasionally and really smacks of trolling sometimes. You'll post some polarizing topic without any context, you know what that looks like right? A hook. Famebait. A chance to wait for someone to say something you may have a prepared statement to make. Obviously you have thoughts, feelings, or you woldn't post right? So post those musings so we can open a discussion.

You've shared some really good links that I think a few people have missed because they weren't sure what they were about or what kind of topics might come up if they offered an opinion. On a place like this we're going to avoid conflict as best we can and do our best to stay out of firey conversations, we're friends here, but when it just keeps coming and coming people will snap and say something backhanded (like I'm doing now I guess :S ).

Don't get me wrong, you make a LOT of excellent posts here, a lot more good than bad. But then you get something like this http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php/topic,7004.0.html where there are THREE posts before we see what your feelings on the subject were or how it related to you. It turned into an interesting conversation after that, but a good number of threads just dangle there, looking dangerous.

Let us know what's in your mind man, just let it all out