Dear Dietitian,
I have a friend who drinks raw, unpasteurized milk. She claims it has many health benefits and that pasteurization of milk is unnecessary. What do you think?
Jim
Dear Jim,
The consumption of raw milk has gained popularity in recent years, and many people believe it is a healthier alternative to pasteurized milk. Let’s take a look at what science says.
Most of us are familiar with the term pasteurization, which is the process of heating food products like milk to a temperature high enough to kill harmful bacteria. The process was named for its inventor, Louis Pasteur, a French scientist. Pasteurization was created to “kill the diseases” of wine in France (1). Commercial pasteurization of milk began in the US in the early 1900s due to widespread milk-borne illnesses.
In recent years, some advocacy groups claim that pasteurization of milk isn’t necessary and that it kills many beneficial properties inherent to milk. Claims include: vitamins and minerals are destroyed; good bacteria are sacrificed; and the nutritional quality of milk is compromised due to denaturing (changing of structure) of proteins.
A review of studies on the safety of raw milk was performed at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland in 2014 and concluded the “relative risk of individual illness is almost 150 times greater per unit of unpasteurized dairy product, compared to pasteurized.” (2) The most common disease-causing bacteria in unpasteurized milk are E. Coli, Salmonella, Listeria, and Brucella. According to Dr. Pritish Tosh, an infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic, Brucella is a drug-resistant bacterium that can cause brucellosis, an infection that can be severe and affects many areas of the body, including the bloodstream, bones, and joints (3).
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