I'm not going to advocate in favor of drinking raw milk. But on the other hand, there are a lot of smug responses here totally discounting the experiences of th

I'm not going to advocate in favor of drinking raw milk. But on the other hand, there are a lot of smug responses here totally discounting the experiences of the rural-dwelling commenters who have apparently been drinking milk raw safely for years. "It's risky." Absolutely. On the other hand, the entire reason many adult humans are lactose tolerant to begin with is that humans have been drinking cows milk for thousands of years. Milk pasteurization has been around for less than 200 of them. Clearly raw milk consumption was safe enough for humans to evolve a mutation permitting us to chug even more of it. So maybe let's not be so quick to jeer at the people here who report they have been doing it with no ill effects. Especially since most of them don't appear to be proselytizing, just relaying their personal experience. I agree there's no need for anyone to drink milk raw in the 21st century, and that it is always going to have some inherent risk compared with drinking pasteurized milk. The same can be said for many uncooked foodstuffs that we consume, and other enjoyable but non-risk-free activities we undertake.