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The issue with raw milk is that over time it’s much more likely to grow bacteria if there is any interruption in the cold chain. Drinking it on the farm or clo

The issue with raw milk is that over time it’s much more likely to grow bacteria if there is any interruption in the cold chain. Drinking it on the farm or close to when it’s very fresh isn’t super high risk. My family was in dairy and did it all of the time. Once it’s off the farm, all bets are off.

graemep 1y ago
Its very tasty. I used to be able to buy raw milk from a local farm but its largely been killed off by regulation (in the UK). It is highly unlikely to be dangerous enough to have a significant, or even measurable, effect on life expectancies.
- bluGill 1y ago
  > It is highly unlikely to be dangerous enough to have a significant, or even measurable, effect on life expectancies. Assuming you are a normal healthy adult who gets plenty of nutrition - like someone in the modern world. If you are eating near starvation your immune system won't be as strong. If you are otherwise unhealthy the potential bacteria can overwhelm you...
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    So, do you leave your burritos out for 3 hours so the listeria can grow? Online arguments about anything like this since COVID boil down to “if you don’t die, it’s ok”. An old or sick person can easily die from food poisoning. If you are hearty and hale, you’re going to feel like crap and get stuff like violent diarrhea.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      most milk doesn't even have anything growing in it. If you take care in storage - refrigeration, clean containers, and use it fast you are probably safe. Probably is of course odds and so if everyone did it there would be deaths - but most people would never be sick
      - Spooky23 1y ago
        Most chicken doesn’t either. Yet we don’t eat rare, juicy chicken. It’s a risk. There’s a long history of sick and dead people associated with raw milk.
        graemep 1y ago
        its not a comparable risk, not even remotely. 26 deaths, 356 hospitalised, and less than 1% of food borne disease outbreaks over a 26 year period in England and Wales: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6805749/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6805749/ ANY food would be safer cooked, but most people eat quite a lot raw.
  - graemep 1y ago
    The thing about milk is that its usually pretty obvious if its gone off. The risk lies in certain diseases (TB is the highest risk) which can kill. However, there is a TB vaccine.
    - HankStallone 1y ago
      And some entire US states have been declared TB-free and/or brucellosis free, and cows are routinely tested under various circumstances to ensure that they stay that way. So some of the risks of the past, whether or not they've been exaggerated, are no longer an issue.
    - giardini 1y ago
      Yes, the BCG vaccine for TB: https://www.cdc.gov/tb/vaccines/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/tb/vaccines/index.html The BCG vaccine is not commonly used in USA.
- miltonlost 1y ago
  Oh my god, wrong wrong wrong. Stop drinking raw milk. Louis Pasteur is spinning in his grave. https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/07/its-shocking-massive-raw-milk-outbreak-from-2023-finally-reported/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/07/its-shocking-massiv...
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Does it still taste good if you pasteurize it yourself? Maybe in a more controlled way than industry does it? I'm wondering if it is the freshness that partially makes the non-pasteurized milk taste good, since it is illegal to sell over state lines and possibly to sell at all, it is probably much fresher.
    - graemep 1y ago
      Yes, it may well be the freshness. In the UK it has to he sold directly by the farm (either on premises, or they can take it to a market AFAIK). I think pasteurising it yourself would be worse as its harder to control temperatures precisely without the right equipment.
    - Spooky23 1y ago
      It’s more likely higher fat content.
      - graemep 1y ago
        I do not think pasteurisation affects fat content? Homogenisation is a separate process and it is possible (at least in the UK) to buy not homogenised pasteurised milk which should have the same far content. To me filtered milk (which is filtered to remove bacteria and other things before pasteurisation to keep it fresh for longer tastes very good, which favours the argument it is the freshness that matters.
        Spooky23 1y ago
        It doesn't but processing does. I think some dairies extract the fat and re-add it later to a consistency. That's why I don't buy retail milk and do a farmer-consumer milk-man! :)
- Spooky23 1y ago
  Alot of the tastiness is cream content. Look for non-homogenized milk or some of the fancy milk varieties at Whole Foods or a coop. It usually tastes great and is often ultra pasteurized, as it’s a low volume product.
  - graemep 1y ago
    It tastes better (and is not that hard to get here in the UK) but I prefer filtered milk which stays fresher.
potato3732842 1y ago
If they can get ice cream to just about anywhere and still have it be the right texture there's no reason they can't do milk. Of course, that level of care wasn't economically practical for milk back when the laws were written.
- crazygringo 1y ago
  > If they can get ice cream to just about anywhere and still have it be the right texture Which it frequently doesn't? Nothing more fun than grabbing a pint of ice cream and then discovering it's full of ice crystals at home, because it thawed and refroze somewhere in the shipping chain or at the supermarket. Of course it's more of an issue with Haagen-Dazs since it doesn't use the stabilizers like guar gum. And more of an issue with smaller supermarkets and shops with less staff where they're more likely to leave the ice cream sitting around for hours between delivery and loading into the freezer.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Which it frequently doesn't? Nothing more fun than grabbing a pint of ice cream and then discovering it's full of ice crystals at home, because it thawed and refroze somewhere in the shipping chain or at the supermarket. This is mostly a consumer problem. You (or, the HN demographics being what they are, more likely your SO) toss it in a cart and then proceed to shop recreationally for some time, toss it in the back of your potentially hot car, stop to get Starbucks and then eventually sometime later it gets into a freezer. It might've been out of the freezer for over an hour. Almost certainly 15-20min The next longest time it spends out of the freezer is the pallet jack ride from the walk in in the back of the store to the frozen food isle, typically single digit minutes, tops. >Of course it's more of an issue with Haagen-Dazs since it doesn't use the stabilizers like guar gum. Package size and resultant thermal mass has a big effect on it. Higher end ice creams suffer this more than cheaper ones bought in bigger sizes. >smaller supermarkets and shops with less staff where they're more likely to leave the ice cream sitting around for hours between delivery and loading into the freezer. This is just not how it works. The delivery person will put refrigerated goods specifically into the fridge specifically to avoid "well you left it on the dock and didn't tell us" accusations. I'm sure somewhere there's a foodservice supplier that doesn't do this but that's a them problem and it's the exception rather than rule, their suppliers are likely wheeling the stuff right from reefer to walk in when they deliver to the supplier.
johntfella 1y ago
Leaving it out overnight at room temp is a common enough practice. I know some families of Swartzentrubers who practice this regularly. Some say it thickens it some, others say it gives it a favorable tang. In the raw milk subset of the crohns/uc community it was adapted after it was found that leaving it out allows for antimicrobial resistance organism to grow (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7320593/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7320593/). To understand why this is an appeal is a bit of a long explanation. Nonetheless, the cold chain is often broken in order to clabber.

graemep 1y ago

Its very tasty. I used to be able to buy raw milk from a local farm but its largely been killed off by regulation (in the UK). It is highly unlikely to be dangerous enough to have a significant, or even measurable, effect on life expectancies.

bluGill 1y ago
> It is highly unlikely to be dangerous enough to have a significant, or even measurable, effect on life expectancies. Assuming you are a normal healthy adult who gets plenty of nutrition - like someone in the modern world. If you are eating near starvation your immune system won't be as strong. If you are otherwise unhealthy the potential bacteria can overwhelm you...
- Spooky23 1y ago
  So, do you leave your burritos out for 3 hours so the listeria can grow? Online arguments about anything like this since COVID boil down to “if you don’t die, it’s ok”. An old or sick person can easily die from food poisoning. If you are hearty and hale, you’re going to feel like crap and get stuff like violent diarrhea.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    most milk doesn't even have anything growing in it. If you take care in storage - refrigeration, clean containers, and use it fast you are probably safe. Probably is of course odds and so if everyone did it there would be deaths - but most people would never be sick
    - Spooky23 1y ago
      Most chicken doesn’t either. Yet we don’t eat rare, juicy chicken. It’s a risk. There’s a long history of sick and dead people associated with raw milk.
      - graemep 1y ago
        its not a comparable risk, not even remotely. 26 deaths, 356 hospitalised, and less than 1% of food borne disease outbreaks over a 26 year period in England and Wales: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6805749/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6805749/ ANY food would be safer cooked, but most people eat quite a lot raw.
- graemep 1y ago
  The thing about milk is that its usually pretty obvious if its gone off. The risk lies in certain diseases (TB is the highest risk) which can kill. However, there is a TB vaccine.
  - HankStallone 1y ago
    And some entire US states have been declared TB-free and/or brucellosis free, and cows are routinely tested under various circumstances to ensure that they stay that way. So some of the risks of the past, whether or not they've been exaggerated, are no longer an issue.
  - giardini 1y ago
    Yes, the BCG vaccine for TB: https://www.cdc.gov/tb/vaccines/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/tb/vaccines/index.html The BCG vaccine is not commonly used in USA.
miltonlost 1y ago
Oh my god, wrong wrong wrong. Stop drinking raw milk. Louis Pasteur is spinning in his grave. https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/07/its-shocking-massive-raw-milk-outbreak-from-2023-finally-reported/ https://arstechnica.com/features/2025/07/its-shocking-massiv...
- mothballed 1y ago
  Does it still taste good if you pasteurize it yourself? Maybe in a more controlled way than industry does it? I'm wondering if it is the freshness that partially makes the non-pasteurized milk taste good, since it is illegal to sell over state lines and possibly to sell at all, it is probably much fresher.
  - graemep 1y ago
    Yes, it may well be the freshness. In the UK it has to he sold directly by the farm (either on premises, or they can take it to a market AFAIK). I think pasteurising it yourself would be worse as its harder to control temperatures precisely without the right equipment.
  - Spooky23 1y ago
    It’s more likely higher fat content.
    - graemep 1y ago
      I do not think pasteurisation affects fat content? Homogenisation is a separate process and it is possible (at least in the UK) to buy not homogenised pasteurised milk which should have the same far content. To me filtered milk (which is filtered to remove bacteria and other things before pasteurisation to keep it fresh for longer tastes very good, which favours the argument it is the freshness that matters.
      - Spooky23 1y ago
        It doesn't but processing does. I think some dairies extract the fat and re-add it later to a consistency. That's why I don't buy retail milk and do a farmer-consumer milk-man! :)
Spooky23 1y ago
Alot of the tastiness is cream content. Look for non-homogenized milk or some of the fancy milk varieties at Whole Foods or a coop. It usually tastes great and is often ultra pasteurized, as it’s a low volume product.
- graemep 1y ago
  It tastes better (and is not that hard to get here in the UK) but I prefer filtered milk which stays fresher.

potato3732842 1y ago

If they can get ice cream to just about anywhere and still have it be the right texture there's no reason they can't do milk. Of course, that level of care wasn't economically practical for milk back when the laws were written.

crazygringo 1y ago
> If they can get ice cream to just about anywhere and still have it be the right texture Which it frequently doesn't? Nothing more fun than grabbing a pint of ice cream and then discovering it's full of ice crystals at home, because it thawed and refroze somewhere in the shipping chain or at the supermarket. Of course it's more of an issue with Haagen-Dazs since it doesn't use the stabilizers like guar gum. And more of an issue with smaller supermarkets and shops with less staff where they're more likely to leave the ice cream sitting around for hours between delivery and loading into the freezer.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Which it frequently doesn't? Nothing more fun than grabbing a pint of ice cream and then discovering it's full of ice crystals at home, because it thawed and refroze somewhere in the shipping chain or at the supermarket. This is mostly a consumer problem. You (or, the HN demographics being what they are, more likely your SO) toss it in a cart and then proceed to shop recreationally for some time, toss it in the back of your potentially hot car, stop to get Starbucks and then eventually sometime later it gets into a freezer. It might've been out of the freezer for over an hour. Almost certainly 15-20min The next longest time it spends out of the freezer is the pallet jack ride from the walk in in the back of the store to the frozen food isle, typically single digit minutes, tops. >Of course it's more of an issue with Haagen-Dazs since it doesn't use the stabilizers like guar gum. Package size and resultant thermal mass has a big effect on it. Higher end ice creams suffer this more than cheaper ones bought in bigger sizes. >smaller supermarkets and shops with less staff where they're more likely to leave the ice cream sitting around for hours between delivery and loading into the freezer. This is just not how it works. The delivery person will put refrigerated goods specifically into the fridge specifically to avoid "well you left it on the dock and didn't tell us" accusations. I'm sure somewhere there's a foodservice supplier that doesn't do this but that's a them problem and it's the exception rather than rule, their suppliers are likely wheeling the stuff right from reefer to walk in when they deliver to the supplier.

johntfella 1y ago

Leaving it out overnight at room temp is a common enough practice. I know some families of Swartzentrubers who practice this regularly. Some say it thickens it some, others say it gives it a favorable tang. In the raw milk subset of the crohns/uc community it was adapted after it was found that leaving it out allows for antimicrobial resistance organism to grow (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7320593/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7320593/). To understand why this is an appeal is a bit of a long explanation. Nonetheless, the cold chain is often broken in order to clabber.