Am i seeing this right, that you can buy raw milk in grocery stores? What the fuck?
Raw milk gets bad way to fast in order to sell it in a grocery store.
I believe it has to be bought at the farm but they still do commercial packaging
Why are people surprised by this? Do you guys not have refrigerators in your grocery stores?
It’s like saying ‘yes we have foie gras but we also have store brand meat product.’
Raw milk gets bad after about 3-4 days, even with constant cooling. This period is way to short to sell it at grocerie stores in any big scale.
You see, in America, the milk cattle live in terrible conditions. Mastitis is common. In the US, you really have to pasteurize the milk to kill all the bacteria and viruses that end up in the milk because of the conditions they live in.
I can’t say anything about the general health and living conditions of the US cattle, but taking your word for granted its devinetively advised. If the cows are kept under good conditions and a good hygiene is practised usually germs in raw milk aren’t that much of a problem.
Okay, whether or not raw milk is generally safe, why buy it when there’s an alternative that removes the pathogens?
Because raw milk contains everything, including all the fat and all the vitamins.
Processed milk usually is first separated between fat and liquid and then the fat is readded. Also the pasteurization destroys some of the vitamins.
More importantly though it just tastes different.
Finally if you want to make yogurt or cream cheese, you want to work of raw milk because it contains the fermenting bacteria, but that is more of a niche application.
Pasteurization by default does not remove all bacteria and probably also not all viruses. The milk you commonly find in supermarkets these days is not only pasteurized at high temperature, but also homogenized (pressed through a microsieve), which further alters the taste, reduces quality but extends the shelf life.
Imagine deliberately paying a premium for food that can make you seriously ill.
People like my boomer mother will buy a gallon of milk and expect it to be good for 2+weeks.
She is part of the reason I do a small shopping every couple days and only buy what I need for the foreseeable future. An entire generation of Americans that are used to everything being so pumped with preservatives that we can eat a Twinkie that rolled under the couch last presidential election.
Yet, we have to scrub eggs of their natural coating at the farm, requiring them to be refrigerated.
Food regulation in the US hasn’t moved very far from the 60s.
All i can say is, that at “normal” refrigirator temperatures milk will be good for 3-4 days. Cant say anything for temperatures below that
Looked at milk I have.
Expiration period: 6 days.
Storage temperature (4±2) °C
Did you mean 3-4 days since purchase? Here it’s counted from production date.
Is it like a new thing? I never heard anyone making a fuss about raw milk other than like the Amish for the quarter of a century I’ve been around.
It seems to be based around the people who just look for problems to have, like okay when are people gonna start drinking bottled puddle water because “its got natural minerals and bacteria” or some nonsense.
Raw water was a thing. Not sure if it’s still a trend but it definately happened.
Isn’t that just like Fiji water type brands where they just “fill the bottles with natural spring water” when it’s just coming from some basin?
When kept below about 3C raw milk can last 7-10 days. The problem mainly is in the handling - the longer it’s shipped and more it’s handled the higher the likelihood it ends up above safe temperatures, reducing that time significantly. And we’ve all seen how grocery stores handle their perishables… LOL.
Filthy farming practices don’t help.
No they don’t. And that applies universally.
