i'd like to tast it, but i'm afraid i'd get sick!

My grandma grew up on a dairy farm, and really bemoans the advent of pasteurization and homogenization. Her dad was the last farmer to be required to pasteurize because he kept his cows so clean. She never drinks milk any more, because she misses the taste of "the real thing". But the reality is, even really strict quality control on the farmer's part cannot eliminate the possibility of people getting sick, so I personally think it's worth it.

I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. Ick!

Since I live in California and have access to raw milk, I think I'd seriously consider giving it a try. In order to be sold in a grocery store, I assume it has to have gone through at least some testing first.

Is this what everyone drinks in the UK? I've been told their milk isn't pasteurized and they can leave it out all night and it's fine to drink in the morning. Is that correct?

ONLY-If you are positive it's from a clean source.

no way, though I would be intrigued to try it

no b/c i only drink skim milk b/c the milky taste isn't so strong. i'd try it, but i wouldn't go out and buy it.

I have a good friend who has only raw milk (from a local farm)in her home for herself and her children. I drink it when visiting her and have suffered no ill effects. It is much more flavorful.

However, raw milk is sales are illegal in my state (RI) and I am on the raw milk train enough to go out of my way to buy it. We drink soy milk at home.

I'm usually curious enough to try new things.. but I hate the thickness of whole milk so I'm guessing I won't like raw.

I only have milk in in my coffe , that's it.

I grew up on it, not bad at all. I'm now very lactose intolerant so I don't drink milk at all now.

I was making cheese with a friend over the weekend -- which is a story in and of itself -- and we wanted to use raw milk, but the store we went to was sold out. Apparently they get it twice a week from a very small supplier, and it sells out almost immediately (they even have a sign up limiting customers to one per person). That made me really curious to try it!

I would if I could, but it's banned in Canada.

I just hate that so many people are "against" it. Why can't consumers choose for themselves which kind of milk to drink? It's not like you are bothering other people by choosing to drink raw milk. No one is going to be exposed to second hand milk if you choose to drink it in a public place. You aren't funding terrorists or drug cartels by purchasing raw milk. Unlike other illegal substances, consuming raw milk should be a purely personal choice. If people want to buy it, then producers should be able to sell it. And yes, people do get sick from it - But they don't get sick because of something inherently wrong with raw milk, but because it was handled improperly. Banning raw milk because it can make you sick if handled/consumed improperly is so dumb in my opinion. You can get sick from badly handled raw meat, too, so why allow people to buy that in stores? That seems to follow from that logic. As you can tell, this subject strikes a nerve with me. When it comes to personal choices like this, the market should decide what is available for purchase - not lawmakers.

I didn't even know raw milk existed

brittanybe, the milk you're thinking of is actually UHT milk: ultra-high temperature pasteurized. I remember drinking room-temperature milk from boxes (like soy milk) in the youth hostel I stayed at in London.

I would try raw milk. The only raw milk allowed here is goat milk. It's too much of a hassle to get though, no nearby goat farms.

Sure, why not.

When I lived in South America, a friend of the family had a farm and when he milked his cows, he'd bring some for us and my mom would boil it and we would drink it. That's the only way we got milk, that wasn't powdered, it was fresh and before we drank it, we boiled it. I never got sick from it, it has an acquired taste. It tastes nothing like the homogenized milk we get here.

Ha! We had to drink powdered milk in Taiwan as well, indie!

I don't know about this. I have a love/hate thing with dairy: I love the way it tastes (and I'd love to taste this), but I'm lactose-intolerant and hate what it does to my tummy.

You did? Wow, cool.

The brand we always used was Fernleaf Instant Milk Powder from New Zealand. We also got the BEST cheese from New Zealand.

My brother and I always think that the reason our younger cousins are taller and fitter than we are is because they got to drink real milk (it became easier to get than when we were little).

Raw milk is the BEST. My grandparents own a dairy farm and every time I"m there I get a jug out of the tank (sometimes its still a little warm from the cows!) and it is the absolute best thing on cereal - very creamy.

Thanks Verily!

I don't understand why they went so far as to ban it. You can get sick from raw meat, but they don't cook all that for us. I'd taste it, at the very least.

I wish I could. I love milk, and I am so jealous of people who can drink it, but I'm pretty highly lactose intolerant.

You and me both, shoneyjoe

I don't like the taste or smell of milk at all anyway if anything I only get skim milk cuz it's kind of watery

Ironically, while raw milk has the possibility of making you sick, modern milk you find in the grocery store has a good chance of being worse for you.

I don't use dairy products anymore. Milk is NOT good for your body, no matter what people try to get you to think, and I refuse to support the industry's long-standing practice of cruelty to animals.

If you don't believe me, do a simple google search on why milk is bad for you. You might be shocked.

Milk just taste gross, it doesn't help that i am lactose-intolerant. so no milk for me.

I'd cook with it, and drink it if it was all I had, but I don't think I'd buy raw milk for the sole purpose of drinking it.

Is this available in reduced- or non-fat? I usually drink that. I don't really like the taste of whole milk. Thats what we always had in the house as a kid, and I was lactose-intolerant. When my allergy subsided and I started drinking milk again, I never really liked the taste. I only drink it in coffee or cereal or cooking, and usually reduced or nonfat. Soy is good too but I've found certain brands taste awful. Pacific soy is great.

I'm not going to risk it. It can't be that much better anyway.

Sure I'd give it a try. As one of the above commenters said, if it's in the store it should be handled properly right? And about the ban, let people decide for themsleves! Yeesh.

Never really liked the taste of milk but for some reason I love nonfat. Hmm. Gonna waddle my butt down to the grocers and see if they have it If not then i'll trek out to Whole Foods.

whoa. i just noticed that the milk in the picture is from watsonville! Awesome. just down the way from me. I wonder if they give tours of the facilities. . .and free samples

I'm not a fan of milk, but I love other dairy products. I would definitely try raw milk in hopes that it's as good as people say.

I'd hope not to get sick and give it a shot.

People get sick from a lot of things cause they are not used to trying something they are not familiar with and their body tends to reject it. So I am all for trying raw milk.

Well, every few weeks, when I get the chance, I drive an hour to a Certified Dairy Farm to pay $7/ gallon for raw milk. I love the taste, and health benefits of it. In Texas, to legally sell it, you have to be Certified by the state. The farm I go to is an All Natural farm, where the cows graze on grass. They are not grain fed (blown up with corn and fillers that hold no nutritional content), and they are not injected with loads of antibiotics (which causes you to become immune to the antibiotics the doctors give you to cure basic illnesses, such as bronchitis), and not pumped full of hormones (which I strongly believe, and have heard theorized by experts, causes young girls to start menstrating at incredibly young ages). I wish I had one a little closer to home, because I'd prefer to drink the raw milk over the poison Wal-Mart sells anyday. Go to rawmilk.org and they will tell you about the benefits of raw milk. I've been told, and have read, that pasturizing milk turns a healthy enzyme into a carcinogen. Back in the frontier days, when our ancestors were settling the country on horse drawn carriages, and everyone milked their own cows, there was not cancer, atleast not to the levels there is today. I believe in natural foods, and a natural diet, and I try to eat as naturally as possible as often as possible. Just because the government tells you something's good for you, doesn't mean it is.

P.S. Often times those same people who are diagnosed as lactose-intolerant, do just fine on raw milk. It's also supposed to greatly reduce heart burn and acid indigestion and reflux.

I was pretty much raised on 'raw' milk which for us was really just milk from the family cow. My mom used the cream to make butter, and i can remember even having the thick cream on my cereal.
Lambsauce, its not banned in Canada- though it is illegal to sell it, officials cant prevent you from consuming it. You could always just go visit someone with a cow, or even buy a share in a cow - and what it produces.

I tried raw fish but milk not yet!

Lets get our facts straight before we start spreading false rumors about raw milk.

The original article up above refers to family who vacationed at a farm and got sick from raw milk. Read the original article and you'll see that this isn't accurate. In the original article, the doctor says the milk was the *likely culprit* the original article and now this one are repeating that information as if it's a proven fact.

Yes, the original article briefly mentions the possibility that the infection came from something else, but quickly dismisses the idea. Clearly, the author isn't interested in presenting the situation fairly, otherwise the title and tone of the article would have been very different. This makes me seriously question the validity of their claims.

Did the farmer's family get sick? Did the vacationing family report the farm to the Department of Health? I'm guessing the answers to both these questions are "no" -- doesn't seem like something that the author would have left out, considering she is so intent on giving raw milk a bad name.

Accusing a professional establishment of serving tainted food is serious and if they really believed this to be the case, they should have contacted the authorities and followed up properly. But they didn't. They just chose to spout their assumptions on their blog -- without any evidence. That's not fair to the farmers who are working hard to provide wholesome, healthful food.

I just did a quick search on "Campylobacter" -- the bacteria responsible for the illness. In the online Merck Manual Home Edition. It says: "Campylobacter normally inhabits the digestive tract of many domestic animals and fowl. Water may become contaminated from the feces of infected animals. The most common form of Campylobacter infection is gastroenteritis [...], which may be acquired by drinking contaminated water, eating undercooked poultry or meat, or having contact with infected animals." (http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec17/ch190/ch190e.html?qt=campylobacter&alt=s...)

Considering they spent the weekend on a farm -- there's no telling where they picked it up. They might have even caught it from food they ate at home.

Ooo! I actually drink that kind of raw milk that's in the picture above from Claravale Farms! Sitting in my fridge right now! It's delicious!! I've been drinking it for about a year now and haven't experienced any problems..I'm on a 85% raw food diet and this helps me settle my daily cravings. Raw cheddar cheese is great too!!

I recently switched from regular milk to cream top milk which hasn't been homogenized (forced through four tiny holes). I chose to do this because I read a recent 2008 study that linked hypertension/high blood pressure or heart disease to drinking homogenized milk. In this study they found that after a country begins using homogenization of milk, heart disease becomes the number one killer in about 10-30 years. I think the studied like 30 or 50 countries; it was quite an extensive study. Many countries that do not use homogenization on their milk have a very low rate of heart disease. There was a lot more to the study, but you can read the study for yourself. I'll try to find a link and post it later.

Honestly, the study aside, there are many other things that might be a cause for heart disease, but if we minimize the potential risks we take, we have better chances of avoiding this debilitating disease.

So, since I live in California, I can get Raw milk and last night, I bought raw milk for the first time, and now I am going to try it. I have never tried it before.

I opened the lid and I thought it would have cream at the top, but it didn't. I just took my first sip and it tasted good. Sweet and creamy, but not heavy and bad tasting. It tastes fine to me, but I like whole milk, too and I love cream top. However, it does not taste anything like the milk I am used to. It tastes more natural like a mother's milk. It would be great mixed with chocolate or used for coffee. I mixed it 50/50 with water and now it tastes like a creamy full bodied 2% milk. The best thing is, I'm still here. I haven't died and I don't think that I will; because most people who die from an exposure to milk pathogens (raw and processed milk both have cases) have a compromised immune system.

One hour later, I noticed that it caused a little gas, so I guess that in my case, it did not cure my lactose intolerance. Some people claim that it does, but it didn't in my case and I wouldn't think that it would in most peoples, because I read that raw milk has more lactose.

My dad is an onganic dairy farmer. I have drank raw milk and pasteured. I like raw better. Raw milk has a slight sweet taste to it unlike the milk in the stores. Raw milk is actually better for you too. Pasteurizing destroys good enzymes that helps you absorb calcuim and other nutrians. It can come in whole, low fat and skim.