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Tossing Your Milk and Cookies

© Neal Rolfe Chamberlain

In the past I have mentioned the importance of eating pasteurized milk products. Pasteurization is the process of heating a liquid product (milk, juice, etc.) for a period of time to kill disease causing bacteria. Milk contains a lot of bacteria. Leave it out on your counter for a day or so and you will find out how quickly milk can go bad. The milk will get thicker and will smell horrible. Pasteurization does not kill all the bacteria in milk but it does lower the numbers of bacteria in the product and destroys many of the bacteria that cause food poisoning.

Before pasteurization many people were infected with disease causing bacteria. Many different disease causing bacteria have been isolated from milk. A recent report by Hilde Kruse at the National Veterinary Institute of Finland found another common cause of food poisoning in raw (unpasteurized) milk products. This researcher found a bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, in 37 percent (108 samples) of the raw milk products they tested. This particular bacterium is a common cause of food poisoning. People poisoned by food containing this organism will develop nausea and vomiting 2-6 hours after eating the contaminated food. Most people will be really sick for about 2 days. Occasionally, young children, immunocompromised people, and the elderly can dehydrate and require hospitalization.

There are many different strains of Staphylococcus aureus. Only those strains that produce enterotoxins are able to cause food poisoning. Enterotoxins are a group of proteins that induce nausea and vomiting. Not all strains of Staphylococcus aureus produce enterotoxin. Therefore, this researcher also tested the Staphylococcus aureus strains isolated from the raw milk products for enterotoxin. Of the 92 staphylococcal isolates obtained in this study 40 percent (37) were able to produce enterotoxin. That means that of the 293 raw milk products tested 13 percent contained Staphylococcus aureus able to produce enterotoxin. That is a high percentage. That means that a little over 1 in 10 raw milk products in this study could have caused food poisoning.

Not all of these products contained enough toxin to cause food poisoning in most people. However, if the product is left out too long at room temperature within a very short period of time the chances of getting sick from the product will increase. Therefore, the potential for raw milk products to cause illness is quite high.

I don't consume raw milk products very often. I also don't give them to my children. I would not consume them if I was immunocompromised (chemotherapy patient, diabetic, AIDS patient, chronically ill, etc.). I wouldn't give raw milk products to my grandparents (the elderly). In my opinion the risks

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