Raw milk: the latest fad food

This time, raw milk has caught the fancy of the “natural food” proponents, who are immersed in the Herculean task of bringing the milk straight from the teat to the table. In India, it is no great feat. But in the US, this has not been so easy.The idea in currency is that pasteurisation of milk strips it of the benefits that it was originally valued for — probiotics (the friendly bacteria that are the rave today) being one of them. It is also believed that the heat destroys the enzymes present in raw milk that are beneficial for health. Pasteurisation of milk has been designed to prevent many of the milk-borne illnesses. And indeed, it seems necessary, as even the cleanest of dairy and the healthiest of cows cannot always produce safe milk. There is also the potential danger of the immune systems of young children and the elderly being adversely affected by consumption of raw milk.

But the benefits of raw milk cannot, at this point, counter the health risks. Maybe with time, scientists will crack upon a method that will keep the count of harmful bacteria in raw milk about the same as that of pasteurised milk and at the same time preserve the beneficial bacteria and the enzymes present in it.

The growing lobby for unprocessed foods is working on a way around this and it seems that the raw milk movement is here to stay!