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Raw Milk

The way this thread's going I'm starting to think it's the Silly Season, and not the Christmas Season...But - I'm having a much needed giggle tonight!

Robbity
 
There's been a concerted effort to ban raw milk by the supermarkets because they can't get enough to supply it, in spite of demand. Raw milk suppliers are required to be licensed and only sell direct. I know the farmer that sells us ours quite well...
 
noblehead said:
Were you Ernie?
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I did used to have one particular hill, you could get the electric up to about 45mph, and melt the solder on the motor windings.
'Fastest milkcart in the west'
 

To be fair, the old silver top, pasteurised, in glass bottles, used to go off by the next day, the plastic containers of homogenised, pasteurised, and sealed, from the supermarkets now lasts about a week. Raw milk, you were lucky if the customer got it in off the doorstep.
 
I was recently told an astonishing fact ... it's staring most of us in the face but we just didn't know it....
there are twice as many eyebrows in the world as there are people!
 
douglas99 said:
I did used to have one particular hill, you could get the electric up to about 45mph, and melt the solder on the motor windings.
'Fastest milkcart in the west'
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Wonder if any of the old electric milk floats are still on the go
 
You really shouldn't let old people wander down Memory Lane in this forum.
I dropped 3 pints on a doorstep on my first milk round. It was also my last milk round.
One day an electric milk float (why did they call them floats? I bet they wouldn't. Float.) slipped its brake and ran down the hill opposite my gran's house, across the road, smashed through the double gates, hit my dad's car in the drive and pushed it into the big wood and glass porchway, which collapsed. Luckily no one was hurt but a lot of people didn't get any milk that morning. Except us of course.
 
I remember our milkman delivering the milk with a horse & trap. All the children in our road were usually allowed to join him and run to fetch him the empty bottles off peoples doorsteps - I think we were too little to be allowed to carry the full bottles though.

@douglas99 No coddling for us with warmed up milk , sometimes in winter ours had ice crystals in it... It came in the little bottles with the old cardboard caps with a central removable section.

Robbity
 
Yep. The horse knew where to stop as the milkman walked the street taking bottles off the cart..He also knew he'd get a carrot or sugar lump from a snotty two year old..!
 
This is where I can buy raw milk from

I know where this comes from and I know that the cows and production plant are regularly tested. Another local farm sells a lot of raw goats milk (and products) Even so I wouldn't give the milk to my youngest grandchildren nor to their pregnant mothers. I can buy lots of raw milk cheeses which I have no problem with because of the process . I think though that most milk should most definitely be pasteurised.
( I actually don't think I ever had raw milk before I came to France. Silver topped and other milks were all pasteurised, they weren't homogenised though so the cream rose to the top)

I won't look it up now but last time this subject came up I found the parliamentary discussions that led up to the introduction of pasteurised milk in the UK. As they did it, area by area, the cases of tuberculosis reduced. It is still available but under strict regulation. Can you imagine what would happen if the majority of milk was not pasteurised? The food production chain is huge and it doesn't take many slip-ups or cases of less than careful farmers for problems to arise.
Unfortunately, in parts of England and Wales, not apparently Scotland, bovine TB is still rife with a 'long term upward trend'. (it is partly a quid pro quo for not culling badgers as happens elsewhere). Herds in low risk areas are tested only every 4 years with increasing number of tests for herds in higher risk areas.
 
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Since the intital parliamentary discussions re the introduction of pasteurised milk in the UK, we have had a mass vaccination programme against TB. Do we still need this 'belt and braces' approach? Having been brought up on a dairy farm I didn't have pasteurised milk until I was in my mid 20's. My immune system got worse then, but that could of course be due to other factors.
 
Our milk was delivered at 4 15 in the morning and used to freeze in the winter so that the foil top would be balanced on top of the cream ! I don't like milk but love cream
CAROL
 
carty said:
Our milk was delivered at 4 15 in the morning and used to freeze in the winter so that the foil top would be balanced on top of the cream ! I don't like milk but love cream
CAROL
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That makes it easier for the **** to get the cream
 
Yes we had to be up early to beat the bluetits! Now we don't get milk delivered it costs a fortune in peanuts and sunflower seeds to keep them happy
CAROL
 
After the advent of little plastic pots (probably yoghurt ones) my mum used to save these and put them out over the tops of the empty milk bottles and the milkman would oblige and cover over the full ones, so the poor little birds ended up somewhat deprived.

Robbity
 
When my mother and I lived with friends down in Devon for a few months during WW2 the milk cart came straight from the farm with the milk churns on and people had to take jugs out to be filled. The friend we stayed with used to scald the milk until just warm then pour it into shallow dishes and stand them on the cold tiled floor of the larder the next day she would skim all the cream off and there was lots and we would have it on scones and jam it was lovely
 
@zand, you are able to buy it from one of a couple of hundred farmers but they have to sell direct to the public. With no 'middle man' , I assume It increases traceability in the case of an outbreak

Mass vaccination doesn't occur anymore. They don't vaccinate at 12 and just a few areas vaccinate just after birth.
(one of my five grandchildren was vaccinated because she was born in West Middx)
Can we take the risk when we have so many cows that come in contact with wild life infected with TB?
In the past there is no doubt that milk was the original source of many TB outbreaks. No doubt, once the disease was contracted by a few it was then spread by the respiratory route This was exacerbated by overcrowded cities and poor living conditions. We have fewer slums now. I still suspect that , as elsewhere in the world, it would be the poorest sectors of society mainly affected if the laws on pasteurisation were to be rescinded.
Vaccination is not 100% effective. The figures I can find for the vaccine from here say that is 70-80% effective against the more serious forms including meningitis in children but less so against respiratory disease. The wiki article says that it decreases the chance of a child getting the infection by only 20%. They know the vaccine works for 10-15 years but don't know how much longer it lasts after that (effectiveness probably wanes)
Even after vaccination was introduced in 1953, there was always a lowish background rate in spite of the fact pasteurisation was the norm. I actually had an Uncle die either with or of TB in the early 1960s. We also had a case when I was at school in 1969. (meaning that 500 pupils plus all staff had to undergo testing which would have had a financial cost and certainly incurred an anxious waiting period)
Of course TB is not the only possible contaminant of raw milk . Bovine TB is less common in the US. There many states ban non pasteurised milk on the grounds that it can contain various other nasty bugs.
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2010/07/the_rawmilk_deal.html
 
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