Raw milk is a touchy subject. Some people who think that pasteurization – heating it to a certain degree for a certain period of time to kill off the pathogens that just love to grow in milk – is sometimes unnecessary, ruins the flavor and has some effects on milk’s nutrition.
Public health officials, aware that in past decades many people died from tainted milk, think it’s worth any drawbacks (as do I) and discourage consuming raw milk. The result has been the sort of debate which you see for topics like public drinking water fluoridation or public vaccination, a mix of science, semi-science, pseudo-science and political discourse (“nanny state” vs “common good”).
I thought I’d heard all about this debate but it came up in a new last week, over raw milk ice cream, which I didn’t even know existed. So I looked into it, including what other states do (Maine is the “eat free and die” headquarters). You can read it here.
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