Hmmm... I'd say you're right in thinking the smaller dairies have better practices than the major milking "factories," but since the infectious dose of E.coli especially, but also Staph aureus is so small, it'd be very difficult to avoid contaminating the milk even if you were a very careful farmer. I guess it just seems to me that raw milk isn't worth the risk (particularly if you're lacking insurance) even if the risk is smaller than if you were buying from a large maker of raw milk, not the small one you're planning to buy from, and even if there aren't that many cases of raw-milk-borne illnesses per year. The consequences are pretty drastic, even if the chances of reaching them are small.
Also, I did a PubMed search for scientific journal articles to determine whether drinking raw milk might really be better for lactose-intolerant people. Lactose intolerance can be helped by increasing the working amount of lactase present in the milk; raw milk putatively may be better because (1) lactase isn't denatured/damaged by the heating process of pasteurization, and (2) harmless bacteria in raw milk aren't killed by pasteurization and therefore can continue producing and secreting lactase into the raw milk before you drink it (ie. adding the time from pasteurization to your fridge for lactase to be produced). What articles I came up with (and there's a stunning lack of good recent data) showed that lactase actually is more effective at higher temps, up to the point of one of the methods of pasteurization (the lower temp (71degrees Celsius), longer time one). There wasn't any data for the temp of the other major method of flash high temp pasteurization (131 degrees Celsius), though.
Thus, I'm reduced to working from first principles due to lack of data: considering the low temperatures that raw milk and pasteurized milk would all be held at after extraction from the cow, I'd believe any production of lactase at this time would be insignificant - the point of refrigeration is to hold bacterial life cycles at a near-standstill. It's true that high temp pasteurization may denature lactase, though. I'm inclined to say I'd rather go with taking lactase pills over the risk of raw milk, but I'm pretty risk adverse - and seeing cases of people who've been reduced to shadows of their former selves by raw milk-borne pathogens makes it more emotional than rational, I guess.
Also, I did a PubMed search for scientific journal articles to determine whether drinking raw milk might really be better for lactose-intolerant people. Lactose intolerance can be helped by increasing the working amount of lactase present in the milk; raw milk putatively may be better because (1) lactase isn't denatured/damaged by the heating process of pasteurization, and (2) harmless bacteria in raw milk aren't killed by pasteurization and therefore can continue producing and secreting lactase into the raw milk before you drink it (ie. adding the time from pasteurization to your fridge for lactase to be produced). What articles I came up with (and there's a stunning lack of good recent data) showed that lactase actually is more effective at higher temps, up to the point of one of the methods of pasteurization (the lower temp (71degrees Celsius), longer time one). There wasn't any data for the temp of the other major method of flash high temp pasteurization (131 degrees Celsius), though.
Thus, I'm reduced to working from first principles due to lack of data: considering the low temperatures that raw milk and pasteurized milk would all be held at after extraction from the cow, I'd believe any production of lactase at this time would be insignificant - the point of refrigeration is to hold bacterial life cycles at a near-standstill. It's true that high temp pasteurization may denature lactase, though. I'm inclined to say I'd rather go with taking lactase pills over the risk of raw milk, but I'm pretty risk adverse - and seeing cases of people who've been reduced to shadows of their former selves by raw milk-borne pathogens makes it more emotional than rational, I guess.
Good luck either way!
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