Talk:Raw milk

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[edit] Article is overly debate-framed

I am disturbed by the increasing use of "supporters" and "opponents" as the context in which a topic is presented. The topic is "Raw Milk"; it would make sense to define what that means and to elaborate on the technical details of processing, the biological changes that arise, and the advantages and disadvantages as a product.

I urge you to present facts in a context of reasoned discussion, and to avoid debative contexts (pro/con perspective), which may cause even uncontested facts to appear as opinion, and the overall article as little more than commentary.

At a minimum the debative context, if insisted upon, should be relegated to the bottom of the article. But I really don't see the purpose in it, for the debative context is essentially antithetical to the reasoned context, a reflection of a poorly researched article in essence. --pacoit

I agree. Wikipedia is supposed provide encyclopedia entires, not debates - Lindsay

On behalf of the other active registered editors here at Wikipedia, I thank you both for your comments, and I encourage you to become more actively involved in Wikipedia. We need more people who care about the contents.
Wikipedia, by policy, is a tertiary source. Someone does research. Someone else reports on that research. We tell you what is said on the subject. As a former newspaper editor and publisher, I can assure you that there are few uncontested facts in this world, and fewer still that deserve to be uncontested.
Milk is not a simple chemical. It not varies from species to species, but breed to breed, cow to cow, and day to day. Some pasteurization heats the milk more rapidly than others, some raises it to different temperatures, some holds it at the elevated temperature longer than others, and some processes chill it more rapidly than others. There is different homogenization equipment, and different operator techniques. Anyone who claims to know everything that happens when you pasteurize and homogenize milk is deluded.
And it's not just knowing what happens. It's knowing what the consequences are. Is the milk consumed 2 days later? Is it consumed 6 days later? Does it spend 20 minutes in the trunk of a car 20F weather, or 2 hours in that same trunk when it's 101F outside? Is it a beverage consumed with oreos, or is it used to make brown gravy?
Well-informed, highly-intelligent people can disagree as to whether pasteurization and homogenization are essential to a safe milk supply, or if they are antithetical to health. Editors working on this article fall into both groups - but for the most part, they concur with everything said in the article.
Although not stated as a policy, it's an underlying principle that the truth will out. We give the user the benefit of verifiable facts, presented from a neutral point of view. Fox News used to advertise, "We give you the facts and you decide", but at Wikipedia, that's something we actually do.
Again, I thank you for taking an interest - and encourage you to carry your involvement a step further. It's extremely difficult to write well. Collaborative writing that insists on verifiability is even more challenging. It's also tremendously rewarding, though, when you others find your contributions worthy, and they expand further on them. And as a hobby, it's a whole lot cheaper than buying a $40,000 bass boat.... ClairSamoht 01:41, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Well my two cents are that Wikipedia is not WikiDebatepedia, but if we can present, in a neutral point of view -- the verifiable facts -- then, as User:ClairSamoht stated, we'll let the reader decide. But what if the facts are incomplete, i.e., research suggests...? Well, then at least we can present the incomplete research in its entirety, without inferring its meaning from the research. Let the reader read it herself and come to her own conclusion. Rhetth 12:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] calves

The article states that proponents believe that calves fed pasteurized milk die before reaching maturity. What is the basis for this? Have there been studies done about this, or is it anecdotal experience (and if so, whose)? Or urban legend? Though I have seen this suggested elsewhere, I have never seen a documentation or evidence brought to back it up. An encyclopedia should give this, however. Hgilbert 00:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's contents aren't meant to be encyclopedic in scope. It contains only that which others have reported elsewhere. It is an undisputed fact that proponents make that claim. The claim itself is not necessarily valid, however.
The extension service in Wisconsin recommends pasteurizing waste milk given to calves. It would be *awfully* cruel to pasteurize the milk the calf suckles, obviously. Waste milk consists of colostrum and transition milk, which should be better raw, if the raw milk arguments hold. It also includes mastitic milk, which surely ought not be fed to calves without pasteurization, and probablyu ought not be fed to them at all. Finallyu, it includes milk which is unsalable because of antibiotic content, which raw milk adherents would argue makes it chemically-unraw. You can read the Wisconsin document at http://www.wisc.edu/dysci/uwex/heifmgmt/pubs/pasteurizingwastemilk.pdf ClairSamoht 04:17, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

From the FDA ""Pasteurization will destroy some enzymes," says Barbara Ingham, Ph.D., associate professor and extension food scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "But the enzymes that are naturally present in milk are bovine enzymes. Our bodies don't use animal enzymes to help metabolize calcium and other nutrients.""

It is conceivable that the bovine enzymes destroyed are important to calves. However, the pro/con argument is written in context of health to humans. If the excerpt were in any way factual, then I could see leaving it. However it is a stray comment that has no place in a section pertaining to the health "debate" in context of humans. Nathan Forrest 01:42, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article cleanup

...of male patients with heart disease."2 Homogenization became widespread...

Which kind of typo is that "2"? I'm out of ideas so I won't fix it so far. saimhe 15:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Good question. I thought I would ask the person who introduced it. Turns out it was me. The person who introduced it thinks it was just a stray keystoke introduced by clmusy typing. You have heard about clmusy tpyists, haven't you? That 2 has been banished to /dev/null ClairSamoht 02:27, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

Among other things, this article doesn't use inline citations, but I didn't feel that was enough to warrant another tag. Anyway, look at... "Some people say that pasteurized milk converts"... "some in turn link to autism"... "Proponents believe that it preserves the natural"... (which proponents)... etc. etc. ugen64 05:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia content isn't necessarily true. It is, however, verifiable. I could come through here and throw out all the claims I believe invalid, and eliminate all the weasel words on the claims I believe valid. Someone else, though, could come along twenty minutes later with opposing opinions, and throw out all the claims I make, restoring and deweaseling the claims I threw out. What benefit is there to an edit war?
If you're looking for someone who will sort out the claims, and tell you what's what, you don't want Wikipedia, you want Sylvia Browne. Raw milk is a controversial subject, and the best Wikipedia can do is to fairly present the controversy. ClairSamoht 07:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I am simply saying that each claim should be accompanied by a citation - of course this is a controversial topic, which is why I think the article needs citations. ugen64 23:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questionable Reference

I was going to add this WPost article[1] from last week, but the article seems really biased even though it includes interviews with opponents of raw milk.

"If properly refrigerated, raw milk will keep 8 days, versus the 5-6 days for the much-handled pasteurized milk purchased in a supermarket." This sounds wrong. I lived on a dairy farm and none of our milk lasted eight days. Is there a source for this?

read . . "properly refrigerated"... Raw milk im buyign at the moment often lasts 10 days - sometimes 12. The longer ones have not been opened and carton been in fridge the whole time, .. no in out, no sitting on the table for an hour... (yes yes!! below!.. after that time it does go sour- as oposed to rancid, quite plesant to drink - not in coffee though, like drinking yogurt) Cilstr 17:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Real Milk Shelf Life

My personal experience is that real (raw) milk, when properly refrigerated, is good for drinking 10-12 days. After that, it sours, and is still okay for cooking or baking. And although my experience is anecdotal, it is my experience, and it works for me. I know that the quality of the milk depends on many factors, perhaps the breed of cow has an impact on this? Mijari 01:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{contradict}}

The "Pasteurization" section has the subsections "Views by supporters" and "Views by opponents". Without reading the contents, I'd assume that this means "supporters of pasteurization" and "opponents of pasteurization", and indeed some of the points made seem to accord with this; but then other points seem to go the other way, with it apparently meaning "supporters of raw milk" and "opponents of raw milk". All told, it's quite confusing, and comes off as self-contradictory (though I'm not sure if it's actually self-contradictory, or if it just seems that way). —RuakhTALK 22:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed 'processed' from the summary.

The term 'processed' seems to carry a connotation of 'bad'. Some (like me!) consider "whole foods" to be more more nutritious than "processed foods", and so describing "raw milk" as "milk that has not been processed" seems to be biased in favor of the nutrative value of raw milk. In an attempt to eliminate that bias, I rephrased the opening sentence. — JBazuzi (talk • contribs) 06:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring

Considering Talk:Raw_milk#Article_is_overly_debate-framed and the tags in the article, I restructured the article, extracting some segments in to new pages: Health effects of homogenized milk and United States raw milk debate.

There's still plenty of work to be done on each of these three pages to get them up to Wikipedia standards. Have at it! — JBazuzi (talk • contribs) 06:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listeria

There is an blog post (in French) about the probability that a cheese cause Listeriosis.

It may not be a reliable source but it is interesting. The blogger says that : -60% of listeriosis outbreaks are caused by pasteurized-milk cheeses -82.9% of cheeses sold in France are pasteurized-milk cheeses then, using probability theory, he concludes that Listeriosis is about 3.23 times more likely to occur with raw-milk cheese than with pasteurized-milk cheese. Arronax50 (talk) 19:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Comparison of raw milk caused sickness to sickness due to fish/shellfish

The FDA reports that, in 2002, consuming raw milk and raw milk products caused 200 Americans to become ill in any manner [9]. In comparison, a 1999 CDC report showed that consuming undercooked fish and shellfish causes approximately 8,000 cases of Vibrio illness annually.

The above comparison is completely misleading. Talk about comparing apples to oranges. People in America consume much more fish/shellfish than they do raw milk making a simple "number" comparison useless. Its a perfect example of how people use statistics to warp the truth. (although its a lame attempt). That whole paragraph should be wiped from this entry.