Every time someone says we’re all entitled to our shitty little opinions about how diseases and microbes work, suggesting our opinions mean anything compared to, uh, knowing stuff? They’re shitting on Louis Pasteur’s corpse.
Today’s Moment of Science… get in losers, we’re going pasteurizing.
Once in a while, a scientist is spat into existence that pushes the world forward in multiple fields in ways that impact us daily. Pasteur was one of those motherfuckers, and this isn’t even the Louis Pasteur article. This is “modern day benefits of the thing that’s named after him’ article.
The TL;DR on Pasteur- In the mid-1800s, Louis was getting into goddamn everything. He pretty much discovered stereochemistry (as a chemist, just trust me that this is probably important). He developed the rabies vaccine. Arguably most relevant to your everyday life is the technique named after him, pasteurization.
The process by which a food or beverage is heated to Mordor and back for a few seconds, pasteurization makes most bacteria good and dead. This generally extends the shelf life. Though a variety of products are pasteurized, the food we most commonly associate with it is milk. It can be prone to spawning some rather nasty microbes. Between pasteurization and regular access to refrigeration, the shelf life of milk has been extended from just a few days to as long as it takes for someone to bravely smell it and make the “it’s not a moon it’s a space station” face.
Of course, someone will inevitably look at a lifesaving technology and think, “meh.”
Enter the raw milk movement. There’s a lot of overlap here with every other “I’m so obsessed with my health that I’m making unhealthy decisions” movement.
The claim that there are any significant health benefits from raw milk is largely bogus. Any possible benefit is pretty much outweighed by the chances of foodborne illness. Statistically, if you drink raw milk, you’re…. Maybe probably going to be fine? But that comes with an asterisk and a proviso and an “I really rather you didn’t.” A lot of risky behavior doesn’t necessarily land you in the hospital the first time. But the safety record compared to pasteurized milk is about the same as the success rate of pregnancy prevention by doing nothing to prevent pregnancy.
Per the CDC, from 1993 through 2006, 121 outbreaks were linked to dairy products that could be identified as pasteurized or unpasteurized (raw). These outbreaks resulted in over 4,000 illnesses, 239 hospitalizations, and three deaths.
73 outbreaks were caused by raw milk products, while only 48 outbreaks were linked to pasteurized milk. On a high estimate, maybe one percent of the dairy consumed in the United States is raw, yet more outbreaks were linked to raw milk than by pasteurized milk. The risk of outbreaks linked to raw milk is about 150 times greater than the risk of outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk.
I’m not gonna tell you what to buy for dairy. Cheese made from raw milk is safe for the vast majority of people, and I purchase it without worry. My general rule for fluid milk is that you’re going to drink it unpasteurized, you should know the name of the farmer, the cow, and which nipple it came from.
But Louis Pasteur walked this Earth so that you don’t have to worry about that, so maybe just, uh, don’t?
Pasteurization wasn’t a 19th century plot by a French chemist to undermine the health of 21st century Americans. We use it because it makes the food supply more stable and safer by killing some nasty little microbes while preserving the quality of the food. But I guess if consuming everything without heating it above a certain temperature is a mainstay of your personality, enjoy your stupid fucking Gwyneth Paltrow approved bullshit.
This has been your daily Moment of Science, already dreading the amount of work the Louis Pasteur article is going to take.
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Image source: madgetech.com
Goddam, I love your delivery. Great read. Thank you.
I grew up on dairy farms in WI. I’ve drank my share of raw milk. You don’t need to know the cow personally, but you do need to make sure the lines are clean, the tank is clean, and do a bacterial test on the milk in tank before pouring yourself a glass.
I would not drink raw milk from some random dairy.
Agreed! The only way that I’d try drinking raw milk is if I can still hear the cow it originated from and as a hint, I’ve got 45 db of hearing loss.
Otherwise, I go with pasteurized milk and UHT pasteurized shelf stable milk, the latter for days when I don’t feel like digging the car out of the snow to get more milk.
Annoyingly, two types of milk. 1% is my preferred milk, my wife prefers whole milk.