There was a massive craze for all things “dairy-free” all the way up to 2020, when dairy started making a comeback as a superfood on social platforms. But it came back in quite a controversial way.

Cue: Raw milk’s resurgence.

It wasn’t that dairy itself was ever inherently bad, moreso that the holistic health space tends to take a very rigid dogmatic approach to nearly every health trend that launches based on faulty data.

Fat, eggs, dairy, butter, meat, sugar, fruit, kale, and seed oils have all made it on the naughty list of foods via online influencer practitioners over the past decades. Some I agree with more than others, but it always has one thing in common: the DOGMA.

Now, I will be transparent with you here and be the first to admit that I hopped on the train of avoiding a few of these foods, namely dairy. But it was well justified because I did indeed have gut issues when incorporating dairy into my diet.

I am proud to say to this day that I never attempted a vegan/vegetarian diet because I couldn’t imagine being able to consume quite enough calories.

…So what’s the deal with raw dairy, pasteurized dairy, food-born illness and lactose intolerance?

When the cause for concern was raised over dairy wreaking havoc in the American diet, it wasn’t an off-base claim. Dairy was in fact doing quite a number on many in the US, and thus we saw a new emergence of the “lactose intolerant” label.

In some cultures, lactose intolerance (aka lactase nonpersistence) is a genetic trait. 90% of Asians, 70% of Africans, as well as other ethnicities like Native Americans and Jews, typically carry lactose intolerant traits.

In Americans with Northern European descent, lactose intolerance should not be common. But ironically, it took a sharp incline in incidences.

You will often hear many Americans complain that the dairy in the US bothers them, but when they go to Europe they feel as though they can eat all of the cheese and bread they want without any issues whatsoever.

Pasteurization, initially created to preserve wine by Louis Pasteur, was introduced to the milk industry as a precaution during industrialization in the 1800s. Many were drinking raw milk, but raising cows in cities was not ideal and they became malnourished and sick oftentimes.

In combination with lack of sanitation from milking cows, very poor drinking water, and crowded cities- many outbreaks of typhoid fever, diphtheria, tuberculosis, etc broke out. Raw milk ended up being the thing to blame by the 1900s.

In 1947, many of the US states began mandating that all milk be pasteurized and thus the era of raw milk faded away. Cases of diseases did subsequently decline as well. The unfortunate part about this is that this was mostly due to vastly improved sanitation practices nationally rather than raw milk itself being the culprit.

The truth is that raw dairy seems to not actually carry the risk claimed, and that not washing your fruits and vegetables daily or consuming raw fish poses a bigger risk in catching food-borne illness.

From 1998 to 2014, there have been 2384 illnesses attributed to raw milk, per the CDC. Approximately 10 million people consume raw dairy across the US. Not to mention, the CDC has been vehemently opposed to raw milk, therefore the way the data is presented remains inconsistent and deceiving.

There are on average 48+ million food-borne illness cases per year. To understand the full risk analysis with data compiled, I recommend The Raw Milk Answer Book.

Pasteurization heats up milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds to kill pathogens. But in the process, it also kills important enzymes for the proper breakdown and utilization of the milk’s nutrients in the body.

According to a study out of Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Dev. in 2013, “Milk fresh from the cow is a living, functional food, with immune system enhancers, cellular elements, prebiotics, proteins, and trace minerals beneficial to people. Proteins are denatured by heat.”

Also that fat “of all the milk constituents is the most drastically altered by the combination of pasteurization and homogenization.”

Ultimately, our pasteurization process paired with poor livestock practices, Americans really do have the short end of the stick when it comes to quality dairy.

The US always has the mentality “my way or the high-way” and very rarely do we like to look around at what other countries are doing when it comes to the health of the people. I mean, we are like the only country in the world with crazy privatized health insurance, simultaneously running pharmaceutical ads every 3 minutes.

Only a handful of countries hopped on the band-wagon of pasteurization. India and the EU take the lead for the most raw milk consumption and the EU even had raw milk vending machines in certain places at one point.

Again, Americans love to compare Europe’s dairy and with good reason.

Europe’s dairy that does get pasteurized, undergoes a completely different process than the one here in the US and they don’t even have to store their milk in the fridge interestingly.

We aren’t out here touting raw dairy without good reason.

Does raw dairy have a potential greater risk of illness than pasteurized? Sure, but the risk is still far lower than depicted and the reward is evident. From allergies, asthma, eczema, to autism, raw dairy has shown some remarkable impacts.

In a study out of Saudi Arabia, “45 children with autism were given raw camel’s milk, one was given boiled camel’s milk, and a third was given placebo for a total of 2 weeks. Raw Camel’s milk administered for 2 weeks drastically improved clinical measurements of autism severity.” And more studies were highly recommended to be conducted.

Positive health outcomes have been shown in children, as well as adults improving GI symptoms like Crohn’s, colitis, and autoimmune disorders. Ironically many of the studies quoted are out of Europe.

I hope that this gives some perspective on another controversial health topic and that it helps to provide some clarity as to the origins of raw milk versus pasteurized!