FRESH MILK MARKETING-A NEEDLESS CONTROVERSY!

As long as democracy functions, there are bound to be differences of opinion among the citizens whether they are scientists, industrialists or politicians. The perennial controversy revolving around raw milk vs commercially processed version has been going on for decades with divergent views aired from time to time by those concerned about the subject. Antagonists of pasteurized milk invariably find fault with it because of their perceived feeling that the process of pasteurization destroys only beneficial components while allowing hostile elements to stay back causing harm to the consumers. In sharp contrast modern science, with some solid evidence, approves pasteurization because without this process, milk cannot be preserved till it reaches millions of far flung consumers. The intensity of feeling among the actors in this saga is reflected by the following rantings against dairy milk:

"Dairy is central to both the food supply and to sustainable agriculture. The FDA (run by Monsanto) is taking it apart. Rather than being harmful, raw milk is the only safe milk in the US and has innumerable benefits not found in pasteurized milk. The health community (doctors, researchers, public health officials) need to stop being misled by corporate media and find out what is happening to their own food. They might be interested to know that the new "food safety" law that gave so much power to the FDA to go after big corporate facilities with deadly contamination is being used just as farmers said it would be — to get rid of access to safe food and shut down natural and organic farmers. They might also be surprised to learn that Obama put Monsanto in a position to be in charge of all food and farms in the US by making a Monsanto VP named Michael Taylor, Czar of the food safety division of the FDA. That division (that is to say, Monsanto) is in court right now attempting to remove the right to choose food, consume or feed our children the food of our choice, the right to contract between ourselves (for it or anything else), and the right to our bodily and physical health. Worse, the case appears rigged to be lost and to leave those precedents. Will the scientific/medical/public health community wake up to what is happening and the threat to their own food supply? How quickly can they then begin to appreciate that they got duped on what is safe and what is dangerous. It turns out that pasteurized milk doesn't reach a high enough temperature to kill off the Crohn's bacterium getting into the milk from the sick cows in the industrial dairy herd. The temperature is high enough to destroy enzymes and friendly bacteria, though".

"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction", so said Isac Newton and same is true in to day's society."For every view there is not one but several opposite views", should be the idiom, if we go by the divergent opinions expressed and written about. Whether one likes it or not in the modern urban settings pasteurization is unavoidable because of the logistics involved in rearing milch animals, milking process and distribution. Of course raw milk, from a cow or buffalo reared in one's home under clean and hygienic environment without any disease can be considered safe for a few minutes after milking but has to be boiled if it has to stay in good condition for a few hours. Fortunately under Indian conditions practically all milk consumed, whether from the milkman or the dairy is boiled in the so called "milk cooker"which takes the temperature to the safe zone of 100C. Man has lived with pasteurized milk for decades without any major disaster and will continue to live with it for decades to come with no possibility of any adverse consequences. It is better to avoid such needless controversies when it comes to a vital food like milk which is one of the most nourishing foods for millions of vegetarians in the world.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com