Raw foods are quickly becoming some of the hottest new commodities in the food world, not only for their purported health properties but also — as is the case with milk — for their taste.
Dairy products, especially, have a high potential for flavor depreciation the more they are tampered with or as their shelf life progresses.
Raw milk has retained a stigma in the U.S., but, contrary to what many may think, journal articles tell readers that the risk of ingesting the harmful E. coli or Listeria isn’t enough to counterbalance the benefits that raw milk can provide. The Lancet, Britain’s famed journal of medicine, published an article in 2002 noting the benefits of raw milk consumption and living in a farm environment. Living among animals is also considered to greatly enhance the immune system’s strength and resistance to certain airborne diseases.
The article found a strong correlation between a decrease in asthmatics and drinking raw milk. In fact, there was a 10 percent decrease in asthma among those who were raised on dairy farms.
A cheese can be considered ripe and ready for sale based on its flavor, texture and smell either immediately, as is the case with fresh chevre, or it may take years of aging and allowing the flavor time to evolve, as with many farmhouse cheddars.
The flavor distortion and elimination of vital enzymes and vitamins that accompanies pasteurization is something that cheese makers and dairy farmers have fought against in the U.S. for ages.
The development of a resistance to disease after significant contact with livestock is nothing new. Workers in the wool industry develop immunities to anthrax, which is caused by the airborne bacterium Bacillus anthracis. In short, the same argument for wool is made in favor of raw milk. Prolonged exposure to minute amounts of potentially dangerous microbes strengthens ones immune system two-fold: It acclimates the body to raw milk itself and protects against other diseases such as asthma, as well as certain allergies.
“The reality is that thinking people, who have really checked it out, understand the benefits,” said Shari Reyna, cheese maker and owner of Ferns’ Edge Goat Dairy in Lowell, Ore.
Reyna, who is also chapter president of the American Dairy Goat Association, holds the only commercial license in the state, allowing her to sell a certain amount of raw milk to specialty food stores such as Capella Market and Sundance Natural Foods. However, she still must comply with the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s regulation on unpasteurized cheeses, which maintains that raw milk cheeses must be aged a minimum of 60 days before sale.
“We actually managed to make a pretty clean-tasting chevre in spite of having to pasteurize it,” Reyna said.
Of course, this isn’t what Reyna herself eats, but it comes in a close second for those buying their cheese from a store or market. The delicacy of milk is such that in Europe it can be inferred that there is much more stringent enforcement of quality control agencies such as the Appellation d’origine controlee in France and the Denominazione di origine controllata in Italy, rather than the pasteurization enforcement. These organizations maintain original versions of recipes that are detailed down to the types of metals to be used when transporting and holding the milk.
Experience and a tradition of raw milk use has led to a more lax attitude concerning the amount of somatic cells allowed in the milk. Somatic cells are essentially white blood cells that appear in the milk and vary in concentration depending on the health of the animal. If a goat has an infection of its mammary glands, then naturally its immune system would increase production of white cells in response to the bacterium. The somatic cell count serves to indicate the presence of harmful microbes and is monitored monthly by
ODA inspectors.
“Somatic cell counts are naturally much higher in goats than they are in cows,” Reyna said. “The U.S. has recognized this to some extent, but the highest level is so low for goats that we have a really hard time meeting that in the winter when the butter fat and the somatic cell count goes up.”
It’s just this sort of hardship that European governments anticipate, but then again, Europeans have been making cheese for the last millennium, and the grand majority of their cheese is made raw.
“We pasteurize it just to the point that we have to, and we’re very careful about bringing it down to temperature in reasonable time and keeping it at a reasonable temperature once it’s been cultured,” Reyna said.
Raw milk remains a very controversial topic and leaves many dairy farmers and cheese makers trepid to express their opinions on the subject, fearing for their already difficult business.
“Oregon ODA requires pasteurization of all fresh cheeses,” Nancy Chandler of Alsea Acre Goat Cheese said. “We pretty much try to stay out of any controversy when talking to customers about any preference they might have and just say we are required to pasteurize.”
In an industry that gets marginal government subsidization, one can only imagine that a savvy business owner would stay far away from such subjects. However, that doesn’t close the book on raw milk. It opens the up conversation between consumers and the government of a potential market: a market that would, without a doubt, aid farmers financially and increase consumers’ well-being.

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