Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The reason it continues to be required is because human
nature hasn't changed, and maintaining sanitation on an
industrial scale of a biological product created by an animal
that excretes feces requires extreme levels of
conscientiousness that cannot be guaranteed. In essence,
because the healthiness of cows and their milk can be tested
to assure a safe product without pasteurization, it is possible
to sell perfectly healthy raw milk. But pasteurization is
required anyway to compensate for the existence of lazy or
dishonest people that will prioritize the production of a single
infected cow over the health and well-being of their
customers. I'm quite sure most people would do the right
thing, but in an industrial system where the outputs of various
farms are mixed together, it only requires one
feces-contaminated vat to sicken thousands of people.
Obviously, raw milk that does not contain pathogens can be
made. Humans have consumed raw milk for thousands of
years before pasteurization was invented. Such milk was
collected at home by the end users, so there was a direct
correlation between shoddiness and adverse consequences
that would result from collecting milk in a bucket that wasn't
clean. The milk was used immediately rather than transported
thousands of miles, so any pathogens present had less
opportunity to multiply to dangerous or infective levels. It is
therefore possible to obtain raw milk that will not make you
sick, provided it is supplied by an honest and conscientious
farmer.
How to determine if someone is honest and conscientious, I
can't say. If I could write a book describing a sure-fire
technique of that sort, personnel managers across the world
would rejoice. In the absence of that, I would instead look at
