05-01-2011, 03:41 PM
I think that Chakravartin is saying pretty much the same thing that I said, albeit in a slightly different way. If the issue happens to be the loss of an insignificant amount of B vitamin or folate, then the cure would be to add another couple of teaspoons to your intake. Since we already get plenty of vitamins in the modern diet due to supplementation, eating vegetables and fruits, etc, even this isn't necessary.
The heat denaturation of proteins is another effect of Pasteurization, at least for some proteins, but it is another "so what." All this does is to give our digestion a head start on the process of denaturing proteins and then breaking them into their component amino acids. We soak proteins in acid at increased temperature (that's the stomach) and then soak them in a witch's brew of enzymes that break the chemical bonds that hold them together.
This is what we need to do, because our proteins are different than cow proteins, and we can't just grab a cow protein and insert it into our own cellular machinery. We have to break protein down to its components, and we can then use those components to build our own proteins. Notice that we eat protein from all kinds of sources -- fish, beef, bird, plant -- and we can use all of it because we break it down to the same set of a couple dozen amino acids.
As for the rest of my remarks, I was not talking about taste or freshness, but the ideologically driven notion that there is something magical about raw or live material that we can take up by eating. The idea of a "life force" is something that goes way back, but is an unnecessary assumption in explaining how living things take in sugar and fat and oxygen and then combine them to make usable chemical energy. Most health food faddists don't use that terminology anymore, but if you look at their claims, the idea is the same even if the words have changed.
The list of ingredients that we actually need to survive is relatively short. Plants have an even shorter list, as they can survive just fine on a diet of water, carbon dioxide, a few minerals, and oxidized nitrogen.
I don't think that most raw milk devotees are practicing druids or otherwise think they are medieval, but the arguments and concepts they get in their reading are outmoded. As for the observation that quite a few people drink raw milk and do just fine, that is a little less than even being anecdotal. Obviously the issue is whether the cow is carrying something infectious and whether you are healthy and robust enough to shake it off if you get it. In the case of exposure to TB or brucellosis, most humans are at best marginal in their ability to reject these microbes, and even then, many will develop a long, slow, development of a debilitating or fatal disease.
In California, the practice has been to have cows checked by veterinarians for obvious signs of disease, and to check blood and milk at intervals. You might think of this as an alternative, expensive way of substituting for pasteurization. It depends on our modern knowledge of microbiology and veterinary medicine, and depends mightily on the cooperation of the dairies. There have been instances where the system breaks down, and it is usually detected because somebody gets sick. Then the public health authorities have to track down the source.
I'm less concerned about people on a family farm getting milk from their own cows. They tend the cows and have a chance to notice if one becomes ill. Factory farms and dairies are another issue entirely.
An aside: There was an outbreak of salmonella-caused disease a couple of years ago that seemed to be concentrated among fairly well-to-do people. Public health investigators quickly tracked it down to a trendy restaurant that served egg dishes that were not thoroughly cooked. End of salmonella outbreak, and end of a stupid practice.
The heat denaturation of proteins is another effect of Pasteurization, at least for some proteins, but it is another "so what." All this does is to give our digestion a head start on the process of denaturing proteins and then breaking them into their component amino acids. We soak proteins in acid at increased temperature (that's the stomach) and then soak them in a witch's brew of enzymes that break the chemical bonds that hold them together.
This is what we need to do, because our proteins are different than cow proteins, and we can't just grab a cow protein and insert it into our own cellular machinery. We have to break protein down to its components, and we can then use those components to build our own proteins. Notice that we eat protein from all kinds of sources -- fish, beef, bird, plant -- and we can use all of it because we break it down to the same set of a couple dozen amino acids.
As for the rest of my remarks, I was not talking about taste or freshness, but the ideologically driven notion that there is something magical about raw or live material that we can take up by eating. The idea of a "life force" is something that goes way back, but is an unnecessary assumption in explaining how living things take in sugar and fat and oxygen and then combine them to make usable chemical energy. Most health food faddists don't use that terminology anymore, but if you look at their claims, the idea is the same even if the words have changed.
The list of ingredients that we actually need to survive is relatively short. Plants have an even shorter list, as they can survive just fine on a diet of water, carbon dioxide, a few minerals, and oxidized nitrogen.
I don't think that most raw milk devotees are practicing druids or otherwise think they are medieval, but the arguments and concepts they get in their reading are outmoded. As for the observation that quite a few people drink raw milk and do just fine, that is a little less than even being anecdotal. Obviously the issue is whether the cow is carrying something infectious and whether you are healthy and robust enough to shake it off if you get it. In the case of exposure to TB or brucellosis, most humans are at best marginal in their ability to reject these microbes, and even then, many will develop a long, slow, development of a debilitating or fatal disease.
In California, the practice has been to have cows checked by veterinarians for obvious signs of disease, and to check blood and milk at intervals. You might think of this as an alternative, expensive way of substituting for pasteurization. It depends on our modern knowledge of microbiology and veterinary medicine, and depends mightily on the cooperation of the dairies. There have been instances where the system breaks down, and it is usually detected because somebody gets sick. Then the public health authorities have to track down the source.
I'm less concerned about people on a family farm getting milk from their own cows. They tend the cows and have a chance to notice if one becomes ill. Factory farms and dairies are another issue entirely.
An aside: There was an outbreak of salmonella-caused disease a couple of years ago that seemed to be concentrated among fairly well-to-do people. Public health investigators quickly tracked it down to a trendy restaurant that served egg dishes that were not thoroughly cooked. End of salmonella outbreak, and end of a stupid practice.