Raw milk: Untreated milk is in demand - Telegraph

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Raw milk: Untreated milk is in demand

Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 18/01/2008

*Lucinda Labes joins the growing queue of urbanites who are mad about

untreated milk*

I realised something was up when the queues in my local farmers' market

- in London's Queen's Park - started bulking up beside the milk van.

There the milk drinkers stood, whatever the weather, sending emails on

their BlackBerrys or humming songs to their toddlers as they awaited

their turn. Then they'd emerge, ostentatiously clutching cartons of

butter-yellow milk, with pots of golden cream nestled on their Bugaboos.

Was I imagining it, or did they want me to see the prominent warning labels?

" This milk has not been heat treated and may therefore contain organisms

harmful to health. " An elixir of health or a carrier of disease?

The jury is out in Britain, where more and more people are drinking raw

milk.

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At farmers' markets across the country, demand is on the up. Despite

government warnings that unpasteurised milk is one of the surest ways to

pick up salmonella, campylobacter and E.coli, the 150 or so small dairy

farmers who supply the markets are enjoying a big growth in sales.

In the past year, for example, Dave , a third-generation farmer with

a Guernsey herd at Olive Farm in Somerset, has seen his sales of raw

milk and cream climb 30 per cent at London's farmers' markets.

And other dairies, which formerly brought only cheese to urban markets,

are now compelled by popular demand to bring milk, too.

Who are these dare-devil milk drinkers? And why are they so keen?

" It just tastes good, " says Lucia, who buys her milk at Notting Hill

Farmers' Market in west London every Saturday.

A couple of lads in tracksuits and trainers are stashing 12 litres into

a backpack. They come regularly from north London for their milk. " It's

better for you, " they say. " It's never made us ill. "

People from across London come to Notting Hill to stock up.

They are affluent, hip cognoscenti who would sooner eat cat litter than

non-organic food, and who want to know a chicken by name before they

will eat its eggs.

But aren't they dicing with disease? The Government would have us think so.

" The risk of food poisoning from unpasteurised milk is very real, " says

a spokeswoman from the Food Standards Agency (FSA). " We particularly

wouldn't recommend it for vulnerable people - the sick, infants and the

elderly. "

One of the main reasons raw milk was banned in the first place was

because 65,000 people caught TB from it. Although the likelihood of this

happening today is negligible, bovine TB is increasing.

At present, dairy farmers in Britain are only allowed to sell

unpasteurised milk directly to the consumer, either from a milk float,

the farm gate or a farmers' market.

You won't find it in Sainsbury's.

Elsewhere, the legislation is more draconian. In Scotland, raw milk has

been banned since 1983 after a scary outbreak of milk-related illnesses.

In America, you virtually have to own a cow to get your hands on the stuff.

Yet before the 1950s, raw milk was the norm on every breakfast table in

the country. The Queen is still said to be a fan of raw milk from her

Windsor Castle herd.

Proponents see unpasteurised milk as a panacea. They point out that

pasteurisation - whereby milk is heated to 72C for 15 seconds and then

rapidly cooled - destroys all enzymes, the very things that make it

digestible to humans.

Raw milk is also higher in vitamins, is full of healthy bacteria such as

acidophilus and seems to have a protective effect against asthma and

allergies in children.

So why the laws?

As farmer Hall of St Levan, West Cornwall, says: " In Britain you

are allowed to drink yourself silly and smoke carcinogenic fags, but you

can't drink raw milk. It doesn't make sense. "

Cowan, a doctor from San Francisco, sees it as a big-versus-small

business issue. " In order to produce raw milk, you need healthy cows,

which precludes big business. You can't raise a healthy cow on anything

but pasture. The giant dairies keep cows on concrete and feed them

grains, soya and sometimes even meat; they turn them into factory

animals. And then the cows get sick. You couldn't drink raw milk from

those herds. "

In Britain, the small dairies are much cleaner now than they were when

pasteurisation came in. In addition, farmers who want to sell raw milk

must pay for frequent tests.

" The fashion not so long ago was for cheap food, " says Tim of

Lincolnshire Poacher, whose raw milk and cream sell like hot cakes. " Now

people want quality. They want to feel connected to the land. "

For me, the real test is in the taste. It is with trepidation that I try

my first glass of cold raw milk. It's delicious: as silky as ice cream

and as sweet as the smell of clover-strewn meadows. I'm not sure I'd

feed it to my toddler, but I'll be in that queue again next weekend.

SHOULD YOU DRINK RAW MILK?

*YES*: It's healthier than pasteurised milk: it contains enzymes, higher

concentrations of vitamins, probiotics and CLA, a " superfat " that helps

you lose weight.

*NO*: It may contain bacteria such as salmonella. Between 1992 and 1999,

half of all milk-related food poisoning cases in the UK were due to raw

milk. None was fatal.