Raw milk - magic bullet or health hazard?

Laura Sevier

21st January, 2009

Unpasteurised milk can be a divisive subject, says Laura Sevier, but most of what you hear about the white stuff is pure whitewash

A typical response to it is “Isn’t that gorgeous!”’ says farmer Keith Jefferson Smith, who sells raw milk at Walthamstow Farmers’ Market in London every Saturday. ‘Others say it reminds them of their childhood. Most remark on the sweetness.’

The milk he sells comes from his son’s dairy farm in Suffolk, where cows are farmed organically and biodynamically, grazing on grass for 10 months of the year. The sweetness, he explains, is because it is so fresh.

‘We milk the cows on Saturday and sell the milk on Sunday. The longer milk hangs around, the less sweet it is. Most milk you buy in shops is five days old by the time it reaches the shop, after it’s been collected, transported to dairies, pasteurised and packaged.’

Otherwise known as ‘green-top’, raw milk is the least processed milk you can buy. Long-term drinkers of this rare but much-loved substance say it is healthier, fresher and tastier than any other milk available. Others consider it a health hazard. Unlike the vast majority of the 13 billion litres of milk produced in the UK each year, raw milk has not been pasteurised (heat-treated) or homogenised (blasted at pressure...

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