There is hard no evidence drinking raw cow’s milk has any health benefits, nutritionists say, as the death of a toddler from drinking unpasteurised milk sparks debate about the safe consumption of dairy products.
The three-year-old from Mornington Peninsula in Victoria died after drinking raw cow’s milk from small-scale producer Mountain View Farm.
It is illegal to sell unpasteurised milk for human consumption in Australia, but the product was labelled “bath milk” and marketed as a cosmetic, the Victorian Health Department said.
Aloysa Hourigan, a senior nutritionist with Nutrition Australia, said there were two separate points of contention in the milk debate: the consumption of it raw, and the pasteurisation process.
But she said there was no strong evidence that raw milk provided health benefits.
“I don’t think the evidence is there to say that’s true,” she said.
“Some people find that it is better for digestion, but that is anecdotal.”
She also said the argument that pasteurisation takes away some of the health benefits of milk was not supported by scientific analysis.
“When we do food analyses… it clearly shows there is still good nutritional content to pasteurised milk,” she said.
“So things like the vitamins – there’s things like riboflavin and vitamin A in whole milk, vitamin D.
“The minerals are still there – they don’t get affected by pasteurisation at all – and the protein is there.
“Sometimes heating to high temperatures can change protein, but the fact is [it’s] only done for a short time … and the temperature it goes up to is probably not enough to cause that change.”
The group Australia Alliance for Raw Milk did not respond to a request for comment, but said on its Facebook page: “We are still unsure as to what other foods the child consumed, what medication the child was taking or if they were in contact with anyone else with the Gastro virus.”
Family’s health ‘just brilliant’ due to raw milk consumption
It is legal to consume raw milk produced by a cow you own, leading to the establishment of “cow-share” programs, where small farms offer consumers a stake in a herd of cattle and access to the produce.
Last year, South Australian producer Mark Tyler was raided by Biosecurity SA over his cow-share program, which provides raw milk to about 700 people.
“Probably when we started it was more of a freedom of choice issue,” Mr Tyler said of the beginnings of the program.
“I just thought, ‘how come I can drink this milk and other people can’t?'”
“The more you look into it, the more you hear of the health benefits [and] we’ve heard the benefits our shareholders have told us.”
Mr Tyler said he and his family drank several glasses of raw milk a day and that their health was “just brilliant” as a result.
“I find that certainly, all our family, we don’t go to the doctor,” he said, adding that it clears up his indigestion.
“For me I probably have half a litre with my breakfast in the morning. I normally have a glass of milk before I got to bed at night.”
He said the sale of raw milk for consumption should be made legal because small-scale production is safe as long as basic farm hygiene practices are followed.
‘Evidence not there’ of pasteurisation link to autism, diabetes
Ms Hourigan also said the claim milk pasteurisation might be harmful was wrong.
“When you pasteurise milk, there are people that will say that will increase risk of getting food allergies or autism or diabetes – there are quite a range of things that have been attributed to pasteurised milk,” she said.
“The evidence is not there to say that it is harmful in any way.
“And it’s been a public health safety measure for a long time, and I think there is certainly a concern about saying ‘we don’t need it’ – I don’t think that is necessarily true at all.”
She said if people chose to consume raw milk products, they should seek some certainty they are being produced in the safest possible way.