Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much of this was related to the risk that Milk killed a lot of people in the Middle Ages.

With the access to fresh milk from their own farm animals that they had? Why would milk kill "a lot of people in the middle ages"?

Lots of rural communities in Europe lived until the 50s or so not much unlike the middle ages (no fridges, no electricity, farming, etc) and they weren't harmed by their milk at all.

Since this is also pre-pasteurization I'm thinking all kinds of diseases could be transmitted by cow's milk.

Pasteurization is only necessary for transportation. If you drink fresh milk from a clean source, the risk of disease is quite low. And I have nothing to gain by sharing this as a vegan :P

There's no risk from drinking milk from cows with open sores on their utters?

I meant udders here but that's probably obvious.

Ugh. Can you read? I said a clean source and LOW risk, not NO risk.

And as we all know it was really rare for cattle in the Middle Ages to be ill.

Why would they be ill more frequently than not? If anything, their lives were much better, and the environment much better than today's cows in industrial production settings.

In any case, anybody who hasn't spent all their lives in western cities, but knows rural communities, can attest to millions drinking fresh milk with very low risk for ages...

Milkmaids commonly had cowpox, did they not?

This is incorrect. Raw milk is not a low risk product. Raw milk is sold in tiny quantities, but regularly causes harm. That harm isn't limited to a bit of diarrhea, sometimes it's life-changing permantent damage.

The risks of raw milk are more severe for children, and children are often not asked for, nor able to give, consent to engage in this risky behaviour. Many outbreaks of raw milk poisoning included a child under 5. (Some of these children needed kidney transplant).

Again, as a vegan I really don't care about (cow) milk, but please give evidence to that it "regularly" causes harm.

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/rawmilk-outbreaks.htm...

> From 2007 through 2012, 26 states reported 81 outbreaks linked to raw milk. The outbreaks caused 979 illnesses and 73 hospitalizations.

> From 2007 through 2009, 30 outbreaks were linked to raw milk. This increased to 51 outbreaks from 2010 through 2012. Among outbreaks in which the food or drink linked to the outbreak was identified, the percentage associated with raw milk increased from 2% from 2007 through 2009 to 5% from 2010 through 2012.

[...]

> Probably no more than 1% of the milk consumed in the United States is raw, yet more outbreaks were linked to raw milk than by pasteurized milk.

> If you consider the number of outbreaks associated with raw milk in light of the very small amount of milk that is consumed raw, the risk of outbreaks linked to raw milk is at least 150 times greater than the risk of outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk. [...] E. coli O157:H7, which can cause kidney failure and death, was a common cause of outbreaks linked to raw milk. Relatively mild viral infections and toxins were common causes of outbreaks linked to pasteurized milk.

This seems pretty high relative to the number of people regularly consuming raw milk.

Tuberculosis?

> Milk killed a lot of people in the Middle Ages

[citation needed]

I don't think it killed at lot of people but it was pre-pasteurization so fresh milk didn't keep in a drinkable state for very long. Most of it got turned into butter or cheese pretty quickly. Almond milk was almonds (with a long shelf life) and boiled water (relatively clean) so less risk.

I'm sure people got sick buying hooky milk though.

Almond milk goes bad pretty quickly too. Not quite as quickly as fresh cow's milk, but you still don't want to keep that stuff around.

It does but you can make it on demand.

Yeah, the almonds themselves keep for a long time, so you store it in that form. Given the amount of labour involved you wouldn't be wanting to try to make six months' supply at once anyway.

This is pre-refrigeration, pre-pasteurization, and milk is an awesome growth medium for bacteria plus a direct vector to various cow born diseases. Even with refrigeration and a much better disease model, modern medicine, etc raw milk regularly kills people so historically you would expect a high lifetime risks even if people where drinking it within hours of milking it.

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/rawmilk-outbreaks.htm...

Do you mean lactose intolerance?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com