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Comment by ravenstine | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I suspect this kind of thing happens as a result of a diet devoid of microbial life and non-denatured proteins.

I used to get not full on sick, but pretty sick after eating raw or partially raw meat. You may think it's crazy, but I just continued doing it and eventually stopped getting diarrhea and cramps.

David Blaine (I think) talked about a similar effect from when he practiced swallowing live frogs. He got sick initially (not gag reflex but something akin to food poisoning) but quickly built up a tolerance.

Maybe these guys did get sick in some way that is beyond a reasonable risk tolerance. I don't know. I just think Americans in particular are weird about their food and simultaneously germophobic so they end up eating a certain kind of diet. Getting sick when eating food that isn't totally cooked may not necessarily mean danger but that the body isn't acclimated to the particular food.

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Do you want shorter average lifespans? This is how you get them. By ignoring advances in things like food safety.

> I used to get not full on sick, but pretty sick after eating raw or partially raw meat. You may think it's crazy, but I just continued doing it and eventually stopped getting diarrhea and cramps.

This kills some people.

Health advice isn't about you, it's about everyone. See also: wearing a mask during a pandemic.

What a first-world take. And not just a first-world take, but a city-slicker first-world take.

Auto-immune diseases and allergies are killing people and ruining lives. A little bit of bacteria doesn't hurt.

As someone who grew up on a dairy farm, who worked on a farm, and who has friends and family operating their own farms, I'd like to point out that this is backwards. Farmers know that bacteria can make them sick or even kill them. It's the city-slickers who have never been truly ill who think that they're harmless.

Current, modern day humans live longer, healthier lives than any who have ever lived before.

Auto-immune diseases and allergies are nowhere even slightly near as big a problem as dysentery and other food borne illnesses used to be. There are far more people who died of TB from contaminated milk alone than people dieing of allergies.

It's true that other aspects of improved care have also reduced the risk from food borne illnesses - antibiotics, clean water, IV rehydration and others.

> Health advice isn't about you, it's about everyone. See also: wearing a mask during a pandemic.

That's not even remotely comparable.

If someone else could die from drinking raw milk, what business is it of theirs that I choose to drink gallons of it and live to tell the tale?

The whole point of the legalization is to legalize the consumption. Did you read the article?

> If someone else could die from drinking raw milk, what business is it of theirs that I choose to drink gallons of it and live to tell the tale?

It’s because we don’t know who will die from it

It’s like seat belts or motorcycle helmets - millions of people will never have a need for them, but they save lives

On the contrary; it's comparable, it's just not identical. The point is that public health recommendations are made to serve the greater good, not serve the preferences of an individual. Please wash your hands.

Regarding the policy aspects: when a substance is potentially harmful then we already have frameworks to regulate sale and possession, as used for things like radioactives and poisons. If an activity is harmful but only to the individual, then education and normalization of behaviour offers the best possible public health outcome, such as the wearing of bicycle helmets (everyone should wear a helmet, but criminalising noncompliance is the worst possible means to achieve it). Only when an activity is harmful to others (such as smoking, or not wearing a facemask during a pandemic) should criminalisation be considered, in my view. In general, exposing younger citizens to hazardous substances (like people feeding their kids raw milk) shouldn't need specific treatment since it's already covered by child endangerment laws and duty of care towards minors, although I suppose carve-outs can be considered when some echobubble loses their collective minds.

By such a policy position, the legislature in the original story did half the job, in my opinion; the sale and possession of raw milk should be regulated like a poison, and the consumption of it strongly deterred through education of the risks. The stunt of drinking it was the height of idiocy, but stupidity is hardly in short supply amongst legislators.

Sensitivities do not always decrease with exposure, so I’m not sure if I’d advocate getting ill frequently with the expectation of improvement.

That’s definitely true for me at least for chili peppers. In fact I think my reaction has worsened over time even after decreasing exposure to them. Such a pity—makes food taste so good.

Another example is Fijian 'kava' (a root that is crushed and dried into a powder, then filtered into water and consumed as a drink). It has a reverse tolerance: those who consume it more frequently typically get more affected by it, and those who've had little before may not feel any effect.

Always a delight to see kava being discussed in unexpected places. Say bula at r/kava!

No one is talking about alergies, just life. Relax. Get dirty.

Sometimes they get worse, too, like with cat allergies.

Similarly, I grew up spending most of the year in California but summers in southern Mexico, and the first week or two of every summer was an acclimation period of intestinal distress. (This is despite never drinking unboiled tap water. There are just different microbes floating around in the environment.)

On the other hand, some of the pathogens you can get from raw milk (or insufficiently treated water) can be extremely unpleasant/dangerous and there’s no sure guarantee you’ll get used to them.

Delhi belly.

"sure you might get pretty sick, but if you power through the diarrhea and cramps you can enjoy the benefits of getting some serious food poisoning"

I can't believe you're giving away this advice for free

100% agreed. If I have been eating junk food for a week or so and even have so much as a kombucha I’ll have major stomach issues. We certainly adapt to high pro-biotic diets, and it would be interesting to learn about the mechanism for such a phenomenon.

yet there is huge difference. Milk is still easy to digest than meat. You can't compare both.

https://www.rawmilkinstitute.org/updates/letter-to-medical-p...

Why were you eating raw meat, may I ask?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steak_tartare

One could still freeze it like sushi fish to get rid of at least some of the pathogens.

One would think so, but it turns out, not really — the big concern in sushi fish is usually parasitic worms (like anisakiasis), which are live multicellular organisms that don’t survive freezing.

In chicken, beef, and pork, the concern is typically bacteria (like salmonella, and e. coli) or parasite cysts (like trichinosis), which are not killed by freezing.

Not even counting sushi which is wonderful, I don't know about most meats but raw beef at least is perfectly nice.

Steak is most often prepared rare or medium-rare. Rare means raw in the middle, as that portion has not been altered by heat, hence the disclaimer on restaurant menus about undercooked foods.

Steak is the classic option in American cuisine, but in Germany (and some other countries), raw mince is a sandwich topping that you can buy from the butcher (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett). Obviously you've got to eat it fresh, but it's not all that bad.

You were quicker with your response than I was (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30809570), I concede defeat :D

But in my defense, I got sidetracked googling pictures of Mettigel.

A completely understandable defence! ;)

Raw fish can be delicious. Fijian kokoda is chef's kiss.

Steak tartare and carpaccio are two raw beef dishes that I love that are common in France and Italy, respectively. There are many others.

But American food practices are so awful that it is impossible to eat raw meat here, mostly: some places are careful. That's why cows are pumped full of antibacterials: because they are given growth hormones until their udders rip, and are constantly infected.

This doesn't happen in parts of the world where animals are raised and slaughtered in non-high-density, full-speed-ahead industrial production.

The main reason America needs so many food laws is because they try to scale everything up so that people can eat steaks every day for pennies. I'm exaggerating, but only a little. Americans gotta have it all, and you can raise animals ethically, safely, and without drugs with that kind of entitlement. That's why food tastes so much better in provincial parts of Europe, it's not a myth.

(Disclaimer: I roll the dice on steak tartar every once in a while)

While American food standards are definitely worse, it’s a mistake to say that in Europe raw meat is safe. Even in the most rustic of environments there are loads of ways for your raw meat to get messed up. So you’re needing to trust a lot of stuff and are rolling the dice a bit each time.

Of course everything is a dice roll, but turns out cooking meat solves a lot of problems.

Factory farming did not create food poisoning!

> Factory farming did not create food poisoning!

No one said it did.

But it exacerbates it by orders of magnitude.

Also odd to hear someone defending factory farming.

I was just reading the wiki on steak tartare b/c of this thread and was surprised to find its original name was steak à l'Americaine

I kept under-cooking burger patties to the point where they were still raw in the middle and thought "f** it" and ate them anyway. Then I moved on to eating straight raw meat for the novelty of it. I'm not sure that I'd eat raw pork, but supposedly today's regulations have mostly eliminated the possibility of trichinosis. Otherwise, I've found raw meat to be way less hazardous than I was lead to believe. I don't advocate for it, and I at least like a good sear on my steak. My risk tolerance is much less than that of many people, for better or for worse.

Rare burgers are really risky.

Steaks are OK because there’s not usually bacteria within a cut of meat (at least not a rotten one). Ground beef is all surface area.

> Rare burgers are really risky.

How risky? Compare it to other risks we are commonly undertake, like driving. If you can't quantify risk, you're not providing a useful comment.

The CDC recommends ground beef cooked to 160F, which is well above “rare” temperature (around 130F). So, you’re going against the food safety guidelines. I’d say that introduces risk (though hard to quantify exactly).

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/communication/bbq-iq.html

That same page says steaks should go to 145F which is pretty far into medium and will get you looked at funny in most reputable steakhouses.

So let's go back to: If you don't quantify risk, you're not providing a useful comment. That applies to the CDC too.

Good luck quantifying real world risks. What’s the risk of getting sick from a rare burger? Well, it’s the probability of a bad bacteria being present, then it not being killed by the cooking, and then actually taking root in your body.. good luck getting a number

Depends on how long the ground beef is left out. If you grind the steak right before you eat it there's not much time for bacteria to multiply.

That’s correct! Most of us don’t do that, but for those who do it’s a much safer option.

> My risk tolerance is much less than that of many people

If you mean you can tolerate more risk than others, that would be a higher risk tolerance.

Not that person, but...

In Germany, eating Mettbrötchen is rather popular in certain regions, and somewhat popular in the rest. As far as I know, that also applies to some neighboring nations.

A Mettbrötchen is basically minced raw pork with some salt, pepper and other spices, with onions on top or worked inside the meat. You put that on a baked roll (or sometimes other bread). There is also Mettwurst (sausage), although that's often at least smoked. Rarely the mett you'd eat raw is a mix of raw pork and raw beef. Mett may only be sold on the same day it was prepared, but it's rather popular so you will find it in basically every supermarket (especially the ones with in-house butchers), or you can buy ready to eat Mettbrötchen/Mettbrote (rolls/bread) in basically every full service bakery and some self-service ones.

I am not really fond of that to the point I would prepare that for myself, but have occasionally indulged when offered.

Bonus picture: Mettigel (mett hedgehog), which is for various popculture reasons a popular way to decorate the mett (before you put some of it on a roll/bread)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Mettigel...

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