this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2024
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Some people get crazy about it.
The US in general had some way worse listeria outbreaks than Europe did in the window where pasteurization laws were first becoming things anyone was considering, so we start from a much more "your milk will be made safe" place.
As a result, raw milk, while still uncommon, can be sold in stores or other "normal" retail settings in most of Europe, and it's probably what will be used for cheese manufacturing.
In the US, it's only available via stores that sell it exclusively via club membership, and you might get raided by the USDA if they suspect you're trying to skirt the rules about membership. (Some stores have done hourly membership that comes with a free gallon of milk). Milk must also be pasteurized before being used for cheese, which creates a market for black market cheeses that can't be made with pasteurized milk but aren't cost effective to import past the various taxes we put on luxury cheese.
As a result most Americans are either far more wary of raw milk, because our laws were written before modern milking practices reduced sanitary concerns to what we accept for meat, or they develop a persecution complex and ascribe it quasi-magical powers, ironically often getting it from places that don't follow the sanitary practices that render it likely benign.
The thing to keep in mind when you compare the saga of turn of the century milk production between Europe and the US/Canada is the immigrant population. There just wasn't a market for milk in the urban setting in Europe because everyone knew it was deadly since the Roman times.
Compare that to New York, where they had a large influx of immigrants from small farming communities where children would often drink milk when young and they would buy milk that was sold out of unrefrigerated wagons coming from cows kept in confined spaces within the city. It was murderous, with tens of thousands of children's deaths in New York City alone. Of course this was the age of Cholera so the lives of people in cities came cheap.
The plain truth was adding formalin, which has no safe dose itself, was safer than drinking that shit the way they were selling it. North American cities quickly banned unpasteurized milk once the causal relationship was proven (despite the milkmen complaining).
That's great context for the "why" on those outbreaks, thanks!