Many take it for granted now, but drinking milk is far safer today than it was just 200 years ago. these days undergoes a crucial process called pasteurization developed in the 19th century that eliminates the germs which can cause many common and even fatal illnesses. But even in the 1800s, there were plenty of people who thought that "raw milk" lost some of its flavor and health benefits by undergoing this then-groundbreaking treatment.
Some advocates maintain that stance today, and at one point raw milk could be purchased at places as mainstream as (you'll have to shop more locally if you want it now). But before you go all-natural with your dairy products, it's important to know the difference between mainstream milk and this old-school alternative. Raw milk is, simply, any animal-produced milk that hasn't been pasteurized.
As a now-routine food safety procedure, pasteurization is fairly straightforward: dairy producers briefly heat milk to a set temperature in order to kill harmful germs like salmonella and E. coli. A variety of factors can influence the kinds of bacteria that occur in so-called raw milk — such as the animals that produce the milk or the environment in which they're raised — but many of the microbes present can cause all sorts of diseases, ranging from short-term food poisoning to deadly afflictions like diphtheria and tuberculosis.
While a healthy, thoroughly vaccinated adult may not fall ill drinking raw milk, infants and immunocompromised individu.