[throwaway7767]

> I find that for many things in life where there are similar but not exact variants, one tends to prefer the variant one first tried despite both variants being potentially equivalent.

I grew up with pasteurized milk. As an adult, I tried unpasteurized milk. The taste is different, was a bit weird at first. After a couple of glasses, I much preferred it over the kind I grew up with (it's just so much better), and it's all I drink now. Normal pasteurized milk tastes like low-fat now (i.e., it tastes like drinking water from a glass that had a little milk in it already).

So I don't think it's quite so simple that everyone always prefers what they grew up with. But you're right that we often need to get used to new kinds of food before we accept it.

[Retric]

Raw milk has a meaningful risk of death. Unless it's addictive levels of goodness I would avoid it.

[andy_ppp]

I was about to give some snarky response, but a quick Google reveals it's actually terrifyingly dangerous and there are good reasons never to drink raw milk. Thanks!

[fizgig]

I think the risks are greatly overstated by the dairy lobby. My family drank raw milk from our own cows and goats for the better part of 10 years, and none of us ever got sick as a result.

Of course our animal accommodations and milking practices were much cleaner than what one might find at commercial scale. But that's not a problem inherent in raw milk, but rather the same unsanitary conditions that plague the industry at large.

[Retric]

It's important to look for actual statistics, milk is a leading cause of food born illness even with pasteurization. Abstractly the risk is not that high however food safty is a major issue: the overall annual estimate of the total burden of disease due to contaminated food consumed in the United States is 47.8 million illnesses, 127,839 hospitalizations, and 3,037 deaths. https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/questions-and-answers.ht...

[fizgig]

Milk is a funny thing, being a rich medium for bacteria.

Take a pint of fresh-from-the-cow milk and a pint of your typical store-bought pasteurized milk and leave them open on the counter for 2 or 3 days at room temperature. The former will turn into a tart, pleasant smelling mix of curds and whey I'd be willing to taste and possibly consume while the latter will be a smelly, gag-inducing spoiled mess that will almost certainly make you ill.

I've witnessed this first-hand.

Raw milk is loaded with beneficial bacteria that can be naturally culture itself to various ends, more often then not out-competing environmental bad bacterial. Pasteurized milk, devoid of most bacteria to start, will (most often) be overrun by bacteria that will make people ill. I does not surprise me that our "normal" milk is a non-trivial vector of food-borne illness.

[Retric]

While I can understand the assumption Raw milk is far more likely to be associated with food born illness for exactly the reasons you mention. However while overall consumption well below 1% it's still responsible for a and much higher than expected fraction of illnesses and a few deaths.

Importantly, people are more likely to die from food that looks good but can kill them than they are to eat food that looks and tastes nasty.

[rwmj]

I only use raw milk for making yogurt. As part of the process the milk is heated to near boiling point. And I process the raw milk into yogurt quickly, within a few hours of it leaving the cow (to avoid botulism). Living is fun!

[Retric]

> heated to near boiling point

If your milk is over 72 °C for 15 seconds or more then your pasteurizing it even if your starting with raw milk.

[d-sc]

While this doesn't necessarily mean it's safe. I've consumed raw milk that we 'grow' on our farm with happy, organically raised cows and haven't had any problems.

[throwaway7767]

I'm sure it does, but every farmer I've ever met drank raw milk, so I'm not convinced it's so terribly unsafe.

For the record, I don't live in the US, and here they don't pump cattle full of antibacterials. I buy my raw milk at the grocery store, it's legal and vetted by the health authorities.

Also, yes, it is addictive levels of goodness. :)

[jdeibele]

That's why restaurants have to call it "pasta ai quattro formaggi" because if they call it mac-and-cheese it's not going to taste what Mom (or Dad) used to make.