I find it very hard to take anyone seriously once they use the word. Now I could go into good reasons why milk is treated the way it is, but it would fall on deaf years. When someone starts thinking that natural means safe they are passed logical discourse.
For the rest.
Pasteurization of milk was first suggested by Franz von Soxhlet in 1886.
Some of the diseases that pasteurization can prevent are tuberculosis, diphtheria, polio, salmonella, strep throat, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_milk

Having now looked at Helens Website it's safe to say Helen ideas can be dismissed out of hand. Next she'll be telling us drinking our own piss is good for us.

Kenny

Urine is quite sterile - some people Do drink it (not my 'cup-of-tea'), others (Inuits) use it as a hair rinse.

With modern dairy methods, I see no problem with drinking raw milk. Also, as a child, in a rural town, I often drank fresh cow's milk - still warm from the cow from the farmer across the road. Also ate fresh field mushrooms, berries and an assortment of grass stems. No doubt all of it was good for the immune system.

Therefore, perhaps you should not be so instantly dismissive - you might just learn something.

Interesting article Helen.

It is a no-brainer that organic is healthier, particularly food grown as close to your locale as possible but pasteurization is a tricky one.

My father grew up on raw milk and often told stories about fighting with his siblings for the thick rich cream floating on top. Another friend from England grew up with raw milk being delivered from the local farmer but her mother would boil it before refrigerating it for human consumption.

So many conflicting views and studies on pasteurization make it difficult to come to any firm conclusion in relation to the disease control aspect. Perhaps the past concerns about TB are no longer relevant now that we are TB free and I wonder if cows raised on organic pastures, not overcrowded and managed under a strict hygiene regime' would have the same propensity for disease as mentioned by others above.

I can see that anecdotal evidence suggests that some people (normally allergic to milk) have no ill effects when drinking raw milk due to the presence of enzymes which are destroyed by pasteurization. And scientific research demonstrates that some nutrients are lost in the process (although some argue only small amounts - like 6-10% of Vit C and thiamine).

Anything that has grown without chemicals and artificial fertilizers has to be better as rule, but unless I am just another victim of pasteurization brainwashing, I remain unsure. It is certainly food for thought and something worth further investigation.

Evidence Bronwyn? All you need to do is use Google Scholar.

Here's an excerpt of some of the hazards...

Milk diseases:

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/252/15/2048
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1416328
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/281/19/1845

raw milk and cheese:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WFP-4HCKH28-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c7b8889ceacc00f5561c04c8d3374bae

If you think that TB is under control (at least in Australia), just think on the idea that the WHO estimates that 2 billion people in the world are infected with it, and it is considered the world's leading cause of death from a single infectious organism, killing at least 2 million people each year.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/artic/microbes_in_sickness_and_in_health_publications_national_institute_of_allergy_and_infectious_diseases_niaid.htm
The reason that Australia and other countries have lower rates is because of vaccination and pasteuristion, although in the USA, they also have these and the prevalence there is estimated at between 10 and 15 million people.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/t/tuberculosis/stats.htm

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1308574

Organic meat production does not guarantee animal welfare:

http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0301622604001150
http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0301622602003093

including higher helminth infections:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TD7-44TCYKN-2&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=3777606d5d92ba84da5cd126fdd1aa32

same goes for chickens (at least in Sweden, but I suspect elsewhere also):
http://www.actavetscand.com/content/43/S1/S37

Oh sure, you may argue modern dairy methods will save you from gastro-enteric infection or worse (tuberculosis, scarlet fever) from raw milk, but how do you know? Who tests the farms? or the milk? is it even tested?

Who is regulating the organic industry?
Where's the uproar for stronger controls for companies and farms gambling with our health? There's certification,certainly, but who's testing the products to make sure they are free of disease?

More research and stronger regulation is needed.

Organic and 'raw' products healthier? No evidence to say that they are, it's just a belief system.

You guys will pay through the nose if it fits with your ideology.

Personally, I'm getting my kids vaccinated and letting them drink pasteurised milk and eat normal safe products. If they don't like it then there's no need to panic there's plenty of other ways to get the nutrients without the risks.

Oh, and Bronwyn, the apparent 'statistic' of "To gain the goodness you did in a 1950s apple, you now need to eat three from today's supermarkets" needs evidence of it's own. Did you do the study yourself?

*Anything that has grown without chemicals and artificial fertilizers has to be better as rule*

That of course is highly debatable. I've heard of organic meat
farmers, feeding their livestock "certified organic soya meal"
from China. I'd rather that you eat it then me lol.

What do you mean by "artificial" fertilisers ?

Plants take up their nutrients in the form of N, P, K, etc,
no matter where those nutrients come from. They can all be
labled as "chemicals" no matter from which source.

Phophorus basically is mined where birds used to crap alot,
Nauru, Christmas Island etc. Eventually its turned back into
superphosphate.

Potash comes from potash mines in places like Canada, natural
deposits. Its basically crushed rock.

N is still natural N, in the form of natural gas, eventually
turned into plant available forms.

The point is, farming is not hunter gathering. If you
extract nutrients from the soil, you have to put them back,
or you are mining, not farming.

Nutrients have to come from somewhere. Now in China they
use human excreta on some of their crops and recycle nutrients
that way. That of course could then be classified as "organic"