Agro, My opinion on this creature SB and his associates does not warrant any writing space let alone one minute of thinking about his negativities. If you want to dismiss mentioned theories or practices from the past one only has to look at Pasteur to find that he is now also wrong, like so many other great men of their time. Yes, sorting out the chaff from the wheat is what I've been doing for years and I came to the same conclusion that you don't need a degree to know what is good for your health or for the environment for that matter.I like to see a healthy environment for my children and their off-spring and like to live a healthy life for what's left of it. If you are at all involved in the agro biz then couldn't you see that our soils are ruined and give almost nothing to the crops as essential nutrients for our consumption? It was a habit right thru the wheatbelt to burn stubble (as recommended by past gov.agencies) instead of plowing it back to enrich the soils.Organic is the way to go, so it is with milk and all meat products.No more Sodium Nitrite preserving of meat (causing cancer tumors) and no more vac's for farm animals.
It sounds simplistic I know.. but I would have to write a book, what I have found out about healthy living and what to do if disaster happens.B.T.W. Agro about your past admission, did you see this program on telly last week about DNA manipulation for the positive? There is hope after all and it is getting closer:-)

Fascinating discussion.

I can't add to the arguments on health, but I can tell you that I worked for a while at a small provincial family-owned dairy, that performed the "slow pasteurisation" described in eftfnc's lead-in post - the "145 degrees F for 30 minutes" variety.

The milk was neither sterilized, nor homogenized, so had that tell-tale separation between the cream at the top and the rest of the milk.

The milk tasted noticeably better than that produced by the quick 'n' nasty process, and the dairy had a scattering of devoted "I wouldn't drink that mass-produced stuff if you paid me" followers.

Silver-top was standard, but we also did a gold-top "jersey" line that had a higher cream content.

We also had a special "green top" for Passover. I don't remember how that was produced, but I do recall when delivering it, that the outside of the bottle was slightly sticky.

Shops and supermarkets wouldn't stock any of this stuff, of course, because the profit margins were too low for them, so every bottle had to be delivered to the doorstep.

The dairy eventually went out of business in the early seventies, as taste started to take a back seat to convenience.

p.s. I'm not sure whether this is coincidence or not, but my cholesterol level has always been found to be in the "astronomic" category.

eftfnc, I don’t dismiss things from the past, just because they are the past. I don’t know what part of Pasteur’s writings you are referring to him being wrong, but he certainly wasn’t right on everything. I don’t dismiss the correct parts, just the wrong parts. Pasteur’s observation that heating of liquids stops them from spoiling as quickly is correct and has been backed by a significant amount of future research. The assertions about raw milk are wrong and have been shown repeatedly to be wrong. Taking this quote from Jo Hartley “As most food goes bad as it ages, raw milk gets better.” I hardly need point out how wrong it is.

Strange that you refuse to read Stephen Barrett’s work because he doesn’t practice medicine (he was a psychiatrist so it is unlikely he would have worked as a GP), but you endorse Jo Hartley’s comments despite the fact that she doesn’t practice medicine only. How do you decide what information to accept? Only information that supports your existing prejudices?

I am involved in agriculture and work with lots of farmers. Almost none of these farmers ever burn their stubble. None of them would plow their stubble into the soil either. This is because tillage is extremely damaging to soil, causing soil degradation, compaction, erosion, releasing carbon to the atmosphere and reducing microbial populations – all things these farmers want to get away from. These farmers practice stubble-retention, no-till farming. In fact, tillage is so damaging that these farmers would rather burn stubble than plow it back into the soil.

Agro: It beats me where you've read, “As most food goes bad as it ages, raw milk gets better.”
SB was a psychiatrist, and sifting thru his courtcases showing to be a self proclaimed expert,he was losing most lawsuits.
Not very intelligent. After all it is not how much you have learned, but how you use it, at whatever level your knowledge is.
Besides one book reads the mind of the author much better compared to the next, sometimes we pick it up thru our gut feeling by just reading a foreword.My gut feeling tells me heaps of positive things about what Jo Hartley writes.
I do also have a tendency to read the Weekly Times, like last weeks 'in brief' about organic food proven to be better than conventional grown produce.25% better it claims.I agree as I have proven that myself with brix readings.I also know by testing our city tapwater how much (ppm) of crap does not belong into our drinking water, hence I do not give my family this to drink. Coming back on milk, I prefer to feed my family raw milk if I can buy it somewhere around Melbourne. It is not hard to make it safe to drink if I am in doubt about it's cleanliness. Just to inform you, when you put two open milk cartons in the fridge, lightly spray colloidal silver into one and none into the other, the difference between the two of staying drinkable is one month in summertime. Even hospitals/dental clinics used silver dishes to sanitize implements in, lets not talk about spacecraft where they use silver items to store food or fluids in.Did I mention that most of my uncles and aunties were born on cattle farms in Friesland, you know where the friesian cattle originated from? They used silverlined cans on the side of the roads for pickup by the factory trucks sometimes standing in the hot sun for hours.Each cow was registered by photo and treated as an individual and recognised by their peculiar attitudes which nowadays is only done by organic farmers.

Banjo:
http://loftymatters.com/2008/02/26/23/

eftfnc, I read “As most food goes bad as it ages, raw milk gets better.” in the link that you directed readers to in your first post on this thread. Did you not read this article before suggesting that we read it?

I am afraid it was as I feared, you accept or reject material based not on the evidence that might support it, but how well the comments confirm your existing prejudices. I trained as a scientist and was trained not to do this, but to look at the quality of the evidence presented. Therefore, I don’t really care very much whether Stephen Barrett has ever practiced medicine or has ever been involved in a court case. This is not germane to why I suggested his article might be a good read. The reason, as I explained, was that Barrett gets most of the points correct, the research that I am aware of generally supports the statements he makes and it saves me from having to re-hash the arguments.

The fact that you don’t want to deal with the arguments made in the article, but instead are trying to “shoot the messenger”, leaves me with no option but to conclude that you only accept points that confirm your current prejudices. Also, that you have never contemplated that these prejudices might be wrong. This is religious thinking.

As to the use of colloid silver, you are aware of course that over consumption of silver can lead to health conditions, notably argyria? The TGA has effectively regulated colloid silver products and that the only legal use is for purification of drinking water? http://www.tga.gov.au/docs/html/csilver.htm

Agro the only url I posted at the end was http://www.loftymatters.com

I don't see any others. If I would have seen that mentioned comment I would not have supported that idea as I do agree with your reaction about "aging made milk better", it is however possible where ever you've read it that it was meant to describe a milk fermenting process. As far as colloidal silver is concerned argeria can only happen when overloading of silver takes place, as in large particles and over a long time. I am talking to a scientist all this time? Well this is what I am talking about:
http://healthyagain.biz/silvervideo.html
I have used this stuff for 4years plus, and I still don't look gray/blue