> A lot of Americans find [UHT] offensive ... Europeans, however, don’t seem to mind.
Here in the UK, this statement is not true at all. UHT milk is certainly available in the supermarkets (not in the chilled section) but the vast majority of milk sold is fresh. I guess this is the risk of generalising a whole continent of people in such a short statement. (Probably the article's claims about Americans don't generalise to every part of that either.)
The most ridiculous thing about this statement is that it is claiming Europeans care less about UHT. Yet it's evident that at least some Americans don't care that much because they needed this article to be written to even notice that some of their milk was UHT. I'm confident that if all organic milk in UK was UHT then its consumers would be furious, without needing it to be pointed out to them.
I suspect part of British preference for fresh milk is due to the tradition of milkmen delivering fresh milk every morning, now almost entirely stopped but still in living memory. I'm reminded of a quote from the excellent British/Irish comedy Father Ted, where Father Dougal becomes a milkman: "You better get going, milk gets sour you know. Unless it's UHT milk, but there's no demand for that because it's shite".
In Germany, the consumer demand for UHT is low as well. Fresh milk is prefered over that, UHT tastes weird for most. No idea where the article gets the idea from that Europeans care less about UHT.
I was going to comment basically the exact same thing but tried to do some reasearch first and came across an article [1] claiming that UHT (H-Milch) has a market share of a whopping 70% which does not match my personal experience at all. But it was the only article naming an actual number that I could find within a 5 minute google search.
I did a quick search and got a similar trend for Europe overall (although, like that article, there were no serious citations). I wonder if it could be including commercial uses, such as in restaurants or for manufacturers of milk-derived products (but not cheese as it seems UHT ruins the proteins needed for that).
Not sure if true, but it was explained to me once that UHT is more popular in hotter climates as it's easier to transport vs refridgerated lorries (France vs UK)
I noticed in France that UHT was very popular. Here in Germany, seems to be a mix with a preference for normal milk.
It's possible that consumers declare the they don't prefer UHT milk when asked but actually buy UHT milk without realising. In Greece, UHT milk is often sold in similar packaging as fresh milk (i.e. in plastic bottles rather than cartons) and placed in the refrigerated section alongside fresh milk.
To confuse matters further, some UHT milk is sold separately, outside the fridge and in the typical carton packaging that one expects it. So it's very easy to be confused about what is UHT and what is fresh, just by looking at where a product is and how it's packaged.
Of course you'd think that the taste would give the milk away- but I find that if UHT milk is refrigerated, its "burned milk" taste is much reduced and can easily fool someone who only drinks a little milk at a time or mixed with other foods or drinks, e.g. in their coffee or cereals.
I live in Canada (Quebec near the Ontario border) and I buy UHT milk once in a while as some backup milk just in case I run out before the next groceries and I happen to need some for a recipe or something. It was handy during the pandemic, where I tried (and still try) to minimize exposure.
Here in Sweden no one really buys UHT milk. I guess all stores carry it but it's rather a niche product. However, during recent years we have gotten something that's sort of in between UHT and regular milk. I don't know exactly what the process is, maybe they it's just pasteurize it for a bit longer. You need to keep it refrigerated but it will last for weeks. Some people claims it taste a bit different. To me it tastes the same as regular milk. It tastes nothing like UHT though.
That's microfiltered milk and it's actually much worse than UHT:
Microfiltration (MF) of cheese milk has been proposed as an alternative to bactofugation for removal of bacterial spores. However, while good separation efficiency can be obtained, this technology has some drawbacks. First of all, for an efficient MF process, the milk would have to be skimmed prior to MF, which means that the cream phase, constituting ∼10% of milk volume, cannot be treated with MF and would require a high heat treatment to ensure inactivation of spores. Secondly, the MF retentate will typically constitute a considerably large volume than the bactofugate, again meaning that a large volume would have to be sterilized. Together, this could mean the involvement of a considerable proportion of sterilized materials being included in the cheese milk when applying MF for spore removal, with negative effects on cheese-making and cheese quality.
In short, microfiltered milk is taken apart, sterilised or filtered separately, and then put back together again- probably the most processed kind of milk you can find in the market.
This is also holds true in Finland. UHT milk is sold in Supermarkets but it's not something that people regularly consume. I personally haven't seen it served anywhere in the past decade.
Some organic milk brands nowadays are actually using very low temperature pasteurization, which heats the milk to 63°C for 30 minutes. It’s more expensive but considered to have a much better flavor.
Yes, this is the only kind I buy but even better is High Pressure Processing. This pasteurizes the milk with pressure rather than heat preserving all the desirable properties of raw milk without any of the risks. There is a company in Australia (Made By Cow) selling this kind of milk but it does not seem to have spread to other countries yet.
Sounds promising! I hadn’t heard of this before, but apparently it has recently been approved for use in Canada, so hopefully dairies here will give it a try.
ESL is a whole different beast than pasteurization. It comes in two major versions: Microfiltration or a heating akin to UHT but shorter and at a lower temperature (127 °C vs 150 °C). Microfiltration won't change the taste, heating will. Microfiltration may be combined with pasteurization (heating to around 72 °C) to inactivate enzymes which may affect shelf life.
Pasteurized milk will keep for 5 to 7 days, while ESL milk can keep for 12 to 21 days in the unopened container.
I think that’s something different from what I’m describing, since it’s higher temperature than the HTST that’s typical in North America. UHT milk never became very popular in North America, so I’m not to what extent ESL has been introduced.
I've never seen this link between 'organic' and UHT before. I'd have to check but I think any 'organic' milk is just treated the same as normal milk, and there's a separate non-refrigerated section for UHT milk (which keeps for months without refrigeration).
Me neither, I was very confused by this article. Where I live UHT is almost thought of as a “real-milk-surrogate” and it’s used e.g. by people going camping (because no fridge is needed). Organic on the other hand is considered higher quality. Maybe in other markets it’s different.
Yes, I see what you mean! How about milk that is organic and UHT at the same time? It seems like they are marketing to two very different consumer segments. I've never seen organic UHT milk here in Australia. Is it common elsewhere?
PS I'm not saying that UHT is necessarily lower quality, I'm talking exclusively about average consumer's perception.
In the US I've never seen it in a non-refrigerated section, so I bet they just refrigerate the UHT milk even if it isn't needed to keep it all in one place and not freak people out.
My favorite is that you can find the same almond milk both in both the refrigerated and normal sections of the same store sometimes. Once food safety becomes ritual, it’s hard to shake.
I think that's because they want to place the product in both the health food and dairy sections. I don't think it's from any desire to refrigerate it.
Sometimes I just want almond milk to be cold right now. And also, the refrigerated milk section tends to be much easier to find than whatever place the store decides to put non refrigerated milks.
From what I understand, Ultra-Pasteurized != UHT. It seems to come down to the hermetically-sealed containers, or something
> Though Ultra-Pasteurized milk is processed to be free of spoilage and harmful bacteria, it is not considered sterile because it is not hermetically sealed (i.e. canned), thus, it requires refrigeration. ... 30-90 days ... until opened
My ordinary American supermarket carries a ton of carton organic milk (refrigerated), and I think most of it is U-P.
The thing to keep in mind is that "organic" refers to the production of milk - how animals are grown, what they are fed, whether they are allowed to roam freely etc.
The rest, whether the milk is raw, pasteurised, UHT, or whatever, that's not to do with production anymore, but distribution and storage. So it's perfectly possible for milk to be both produced organically (so "organic") and also Ultra-Heat Treated (so UHT).
As a kid I used to sneak UHT (long-lasting) milk in the shopping cart because the sweeter taste went well with cereals. It always seemed like a magic trick by Nature, along with roasted bread (the Maillard reaction) or simply leaving a pear to become ripe, soft and sweet.
Is this more common in less urban places? I don't know that I've seen UHT organic milk in the Seattle area and pretty much only see UHT Milk sold for shelf stability without refrigeration or for packing in kids lunches.
As a European I grew up on UHT milk, and boy, I didn't like it a bit, but my mom only went shopping once a week, so it was either that or no milk at all. I still find it repulsive and a bit tasteless, the worst offenders being the half skimmed and low fat varieties.
I have experienced reverse. Few times when I bought organic milk, it started to smell foul after couple days. Even though the printed expiry date was far away in the future
I wonder if irradiating by say 10 MeV electron beam could work for raw milk. Perhaps with the right dose, the taste shouldn't be altered significantly, yet the bacteria should be gone
Food irradiation is a bit expensive compared to ultra pasteurization. I'm not aware of any brands of milk that use it. However it doesn't affect taste or nutrition of food as far as I can tell. It would probably work pretty well, although it would be pretty expensive for something as cheap and safe as milk.
Interesting! I could swear organic milk in a carton lasts at least twice as long as regular milk in a jug.
It does say ultra-pasteurized (the carton), so I guess I've been drinking basically-UHT organic milk along with regular. The organic tastes way better to me, so maybe I don't mind the UHT flavor (or lack thereof). The milk I buy is all refrigerated fwiw, I haven't tried room temperature UHT to compare taste.
I notice milk frozen immediately after purchase and then weeks later thawed doesn't last very long, a few days a most, before it curdles (US Costco organic 1%).
We also get organic UHT chocolate milk in small boxes which lasts a few months. UHT organic heavy cream in small boxes last some months as well.
btw, there are many different method beside pastorization and UHT.
beside an "sterilized" milk (obtained with 20 mins at 116-120 °C) and others intermedied heat treatments there is also the microfiltration: the milk pass through a microscopic membrane, that "filter out" the patogenic elements
Once you open it you have to start refrigerating immediately or it will curdle. Open air is full of bacteria and people have a cloud of the bugs surrounding them. They come off of skin and your breath and clothes. An opened container will be infected almost instantly.
FWIW We buy raw non-pasteurized, non-homogenized cow milk from the neighboring farm (the cows are grass fed). We go there once a week with our bottles, get 5-7 liters worth (costs only 1€/l, cheaper than in the grocery store). It keeps without problem for up to 8-9 days. You do need a good fridge though.
I could go on and on about the qualities of raw milk, the richness of flavor, the high percentage of cream (~6.5% in the case of our milk), beneficial bacteria and mineral content, but the point is that it keeps well enough for us to be able to buy it once a week.
Pasteurization mitigates a lot of microbiological risks associated with raw milk unless the utmost care is taken during its production and storage. It is still advisable that pregnant women, small children and immunocompromised persons do not consume raw milk and products made from it.
Raw milk is dangerous, perhaps if you are fortunate enough to source it directly from a cow and refrigerate it quickly enough you can avoid the deadly bacteria building up, But honestly I wouldn't be risking it if I where you.
Regardless for the rest of us it's not an option and never will be.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I'm guessing that the risk depends on how the cows are kept. Industrialization of milk farming introduced high concentration of cows in cramped spaces, which led to disease/bacteria spread. I'm guessing this, because we kept milk cows for thousands of years and didn't use pasteurization. If that's true, and you know that your milk cow is kept in good conditions, you should feel comfortable drinking its milk raw.
It’s rather the other way round. Pasteurization was invented at the end of the 19th century and quickly becoming widespread in the beginning of the 20th century (1910 in NY) when it was no longer feasible to have cows in urban centers and transportation took significant time. However, since then, the industrialization of milk production and the introduction of safety standards (cold storage, stainless steel vats to transport, mandatory testing,...) made processing raw milk safer, rather than riskier. Major TBC outbreaks were linked to raw milk - TBC linked to milk is basically a non-issue nowadays, even for raw milk.
From my reading raw milk can be contaminated inside and outside the cow from such a myriad of sources and while cramped industrial farming might increase the likelihood of contamination it doesn't remotely eliminate the risks. Also note pasteurization practices originated prior to industrial farming
Yes and no. Different nation has different laws and testing, and different methods for animal handling can increase disease risks. To take an direct example here from Sweden, if a farmers animal get tested positive for salmonella then most if not all the nearby animals are killed and possible even nearby neighboring farmers flocks just to be on the safe side. Raw milk also get tested a lot more since the risk are higher.
That said, while its true that we have kept cows for thousands of years without using pasteurization, there is a reason why the average life span is high and child mortality is low. We also used to milk the cow and then directly drink it, rather than collect it and store it for a extended period of time.
Raw milk is objectively tastier, more nutritious, and keeps for longer; the dangers of foodborne illness can be greatly mitigated with proper sourcing, which will also help control the amount of pesticides and antibiotics that make their way into the milk (something you can't really do with processed milk).
There are certain gourmet cheeses that can only be made with raw milk; to make them with pasteurized milk is not only blasphemous, it yields objectively inferior product.
In Poland, many people look down on pasteurized and UHT milk (which is most of it). The city where I presently live has a vending machine(s) for raw milk, you can even bring your own bottles to save the environment.
A big benefit of raw milk is that it goes sour and is suitable for a variety of fermentation methods. This is rich in probiotics and just plain tasty. Also serves as an intermediate product for some recipes like crumpets. Here's a list of used fermentation methods by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermented_milk_products
EU and US have opposite approaches to some foods. For example in US, chicken eggs are chemically washed completely clean to fight salmonella and other bugs. Unfortunately, it washes off the protective layer they have and eggs go bad faster. So they repaint eggs with another chemical to protect them. In EU, eggs instead receive only basic washing and you frequently find traces of crap on your eggs. US in general is high on processed foods (Oreo cookies in recipes?).
Another case is hygiene. Circumcision is common in US for 'hygienic reasons'. Alternatively, you can use soap.
My point is that you can go too far with fixing nature.
Would you mind explaining the qualities? I don't see how pasteurization or homogenization would change the percentage of cream or mineral content. I've never tasted it so I can't speak to flavor, and you're right about beneficial bacteria but I don't know if that outweighs the chances of harmful bacteria.
The amount of cream in pasteurized milk is tightly controlled; the milk is literally run through a centrifuge and the skim milk separated from the cream, then cream is re-added to a certain percentage. With raw milk, this processing doesn't occur, allowing for cream content as high as it comes straight from the cow.
It is all for taste. Heating leads to changes in the proteins and sugars (caramelization / maillard reaction) affecting the taste. The more heat and the longer the time it is applied, the more pronounced this change is.
Homogenization has a slight impact on mouth feel and taste, usually described as an improvement.
The chance of you dying from raw milk from the farm next door, consumed within a few days, is minute. Since that's what GP was talking about, I don't think they're irresponsible for not mentioning dying.
Pasteurization is mandated because most people do not live next door to farms, so milk needs to travel and last more than a few days.
It kind of implies the opposite, that the bacteria don't need to multiply, they're already present.
Have you seen studies that show most outbreaks are from bacteria multiplying in the milk rather than contamination at the source? Since even raw milk is promptly cooled which greatly slows bacterial reproduction, I find it more likely that all the contamination needed to cause sickness happens during processing.
The concept of buying from the farmer next door doesn't only encapsulate less distance (meaning less time and fewer chances for the cold chain to be broken), but also an element of trust.
You can view the facilities, and make a judgement about the cleanliness -- as you might in a restaurant before considering the beef tartare -- and you have likely been buying from this farmer for some time.
Ah yes, using your expert knowledge of food safety practices and cow biology to tell if you are eventually going to consume contaminated milk. It's coming out of the tap contaminated.
Food can be contaminated at any number of places along the supply chain, but I don't see how trust enters into it. It's like trusting that you won't be served a bad oyster, impossible to rule out at even the nicest, most "trustworthy" establishment.
If you think that non-experts can't make a judgement about food safety that, while not being perfect, is still useful, then I don't think we will agree about much.
I think that certain kinds of risks are just risks regardless of your "judgement". If you want to drink raw milk, that's cool, but don't kid yourself that you can tell the safety by the cut of the farmer's jib.
It's just not black and white like that. You can tell a lot of useful things about the food safety of an establishment by looking at it. If the farmer's equipment is filthy, or she keeps chickens in the same room she processes the milk, I'm probably not gonna drink milk from there. If it's all spotless, and there are clearly systems and processes being followed, I feel reasonably safe (I've been drinking raw milk most of my life and never once became ill from doing so).
These kinds of risks are similar to the risks of eating beef tartare or oysters (things that I also do fairly regularly, including sometimes in developing countries!), and humans have been reasonably successfully managing these risks for a long time, meanwhile some other humans seem to massively overstate the risks for some reason.
Not sure if you are just trolling or malevolent on purpose. I did read the article and it literally says that is the intent and text of the law.
Quote from the article:
> More detailed rules from 2008 list products that should be preferred to medicine and antibiotics "provided that their therapeutic effect is effective". These include homeopathic products, but also various vitamins and compounds of mineral origin.
Quote from the law:
> Phytotherapeutic and homeopathic products, trace elements and products listed in [...] shall be used in preference to chemically-synthesised allopathic veterinary treatment or antibiotics, provided that their therapeutic effect is effective for the species of animal.
"By definition, Alternative Medicine has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. Do you know what they call Alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine."
So the EU law actually says that ignorant quackery (herbal medicine) and fraudulent for-profit quackery (homeopathy) shall be preferred to any natural or synthetic remedy that has been proved to be effective (allopathic = evidence based medicine).
EU organic milk comes from cows who are only allowed to be administered antibiotics if they get sick. Those cows are removed from the herd when sick, but are allowed to re-enter the organic herd after they are taken off the antibiotics.
I'm really surprised this isn't the standard everywhere. In NZ it's quite similar and very strict; if any trace of antibiotic is detected in a batch of milk it is rejected, and the offending farmer must pay for it (easily $1,000s, probably much more).
Aside from the resistance issue, one reason for this is quite simple; antibiotics in the milk mean you can't make cheese with it. If a cow needs antibiotics, they are separated from the herd for a few days until they are clear (and also can't be slaughtered for meat for a longer period of time).
> A lot of Americans find [UHT] offensive ... Europeans, however, don’t seem to mind.
Here in the UK, this statement is not true at all. UHT milk is certainly available in the supermarkets (not in the chilled section) but the vast majority of milk sold is fresh. I guess this is the risk of generalising a whole continent of people in such a short statement. (Probably the article's claims about Americans don't generalise to every part of that either.)
The most ridiculous thing about this statement is that it is claiming Europeans care less about UHT. Yet it's evident that at least some Americans don't care that much because they needed this article to be written to even notice that some of their milk was UHT. I'm confident that if all organic milk in UK was UHT then its consumers would be furious, without needing it to be pointed out to them.
I suspect part of British preference for fresh milk is due to the tradition of milkmen delivering fresh milk every morning, now almost entirely stopped but still in living memory. I'm reminded of a quote from the excellent British/Irish comedy Father Ted, where Father Dougal becomes a milkman: "You better get going, milk gets sour you know. Unless it's UHT milk, but there's no demand for that because it's shite".