Scientists Find Chemical-Free Way To Extend Milk's Shelf Life For Up To 3 Weeks (digitaltrends.com) 258
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Digital Trends: Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Tennessee have found a non-chemical way to extend regular milk's shelf life to around 2-3 weeks, and without affecting the nutrients or flavor. The technology they've developed involves increasing the temperature of milk by just 10 degrees for less than a second, which is well below the 70-degree Celsius threshold needed for pasteurization. That quick heat blast is still able to eliminate more than 99 percent of the bacteria left from pasteurization. "The developed technology uses low temperature, short time (LTST) in a process that disperses milk in the form of droplets with low heat/pressure variation over a short treatment time in conjunction with pasteurization," Bruce Applegate, Purdue's associate professor in the Department of Food Science, explained to Digital Trends. "The resultant product was subjected to a taste panel and participants had equal or greater preference for the LTST pasteurized milk compared to normally pasteurized milk. The shelf was determined to be a minimum of two weeks longer than the standard shelf life from pasteurization alone." As for whether or not this method will make its way to store shelves, it won't in the near future. "Currently an Ohio-based milk processor is using this technology and distributing the milk," Applegate says. "The unit is approved for processing milk in Ohio and distribution nationwide. The product is currently being distributed, however it has not been labeled as extended shelf life milk. Once the commercial application is validated the milk will be labelled with the extended shelf life." Scientists from Duke University believe there may be a large source of hydrogen gas under the ocean, caused by rocks forming from fast-spreading tectonic plates.
uhh (Score:5, Informative)
What does hydrogen found under tectonic plates have to do with milk pasteurization? Is this some kind of reading proficiency test?
Re:uhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes. And the editor failed it.
Re:uhh (Score:4, Insightful)
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The definition of editor is "person responsible for the final content of a publication", so "super users who can post articles" is precisely a type of editor. Whether they do a good job or not is a different issue, but the role's name of "editor" is perfectly apt.
Re:uhh (Score:5, Funny)
What does hydrogen found under tectonic plates have to do with milk pasteurization? Is this some kind of reading proficiency test?
Both articles contained the word "University".
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The references make sense if they're related subjects, but the only connection is 'scientists' this time.
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No, there's one other connection; BeauHD. He's the only editor who adds retarded shit like that at the end of a story.
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I'm 99% sure it's an AI adding this shit to the posts.
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Re:uhh (Score:5, Funny)
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They asked the NSA.
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The references make sense if they're related subjects, but the only connection is 'scientists' this time.
Could be the "fast-spreading tectonic plates" as that's the best place to drill for milk.
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Because those are articles from the same poster.
Have you see my interesting comment on the previous article here about the [youtube.com] takedown policies?
FFS Beau skip adding the additional links (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez .. are you just adding links to the end to stories just for the hell of it? WTF does the hydrogen one have to do with milk in the first place?
It's doing shit like this that pisses off regulars and drives people away. Just check out how people felt about the last lot of overlords.
The only conclusion I can come to is that you are Timmmmah in disguise (albeit a bad one). So quit making a fool of your self and just leave well enough alone.
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The only conclusion I can come to is that you are Timmmmah in disguise (albeit a bad one). So quit making a fool of your self and just leave well enough alone.
Maybe he recently joined the American Non Sequitur Society [anvari.org].
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Yesterday I ridiculed someone for complaining about an [un]related article link, because one line at the bottom of a summary seemed like such a stupid thing to complain about. It's still think it's a stupid thing to complain about. Why would this drive anyone away? I'm sure most of the people who would be driven away by stupid things said on slashdot would have left after their first visit.
But I have to concede that this was the stupidest, completely un-related "related" link I've seen yet. I almost felt
Re:FFS Beau skip adding the additional links (Score:5, Funny)
Proof: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-... [dilbert.com]
And more: http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-... [dilbert.com]
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Indeed. It's pathetic. I wonder why the new owners keep the useless "editors" around? They could easily be replaced by a script that scrapes a few articles from two days ago reddit while they wait for the next paid-for shilling article.
I remember when all for one welcomed the new insectoid overlords. manishshshshs promised a lot of changes, and said he listened. Well, reality probably struck, because exactly none of the changes to the better have occurred.
I didn't think it would be possible, but current day slashdot is in slightly worse condition than at the end of the DICE era.
Is slashdot up for sale yet?
Re:FFS Beau skip adding the additional links (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't think it would be possible, but current day slashdot is in slightly worse condition than at the end of the DICE era.
I have to ask... what? They've removed a lot of the crap DICE was attempting to pull, editing quality has improved somewhat, the comments section now supports partial Unicode (— éèêç etc.), I see fewer completely wrong submissions, and so on. Sure, there could be even more improvements, but to say that it's worsened is blatantly untrue.
Temperature increase from what temperature? (Score:5, Insightful)
The technology they've developed involves increasing the temperature of milk by just 10 degrees for less than a second, which is well below the 70-degree Celsius threshold needed for pasteurization.
What temperature do they increase the milk from? You can't say an increase of 10 degrees is "well below" an absolute measurement of 70 degrees.
Scientists from Duke University believe there may be a large source of hydrogen gas under the ocean, caused by rocks forming from fast-spreading tectonic plates.
...what?
Re:Temperature increase from what temperature? (Score:5, Informative)
38.6C, the temp it comes out of the cow.
Is it really that god damn difficult for you high UID monkeys to use a bit of simple logic? Do you really need literally everything spoon-fed to you?
Are you seriously going to chastise someone when you didn't even bother to try to figure out what the hell is going on yourself? It's pretty obvious from TFS (which is admittedly poorly written, based on a poorly written TFA, based almost directly on a completely ignorant university press release linked in TFS) that the milk is still pasteurized and this is an ADDITIONAL step. So the "temperature" we're raising by "10 degrees" is completely confusing in all of these sources.
SLASHDOT EDITORS: STOP PUTTING UP CRAP ARTICLES WITHOUT A LINK TO THE ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC SOURCE!!!
This is the kind of stupid ignorant discussions we get without the actual scientific source, which can be found here [springeropen.com].
Now everyone go read actually what this study did. Most stuff in TFS is confused if not downright wrong. Let me explain the basics of this process, based on the actual scientific study:
(1) Pasteurization is good, but it only results in limited shelf life. Other techniques used for increasing shelf life (ultra-high temp or UHT pasteurization, low-temperature long time or LTLT pasteurization) produce undesirable effects on flavor and/or nutrients, etc.
(2) This process is what the authors describe as "low temperature, short time (LTST) amendment for pasteurization" which could be added after normal pasteurization to increase shelf life dramatically without some of the negative effects described above.
(3) The statement from TFS "The technology they've developed involves increasing the temperature of milk by just 10 degrees for less than a second, which is well below the 70-degree Celsius threshold needed for pasteurization" is complete BS. I don't know what it's supposed to mean. If you go to the actual scientific study, you'll find the temperatures in the chamber for the 5 trials varied between 64.8 C and 83.8 C. In general, chamber temperatures in the trials below 70 C seemed to be much less effective at increasing shelf life and weren't recommended. So TFS -- and the university press it's based on -- are completely wrong.
(4) What is the process really? Well, just after pasteurization (which occurs at or above 72.7C), the milk is reheated in a special chamber and dispersed in droplets. The reheating step only raises the temperature of the milk by 1 to 10C over what it was before (in the words of the authors "at or below pasteurization temperatures" of less than or equal to 72.7C) for 0.02 seconds. As I noted above, the actual temperature achieved in the chamber seems important (definitely above 70 C seems desirable), with higher temperatures being more effective at increasing shelf life.
(5) The process is potentially an improvement over other proposals to increase shelf-life for a number of reasons:
-- No significant loss in nutrients compared with standard pasteurization.
-- No significant taste difference or perceived quality difference among tasters with this additional step.
-- The minimal heat energy required for this step could be incorporated into a standard pasteurization process setting to siphon off heat energy already present from the pasteurization tube, so this wouldn't necessarily require additional energy (and is thus very efficient).
OK? That's what's actually going on here. Now that we know what the original science is actually about, please continue your random Slashdot insults and debates.... perhaps slightly more informed.
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Maybe I'm also making the incorrect assumptions about the inlet temperature (the paper doesn't make it clear)
The paper gives detailed tables showing the inlet temp, the chamber temp, and the outlet temp for every trial. Inlet temp varied between 51 and 73 C for the trials, though those that used a lower inlet temp seemed less effective for extending shelf life.
WTF does hydrogen have to do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientists from Duke University believe there may be a large source of hydrogen gas under the ocean, caused by rocks forming from fast-spreading tectonic plates
Not only am I getting really sick of seeing link backs to stories which are often literally less than a day old, but in this case it is completely irrelevant.
Links back to relevant stories are not bad, but they only make sense when they are related, of really really important significance, or old enough that they aren't in the immediate memory of the readership.
This is journalism 101 type stuff.
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BeauHD has proven to be a complete jackass. This is embarrasing and ridiculous.
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This is journalism 101 type stuff.
Ha, you used the word "journalism" on /. - funny.
BeauHD is awesome (Score:2)
I'd certainly like my milk to stay fresh longer, but hauling it down under the ocean, and mixing it with hydrogen sounds far too challenging a process to realistically commercialize.
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Yeah everyone is focusing on the tectonic plate thing and missed this gem.
What's the difference? (Score:2)
Currently in the UK I can buy regular pasteurized milk which can be homogenized or not and lasts about a week, or "filtered" but still regularly pasteurized milk (e.g. Cravendale) which lasts 2-3 weeks. What's the difference with this new process? I seems to still require the regular pasteurization and adds an extra heating to get the same effect as the "filtering". Note that I use quotes since I don't know what this filtering entails, so the question is whether this new process has any advantage over that
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Indeed - what does this process do that could not already be done?
The milk I buy has been "ultrapasteurized" (2 seconds @ 280F) and is stable for 60+ days (at least 15 days after opening).
ESL milk?... (Score:3)
Is it really something new or noteworthy?
I am not sure about the US but here in Europe ESL milk (PDF) [dlg.org] is a pretty standard thing: it has a shelf life of 3-4 weeks and it is of course chemical-free.
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Is it really something new or noteworthy?
I am not sure about the US but here in Europe ESL milk (PDF) is a pretty standard thing: it has a shelf life of 3-4 weeks and it is of course chemical-free.
I put a much longer explanation in a post above based on the actual scientific study. But from reading your ESL link, it seems there are a couple differences: the ESL process seems to be a variant on the UHT process with slightly lower temperature (but still way above normal pasteurization). Your link says that additional losses in nutrients and quality are minimal, but they do exist.
This process is essentially an "add-on" to a normal pasteurization process which happens for a fraction of a second aroun
Raw milk faddist here (Score:5, Interesting)
The technology they've developed involves increasing the temperature of milk by just 10 degrees for less than a second, which is well below the 70-degree Celsius threshold needed for pasteurization. That quick heat blast is still able to eliminate more than 99 percent of the bacteria left from pasteurization.
So which is it? Do they first pasteurize the milk, then "blast" it with the 10 degrees? Or is the 10 degree thing the only treatment?
without affecting the nutrients or flavor.
As any hobby cheese maker will be able to tell you, pasteurizing diminishes calcium content by around half. If you google for cheese making instructions, almost all will tell you to preferably use unpasteurized milk, and if you have to use pasteurized, you need to add calcium. Calcium is one of the things needed for the fermentation processes. (UHT milk is strictly discouraged as about all calcium is destroyed, and the stuff one can add back is not of the same quality - cheeses with UHT milk usually flop).
Obviously, a lot of other nutrients (minerals, vitamins, probiotics) are diminished. I'm not sure about the chemistry, but I assume it would not be elemental minerals, but some organic compounds being broken down so as not to be utilizable by biological processes (fermentation, digestion) any longer.
Thankfully, in my country one can sell raw (unpasteurized) milk legally, provided samples are tested every few months for some pathogens - this is called "certified raw milk". My provider voluntarily does the tests once a month. I obviously use some of the milk fresh, which seems to last longer in my fridge than the commercial pasteurized milk. Most of it is used for feta-style cheese, one of the easiest cheeses (I know, I know, cows milk does not make "real" feta). I do not need to add any cultures, it uses its natural-occurring cultures for the fermentation step, I only need to add some coagulation enzymes. The cheese also differs light-years in taste from the chalky store-bought stuff made from cow's milk.
And let's not get me started on taste. Just not comparable to the white stuff from the supermarket. The milk also comes unhomogenized, and somehow that cream just does it for one's tastebuds.
Anyhow, as you may deduce, I'm a fan of making milk last for weeks in the traditional (and nutrient-enhancing) way: fermentation. Jogurt and kefir do last about double as long as the fresh milk, and can still be used instead of fresh milk in a lot of applications; cheeses obviously last for some months at least and be default only get better with age. Cream and butter also last a bit longer, and freeze well. Then there is the trip to the supplier every week or two to restock - for the few single days in between where your fresh milk is used up, there REALLY are other diet options, you don't need fresh milk every day.
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I am going to have to call you out on that. But heat treating milk whether it is for pasteurization or UHT, cannot and I repeat CANNOT diminish the calcium in the milk.
If it did that would be revolutionary low temperature nuclear reactions that defied all known laws of physics and would most likely kill anyone in the vicinity with lethal doses of radiation. This is the sort of crap that Fleischmann and Pons where spouting and more recently Andrea Rossi.
Whatever heat treatment does to milk and I am not going
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It was poorly phrased. Of course the amount of calcium in the milk remains the same, but over heated milk does seem to have reduced bioavailability of calcium [nih.gov]. The above poster's claim of a 50% reduction between raw and pasteurized milks seems to be really high, but I can't find any numbers on that. Pasteurization does reduce B and C vitamins in milk by about 5%.
So it was. Unfortunately that's the language commonly used in cheesemaking tutorials. Hence the 3rd paragraph in my original post. One day I might get around to read up on the actual biochemistry and be able to quantify more precisely, but for now I'm too lazy to do that and the cheese works out all right.
About adding Ca: http://curd-nerd.com/calcium-c... [curd-nerd.com]
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I hear that in America, if you try to sell unpasteurised milk, they send a SWAT team. USA, USA.
In Australia we have to buy it as bath milk... And as you say, it doesn't go off like pasteurised milk, but starts naturally fermenting and taking on yogurt like flavours.
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I hear that in America, if you try to sell unpasteurised milk, they send a SWAT team. USA, USA.
Sounds likely :-) but fortunately not completely true: http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/... [farmtoconsumer.org]
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So which is it? Do they first pasteurize the milk
Yes, that's why they're talking about bacteria left from pasteurization.
Congrats.. they made Fairlife milk (Score:2)
What are they doing with the milk? (Score:2)
The summary says: "As for whether or not this method will make its way to store shelves, it won't in the near future." This indicates that milk treated using this process is not available on store shelves. But then the summary says: "The product is currently being distributed." So I'm curious as to who they are distributing this milk to and what is being done with it?
Maggie Griffin Approved Idea (Score:5, Informative)
ultra (Score:2)
hydrogen gas (Score:3)
The designated hitter rule (already a subject of great consternation) will become much more controversial once the windfarms off Nantucket become fully operational.
"Chemical-free"! (Score:2)
Yep, remove all the chemicals from milk, and what's left will keep forever. As long as you can keep air from seeping into the resulting hard vacuum.
What?!? (Score:2)
I haven't drank milk in years...
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Milk is for pussies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
We already have UHT milk (Score:2)
Ultra-pasteurized milk already lasts for three months.
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Funny this isn't mentioned.. (Score:2)
Re:unpasteurised milk is way better (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, try dogs milk.
Nothing wrong with dog's milk. Full of goodness, full of vitamins, full of marrowbone jelly. Lasts longer than any other milk, dog's milk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I am curious if we we have scientific evidence of this. (Not necessarily that it is better, but it tastes different).
Or is it that most Pasteurised milk is also Homogenized (To prevent separation of the cream, with the rest of the milk.)
Or perhaps that most of the time Pasteurised milk sold in the store may had been sitting on the shelf for a few days longer.
As with many of the Natural Food and Non-GMO food people. There is little science behind their claims but are basing it of an emotional response towar
Unpasteurized milk production (Score:4, Insightful)
It is even illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in most of EU. Some old delicacies used it and may also no longer be manufactured
I'm pretty sure unpasteurized milk is "manufactured" constantly since that's how it comes out of the cow...
Re:Unpasteurized milk production (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, in the EU we heat our cows to 70C routinely.
Re:Unpasteurized milk production (Score:4, Funny)
Nah, in the EU we heat our cows to 70C routinely.
Damn you global warming!
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That's just 'cause these dumb animals start to evaporate when you heat them.
But there's hope, the EU is about to make bovine exhaust filters mandatory.
Re:Unpasteurized milk production (Score:4, Funny)
But there's hope, the EU is about to make bovine exhaust filters mandatory.
Is that a euphemism for putting a muzzle on Trump?
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there is such a thing as "good bacteria" but never mind, this process will kill it all. sterilizing away most of the nutritional benefit.
Because protein and calcium are unimportant sources of nutrition in milk? These are unaffected by pasteurization.
What "nutrients" are actually lost? Do tell.
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Do you not know how bioavailability works?
Many of those bacteria help us digest stuff we lost the ability to digest after infancy.
Gut flora (Score:5, Informative)
Do you not know how bioavailability works?
While I'm no expert I have a crude idea. Do you? You seem to be conflating bio-availability some other concepts. It's a lot more complex than raw food = good bacteria = healthy person.
Many of those bacteria help us digest stuff we lost the ability to digest after infancy.
You are grossly oversimplifying the process. Bacteria help us digest stuff throughout our life. Remove them and we can barely survive at any age. We aren't born with all the bacteria we need to digest stuff and our gut flora change as we age. Some comes from mom, some comes from the geography and environment around us, some comes from our diet. Antibiotics have a strong effect on our gut flora.
The debate [wikipedia.org] about the health benefits of raw vs pasteurized milk has not yet yielded much in the way of firm conclusions. A few things seem clear. Pasteurizing does unquestionably kill harmful (and helpful) microbes and on balance it seems clear that it has a net benefit in reducing illness and mortality from pathogens. Most studies conducted so far that have found benefits to raw milk have not controlled for the fact that the individuals studied lived on a farm (hard to get raw milk elsewhere) and there are many variables relating to that so it is hard to draw any strong conclusions. There may be benefits but we haven't clearly teased them out yet. The available evidence and studies so far seems to show that any negative impact on nutrition from pasteurization is small to negligible though future studies may revise that conclusion as more data is gathered.
Re:Gut flora (Score:4, Informative)
Actually the debate has some very firm conclusions with several deaths (mostly child deaths) directly linked to drinking raw milk. There was one in January here in the UK and in December 2014, one deaths and 4 serious injuries were caused by children consuming raw milk in Australia.
The debate is out about homogenisation, but the debate over pasteurisation is very clear cut. The problem is, like many times where science is very clear there are a few vocal nutters who refuse to give up their beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence. Personally I dont mind letting adult nutters have their dangerous milk, my problem is when they try to force their bad life choices onto others, especially kids who couldn't know any better.
Nutrition (Score:3)
there is such a thing as "good bacteria" but never mind, this process will kill it all. sterilizing away most of the nutritional benefit.
Most studies to date have concluded that pasteurization has minimal to negligible effect on the nutritional content of milk. Most of the nutritional value on milk has nothing whatsoever to do with any microbes in the product. The majority of the nutritional value comes from protein, fat, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins which are largely unaffected by pasteurization. The largest impact seems to be on taste. Any impact on the gut fauna from pasteurization appears to be small and more than offset by t
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Are those spherical cows?
Raw milk legal status (Score:2)
I've been able to buy it in both EU countries I have lived in. Where is it illegal?
You could have looked it up [wikipedia.org] yourself.
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That is 5 countries out of 28 (soon to be 27). That's nowhere near "most" of the EU.
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No it isn't, you just need to get licenced and declare BIG SCARY NOTICE of "CONTAINS RAW MILK!!!11one" on any products that you manufacture using it to protect the weaklings of the herd.
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It is even illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in most of EU.
Depends on how & where. For example: I'm pretty sure most dairy farmers in my area will be happy to have a meet & greet with one of their end users, tap a few litres into a bottle, and take ~3x the wholesale price they are getting from factory.
That's unpasteurized milk, full fat, straight from cow -> cooling tank -> end user's fridge (leave it there overnight to skim off the fat). As has been done for ages regardless what EU rules say about it. Thankfully EU bureaucrats haven't rotted every
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It's illegal in my state, but I've got a friend who even skips the cooking tank. Cow, bucket, you take it home and then it hits the fridge.
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That's like making raw eggs illegal.
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"Sometimes it gets sour, sometimes it gets bitter, but it never goes "bad", "
Err, the sour and bitter taste is a clue that is HAS gone off.
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> bitter taste
Bitter is the taste of poison. That's why it makes you cringe.
Yes, sometimes the system doesn't work well, like coffee, or antifreeze.
In any event, I get three weeks out of bagged milk all the time, I'm not sure I need another way to do that.
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There's absolutely no evidence for that. In fact incidents of food-borne illness are significantly higher for practitioners of the new-age "raw milk" psycho-babble.
If I want a glass of milk, but instead get a cup of sour curds, the milk has gone bad. It's never going to be good milk again.
If you want a long shelf-life, just FREEZE it. It'l
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"non-hygenic practices like drinking raw milk"
pretty sure not washing hands properly after wiping arse killed more ancestors than raw milk
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Re:unpasteurised milk is way better (Score:4, Insightful)
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Can you milk me, Greg?
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I hope you don't eat lettuce leaves; they're intended to feed the lettuce plant itself via photosynthesis.
There are valid reasons for not eating/drinking milk, I don't think you've given one of them.
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What's the drama? we're saving cows which would otherwise be used for slaughter only.
More importantly we find that the less stress cows have the more and better milk they produce so we're actively looking to better the lives of cows.
Is this what nature intended? no. Nature has no feelings other than man-made moral judgements. Humans are part of nature, this is now "natural".
Bottom line, are cows better off providing milk for humans? yes. Are humans better off? yes.
Wait until you confront the fact human brea
Humans have been doing it for 1000s of years (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact we've even evolved to keep the lactase enzyme into adulthood in the majority of the worlds population just because of drinking milk. So get over it cupcake and take your hand wringing animal rights agenda elsewhere.
Re:Humans have been doing it for 1000s of years (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know - I've had some vegan cupcakes that were indistinguishable from conventional.
You are correct that a segment of humans have evolved to take advantage of the milk production of other animals. That's been pretty beneficial to us as a species. But the traditional, pastoral production of milk that coincided with that evolution bears almost no resemblance to the industrialized production of milk in the modern world. There are plenty of legitimate problems about industrial dairy - and not just for the cows! - that are worth discussing out in the open. It doesn't have to be either 1) you don't give a shit about how the milk is produced orwhat's in it so long as it is plentiful and cheap, or 2) you're a dreadlocked vegan stridently and smugly preaching about the evil wrought by humans.
I, for one, welcome this development. So much food is wasted in industrialized societies - it is sickening. Past-date milk is one of the worst examples. If milk has a longer shelf life, then the entire industry can operate more efficiently, which ought to 1) reduce prices for consumers and 2) reduce pressure on producers to treat their livestock so shittily in the quest to produce more cheaply
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The drinking of milk and the production of it are 2 seperate arguments. I agree industrialised production of milk doesn't have the best interests of animal welfare at heart , but ditto every other aspect of farming, even arable where acres are scorch earthed and planted with a monoculture. The only solution is to reduce the population then we can all eat "organically" produced produce. But that suggestion doesn't go down well with about 50% of the population who are programmed to have kids and a lot of men
Re:Humans have been doing it for 1000s of years (Score:5, Informative)
As the son-in-law of a dairy farmer I can tell you that stressed/unhappy cows are bad for business. They create poor quality milk, which reduces the quality of the entire tank.
That is to say, cow happiness is very much in the financial interest of the farmer.
That isn't to say that all farming is great, but in dairy, there is much more pressure to make the animal happy than in say, chicken farming or, pretty much anything else.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well the industry may involve questionable ethics but the fact that the lactase persistence mutation is so prevalent among European descent indicates that there was a time (admittedly thousands of years ago) where adults able to consume the milk of a different species survived better than those that couldn't. If it had made no difference to survivability then the mutation would be less common and most of Europe would be lactose intolerant.
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And the same animal's flesh, intended for maggots, bacteria, plants, and various carrion animal species, is similarly fed to humans...
Vegetarian Diet Kills Animals Too:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technolo... [go.com]
Last but not least:
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Well, our teeth as well as our digestive system suggest that we're omnivores, so you needn't toss meat to the maggots and fungi. We're quite capable of eating it, provided it didn't get time to "ripen" too much. We're notoriously bad at eating carrion. A good indicator is the usual human reaction to the smell of Cadaverine (pentamethylenediamine) and Putrescine (tetramethylenediamine), which can best be described as "projectile vomiting", and that's why people who have EVER smelled a "juicy" corpse will NEV
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"the usual human reaction to the smell of Cadaverine (pentamethylenediamine) and Putrescine (tetramethylenediamine),"
Quoting the wiki:
"Basic amines such as putrescine, spermine, spermidine and cadaverine are responsible for the smell and flavor of semen."
What human reaction, you said?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Cows are not strictly herbivorous. (Score:2)
They'll munch on bones of other animals when they find them. [youtube.com]
They need all the calcium they can get as they are pumping it out through milk.
Just like the way they'll go for some chicken nuggets [youtube.com] if they are low on other nutrients such as phosphorus or iron. [youtube.com]
Nature is red in tooth and claw.
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the result of using cheap cattle feed that included ground-up sheep infected with Scrapie. This induced BSE in the cows,
Today, from the "what the fuck were they thinking?" category...
Seriously, feeding ground up diseased animal to a different animal? What could possibly go wrong? It sounds like the public should have been aware of effects of DDT in 1962, which demonstrates what happens when bad stuff enters the food chain and gets concentrated up.
Re:remember CJD? (Score:5, Informative)
Wow... so much incorrect information in such a small space.
First, CJD is caused by prions which can come from several sources including your own body if you're unlucky enough to have the wrong genetic mutation.
Second, the prion that causes Bovine spongiform encephalopathy cannot be destroyed by any level of pasteurization that would leave cattle feed in an edible state. It remains viable at temperatures below 600 degrees C. Trying to pasteurize cattle feed at that temperature would incinerate it and leave you with prion-laden ashes. Changes to regulations on the pasteurization of cattle feed would have no effect whatsoever on this.
Third, the outbreaks of BSE were caused by cattle feed containing the remains of sick cattle and sheep. At the time, it was seen as a way to minimize lost profits while disposing of sick animals, so it rapidly became a wide-spread practice which resulted in the huge outbreaks of the dease.
Re: (Score:2)
which resulted in the huge outbreaks
Well, not in the US. *wink* *wink* But I think that was because they were never really looking for it - I figured out how many cows they tested, and it was a pretty tiny fraction of a percent.
Re:Pasteurization still? (Score:5, Informative)
Irradiation degrades the flavor of milk more than heat pasteurization does. Milk, as it turns out, is very sensitive to radiation and develops an off flavor very quickly with exposure.
In the US, at least, the FDA has also not approved irradiation as a treatment for milk. Because of the issues with flavor, it's also very doubtful that manufacturers will go to the expense of lobbying for approval.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. Milk gives me gas too.