Consuming uncooked foods is a culinary risk I'm sometimes willing to take - sushi, unset egg yolks, and so on. But never, ever, unpasteurized milk or raw milk cheeses which haven't been prepared...
Consuming uncooked foods is a culinary risk I'm sometimes willing to take - sushi, unset egg yolks, and so on.
But never, ever, unpasteurized milk or raw milk cheeses which haven't been prepared according to a certified process.
Like vaccination, there are too many people without the understanding of why we follow processes for safety and risk reduction. We don't have hordes of people sick and dying from tuberculosis, brucellosis, typhoid, salmonella, listeria and others, because we figured out how to prevent them.
The latest outbreak has an exciting modern feature - antibiotic resistance.
Though it's little known now, brucellosis can become a dangerous relapsing chronic illness - similar to, but not quite as deadly and contagious as tuberculosis. Growing up in farm country, I had a neighbor who was slowly dying from brucellosis. The infection settled in his bones, and he was regularly in hospital for relapses that never quite resolved with the best available antibiotic treatment.
This is one of the nastiest diseases you can possibly have - as fearsome as cancer, but without the grace of a speedy death.
A grateful world welcomed pasteurization. When it became widespread, it was a symbol of shiny modernity, proclaimed from the hilltops as a sign of health, prosperity, longevity and wisdom.
I dread the return of a Dark Ages 2.0, where rumor, misinformation, blind faith, and rebellion against the rule of tested truth, can reduce people to ignorant, suffering slaves.
Consuming uncooked foods is a culinary risk I'm sometimes willing to take - sushi, unset egg yolks, and so on.
But never, ever, unpasteurized milk or raw milk cheeses which haven't been prepared according to a certified process.
Like vaccination, there are too many people without the understanding of why we follow processes for safety and risk reduction. We don't have hordes of people sick and dying from tuberculosis, brucellosis, typhoid, salmonella, listeria and others, because we figured out how to prevent them.
The latest outbreak has an exciting modern feature - antibiotic resistance.
Though it's little known now, brucellosis can become a dangerous relapsing chronic illness - similar to, but not quite as deadly and contagious as tuberculosis. Growing up in farm country, I had a neighbor who was slowly dying from brucellosis. The infection settled in his bones, and he was regularly in hospital for relapses that never quite resolved with the best available antibiotic treatment.
This is one of the nastiest diseases you can possibly have - as fearsome as cancer, but without the grace of a speedy death.
A grateful world welcomed pasteurization. When it became widespread, it was a symbol of shiny modernity, proclaimed from the hilltops as a sign of health, prosperity, longevity and wisdom.
I dread the return of a Dark Ages 2.0, where rumor, misinformation, blind faith, and rebellion against the rule of tested truth, can reduce people to ignorant, suffering slaves.
Just because my brain decided to go for a run with this, I stumbled on a great history of pasteurization and the controversy over raw milk here:
https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/the-lingering-heat-over-pasteurized-milk