posted
Milk is supposed to last 4 days after its sell by date...but that depends on how it is treated up to that date.
The 4 days guideline assumes that the milk was refrigerated for that entire time. Some people leave their milk out while they eat their cereal...that cuts into the expiration date. Also, the store you buy it at might be leaving the milk out for a while after they take delivery.
If you are sure your refrigerator is cold enough (and you are not keeping the milk on the door) and you are not leaving it out...it should last for 4 days past the date. If that is not happening, you might try a different store...because the store you are buying the milk at might be leaving it out. Of course it is also possible that something is happening somewhere else in the supply chain.
The estimates that I have seen are that for every hour that the milk spends outside of refrigeration its shelf life decreases by one day.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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posted
In the military they printed this chart on the side that showed how fast your milk goes bad at various temperatures. I miss that sucker.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:A healthy immune system can handle quite a bit of "unsafe" food without any serious problems. If not, most people would die of food poisoning in college.
Also, the whole human race would be extinct. Think of the food our species has been eating for thousand years. Rather a lot of it has been off.
Indeed. Our infant, child, and adult mortality rates have improved vastly with increased hygiene practices, though.
As I said before, you can roll a lot of dice before you get two to come up snake eyes. Eventually, though, someone does roll them, and that can be a really crappy situation. E.g., a four-year old who needs kidney transplantation and who will be on lifelong immunosuppressant medication, all completely, utterly preventable.
It's a choice. People make choices about taking risks for themselves and others all the time. You do get a different perspective when you see what does happen to somebody eventually, though.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
I'm sure you do, CT. However, I have God only knows how many friends who drink raw milk every day, and they all give it to their kids, and nobody's getting sick with kidney failure.
Truthfully, the only illnesses I have heard of from raw milk are from cow, not goat. For whatever reason, goat appears to be safer.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I am very glad that your friends find it so, steven, and I hope that continues to work for them.
Kidney failure isn't common. It's a crapshoot -- rare when it does happen, but predictable that it will happen to someone involved, sometime. Luck or fate or just the odds may be on the side of those who skip that particular roll.
Mind you, other (rare) bad things happen that are completely preventable, and I myself still engage in the risk. I wouldn't deny that.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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By definition, all of those kids have gone into renal failure. You don't know any of those kids (~5000 over the last 10 yrs), but I know 3 of them. Neither part of that sentence surprises me, given that the current US population of kids <5yrs is about 20 million. A lot of people do know those kids, though -- just not you.
About 15% of those kids each year have permanent kidney damage. I know one of them. You know none of the ~750 to whom this has happened over the last 10 years, whereas I know 1. Again, this does not surprise me.
It's a risk people chose to take or not, same as many many risks. I would, however, want people to know the truth of that risk, that they may eventually have to explain to their daughter that the reason why she had a kidney transplant at 4 yrs old was directly attributable to a choice they made. That is what my patient's parents will have to do, or they will have to choose to conceal it.
steve, that strain of E. coli was directly traced to that particular cow. It was genetically typed to the same strain -- despite the sanitation regimes, despite the passion and love of the farmers, despite how clean the farm looked, despite all of that, there is where the damge came from.
I don't know whether there is a differential rate of either colonization or transference between cow's milk or goat's milk. I suspect over-representation likely may be confounding your analysis; that is, probably there are more people you know drinking unpasteurized cow's milk than goat's milk, simply because there are more cows raised for milk than goats. The actual rates may be the same or comparable. I don't know, myself.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
"I suspect over-representation likely may be confounding your analysis"
Possibly. I considered that myself.
Your numbers, however, mean next-to-nothing unless you can show the ratio of apple juice-related to milk-related permanent kidney failure.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by steven: Your numbers, however, mean next-to-nothing unless you can show the ratio of apple juice-related to milk-related permanent kidney failure.
steven. I am not trying to convince anyone that he or she is likely to get kidney failure from drinking unpasteurized milk or apple juice. That would, indeed, require comparative numbers. (I don't think you have it correct to say "unless you can show the ratio of apple juice-related to milk-related permanent kidney failure," because I think you mean I would need to show the ratio of all who drink unpasteurized juice or milk to the number of all of those who drink it -and- get kidney failure.)
But because I am not speaking about comparative likelihood, comparative rates would be irrelevant.
I am saying that the risk exists, even if it is small. To establish that, the numbers of incidence are not only more than "next-to-nothing," they are everything. Hook, line, and sinker.
People make the choice. I just want them to be fully aware of the possible consequences if they are going to make that choice.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
A lot depends on the quality of the animal's feed as well. Common sense would tell you to spend the money to feed cows correctly so the milk is safe, versus damaging it through processing to kill bacteria.
yeah, it's more expensive to buy the right soil amendments and mineral supplements. Was that your point? Cost?
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Additionally, for what it's worth, HUS is primarily a disease of children under 5 yrs old. Adults seem to handle that particular bacterial load better, or at least differently -- so if you the drinkers you know are mostly adults, then they are even less likely as a group to ever see this particular problem.
Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by steven: A lot depends on the quality of the animal's feed as well. Common sense would tell you to spend the money to feed cows correctly so the milk is safe, versus damaging it through processing to kill bacteria.
yeah, it's more expensive to buy the right soil amendments and mineral supplements. Was that your point? Cost?
All living cows, regardless of feed, have E. coli in their GI tract. This particular strain of E. coli is not more or less damaging to the cow than any other -- it doesn't affect them in any particular way. It is what makes their guts work.
I cannot make sense of what you are saying.
The last part [about cost] seems even more out of nowhere. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
There are two basic ways to raise cows. You can either feed them what's cheap and convenient, and then feed them antibiotics to keep them from the inevitable illnesses that will result, or you can spend the money to buy the correct supplements for the grazing land so that the grass is mineral and nutrient-rich. The second way is better for 2 reasons:
1. because you don't end up with VREs and other deadly antibiotic-resistant bugs
2. The milk and meat from those cows is healthier eating.
It's also important to feed quick-dried hay in the winter, instead of grain or slow-dried hay.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I see a lot of people online quoting another person who has briefly summarized an incompletely-identified Journal of Dairy Science article from 2003, but I don't see anyone that seems to have read the actual article itself (other than the quoted person, who may well have), and nobody cites it explicitly.
If anyone has the specific source for the JDS article above, please let me know. I'd be terribly interested.
---
Edited to add: Hey, thanks, steven! Fascinating! Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
CT, I don't have sources (all of the books that I got this information from have long since been returned to the library), but here is what I've read so that you'll have a more concrete idea of what you're looking for.
The claim is as follows:
1. These strains of e. coli that are really nasty to humans don't bother the cattle. (You already mentioned this).
2. However, a cow's digestive track has a mostly a neutral pH, so a human's acidic stomach used to provide a defense.
3. Feeding grain to ruminants causes the bacterial commnunity in the rumen to change to bacteria that can digest the grain, which also make the rumen acidic.
4. Under those conditions, all of the bacteria are being selected for resistance to acid, including the nasty strains of e. coli.
5. These new strains are no longer killed by the acid in human stomachs, removing one of our best defenses.
6. Raising cattle (and other ruminants) without grain maintains a neutral pH so that they don't develop the acid-resistant bacteria.
There are of course a number of other factors as well: the cleanliness of frequent pasture changes vs the filth of a feedlot; healthier animals when they eat their natural diet; less antibiotic use since the animals are healthier naturally, so less chance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria being formed.
Hopefully that's enough detail about the claims made that you can find the sources that you want.
posted
Poulan talks about this in his latest book, Omnivore's Dilemma, but I don't know if he references anything or not.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: If I left ravioli out from 6-10 can I still eat it?
I would without a second thought. I think we discovered that the official, most cautious guidelines say no more than 2 hours.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
This conversation has made me think of a few questions for those in the know:
1. I didn't know apple juice was pasteurized. I'm not sure what that means. Does that suggest that if I bought apples from the grocery store and put them in a juicer to make apple juice, that I'd be at risk? (Hypothetical question only...I don't drink apple juice at all or give it to my son.)
2. How many kids actually drink unpasteurized milk/apple juice in a year? As I'm a city girl and always have been, it just seems really weird to me to think of doing that at all. My husband is a country boy and worked on his grandparents' farm in his youth so he first introduced me to the idea that people did that sometimes....but in his case it was a bum who hadn't eaten in a week that his grandparents took on and were disgusted when they found out he drank from the cow and offered him a real meal! His great-gparents were dairy farmers and would never have done such a thing. 500 kids out of 20 million in the United States seems so tiny as to be completely out of sight out of mind. But it's not 500 out of 20 million because I don't think very many people drink it!
3. Slightly related but on a different topic: How common is it to get sick from raw egg? I'm not saying I'm going to change my cookie dough habits, but I'm curious.
posted
I've been eating raw batter and cookie dough since I was a kid. I've never gotten sick from those. Sometimes germs can make your immune system stronger.
I read a site that said to clean the eggs off with soap before putting them in the dough.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: This conversation has made me think of a few questions for those in the know:
1. I didn't know apple juice was pasteurized. I'm not sure what that means. Does that suggest that if I bought apples from the grocery store and put them in a juicer to make apple juice, that I'd be at risk? (Hypothetical question only...I don't drink apple juice at all or give it to my son.)
In general, home made products don't have the same risks of disease and contamination that industrial products face. You can easily keep one juicer and a half dozen apples very clean, and if you see a questionable apple, you can throw it out. An industrial operation has such a great volume of product, so many people working, large machines which cannot be broken down and cleaned frequently, and many other factors which make sanitation a more dangerous issue. They also have bottling, shipping, and storage times for more opportunity for spoilage and contamination. They NEED to introduce pasteurization and other measures to combat the inherent dangers of the process.
If you wash your apples and machine and drink the juice in a timely manner, your chances of contamination and bacterial growth are much, much smaller than a factory setting.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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