{"id":264,"date":"2025-07-19T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T14:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/?p=264"},"modified":"2025-07-21T13:18:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T13:18:17","slug":"unpasteurized-vs-pasteurized-what-to-know-about-food-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/19\/unpasteurized-vs-pasteurized-what-to-know-about-food-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpasteurized vs. pasteurized: What to know about food safety"},"content":{"rendered":"

A long-practiced food processing method<\/a> has been up for debate<\/a> in recent years, with some opting to drink and eat without sterilizing it first.<\/p>\n

The polarizing process is pasteurization \u2014 a heating process that kills the microbes behind common foodborne illnesses<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Prominent pushes for “raw milk” consumption are growing, whether it’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Gwyneth Paltrow<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While still on the 2024 campaign trail for his failed presidential bid, Kennedy said he only drinks unpasteurized milk<\/a>. In April, he suspended a quality control program<\/a> for testing the nation’s dairy supply.<\/p>\n

All the while, experts and researchers are advocating for Americans to only consume pasteurized milk. <\/p>\n

Pasteurized vs unpasteurized: What’s the difference?<\/h2>\n

Pasteurization is the process of heating a food product for a certain amount of time to destroy bacteria and viruses present, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> (CDC).<\/p>\n

Dairy products, eggs, juices, canned food, flour, honey and alcohol, among others, are typically pasteurized. <\/p>\n

Unpasteurized products don’t undergo the heating and germ-killing process. They can include milk, artisanal cheese, juice, meat and more.<\/p>\n

Benefits, drawbacks of pasteurization<\/h2>\n

By getting rid of harmful microbes, pasteurization can prevent foodborne illnesses like listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, Q fever, and brucellosis, according to the Food and Drug Administration<\/a> (FDA).<\/p>\n

Pasteurization can also change the nutritional value, flavor and appearance<\/a> of food, though only minimally, per the National Library of Medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Pasteurized milk offers the same nutritional benefits without the risks of raw milk consumption. Since the early 1900s, pasteurization has greatly reduced milk-borne illnesses,” the CDC says.<\/p>\n

Are unpasteurized foods safe? What are the risks?<\/h2>\n

Some believe that so-called “raw milk” and other unpasteurized products are a healthier option, since they are straight from nature. <\/p>\n

Some champion positive health returns from drinking unpasteurized milk, including raw milk farmer<\/a> Cliff McConville: \u201cI can tell you that I used to get sick like three times a year, like, you know, with colds or flu, and I almost never get sick anymore.”<\/p>\n

But most medical bodies and independent experts say the benefits of unpasteurized food don’t outweigh the potential health problems.<\/p>\n

The CDC<\/a> and the FDA<\/a> have warned that raw milk is unsafe because bacteria in it can cause illness or even death.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0bird flu<\/a>\u00a0virus can remain infectious in raw milk for over a day at room temperature and more than a week when refrigerated, according to a non-peer-reviewed study<\/a> from a group of UK scientists.<\/p>\n

The study, published in\u00a0medRxiv,\u00a0examined the stability of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in raw cow and sheep milk, with researchers simulating storage conditions common in dairy settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh viral titres were detected in milk from infected cows, raising concerns about onwards human infections,\u201d the authors wrote.<\/p>\n

NewsNation’s Taylor Delandro and Mills Hayes<\/em> contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long-practiced food processing method has been up for debate in recent years, with some opting to drink and eat without sterilizing it first. The polarizing process is pasteurization \u2014 a heating process that kills the microbes behind common foodborne illnesses. Prominent pushes for “raw milk” consumption are growing, whether it’s Health and Human Services […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dexalumpotrik.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}