Can you drink freshly squeezed milk?

Many rural families have cows at home. Some wealthy families with children even raise a cow to give milk to their children. Many people believe that freshly squeezed milk is fresh and highly concentrated, and that their own milk is truly additive-free and has high nutritional value. So, is this really the case? Can you really drink freshly squeezed milk? Is the nutritional value higher as well?

Freshly squeezed milk is indeed fresh, but it is not suitable for drinking immediately.

This is because freshly squeezed milk is not sterilized and contains many bacteria, including pathogenic bacteria. There is no way to ensure whether the cow itself is healthy, whether the containers and utensils are hygienic, and whether it is contaminated during transportation. Therefore, it is easy to be contaminated by Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas, fungi, etc. from the environment, and zoonotic pathogens such as Brucella and Mycobacterium tuberculosis from animals. For example, drinking raw milk contaminated with Brucella may cause brucellosis, which can cause persistent fever, sweating, joint pain, and hepatosplenomegaly. When it enters the chronic stage, it may cause damage to multiple organs and systems. In fact, freshly squeezed milk basically retains all the nutrients of the milk after being disinfected or sterilized, so there is no need to drink freshly squeezed milk directly.

Milk is mainly divided into three categories: unpasteurized fresh milk, pasteurized milk and sterilized milk. So what are the nutritional differences between these three types of milk?

Freshly squeezed milk is rich in nutrients, naturally contains antibacterial active substances such as lysozyme, and retains some trace physiologically active ingredients in milk, such as immunoglobulins, cytokines, growth factors, etc. Can be kept at 4℃ for 24h -36h without heating. But we generally cannot control the temperature. Therefore, it is easy to be infected by bacteria.

The sterilization temperature of pasteurized milk is below 10℃, which kills all active bacteria in the milk. However, the bacterial spores are very heat-resistant and still lurk in the milk. Once the conditions are right, they will multiply. Therefore, pasteurized milk can only be stored in the refrigerator. There is no need to boil it again. It can be drunk after heating it in a microwave for 1min-2min. Pasteurized milk can only be kept for 4 to 8 hours at 4°C. Its nutritional value is not much different from that of fresh milk. The loss of B vitamins is only about 10%, but some physiologically active substances may be inactivated.

Sterilized milk undergoes long-term high-temperature sterilization or ultra-high-temperature instantaneous sterilization to completely kill the bacterial spores, so it can be safely stored at room temperature for a long time. The shelf life of sterilized milk is generally more than 6 months. As long as it is unopened, you can keep it at room temperature without worry. Once opened, it should be placed in the refrigerator and consumed within 24 hours. Sterilized milk is generally thicker, but there is a certain loss of flavor substances and a 20%-30% loss of B vitamins.

Summary In fact, there is no significant nutritional difference between raw milk, pasteurized milk and UHT milk, especially the very important protein and calcium in milk. The only difference is that because raw milk has not been heat-treated, the B vitamins in it will not be greatly damaged, so the content is higher than the latter two. But in fact, the main dietary sources of B vitamins are grains and meat, not milk.

The simplest way to sterilize drinking milk at home is to heat and boil it. In addition, one of the important reasons why raw milk feels thicker and more delicious after being cooked is that because it has not undergone homogenization processing, the milk fat globules in the raw milk are relatively large, and after boiling, they will aggregate and float up, giving people a feeling of rich taste.