Yes, that’s right! Pasteurization is a heat-treatment process, and quite a simple one too.
Pasteurization simply consists of heating certain food, like milk, to a high temperature for a short period of time before letting it cool down. You can either heat your milk at 63॰C for 30 minutes or increase the temperature to 72॰C for a short 15 seconds before rapidly cooling it down (3,4,5,6,7,19). It is that simple! No chemicals.
Some people claim that pasteurized milk is less nutritious than raw milk. While it does slightly reduce its vitamin C content, which milk was never a significant source of anyway, it does not significantly affect its calcium, protein, amino acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin A content (3,6,7,8,14). Plus, pasteurized milk is enriched in vitamin D, which is absent in raw milk (15).
All in all, no good safety practice other than pasteurization can fully eliminate the risks associated with drinking raw milk (3). Raw milk can contain harmful microbes regardless of whether it is organic, regularly tested for bacteria, comes from a farmers’ market, from healthy and clean animals, or from grass-fed animals. Pasteurized milk allows you to drink milk without the risk of getting sick (3,6,15,18).
A 2017 U.S. study showed that raw dairy products causes 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations compared to pasteurized dairy products. That is why pasteurization, which is the simple process of heating up the milk for a short period of time, is so important to get rid of bacteria.
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- Consumption of Raw or Unpasteurized Milk and Milk Products by Pregnant Women and Children | American Academy of Pediatrics | January 2014
- Pasteurized milk in Ontario | Government of Ontario
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