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Rapidly heating milk for less than a second can eliminate most of the bacteria left behind after the pasteurization process and extend the shelf life of cold milk by several weeks:
Bruce Applegate, Purdue associate professor in the Department of Food Science, and collaborators from Purdue and the University of Tennessee published their findings in the journal SpringerPlus, where they show that increasing the temperature of milk by 10 degrees for less than a second eliminates more than 99 percent of the bacteria left behind after pasteurization. "It's an add-on to pasteurization, but it can add shelf life of up to five, six or seven weeks to cold milk," Applegate said.
[...] The low-temperature, short-time (LTST) method in the Purdue study sprayed tiny droplets of pasteurized milk, which was inoculated with Lactobacillus and Pseudomonas bacteria, through a heated, pressurized chamber, rapidly raising and lowering their temperatures about 10 degrees Celsius but still below the 70-degree Celsius threshold needed for pasteurization. The treatment lowered bacterial levels below detection limits, and extended shelf life to up to 63 days. "With the treatment, you're taking out almost everything," Applegate said. "Whatever does survive is at such a low level that it takes much longer for it to multiply to a point at which it damages the quality of the milk."
The LTST chamber technology was developed by Millisecond Technologies, a New-York-based company. Sensory tests compared pasteurized milk with milk that had been pasteurized and run through MST's process. Panelists did not detect differences in color, aroma, taste or aftertaste between the products.
The effect of a novel low temperature-short time (LTST) process to extend the shelf-life of fluid milk (open, DOI: 10.1186/s40064-016-2250-1)
(Score: 1) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 07 2016, @09:53PM
Nobody knows what milk really tastes like, not because of pasteurization, but because of homogenization. It's funny how dairy products have been modified to prevent the formation of the best part: cream at the top of milk bottles and skin at the top of yogurt.
It's true that most people seem to think of lack of homogenization when they remember milk "in the good old days." Although, it's certainly a trade-off: the cream on top of the milk tastes good, but the milk below it tastes more like 1%. If you like a richer milk in general, homogenization is good. (And I really don't miss "skin" on yogurt, nor is that actually always a normal part of the process of making yogurt. If you ferment in a semi-closed vessel, you won't get skin. Perhaps you're thinking of custard?)
Before pasteurization, people knew that they had to boil milk before drinking it, if they didn't want to get sick, so few people ever knew (and lived to tell) how raw milk tastes like.
Sorry, that's just wrong. If it were true, the entire cow species would be extinct as all the calves die drinking raw milk. In reality, in the days before pasteurization, it was also the days before true refrigeration -- which means people tended to use up milk quickly. They knew very well that natural bacteria would cause the milk to sour and clabber in a day or two (which, in 95% of cases, tended to prevent too many bad bacteria from growing). If you look at old cookbooks (even sometimes those from the early 20th century after pasteurization became widespread), you'll find recipes asking for "sour milk," which was what you tended to do with older raw milk... there were other uses.
Pasteurization (which is effectively "boiling" the milk in more controlled manner) ultimately was seen as more necessary for three reasons: (1) concentration of people into cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries meant poorer sanitation for cows, milk transport, etc., and thus more disease, (2) urban environments began to prohibit cows, meaning milk had to be transported over larger distances rather than consumed when fresh, giving time and opportunity for more bacteria to grow and thrive, and (3) the same concentration led to milk from larger herds combined and then distributed to larger numbers of people, which could turn one infected cow into a public menace for hundreds of people.
In reality, while there are dangers from raw milk, the rate of death (which is what you imply by "and lived to tell...") from raw milk is exceedingly low, and probably was much lower before cities created the opportunity for concentrated health hazards. All that said, I personally have only drunk it a few times, and I wouldn't encourage other people to drink it. The danger is low but there's little reason to take the risk, even from a "reputable" small farm source.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday August 08 2016, @09:01AM
All I can say is that when I was offered raw milk at a Greek village, they insisted on boiling it first. This could have either been knowledge passed down through the ages or a more modern practice. I also know that my father, a doctor, told me that he would never drink unpasteurized milk that was not boiled, unless it was fermented into yogurt, where the process of fermentation would ensure that the yogurt-making bacteria consumed all other bacteria in the milk.
As for yogurt, traditional yogurt does have skin, presumably because it is fermented in uncovered, small containers and not in industrial-sized vats. You can still find such yogurt in Greece, and I assure you that the skin is the best part.