WHAT is the health-conscious New Yorker thinking? Last week the magazine reported on the gangs of well-heeled health obsessives who head out under cover of darkness to meet strange men in lorries. Their purpose? To obtain raw milk.

This is milk straight from the cow — unpasteurised and unhomogenised, it is said to offer natural, unadulterated dietary goodness. And with more nutrients than the average pint, it is being touted as a remedy for a range of ailments from psoriasis to chronic gut problems. In America its growing popularity has led to “cow-sharing” or “leasing” by consumers willing to sponsor a cow with a farmer in a neighbouring state in exchange for a regular raw milk supply.

In the UK, too, suppliers of raw milk, many of whom are members of the US-based Campaign for Real Milk (CMR), report an upturn in sales as more people hear about its purported benefits.

Raw milk reportedly sells well at weekly farmers’ markets in fashionable parts of London. Meanwhile, dairy farmers such as Celia Haynes, who bottles raw milk in Bordon, Hampshire, say they are being inundated with requests for the product from parents in their twenties and thirties who want to provide a wholesome diet for their families. All this for a product that in the UK carries a health warning?

Pasteurisation involves heating milk (to 72C) to destroy bacteria, yeast and fungi; the Campaign for Real Milk (CMR) claims that heat treatment kills good bacteria, such as Lactobacillus acidophilus, as well as the bad, so negating the gut-protective properties of whole milk.

Pasteurisation also results in a 10 per cent drop in all B vitamins and folate, while vitamin C levels plummet by a quarter. Acccording to a spokeman for the CMA, heat treatment changes the protein composition of milk, too: “There are two proteins in milk — casein and whey. Caseins are unchanged after heat treatment but whey protein, which is of much higher nutritional value, is denatured.”

Yet pasteurisation is not the only issue, say proponents of the raw product. Homogenisation, which involves breaking up the fat globules in the cream and distributing these throughout the product to avoid separation, can interfere with milk’s health profile, says Haynes, pointing to research suggesting that this makes the milk more difficult to digest. Converts to raw milk claim that gut and digestion-related problems are relieved once they make the switch.

Dr Anne Nugent, a nutrition scientist for the British Nutrition Foundation, does not dispute the changes in nutritional profile that occur with milk production but says: “We more than compensate for the slight drop in milk vitamins and protein changes by eating other foods in our diets. It is not really going to make a difference.”

Her opinion is echoed by other experts, some of whom say that, far from being a healthier option, drinking unpasteurised milk can make people prey to dangerous infections. The Government’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) says there is evidence of many “illness-causing pathogens, including salmonella and E. coli” in unpasteurised milk that could pose health risks. Indeed, a study by the Public Health Laboratory Service in London a few years ago found that more than one bottle in five of raw milk was contaminated with bacteria.

FSA figures for Scotland show that in 1981 there were 782 outbreaks of food-borne disease (including three deaths) linked to raw milk consumption north of the border. Since 1983, when pasteurisation became a legal requirement, cases have fallen dramatically; by 2000 there were only two incidents (and no deaths) linked to raw milk food poisoning.

“Vulnerable population groups such as the elderly and pregnant or those with a compromised immune system are most at risk,” says Nugent. “Though the potential for harm is small in the general population, it is greater than that from loss of nutrients in pasteurised products.”

The FSA estimates that less than 1 per cent of the milk now consumed in the UK is raw. Such are the concerns about its safety that even getting hold of the stuff is tricky. Four years ago the Government abandoned proposals for a total ban on UK sales after “extensive consultations with consumers and the general public” as well as experts who deemed an outright ban unnecessary. But the law now dictates that any raw milk sold must carry a government health warning on the label to inform consumers of the potential risks.

The withdrawal of raw milk is unlikely to become an EU regulation, says an FSA spokesman, which means that it will remain on sale indefinitely. At present, raw milk is available to consumers in England and Wales, where it is sold in green-topped bottles, but it can be purchased only through restricted outlets such as farm shops or farmers’ markets, catering establishments such as B&Bs, or from a milk round. It cannot be bought in supermarkets.

However, the Welsh division of the FSA is awaiting the findings of a 12-week consultation document that has proposed better labelling at the very least, but, says a spokesman, is likely to result in raw milk being taken off the market in Wales from next year.

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