TriCounty Health Department aims to educate the community on a variety of health topics. This week, Health Officer Kirk Benge visited the Evans Family Media studios to talk about the process of pasteurization of milk. Pasteurization is basically the process of heating up milk to a certain temperature for a set period of time in order to kill off harmful bacteria and pathogens. Benge is bringing this information forward after seeing a resurgence of people on social media claiming that pasteurization is bad for you when the science just doesn’t back that up. Most modern pasteurization heats the milk to 161 degrees for 15 seconds and leaves the milk practically unchanged. That said, if you have your own cow and you keep the cow and the milking process clean then there’s not much need to stress over the raw milk. The bigger risk, explains Benge, is when there are more cows and it is harder to keep things clean and free from contamination. Benge encourages all to think about what you’re consuming and how you’re consuming it. Consume the safest food you can and note that pasteurized milk is a better choice than raw milk.
