Pastuerized vs. Raw Milk

I was speaking to a woman at church that only gives her toddler raw milk. She did this because of the nutrients lost during the pasteurization process and she felt her little one needed all the nutrients she could get from the milk she drank.

What is pasteurization? Should I buy raw milk?
 Pasteurization is the process of heating the milk up to a specific temperature and length of time. They do this to kill most of the microbes off so the milk doesn't spoil as quick and so the milk is safer to drink. If you were to pasteurize your own milk, you'd heat it to 145 degrees for 30 minutes.

So does the process decrease nutrients? The CDC  and the FDA says no, not really.

 This study and this meta analyisis (a study analyzing several studies) say yes, but the decrease doesn't not significantly affect milk's nutritive value. For example, it decreases Vitamin B6 but because B6 is found in such low levels naturally in milk, it's not nutritionally significant if there is a decrease of B6.
 
So the question you have to ask yourself is, does the risk outweigh the benefit?

The risk is that a cow at a dairy is not healthy and carrying a bacteria that causes food-borne illness such as E Coli or Listeria. Their feces would contaminate their own skin or the potentially the equipment used to milk the cow. If you don't think that is likely, imagine a dairy and the cow feces everywhere.

 My opinion? After the scary experience of having my own toddler have salmonella, I personally can say it's not worth the risk. I feel like if you are an adult with a robust immune system, you could probably take the risk because you'd most likely recover just fine from a food borne illness. But pregnant women, babies, toddlers, preschool age kids (and even older) and the elderly must be protected against food borne illness.

Take home message? Go ahead and by the $2.79 gallon of milk at the store.  
 
Note: I did not touch the topics of allergens, and added hormones in milk. Another time, but you can guess what my take home message is going to be.

These sites have more information pasteurization:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2282302/?page=1
http://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/rawmilk/raw-milk-questions-and-answers.html#benefits
http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/consumers/ucm079516.htm

These links take you to a few news articles about food borne illnesses related to raw milk in Utah. 

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/05/campy-outbreak-in-utah-traced-to-raw-milk/#.UcKCEZywXQ4
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/05/salmonella-in-ut-linked-to-raw-milk/#.UcKCkJywXQ4
http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1016412