A walk in the countryside is likely to bring out a picture of a child sucking the tits of a cow. This will pass for just the innocence of childhood, but far from it, several gallons of milk from cowsheds at dawn are first ‘tasted’ by milkmen.

For some, drinking raw milk straight from the milking process is the most relaxing morning experience. To this lot, the froth of fresh milk makes it the most nutritious meal any day. The idea that milk needs to be processed/ pasteurised before it is ready for human consumption is like telling a man who has sired 40 children that he is impotent.

Raw milk is the only food that has extensive built-in safety mechanisms and numerous components to create a healthy immune system.

"I always have fresh milk in the field while grazing the animals, I have done this for years even although health professionals constantly warn that it’s dangerous,” says Deo Bizimana, a livestock farmer in Rwamagana.

"What I know is that we treat our animals and so the milk comes clean,” adds Bizimana. 

But health experts are not too keen on bandwagon that say the froth from fresh milk is the mega deal. The US Food and Drug Administration, for instance, says raw milk is milk from cows, sheep, or goats that has not been pasteurised to kill harmful bacteria. 

This raw, unpasteurised milk can carry dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria, which are responsible for causing numerous foodborne illnesses.

These harmful bacteria can seriously affect the health of anyone who drinks raw milk, or eats foods made from raw milk. However, the bacteria in raw milk can be especially dangerous to people with weakened immune systems, older adults, pregnant women, and children.

In fact, the Centre for Disease Control analysis found that foodborne illness from raw milk especially affected children and teenagers.

Joseph  Mbabazi, a nutritionist at Mwana Mugimu Nutrition Unit, a paediatric centre at Uganda’s national referral hospital, Mulago, says the benefits of making milk part of your meal are quite many and cannot be exhausted.

Boiling changes nothing

The two main formula milk feeds used here are F100 and F75 providing 100 kilocalories and 75 kilo calories to the body respectively.

"From that you can tell how much energy is derived from Milk in addition to providing a variety of vitamins, proteins and minerals to the body,” Mbabazi says.

"Many people who prefer taking milk in its raw form think that boiling milk changes its constitution. This is not true, common heat treatments of milk do not alter the nutritive value of milk asits only denaturation of the proteins that takes place and this does not have an effect on the nutritive value.”

Likewise, other treatment mechanisms such pasteurisation pose no harm towards the milk as far as nutrition is concerned.

Raw milk looks appetising with its cream but it can be a source of health problems.

Dr Erhard Dufatanye, a general practitioner at Rwanda Military Hospital, Kanombe, says pasteurisation or boiling would result into denaturation (destruction) of the proteins of the bacteria embedded in raw milk that may end up in the human digestive tract.

"Common habits sucking milk from the udder of the cow or milking directly into the drinking cup provide pathway for contamination since people milking may have infectious diseases, or the hands may be also be loaded with microorganisms,” says Dufatanye. 

If the udder is not clean enough, direct milk consumption may include the bacteria.

Lately, most people run campaigns of organic milk consumption, one which comes from animals that do not receive any kind of chemical treatment as a fear for intake of chemical-laden milk. 

According to a 2006 journal of allergy and clinical immunology, the only health benefit scientifically substantiated for raw milk is reduced susceptibility to allergies and asthma.

This is because factors such as exposure to animals, dust and dirt in everyday life on a farm somehow exerts a protective effect, or that farm kids just complain less. 

This finding is consistent with growing evidence that the immune system needs to be challenged by a wide variety of foreign agents such as the natural community of (mostly harmless) bacteria in raw milk or it will simply pick everyday agents to attack, resulting in the symptoms classified as allergies or asthma. 

However, the effect requires consumption of raw milk as a child, and no one is going to recommend this for young children who are at far higher risk for complications from the illnesses associated with raw milk.

"Breast milk is obviously the ideal milk since it has almost all nutrients and antibodies. Cow milk, on the other hand, is not suitable for human consumption,” Dufatanye says.

Other risks

Another risk factor in cow milk is galactosemia, a genetic disorder resulting from too much intake of galactosea natural sugar present in milks.

Milk in its raw form may be contaminated from many sources, that is the environment and through direct handling by the person milking. Bacteria thrives on nutritious food. The hands of the milking person may be contaminated with pathogens.

Bovine tuberculosis, which results from mycobacterium tuberculosis is a serious lung infection. 

 "Brucellosis a bacterial infection caused by a pathogen brucella found in raw milk from a sick animal. The symptoms of brucellosis are slightly similar to those of tuberculosis. Undulating fever is quite noticeable,” Dufatanye adds.

Besides food poisoning, one might suffer from deficiency of lactase enzyme, a condition known as lactose intolerance.

If whole non-processed milk is consumed, one might experience bloating, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach ache. Processing of milk may result into production of lactose-reduced milk, which limits discomfort to consumers.

Nadine Uwase, a student, says, "I love taking milk but every time I take raw milk at home, I experience stomach cramps and I vomit at times, I think I am intolerant to the sugar in the raw milk because when I take yoghurt I don’t experience any of such problems.”

Processing of milk or even boiling allows cream to coagulate on the surface. To reduce the fat content, the cream may be skimmed off. 

Nutritionists recommend that proper taking of raw milk necessitates dilution of one part of milk to two parts of water to reduce risks of cholesterol and difficulty in digestibility.

Also, milk cannot be a substitute of water however much people working on farms claim that it is what appeases their thirst.