I'm generally critical of raw milk, along with just about every microbiologist and all of the scientists in the CDC and FDA. The reason is simple; it has no beneficial value and foodborne illness plummeted once we started pasteurizing milk and other things.

I drank raw milk as a kid. I lived on a farm. As a result there were lots of things I was exposed to that would make a city dweller sick. For that reason, and because my anecdote is not evidence, I think raw milk is a bad idea, especially in the hands of those weird fad food people, who are putting kids at risk. We won't let parents harm kids in lots of ways so anyone giving raw milk to a child should be under the same ethical microscope as anyone buying their child cigarettes.

Yet raw milk proponents have a different take. Vince Hundt, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin, thinks his milk is getting a bad rap.

although 48 million people were made sick by our spotlessly clean, pasteurized, inspected supermarket food in 2012, the 203 - yes, 203 - individuals supposedly made sick by raw milk in 2012 is a cause for great public alarm. And we just might destroy the entire dairy industry in a flash because someone in Wisconsin might get sick.

Now, there some emotional landmines in here. He takes a ridiculous 48 million number as fact and then puts a 'supposedly' in front of the 203 people.

But here is the data, even if it makes him no money; a person has a 150X chance of getting a foodborne illness from unpasteurized dairy products. The FDA does not say no one should drink it ever, just that the risks are not worth it for people with weakened immune systems, older older, children or pregnant women.

So you can buy raw milk from a vending machine in Switzerland. Well, you can buy cocaine in Colombia too. When did Switzerland lead the world in science? When has Switzerland led the world in medicine? Thanks for the cuckoo clock and all, and I dig the outfits your guys wear when you are guarding Vatican City, but it's no longer the 16th century and if Swiss people make their kids sick, it is their problem. 

There's no nutritional benefit to raw milk and pasteurizing milk does not cause lactose intolerance or allergies or anything else that people bilking customers for financial gain allege.

I'd drink raw milk in a minute. I wouldn't let my city-raised kids drink it.