Probably the moment they enter the milk from the tit of the cow. Refrigeration slows the bacterial action down, which again rises after you consume it and it gets warm. Eventually they enter the small intestine which they colonize and produce lactase to help digest the future milk you drink.
Milk quality.
This makes sense to me from what I've been learning on the subject, thank you for the reply!
I guess I was lucky to have lived just down the road from a working dairy farm for around 20 years. The milk was excellent, the herd was maybe 50-100, pasture fed during summer, hay fed during winter. The cows were right next to the dairy where you could go out and watch them graze, or bottle feed some calves.
Their 35% milk fat ice cream is quite exceptional as well.
Cook's Farm Dairy, just north of Independence Township in Michigan.
One of the big problems with raw milk is the shelf life; pasteurized milk stays good much longer and at a much wider range of storage temperatures, which is necessary, unless the food supply chain in this country radically changes.
Even if that happens, pasteurized milk still occupies an important place in the food supply.
I have heard the claim from some lactose intolerants they can digest it better, but I have heard other lactose intolerants say they digest it about the same.
Milk is a complex source of nutrition and as far as I am aware, the effects of pasteurization (other than decreasing bacteria and increasing shelf life tremendously) are well understoood from a macronutrient and vitamin perspective, but poorly understood from a bio-nutrient perspective.
I do not believe any potential benefits are due to the reduction of lactose in unspoiled raw milk (See Shiva's post).
Have not gotten through the thread yet but Kit's mentioning of Oxytocin led me to search for 'Oxytocin in men," which led me to this gem that tells us that "those with a vagina" may feel lubrication thanks to Oxytocin:
Oxytocin: Purpose, Benefits, and How to Increase It
You (us) fucking crazy Weasterners! They're called WOMEN. My apologies if my reply is off topic, but little gems like this, spread throughout our culture and coincidentally also published in textbooks to indictrinate our kids (as I mentioned in the Big Thread a few days ago) is how you Kill a Culture and make the sane people feel disillusioned at best or insane at worst:
Oxytocin: Purpose, Benefits, and How to Increase It
Why didn't (don't) we just say NO to crazy blatherings like this!? I think we long ago became a nation of "guessers," while certain political leaders and socio-economic (racial) groups remained "askers," allowing for all this madness to easily flow downhill to flood our amazing culture.
What's the middle ground between "F.U!" and "Welcome!"? - uninvited guests houseguests | Ask MetaFilter
If ecstasy turns women into 'people with vaginas' I don't want anywhere near the shit that you're smoking, Jovan. What are women called in Croatia?
The Russians have all kinds of "sour milk" products (a bad translation I'm sure; I guess these are fermented dairy products?) in their everyday grocery stores, from Kefir (incredible taste and it's a crime that it's only sold in the states as a drinkable flavored yogurt!) to these weird drinks from the Caucuses regions like Airan and Tan.
Raw milk is just a part of everyday life here so I suppose the proponents are less cultlike and the skeptical less avid about their distrust. Mother-in-law usually boils the raw milk she buys from some acquaintance who has a dacha and a cow but people say if you know the cow (i.e. know it's not sick, etc.) you can drink the milk fresh without worries.
Yes Jovan the taste is less uniform/bland than regular milk, and it smells more like milk (more like grass/a cow!) but for me the taste isn't necessarily nasty, just different.
What's far more interesting to me, and hopefully y'all can shed more light on this, is that when I had a nasty sinus infection a few months ago, the doctor said I should stop drinking milk and go for Kefir or another "fermented/cultured dairy product" instead: the adult digestive system isn't meant to/can no longer digest milk as well as kids' guts can.
I never heard ANYTHING like this in the 90s and 2000s growing up, especially with all those 'Got Milk?' ads! Is there medical sCiEnCe to back this up, too, that milk is tougher for adults to digest, or is this just traditional folklore-type advice? FWIW, as time goes by I find myself trusting the latter much more than the ScIeNcE.
Having spent time in Central Asia, I've been exposed to those and more - vestiges of pre-refrigeration nomadic life. I wholeheartedly agree with you about kefir's marketing here. The mainstream mispronunciation is amusing, as well.
My absolute favorite was kumys, traditionally milk from a mare, placed raw into a smoked goatskin bag and hung up at the door to the yurt to ferment. Those entering or leaving the yurt shake the bag, punch it, or beat it with a stick to keep the milk from clumping. It's also made at larger scale with machinery and cow's milk. I am told that milking a mare must be done in a very careful manner.
The taste is somewhat like that of kefir, with a sort of yeast taste, rather sour and extremely effervescent, with a smoky taste from the bag, and it is mildly alcoholic. Where I was, being an outsider and genuinely enjoying it greatly impressed folks. It's the one culinary thing I haven't been able to obtain, reproduce, or approximate here.
Like many traditional folk foods, it is of course considered to be good for whatever ails you. In light of this thread's discussion of TB, it's interesting that TB is a serious problem there still, though that's definitely a matter of the state of medicine. (Lots of horror stories...) During the Soviet era, people would travel to that region from all over for sanatorium treatment for TB. Relief was attributed to the high altitude and the kumys... I have my suspicions as to which factor was more decisive.
People in the United States when you were growing up almost all were of Northwestern European ancestry; they had absolutely no problems digesting lactose as an adult.
In Southern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, most people have some degree of lactose intolerance.
This is also the reason stores in the United States never had all of these strange lactose-free and modified milk options when you were growing up, but now they take up 75% of the shelf space; you will drink ze almon melk.