My (23f) family has been getting eggs and cheese from a local farmer for years. I also buy veggies from him sometimes. I’ve known that he (I’ll call him John) also provides milk but I never tried it before. I went to pick the eggs up yesterday and John told me that someone cancelled their order from him so he had an extra jar of milk available and asked me if I wanted to buy it from him. I told him I didn’t know if I even liked it so he allowed me to sample it. I really liked it so I did end up buying it. My boyfriend (I’ll call him Adam) asked me about the jar when I got home and got upset when I told him the above.
For some background, Adam used to eat the eggs and cheese that I bought from John until he found out that John offers raw milk. He stopped eating anything that I bought from John, reasoning being that if John will offer a product that Adam considers unsafe, then he probably also has other lax standards surrounding health and safety. Now, neither Adam, my family, nor myself have ever gotten sick from John’s foods. I’ve been all over the farm, I helped with the animals there when I was a teen so I’ve seen everything out there. These are healthy animals in clean conditions. John takes this stuff really seriously. I really don’t think there’s any problem with any of the products he sells.
So yeah, Adam got angry at me for drinking it and for buying more to bring home. He told me it’s grossing him out that it’s even in the fridge and that I’m definitely going to get sick from it. He wants me to throw the milk out but I really hate wasting food, especially expensive food, and the milk is also really tasty. It’s way creamier than storebought milk. I’m not planning on buying any more milk from John going forward because it is fairly expensive but I do want to finish this jar out.
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Okay, so I can see that cow’s milk is apparently unsafe to consume raw. That’s good to know, but this is not cow’s milk. John keeps goats. I think the milk is safe because my cousin was raised on goat’s milk with vitamin drops as an infant since my aunt couldn’t breastfeed. He never got sick once, so I think goat’s milk must be different than cow’s milk.
I also want to clear it up that Adam did not shout at me. He is very calm and levelheaded. He’s 37 so he’s had time to learn how to express himself in a healthy way even when he’s upset. I don’t think he is the asshole for wanting me to throw it away, I just wonder if I am. I am basically asking if this is a NAH situation or a me being the asshole situation. He also did not ask me to stop buying from John altogether, he just stopped eating John’s products a few weeks ago when he found out milk is something John offers. That happened before I ever bought the milk.
YTA. You brought the very thing he had a fixation on?
You wanted this argument, you can have this argument don’t act confused as to why.
YTA for bringing poop milk into your shared home with your partner who explicitly told you he does not trust the poop milk. Bringing dangerous, bacteria-laden food into a shared fridge is a two-yes, one-no situation.
YTA
If you have been on a farm and in the proximity of cows, you should know there is nothing clean about raw milk. It poses serious health hazards, infections that can be fatal. Even if the risk of it contaminating other things in the fridge is low, it is not zero and I would not want it near my food either.
>Now, neither Adam, my family, nor myself have ever gotten sick from John’s foods.
Yet. You’ve never gotten sick *yet*. And it only takes once.
There’s minimal risk from eggs and cheese (edit: hard cheese anyway. There’s a reason they tell pregnant people not to eat soft unpasteurized cheese, because it carries the same risk as unpasteurized milk, and *Listeria* can do wicked things to both mom and baby in that scenario).
But raw milk is a significant risk for several potentially serious illnesses (from listeria to tuberculosis), even if John runs his dairy cleanly and responsibly. Sans pasteurization, cross-contamination can come from literally anywhere, and milk is a *very* hospitable growth environment for any number of pathogens.
So, gently, ESH. You, for prioritizing taste over safety (there’s literally no health benefit). Him for getting actually angry over something that should have been calmly solved with education. Shouting at people doesn’t change minds.
Edit to add: I say “gently” because I’m genuinely trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe OP legit doesn’t know/doesn’t understand the risks of raw milk. It sounds like this is the first time she’s ever had it, or ever thought about it. It sounds like Adam got upset right away and didn’t make the case very well. This is halfway to just being N A H, just people with bad information, a little obtuseness, a little too much emotion… that needs straightening out.
And to be completely fair, I have had raw milk, back in the 00’s, before it was a whole *thing*. And it is memorably delicious. But I have not repeated the experience, because it doesn’t take much looking at all to find out the kind of risks you’re taking. I didn’t know. Now I do, so I don’t take risks, and I certainly wouldn’t take a risk like that with my kids.
I don’t even have the energy right now to write my usual spiel about infections spread through raw milk … and how eggs are totally ok if the whites are cooked. I teach Infectious Diseases to Medical students and I’m so tired of trying to explain scientific facts and statistics that are well-established. All it takes is that one time you get sick. Pregnant? Immunocompromised? Listeria meningitis or fetal death doesn’t sound like a fun time. And that’s only one of the microbes. I’m tired boss.
YTA. your bf’s reasons for not wanting raw milk are pretty obvious. what are your reasons to pick this particular hill to die on?
YTA. Your boyfriend is right about the raw milk but I understand you still wanting to buy other foods from a farmer you’ve known for years. Also, you knew that your boyfriend was hugely against the risks of raw milk and you bought it anyway.
Buying other products is a reasonable compromise to me in the short term, but in the long term if you stay together I’d try and find a new farm to buy from that has standards that are more compatible with your boyfriend’s reasonable safety standards.
YTA. Just so you know one side of my family grew up on a farm in Italy back in the 50s. Their neighbor had cows and they would share the milk. They knew, even back then, that they had to boil the milk before drinking because no matter how well you know the cows and how clean they are, raw milk can always carry bad bacteria.
Okay so calling it something ADAM considers unsafe is very unrepresentative of how unsafe raw milk is. It can fuck you up like crazy. While most of his other stuff is probably much safer I can’t fault Adam for simply not trusting someone who fundamentally doesn’t believe in food safety. I would also not eat John’s food at that point. Please look up what raw milk looks like under a microscope. It’s filled with all sorts of organisms and the only way to get rid of them is to pasteurize it. Knowing the animals and being around the farm has nothing to do with it. The organisms are already there.
YTA and please be more safe
YTA. Raw milk is not safe. Even cows that seem clean can carry bacteria that can make people sick. There is a child that died from raw milk, and many people have been hospitalized.
The solution to the bacteria found in milk was found back in the 1800s by Louis Pasteur. It’s called Pasteurization, and involves heating the milk to 161 F for 15 seconds or 145 F for 30 minutes. Below 145 F is not enough to kill bacteria, viruses, yeasts and other pathogens.
YTA. Raw milk is extremely unsafe.
YTA. No one should be encouraging the raw milk idiots.
Listen lady, I literally grew up on a farm that milked our cows. You absolutely never ever drink the raw milk. Even as a child I knew this. You are being super dumb playing with that milk. Milk is nasty AF girl, there is a reason we treat it.
My friend, I have Irish farmer relatives with their own cows, have drunk raw milk and would never consume unpasteurized products in the United States. In Ireland, the cows are inspected for TB and the herds are small. Not here. Be careful. Pasteurized is safest.