We have two farms by us who still bottle and deliver their milk. Both getting on in years now, so when they go, it will probably be supermarket milk for the locals. I assume its pasteurised nowadays. We are in a TB area unfortunately, and I know one of these farms has definitely had TB in their herd. We were on 4 year tests, now its 12 monthly
Our farm was TB free for the 50 plus years my family have been here .....as were the other farms in the area, untl three years ago when 5 farms including ours suffered losses due to TB. I was lucky, none of ours were affected, but the farmer we rented land to, lost 6 of his cattle. Therefore we no longer keep any cows.
Until the TB, us, and our family before us, had quite happily consumed unpasteurised milk. It used to be taken away in old fashioned milk churns, my granddad left on the milk stage (big flat slabs outside the barn) every day. That was before the invention of milk tanks. If I remember rightly, the cows were all hand milked too.
For me, there is nothing like the taste of raw cows milk .....especially Jersey or Geurnsey. The thrill of being able to skim the cream off the top ......!!!! I now have our goats milk of course. The vet advised me to pasteurise the milk to be on the safe side, but I prefer it raw, tastes better.
If it was not for the fact I was in a TB area, I would definitely drink unpasteurised milk in preference to any other.
As it is now, If I drink cows milk it has to be full fat, the semi and skimmed just taste like water to me, and I cannot enjoy my cup of tea topped with watery milk
