Jill Ebbott, a holistic health counselor in Brookline, buys 8 gallons of unpasteurized milk a week for her household of three people, and she pours a splash in the bowls that her three dogs eat from. She says a year of drinking raw milk has cleared up her husband’s allergies.

“He suffered tree pollen allergies for 21 years,” Ebbott said. “In the spring, he was swollen and oozing and had to wear mittens to bed so he didn’t scratch himself too much. After 13 months on raw milk, his gut was rebalanced to such a degree that he was healed.”

The US Food and Drug Administration warns on its website that drinking unpasteurized milk is “like playing Russian roulette with your health,” but Ebbott is part of a growing number of people who reject the long-held belief that pasteurized milk is better for you. People who prefer raw milk say that pasteurization – the process of heating milk to kill bacteria – destroys good bacteria along with the bad.

Massachusetts is among 28 states in which raw milk can be sold for human consumption, and in the past two years the number of dairies licensed to sell it here has gone from 12 to 23. Dairies are selling more raw milk than they were five years ago, according to the Northeast Organic Farming Association, which says it receives calls weekly from consumers trying to find it.

Neither the association nor the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture keep records of how many gallons are produced, but farms say they are producing more raw milk than ever.

Cricket Creek Farm in Williamstown, for example, is primarily a cheese-making operation, but it began selling unpasteurized milk a year ago because customers kept asking for it.

Anecdotal evidence such as Ebbott’s is common among people who drink raw milk. But science is beginning to weigh in, too. Researchers at the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Basel in Switzerland followed nearly 15,000 children ages 5 to 15 in Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany from 2001 to 2004. The study, sponsored by the European Union and published in 2007, found that children who drank raw milk had a lower incidence of asthma and allergies.

Spokesman Michael Herndon said the FDA advises against the consumption of raw milk because it is a welcoming host to pathogens such as listeria and salmonella. On its website, the FDA says there is no truth to the assertions that raw milk can cure allergies. The agency says children, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are particularly susceptible to the food-borne illnesses that can result from drinking unpasteurized milk.

Full Story: 
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/02/23/more_dairies_go_raw/