Cigarettes are sold throughout Britain with a health warning attached, but it appears that raw milk is so dangerous that it is banned in shops and supermarkets. Can this be right?
Some 120 farms across the country which produce 'raw' unpasteurised milk, including Longelys Farm in East Sussex, do however sell it direct to the consumer. Steve Hook, who runs Longleys with his father Phil, now sells 1,200 pints a week and delivers to nearly 300 homes in Hailsham. So some people want to drink it.
The Foods Standards Agency warns that the risks of drinking raw milk - pasteurisation, so the official line goes, destroys harmful, even potentially fata bacteria, such as listeria, salmonella and E.coli - outweigh any benefits enjoyed by increased vitamins and minerals in raw milk.
Richard Young, an organic farmer and policy advisor for the Soil Association believes such fears are outdated. He argues that intensive, industrialised farming practices that produces most of the milk destined for supermarket shelves are more likely to lead to human illness.
I personally love the idea of my milk being labelled with the name of the cow that provided it as they do at Longleys because they want their customers to "get to know the herd".
But isn't the point here that we should be able to choose whether we want to drink raw or pasteurised milk? Slap a cigarette-style health warning on it in shops and let the consumer decide.
