Korean Job Discussion Forums

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2008 11:29 pm Post subject: Unpasteurized milk

Here in Wisconsin, I drink milk straight from the cow, no heat applied. Can I get it in Korea? Big need, because I don't drink store-bought/soy/vegetable/rice milk, etc.
If I can, any good leads on where and how? What are the pasteurization laws, anyway?

marlow · Joined: 06 Feb 2005

I don't think they do widespread pasteurization, but Lord knows what else they do.

Happen to read the article in the April Harper's about raw milk? Very interesting about how good for us it good be.

billybrobby · Joined: 09 Dec 2004

marlow · Joined: 06 Feb 2005

livinseoul · Joined: 28 Nov 2007

Well you could always hop on a bus/train out to the boonies. Find a field with a cow and go suck.

billybrobby · Joined: 09 Dec 2004

mnhnhyouh · Joined: 21 Nov 2006 Location: The Middle Kingdom

Q: How fast is milk?

A: So fast it is pasteurized before you see it.

h

Adventurer · Joined: 28 Jan 2006

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:53 am Post subject:

This article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_milk hints that it's mostly unpasteurized. I know wiki articles are almost always just this much shy of being professionally written, but other articles written in medicalese/biologese, etc., don't agree that Korea is a big pasteurizing country. (But 'Water Buffalo'?!).

flummuxt · Joined: 15 Mar 2007

The last thing I would do in Korea would be to drink unpasteurized milk.

Sorry.

When you get here, you'll understand.

Most people have only a sketchy, mostly inaccurate idea of how disease is spread. They don't seem to be teaching the scientific version in school. Or they would have soap in the bathrooms.

They seem to think germs are good for you. You will be eating out of the same plate with a dozen or more co-workers.

Kids will stand by the sample tray at the supermarket and spear bits of food, over and over, with the same toothpick. Try some if you want to get sick shortly after arrival.

moosehead · Joined: 05 May 2007

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:04 am Post subject:

flummuxt · Joined: 15 Mar 2007

Yes, in the States, you can sometimes buy raw milk. And generally it is safe. And yes it is healthier.

Korea is NOT the States, Been There, Taught That. If you had been here, you would know that.

You have NO idea what farms are like in Korea. They are NOTHING like farms in the U.S. or Canada. What they have here people in the States wouldn't even call "farms," in many cases. While there are undoubtedly exceptions, I seriously doubt the farmers here go to agricultural colleges to get their bachelor's in farming, like they often do in the States. I seriously doubt many of them even have high school degrees.

While I do not know for sure, I have heard they use lots and lots of antibiotics. That means resistant bacteria would likely be present. I doubt you will find any hippies running organic farms in Korea, producing milk and cream for Ben and Jerry's.

If you come to Korea, you will get sick. And if you get well, you will get sick again. And again. But you will probably live.

DON'T PUSH IT.

If you have a death wish, there are more fun ways to take risks than drinking raw milk in Korea.

If you can't grasp that Korea, and other Asian countries, are going to be in some ways radically different from back home, and you are looking for Wisconsin East, STAY HOME.

Or move to Vermont.

Been There, Taught That · Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:15 am Post subject:

I know I should have clarified. Sorry I didn't clarify.

What I was looking for was facts that are known or personal experience. If you are a layman onlooker, as most of us, then you are expressing an opinion. I just want to know the verified, experienced truth. Failing that, yes, I'll do my research and take my chances--or not.

Without the experience nor the statistics, I expect that anyone would eagerly tell me how impossible it is in Korea to:
1. survive a taxi ride
2. spend a day in Seoul without getting smoker's lung
3. watch out the front window on a bus ride;
3. wash clothes in your apartment without benefit of a dryer
4. drink that toxic excuse for alcohol called Soju ( I have a bottle from 2003 that's still aging)
5. get through a year at your friendly, local neighborhood just-popped-up-yesterday hagwon without running or tearing the "teaching material" to bits out of frustration (okay, that's what you find out when you do have the experience).

Things look different from inside the fence, after you've spent time being corralled, but it sounds like the Korean raw milk experience is one no one here has had yet. Maybe I'm wrong, but you make it sound that way. My family legitimately does not drink pasteurized milk for reasons we know. Wherever I go, I have to uphold the truth I've found. So what I mean is, what can you contribute here that's real?

By the way, everyone against raw milk speaks the same way you do, whether in Wisconsin, Vermont, the other 48 or anywhere else. I've discussed it all over, via the wonder of the internet. Arguments are pretty much cohesive and uniformly based on government say-so, I must give them that.

moosehead · Joined: 05 May 2007

[quote="Been There, Taught That"]