Concerns about possible transmission to people drinking unpasteurized milk are being talked about a lot. Apparently they fed mice unpasteurized milk, and they got the virus, but it seems like the temperature required to kill. The virus is higher than what they used to sterilize the milk. How is this safe?
In: Biology
Because there’s more than one factor at play here. It isn’t just the temperature that matters, it’s the exposure time as well. Basically, the 165 mark is what it takes for the bacteria to die instantly. If you manage to bring the milk up to that temperature, Avian Flu will be completely gone in that instant. But, you can instead bring it to a lower temperature for longer and it will still kill the bacteria. The “threshold”, or minimum, temperature is different for every microbe pretty much. You can’t leave the milk there at room temp and expect it to be pasteurized at some point.
For the record, in my field (Sterilization Tech, CRCST) the number is much higher. We achieve temperatures exceeding 270 F and exposure times of up to about 120 minutes at max. The pasteurization process SANITIZES it, does not STERILIZE it. They’d be burning the milk if they wanted to do that.
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