[alsoSarah]

I know that unpasteurized apple cider poses an e-coli risk. I drink it regularly in the fall and winter myself (one of the local farms makes it very well), and my son has begun asking for sips. At what age is it safe to give unpas. cider to kids?
(He just turned two, btw.)
Thanks,
alsoSarah
(Should this be in Good Eating? Or Toddlers?)

 

[Quirky]

Personally, I don't think it's ever safe to give kids unpasteurized juices. Kids are much more likely to get food poisoning and die than adults are. Kids under eight are especially likely to get E. coli poisoning, according to this article among others. The FDA says that up to 48,000 people a year get sick from drinking unpasteurized juice.

 

[AmyG]

I agree that it's never safe. In fact, I don't drink unpasteurized juices myself. Children are more likely to get sick from any type of food poisoning, but we all can at any time.

If you really want to drink it, I'd recommend bringing it to a boil and then serving it warm. I love hot apple cider. I think that foods get pasteurized at 120 degrees, so boiling (212 degrees) should do the trick, but I'm not absolutely positive.

 

[sassitap]

I know I'm probably going to get some flack for this, but.......

It depends on the cider and the cider maker. Pasturized apple cider really isn't apple cider any more. The flavor is dead, nutrients are lost.... It's sad. I agree that children are more succeptible to food borne illness and we need to be especially dilligent. But contaminated cider comes from contaminated apples. How do apples become contaminated? Primarily by dropping to the ground and coming in contact with animal fecal matter. Orchards that dont use drops and which wash all apples before pressing them make cider that is safe for children to drink. You don't worry about your child eating fresh raw apples after washing them do you? That is what apple cider is supposed to be. But you need to know the orchard, the apples and preferably have seen the production. It seems sad to me that kids are growing up thinking that pasturized cider is the real thing. It's like thinking velveeta is real cheese.

 

[Mirzam]

To sassitap, you are not going to get any flack from me. Quite frankly there is way too much fear around raw food that is being perpetuated by such auspicious bodies as the CDC, FDA, USDA not to mention associations like the AMA. I was going to stay out of this thread but the fear (false evidence appearing real) surrounding raw food has been largely disproved yet for some reason (could it be financial-??) the myth is still being perpetuated by these institutions and of course the media.

To alsoSarah, I would have absolutely no problem in giving my child unpasteurized cider, although I wouldn't give them a whole lot because it is basically sugar. Heck, my children consume raw juice, raw eggs, raw fish and meat (well, my 13 year old will eat raw meat), raw milk, raw cream, raw butter and (shock horror) raw unheated honey. And they have never once had any form of bacterial poisoning from these foods.

The deaths reported to be microbial food-poisoning in most cases are not. The symptoms they describe are symptoms of anaphylaxis or an extreme allergic reaction (usually to medication) or drug-damage or poisoning. Very rarely someone will die from dehydration or excessive bleeding caused by a ruptured stomach or bowel from violent vomit or diarrhea. "Pathogens" may even be found in the diarrhea but that does not mean they were the cause. We have salmonella and E. coli naturally inhabiting our gut anyway. Bacteria are absolutely everywhere; our bodies rely on these microbes to function healthily. The supposition that the very young or very old are more susceptible to "pathogens" is also quite simply false.

We need to realize we have been sold a bill of goods by the USDA, FDA, CDC and Congress. The banning of unpasteurized fruit and vegetable juices was largely the result of one little girl dying from drinking orange juice containing E. coli. The evidence was entirely circumstantial. However, it was used to deprive our children of another healthy vitamin and enzyme rich food source.

Rant over, getting down from my

and

Deborah

 

[alsoSarah]

Thank you all so much for the information and the perspectives!!
I love having you thoughtful MDC mamas to pitch my questions and worries to.

,
alsoSarah

 

[sohj]

Might be a sally-come-lately, but just wanted to throw in my two cents:

I only drink unpasteurized cider. The other stuff always tastes too sweet. I like drinking cider when it has just started to go hard ("has a bead on it") and some of the sugar has been eaten up by the natural yeasts and started to be converted into something else. It tastes crisper. So, I buy it and wait a few days before drinking to give it a little time to turn.

Our little one was too small last year to have anything except BM and this year he has been interested but doesn't seem to like the taste. So, he's not getting any.

I also go to great lengths to get raw milk cheese. And have never gotten food poisoning from it. In fact, the only thing I HAVE gotten food poisoning from has been some green goddess made from a mix that must have been mixed with something off by the mother of a classmate of mine. And there were the canned garbanzos my husband insisted on using in a dish he made that even though I couldn't stand the taste of, I ate because he (used to) had such issues about criticism. I spent the whole night vomiting and blaming the garbanzos, and he was fighting with me about it (!!while I was throwing up!!) until he suddenly threw up, too.

:

I have been known to announce to my husband "We are leaving for Montreal TONIGHT!" when I've had a craving. I find a raw milk cheese to be faaaaaaaar more digestible than a pasteurized milk one. Tastes better, too. There are enzymes that do the fermenting that make those delicious things like REAL camembert taste like they are supposed to. The ones made here are F-A-K-E-S! Canada still imports my favorite French cheeses. So, I do the Montreal run and buy wine from the Dietrich Joos vinyard (See a list of quebecoise vinyards here.) and stop at the IRL store Excalibor, which has really well-made and relatively inexpensive mediaeval style clothing.

And I revel in seeing lots of kids who seem to NOT get loads of sugar and fake colors and are running around outdoors in the parks and not hidden in front of their televisions.

Arrrrrggghhhh! I'm having one of my "I'm moving to Quebec" rants. STOP ME NOW!!!!!!!

sorry

 

[sassitap]

I grew up 1 1/2 hrs from montreal--3 miles from the Canadian border in VT. It was very rural(200 kids k-8 in my school) and mostly farms. My first 3 years of school were French/English bilingual because so many of the kids spoke only french at home. I never had pasturized milk, cheese or cider until I went to school and then only in school until I was in high school. We got raw milk from our neighbor which we drank and made yogurt, creme fraiche, and cheese from and made cider from the wild apple trees that grew all over our land. My job was to climb the trees and jump around in them to shake apples into the wagon behind the tractor. I agree that cider is better when it starts to turn, but don't give it to my daughters(2yrs and 10 mos) then because I'm never sure of the alcohol content.
I agree that there is nothing like raw cheese and wish more people could experience it. I really believe that everything being ultra pasteurized and anti bacterial does a real disservice to our immune systems--there's a reason farm kids have fewer allergies than other kids. And depriving kids from the incredible flavors in raw/unpasturized foods in favor of sterile foods loaded in homogenated fats, artificial coloring, and refined sugars is one of the scariest phenomenom of our culture.