Been drinking raw milk for well over a decade. First, if you don't like dairy, don't bother with it. It will sour long before you get around to finishing it. As a follow up, though, raw milk doesn't really go bad, it doesn't spoil - it sours/ferments. If you want true sour cream, just let raw cream sour to the point where you like it. Pasteurization kills all of the enzymes and probiotics that naturally occur in raw milk, which leads to it tasting fresh longer, but also means that it will eventually go bad and make you sick. I'm lactose intolerant, but because raw milk has enzymes that allow it to basically digest itself, I've never had any issues drinking raw milk. In fact, if I have a pizza or other processed dairy product, if I have a glass of raw milk with it, I don't have any issues. It helps a ton with my allergies, too. Every year I would have at least 2-4 sinus infections. Once I switched to raw milk, they all went away. Back in the day when real vaccines were first developed, it was via cows being exposed to viruses, and their milk creating natural antibodies (same reason why it's so important for women to breastfeed their babies - the baby saliva introduces potential illnesses and the mother's milk creates antibodies that pass to the baby) The type of cow can matter, as well. You want to get milk from an old world cow, not a new breed like holsteiner. The structure of the milk is different in the new cows and not only don't taste as good, but seem to cause an addictive like response in the brain. Can you get sick from it? Yes. However, it's rare. Cows can develop mastisis, or infections in the udder. If the farmer is paying attention to his cows, he'll know when one may be developing this condition and will NOT collect her milk. A good farmer will also ensure that the nipples are cleaned before milked, and the milk is filtered to ensure no particulates are in there. They will also immediately cool the milk in a vat to ensure it can stay fresh as long as possible (warm milk will ferment faster than cooled milk) So if the farmer is milking a cow with an infection, not washing the nipples, and just letting milk sit out...yeah, there is a high probability of illness. But the majority of the time, farmers really do care about their cows and their customers, and take care of them. If you want to know if the cows are happy and well taken care of - watch them out in the field. Are they spread out? Lying down? Unbothered by people being nearby or maybe even coming up to people for scritches? Happy cows. This is a basic overview. If you have any questions, just let me know.