In Mongolia, are dairy products offered to tourists typically processed?

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I don't particularly recall from my time in Mongolia, but I say "embrace the local stuff" when I'm travelling, and if I get sick, so be it (it's unlikely anyway).

Lost in the Mongolia Grocery Store, however, is a post on some of the foods you might find in a Mongolia supermarket, which is where I assume you'll be shopping if you're after milk "offered to tourists".

From their post:

Dairy is the other staple of the Mongolian diet. The trick is to figure out what, exactly, is inside the package — early on I bought sweetened yogurt instead of cream. Milk comes in different versions: UHT (Ultra High Temperature, meaning no refrigeration is needed) packs, “regular” and reconstituted from powder, with fat levels of 4% or 3.2%. I don’t care about the fat content but I do NOT prefer powdered milk. Other packages…are they butter? Cheese? Flavored yogurt? Some other thing? And there’s ahruul, the dried yogurt...

Give the kumis / airag a shot though, it's an acquired taste... ;)

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Any milk I had while in the Mongolian countryside was boiled first.

Also, is airag safe to drink, at least from an infectious disease perspective?

The following suggests that airag can give you diarrhoea:

The national drink of Mongolia is also a staple in celebrations, though it's slightly less alcoholic and more...unique. Known as Airag, this is a summer seasonal drink made from fermented mare's milk. It is, to put it mildly, an acquired taste. At first, it feels like you're drinking milk that's gone bad, but rest assured, 3 million Mongolians can't be wrong, it is drinkable. Be sure to get a small amount or ask for a taste before you get a whole cup, drinking too much, when you're not used to it, might give you diarrhoea.

Ironically, I didn't get diarrhoea from drinking airag in Mongolia, but got it a few months later after having lassi in an Indian restaurant while on holiday in Orange in my home state of NSW, Australia. At least with airag, if you're old enough to drink it, you're old enough to hopefully not get killed by it.

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