Raw milk is having an opinion (o).
Raw milk has gained a lot of buzz in the past month thanks to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has railed against his FDA’s “aggressive crackdown” and is expected to push for federal legalization as secretary of health and human services.
Meanwhile, sales were boosted by as much as 65% earlier this year, with proponents of raw milk on social media claiming it’s a nutritional powerhouse packed with probiotics and can aid digestion, clear skin, balance hormones and repair muscles.
The Post spoke with two of them, one of whom says she and her husband drink four gallons a week. Both say they’ve never experienced any negative side effects, and insist there are safe ways to source the raw stuff if you know where to go and ask the right questions.
However, an infectious disease doctor warns that switching to pasteurization still puts people at risk for serious health issues, including vomiting, diarrhea and even death. And those probiotics? The doc says they’re only in your milk if something very, very gross has happened.
Humans have been drinking animal milk for nearly 10,000 years, and most of it has been raw that will not be pasteurized. Pasteurization, a process that kills bacteria and harmful organisms by heating milk to a specific temperature for a specific period, was implemented in the US in the early 20th century.
In a 2023 study, 4.4% of Americans reported drinking raw milk in the past year, while 1% said they drink it weekly.
Raw milk acolytes say that in the process of eliminating harmful bacteria, pasteurization also kills many of the existing beneficial bacteria and worsens issues like lactose intolerance and eczema.
Meet the Super Fans of Raw Milk Super
One of those raw milk devotees is Lisa Clark, a nutritionist in Texas who started drinking it at age 15.
“I do it for the health benefits; Raw milk is taking away beneficial bioactives, enzymes and probiotics that would be destroyed by pasteurization,” she told the Post. She and her husband go through about four gallons a week, drinking it fresh. “It’s so sweet and soft” and using it to make homemade kefir.
“Raw milk is extremely easy on my digestion,” she said. “I was lactose intolerant as a child and would often have adverse reactions to pasteurized milk. Meanwhile, I thrive on raw dairy.”
She likes “enzymes, bioactives and probiotics,” noting that probiotics are great for gut health.
Annemarie Sullivan, a Texas-based sustainable farmer and raw milk distributor, has also been drinking raw milk since she was a teenager.
“I find it’s a great source of balanced energy,” she told the Post, adding that others tell her it cured their skin issues and helps with exercise recovery. “It provides a much healthier and gentler boost of energy than an energy drink or a coffee.
“Its nutritional profile is a great mix of hydration, fats, protein and a little bit of sugar, which is an amazing way for me to start a day or get through a long day of farm work without a crazy crash like caffeine can go away.”
Neither she nor Clark say they ever got sick from his drinking.
“In 12+ years of almost daily consumption of raw milk, I can’t say I’ve ever been adversely affected,” Sullivan said. “Definitely nothing that I’ve ever sought treatment for or even remotely made me reconsider my consumption.”
Sullivan, who distributes hundreds of gallons of raw milk per month from a licensed source to her local community, “has never had a single reported issue or health complaint related to it.”
“However, I can tell you of many people I know who suffered with everyday health issues drinking highly pasteurized milk from the store, that disappeared after switching to local raw milk.”
Pasteurization on pasture?
Clark and Sullivan assert that while pasteurization made sense a hundred or more years ago, it no longer does.
“Pasteurization is an 1800s solution to an 1800s problem,” Clark said. “We have been consuming raw milk for thousands of years. It didn’t become an issue until we industrialized and moved cows into enclosures with filthy conditions, inadequate diets and no knowledge of sanitation. Humanity has come a long way since then.
“I believe in the benefits of quality raw milk FAR overcome any risks. With our modern knowledge and equipment, we are more than capable of producing quality raw milk. You just need to find a good manufacturer. “
Sullivan agrees, arguing that dairy products “wouldn’t have been produced to very high standards” in the early to mid-1900s.
“They discovered that you could cook the milk and kill the bacteria, and I think it was easier than addressing the root issues like disease in dairy cattle, unsanitary conditions, strict cleanliness protocols and systemic soil health and animals,” she said. “Our scientists know a lot more about microbial life now than we did a hundred years ago, and we can use that to our advantage to produce safer food than ever.”
Is raw milk safe? What do the doctors say?
Although Clark and Sullivan were lucky enough not to get sick, unpasteurized milk can harbor bacteria that cause common foodborne illnesses like Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and E. coli.
“There are many risks to consuming raw milk,” Dr. Uzma Syed, a board-certified infectious disease specialist and fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “Pasteurization has enabled the safe consumption of milk for decades.”
Serious illness and hospitalization can occur, she added, including everything from mild abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea to severe persistent diarrhea and dehydration, kidney failure and death.
Syed said the risk of illness from disease-causing bacteria in raw milk is “very high” and you’ll only get probiotics if anything extra mixed in.
“There are no probiotics present in raw milk unless there is fecal contamination of the milk,” she said. “There are no additional enzymes in raw milk that aid digestion or the immune response.”
Contamination can occur at various points throughout the milking process, as bacteria travel everywhere from the cows’ udders to the farmers’ hands.
Syed noted that given the recent outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows, raw milk poses a timely threat as the CDC has warned that it may be possible to contract the disease from drinking unpasteurized milk.
What’s next for raw milk?
Since 1973, the federal government has required that all milk sold across state lines be pasteurized.
But RFK Jr., expected to be named Health and Human Services secretary under the new Trump administration, is among the growing contingent of raw milk advocatesannouncing in 2022 that it’s the only kind he drinks.
If appointed, the former environmental lawyer is expected to push for federal legalization of raw milk. Currently, about 30 states allow raw milk to be sold. While the remaining 20 states ban the sale of raw milk in some form, a growing number of state legislatures are revisiting the raw milk debate. Iowa legalized the sale of raw milk in 2023, while Illinois reintroduced a bill to expand sales earlier this year.
Safety first? How fans get their milk
Both Clark and Sullivan state that caution should be exercised when helping and consuming raw dairy.
“To make a blanket statement and say that raw milk is safe is irresponsible and untrue!” Sullivan said. “Like any raw food, raw milk is susceptible to bacterial contamination and holds the potential to make the consumer sick.”
Clark stressed the importance of helping quality, encouraging consumers to vet producers by asking questions about sanitation precautions, whether they test for bacteria counts, and how quickly they let milk cool below 40 degrees.
Good signs, she said, are elevating before milking or bottles, pre-washing the udders, using an iodine-iodine dip and sanitizing milking equipment with bleach and acid rinses.
Clark added that the most critical question she thinks consumers can ask producers is the shelf life of raw milk: less than two weeks is a bad sign, and Clark personally expects it should last three weeks or more.
However, for Syed, there is no situation in which raw milk should be recommended or ingested.
“Before pasteurization, there was significant disease from consuming raw milk,” she said. “We have been fortunate to have a significant decrease in these infections and diseases in the general population due to safer milk production and consumption.”
Sullivan asserts that risk assessment should be left to the discretion of the consumer, a bit of leeway and udders to swing, if you will.
“I certainly don’t think we should immediately jump into putting raw milk in every store refrigerator. Conversations should be held around the balance of food freedom and food safety,” she said.
“Most can agree that nicotine, alcohol and sugar are not very good for human health, and yet those things are readily available for purchase. The same freedom of choice is not so available when it comes to milk raw, a product that many people experience improved health.
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