Unpasteurized milk is having a mo(o)ment.
Raw milk has gained a lot of attention in the past month thanks to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has opposed its “aggressive crackdown” by the FDA and is expected to push for federal legalization as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Meanwhile, sales soared 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 to two of them, one of whom says she and her husband drink four liters a week. Both say they’ve never experienced any negative side effects, and insist there are safe ways to get the raw stuff — if you know where to go and ask the right questions.
However, an infectious disease doctor warns that skipping pasteurization still puts people at risk of serious health problems, including vomiting, diarrhea and even death. And those probiotics? The doctor says they are only in your milk if something very, very serious has happened.
Humans have been drinking animal milk for roughly 10,000 years, and most of it has been raw—meaning unpasteurized. 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 drank it weekly.
Raw milk acolytes say that in the process of eliminating harmful bacteria, pasteurization also kills many of the beneficial bacteria present and worsens issues like lactose intolerance and eczema.
Meet the raw milk super fans
One such devotee of raw milk is Lisa Clark, a nutritionist in Texas who started drinking it at age 15.
“I do it for the health benefits; Raw milk is packed with beneficial bioactives, enzymes and probiotics that would be destroyed by pasteurization,” she told The Post. She and her husband go through about four liters a week, drinking it fresh – “it’s so sweet and creamy” – 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 often suffered from negative reactions to pasteurized milk. Meanwhile, I thrive on raw milk.”
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 problems 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, fat, protein and little sugar, which is a great way for me to start a day or get through a long day of farm work without a crash. crazy 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 a month from a licensed source in her local community, “has never had a single reported problem or health complaint about it.”
“However, I can tell you of many people I know who suffered from daily health problems drinking high-temperature pasteurized milk from the store, which disappeared after switching to local raw milk.”
Pasteurization in 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 a problem until we industrialized and moved cows into confinement with filthy conditions, inadequate diets and no knowledge of hygiene. Humanity has come a long way since then.
“I believe in the benefits of quality raw milk FAR overcome any danger. With our modern knowledge and equipment, we are more than capable of producing quality raw milk. You just have to find a good producer.”
Sullivan agrees, arguing that dairy products “were not 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 suppose that was easier than addressing the root issues like disease in dairy cattle, unsanitary conditions, strict cleanliness protocols and systemic soil and animal health,” she said. “Our scientists know much more about microbial life now than we did a hundred years ago, and we can use this to our advantage to produce a food that is safer 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, such as salmonella, listeria, campylobacter and E. coli.
“There are many risks of 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 persistent severe diarrhea and dehydration, kidney failure and death.
Syed said the risk of getting sick from the disease-causing bacteria in raw milk is “very high” and you’ll only take probiotics if there’s something 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 during the milking process, as bacteria reside everywhere, from the cow’s udders to the farmer’s 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 Secretary of Health and Human Services under the new Trump administration, is among the growing contingent of raw milk advocatesstating 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 the sale of raw milk. 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 renewed a bill to expand sales earlier this. year.
Safety first? How fans supply their milk
Both Clark and Sullivan say caution should be exercised when obtaining and consuming raw milk.
“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 has the potential to make the consumer sick.”
Clark stressed the importance of quality sources, encouraging consumers to vet producers by asking questions about sanitary precautions, whether they test for bacteria counts and how quickly they let milk cool below 40 degrees.
Good signs, she said, are washing hands before milking or bottle feeding, pre-washing the udders, using an iodine dip and disinfecting 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 to last three weeks or more.
For Syed, however, 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, if you want, you should leave some leeway and wiggle room.
“I certainly don’t think we should jump right into putting raw milk in every store fridge. Conversations need to take place around the balance of food freedom and food security,” she said.
“Most people can agree that nicotine, alcohol and sugar are not very good for human health, and yet those items are readily available for purchase. The same freedom of choice is not as available when it comes to raw milk, a product with which many people experience improved health.”
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