Commentary
Raw milk is in the news again. In Florida, a mother lost her unborn child to an infection traced back to raw milk labeled “for pet food only.” Her toddler became sick first, and she later contracted the illness herself. This is a tragedy, and I don’t want to minimize the heartbreak of her loss. We should take pause, grieve for that family, and pray for them. But it should not be weaponized into yet another push to take away the small, fragile access this so-called “free country” gives us to raw milk.
We should also be asking a bigger question: Is pasteurization truly about protecting our health—or is it also about consolidating control of the food system? In the last 20 years, tens of thousands of small dairy farms have gone out of business. Independent farmers are squeezed while large, centralized dairies thrive. Safety is the headline, but power and profit are always part of the story.
Let me state my bias upfront: I am a raw milk mother. My children wake up eager to help milk the cows. They love frothy hot chocolate made by stirring organic cacao into a glass while the warm milk streams directly from the udder, filling the cup with bubbles no espresso machine could match. They beg me for “babyccinos”—steamed raw milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. We are a dairy cow family. We make the time and effort to milk cows every day because we believe it is one of the best foundations for our children’s health.
Last year, after carrying four children back-to-back in my late 30s and 40s, I was left 45 pounds overweight. I eat clean, bake all our bread from scratch, and grow much of our own food. Still, I couldn’t shed the weight. In my research on gut health, I discovered how critical bifidobacteria are—and how both breast milk and raw cow’s milk help nourish them. So I tried an experiment. I lived on raw milk, raw yogurt, water, and coffee for 18 days, and later for 46 days during Lent. I lost over 40 pounds. More than that, my inflammation disappeared, my brain fog lifted, and my energy returned. Months later, I’ve not regained the weight, I have no cravings, and I feel better than I did a decade ago.
My children drink raw milk every day. They have never had the flu. They have never once had an ear infection. We rarely get sick at all, and when we do, our immune systems work as designed. I almost never take them to the doctor.
Let’s be honest: Milking a cow is not sterile. The udder sits just below her tail. There are risks. But pasteurizing dirty milk doesn’t make it clean—it just kills the bacteria, including the beneficial ones designed to support our gut health. Breast milk and cow’s milk share remarkable similarity in their makeup. Some estimates put their composition at more than 90 percent alike. When I was breastfeeding my daughter while pouring Costco oat milk for my toddler, I asked myself: how could milk from my own cow—nearly identical in design to my own breast milk—be considered dangerous, while a shelf-stable Tetra Pak of industrial oat slurry is sold as health food?
We don’t villainize spinach after an E. coli outbreak. We don’t outlaw romaine lettuce or peanut butter or ice cream after recalls and deaths. As a chef, I’ve received those recall calls again and again. The focus is always on cleanliness and transparency, never on banning the food outright. Why is raw milk treated differently?
European researchers have studied this question carefully, and their findings shouldn’t be ignored. The PASTURE birth cohort, following nearly 1,000 infants in five countries, showed that babies drinking unprocessed cow’s milk had about 30 percent fewer respiratory infections and fevers in their first year of life. The GABRIELA and PARSIFAL studies, spanning thousands of farm and nonfarm children across Europe, found significantly lower rates of asthma and allergies among children consuming raw farm milk. Researchers identified protective components: intact whey proteins, omega-3 fatty acids, and immune complexes, all degraded by industrial heat treatment. In other words, the same proteins and bacteria that pasteurization destroys may also be the ones our immune systems most need.
This “farm milk effect” has been documented again and again. Children raised with raw farm milk are less likely to develop allergies, asthma, or recurrent infections. The findings are not fringe—they are published in major journals, peer-reviewed, and consistent across populations.
Meanwhile, the American conversation on food safety remains inconsistent. When bagged spinach sickened nearly 200 people in 2006, including three deaths, no one called for outlawing spinach. When peanut butter or cantaloupe or ice cream caused hospitalizations and fatalities, the national conversation focused on transparency and cleanliness—not banning the foods outright. Raw milk, by contrast, is treated as a special villain. The same incident that might prompt a call for better practices in produce instead becomes a rallying cry to shut down access to unpasteurized dairy altogether.
Everywhere you look right now, pediatricians are on television and in the press saying, “Do not drink raw milk. Do not feed it to your children.” I have never once seen a pediatrician go on air after a spinach recall and say, “Do not feed leafy greens to your children.” No one tells parents never to give peanut butter again after an outbreak. No one says “never eat ice cream” after contaminated eggs sickened hundreds of thousands. Only raw milk is treated this way—with blanket warnings to avoid it entirely, regardless of its benefits or the context of cleanliness and sourcing.
And here’s the irony: Raw milk arguably has more health benefits than any of those foods. Spinach, peanut butter, and ice cream don’t come close to the European data showing raw milk’s ability to reduce asthma, allergies, and infections in children. Nor do they contain the same unique mix of immune factors, healthy fats, and beneficial bacteria that breast milk and raw milk share. If we measured foods not only by their risks but by their potential to nourish and heal, raw milk would stand far above the rest.
Pasteurized milk is everywhere. Raw milk, by contrast, is legal or partially legal in only 20 states. Elsewhere, people join cow shares, buy jugs labeled “for animal consumption only,” or quietly meet Amish farmers in parking lots. This secrecy isn’t because raw milk is uniquely dangerous compared to other foods—it’s because the system has decided to control it differently. I believe food as God designed it is foundational for human health. That doesn’t mean being careless. Cleanliness matters at every step of food production. But to villainize raw milk—while ignoring its proven benefits and singling it out among countless foods that carry risk—feels less about health and more about control.
We live in a country where adults can choose to smoke cigarettes, buy ultra-processed “foods” filled with dyes and seed oils, and drink soda by the gallon. Yet the same states tell me I cannot legally pour raw milk into my child’s cup? That contradiction should give us pause. I know there is inherent risk in drinking raw milk—just as there is with driving a car or doing almost anything in life. Life is not safe. And no matter how much we try to sterilize it, it never will be safe. But we are not meant to live disconnected and sterile. All of the ways we try to make our food system “safe” and “sterile” have only led to a sicker nation than we have ever been before. When will we recognize that we’re doing it all wrong?
The Florida tragedy should grieve us. But it should not be weaponized into yet another push for consolidation, another excuse to strip small farms of their freedom, another reason to tell families they cannot access the foods they believe are healthiest for them. Raw milk is a perfect food. It is one of the oldest and most nutrient-rich foods in human history. The safety of raw milk is not perfect—but no food’s safety is. It nourishes beneficial bacteria. It protects against infections and allergies. It has sustained families like mine for generations.
If spinach can be recalled without being outlawed, if peanut butter can cause hospitalizations without being banned, then raw milk deserves the same fairness. Let’s stop pretending the only story is risk. The bigger story is food freedom, human health, and whether we still trust nature—or only the corporations and regulators who claim to manage it for us.
