Is Raw Milk Safe to Drink, Just Because Social Media Says So?

Just because I’m not part of a niche section of the internet doesn’t mean I don’t still consume its content. My algorithm regularly feeds me videos produced by creators that follow the carnivore diet — a meal plan that only includes animal products. The carnivore diet has been around for at least several decades, but a combination of factors such as transparency through social media and Shawn Baker’s 2019 book The Carnivore Diet — have brought it to the forefront of modern diet culture. And while I would never strip vegetables, sugars, and precious carbs from my lifestyle, I’m still strangely fascinated by these videos. The problem is, so are many others.

Social media has given a platform to, well, everyone, including food subcultures and proponents of niche diets that may otherwise have had little public reach without it. Influencers that follow the carnivore diet or homestead, a self-sufficient way of living that the controversial “tradwives” often fall under, are among those that have successfully built up a large following on TikTok and Instagram. And there’s one ingredient they’re extolling in front of the world at large that gives cause for concern: raw milk.

While not every carnivore or homesteading content creator is a public fan of unpasteurized raw milk, quite a few of them are — including some of the biggest and most influential accounts. The infamous Ballerina Farm, which has 10 million followers on Instagram and 9.7 million on TikTok, has previously posted about how they prepare their raw milk, and shared a video of wife and mother Hannah Neeleman drinking a raw milk turmeric latte as recently as this past May. Prominent carnivore diet advocate Courtney Luna regularly posts videos talking about how she and her children imbibe raw milk.

As influencers are promoting the consumption of raw milk, many of them even tout that its health benefits include reducing gut inflammation, containing vitamins and nutrients that pasteurized milk doesn’t, or “curing” lactose intolerance. These claims are not only misinformed and inaccurate but also hide the significant health risks that raw milk poses.

What is raw milk?

Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. I spoke with Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Lena Bakovic of Top Nutrition Coaching, who clarified that “Pasteurization is a form of food processing which kills bacterial pathogens which can cause foodborne illness by heating milk to high temperatures for a specified amount of time, and then subsequently quickly cooling it back down.”

Is raw milk safe to drink?

No, raw milk is more likely to cause serious foodborne illnesses, and risks exposure to harmful bacteria including E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella (among others), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Bakovic emphasized that people who are “immunocompromised, very young, or older in age are especially prone to these foodborne illnesses/infections.” 

All types of raw milk — sheep, goat, and cow — are equally unsafe since none of them have been pasteurized. While going down the rabbit hole of raw milk aficionados on the internet, I learned that some influencers like Courtney Luna profess that the raw milk that they drink is safe because it has been tested. However, the FDA maintains that testing raw milk instead of pasteurizing it is not enough to ensure that contaminants are completely eliminated — not every single pathogen can be tested for, and methods of testing may fail or be unable to detect low levels of a pathogen.

Are there benefits to drinking raw milk?

The FDA, CDC, and registered dietitians that we consulted all agree that pasteurized milk and raw milk effectively have the same nutritional value; the process of pasteurization does not notably change the nutritional makeup of the milk. The FDA does a particularly good job of refuting the claims that raw milk has health advantages, explaining that “bacteria found in raw milk are not probiotic,” so it does not have more beneficial bacteria for your gut than pasteurized milk. Registered dietitian Joanna Greg of MyFitnessPal elaborated on this further for us, explaining that “most of the microorganisms referred to in this way are actually pathogens that are present due to infected udder tissues, the dairy environment, and milking equipment, and high levels of these bacteria often indicate poor hygiene or poor animal health.”

The FDA’s resources on misconceptions around raw milk also confirm that it cannot heal allergies or circumvent lactose intolerance — and it certainly does not help build a stronger immune system. In short, pasteurized milk will give you all of the nutritional benefits that raw milk can, without the risk of serious illness and bacterial contamination.

Is raw milk illegal?

Whether or not raw milk can legally be sold varies from country to country. Within the United States, the sale of raw milk across state lines is prohibited, but states can make their own determinations about whether or not to outlaw raw milk within their borders, meaning that selling raw milk is illegal in some states and legal in others. The CDC does provide a map outlining the regulations surrounding raw milk in different states, including whether or not it’s legal to sell commercially or only on farms.

While researching content that highlights raw milk consumption on Instagram and TikTok, I found it rare to see a video that debunked the misinformed assertions that raw milk is good for you, or that made clear just how great a health risk this liquid could present. Instead, I was inundated with reels that tried to convert me to adding raw milk to my daily diet — a trend that’s particularly concerning considering how quickly information can spread online, and that raw milk may be especially dangerous for vulnerable groups like children. If you come across a video that promotes raw milk, I’m not recommending that you start an argument in the comments, but reporting the content or requesting that your app not show you similar themes might at least help mitigate their reach.