Some Raw Truths About Raw Milk

Today, however, a small but growing number of Americans prefer to drink their milk raw. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, now stands at the vanguard of this movement. Kennedy has said he drinks raw milk and has criticized what he describes as the Food and Drug Administration’s “aggressive suppression” of raw-milk production, among other things. Enthusiasts anticipate that, as H.H.S. secretary, he would make raw milk easier to acquire — although how remains unclear. Federal regulations prohibit the sale of raw milk across state lines, but where it’s legal, raw milk is regulated by state governments, not federal agencies.

In embracing raw milk, Kennedy is following an established trend as much as leading it. The roots of the movement stretch back decades. The small, independent health-food stores my parents frequented in New Mexico in the 1980s, for example, sold raw milk. (We never partook.) But to hear Mark McAfee tell it, the pandemic supercharged demand.

McAfee heads one of the largest producers of raw milk in the country, Raw Farm in California. McAfee, who has said Kennedy is a customer, has applied to serve in an advisory role at H.H.S. — at the urging of Kennedy’s transition team, he says. During the pandemic, McAfee told me, people felt abandoned by medical professionals and began researching ways to care for their own immune systems. Many turned to raw milk, which he calls “the first food of life.” Maybe they thought it could protect them from the coronavirus, he says, an unproven idea that may stem from the observation that human breast milk provides nursing infants with some protection against infection.

Anecdotes of seemingly miraculous cures from raw milk also help fuel the phenomenon — inflammatory diseases that go into remission, allergies and digestive problems that disappear. McAfee eagerly shared such stories. Nonetheless, his customers defy easy categorization. When he began selling raw milk 25 years ago, hippie “nut-and-berry moms” and natural foodies, as he puts it, formed McAfee’s core clientele. But as his sales have grown — about 30-fold since then, he estimates — his customers have diversified.

Today’s raw-milk movement is made up of people and ideas from across the political spectrum: back-to-the-land types seeking unadulterated whole foods; health fanatics seeking the latest superfood; don’t-tell-me-what-to-eat libertarians who distrust authority and who, in McAfee’s description, intend to do the opposite of whatever the F.D.A. says. A variety of labels have been applied to the movement: “food sovereignty,” “slow food,” “real food,” “food freedom.” For the more conspiratorially minded, raw milk represents food free of government meddling. For those merely chasing the latest fad, raw milk may be a status symbol — a single gallon can cost nearly $20.