TikTok Myth of the Week: Raw Milk Is Healthy
Raw milk is natural and brings you closer to the earth. It’s also a great way to get sick. And best of all, it’s now a fake health hack/ political football that has been brought into the spotlight by recent bird flu reports. Yes, TikTokers drink raw milk out of spite, or maybe just for affiliate marketing. I will explain.
What is raw milk?
Raw milk is milk that has not been pasteurized. Regular milk that you buy at the grocery store is pasteurized for safety reasons. The milk is heated to kill bacteria; There aredifferent ways to do this , but the most common is to hold the milk at 161 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 seconds and then cool it quickly.
Before pasteurization was widespread, milk often carried pathogens , including tuberculosis, salmonella , diphtheria, and diarrheal diseases. Pasteurization is required by federal law if milk is sold out of state, and state law requires pasteurization of most or all milk in a given state.
Raw milk is legal in some states, although laws vary. In some it can be sold in stores; in others, only for direct farm sales, or only if the label says “pet milk,” or only if you buy a cow share, because then you technically “own” the cow. In many states, this is all illegal.
Thus, raw milk is a niche product favored by some cheesemakers and some people who believe that ” natural ” is better. The FDA has counted 143 disease outbreaks linked to raw milk since 1987. In addition to the diseases mentioned above, raw milk can also carry listeria (which can cause stillbirth if a pregnant woman contracts it) and a form of E. coli that can be passed from person to person after someone becomes infected from drinking raw milk .
Why is everyone talking about raw milk?
Two events have recently occurred that have brought raw milk into the public eye. First, there is the bird flu virus, which infects not only birds, but also cows. The virus’s RNA was found in milk samples from a grocery store . It is not 100% clear whether pasteurization kills the virus, but people do not appear to get avian influenza from milk, so it is likely that pasteurization provides some protection.
This avian flu news led the FDA and CDC to emphasize their existing messages about why drinking (or selling) raw milk is a bad idea, especially to vulnerable populations such as children and people who may be pregnant (since raw milk may carry, among other things, listeria ).
And whenever there is a simple and clear public health message, there will always be people who object to it on principle. The government is trying to take away your natural, pure (bacteria laden) raw milk! It’s time to fight back! At least one conservative group has been selling “got raw milk?” shirts
The second piece of news fueling this trend is that the Louisiana Legislature is debating a recently passed bill that would legalize the sale of raw milk as long as it is labeled “not for human consumption.” People want raw milk, germs and all.
What do TikTokers say about raw milk?
As you would expect: whatever attracts attention. Often the talk is that milk is more “digestible”, contains beneficial bacteria, or that pasteurization kills the “vitamins and nutrients” in milk.
None of this is supported by scientific consensus. Pasteurized milk has the same nutritional value as raw milk ; Everything is still there, only heated up. No nutrients have been removed and you cannot “kill” any vitamins or minerals.
Good bacteria can be killed by pasteurization, but killing the bacteria is the whole point, remember? There is no procedure that kills only the “bad” bacteria while leaving the good ones; it’s all or nothing. If you want probiotics in your diet, it is best to drink pasteurized milk and take probiotic tablets, yogurt, or other probiotic-containing foods separately. (Probiotic yogurt is made by adding known “good” bacteria to pasteurized milk.)
They are selling something, of course.
TikTokers are also, of course, actively pursuing affiliate marketing.One of the best #rawmilk videos that was recommended to me featured a man repeating the statements above, telling you that the government and big pharma don’t want you to know about raw milk, and endorsing a specific farm.
He said he was confident the milk from the farm was safe because it was tested. So I visited the farm’s website. In several places they mention that their milk is tested for “pathogens”, but I couldn’t find an explanation as to what pathogens they test for or how. I found a page where influencers can sign up for their affiliate program , which pays out money to a select few. Gwyneth Paltrowhas publicly named the same farm , so it may be on the list. (California, where this farm is located, is one of the states that allows retail sales of raw milk.)
So I should drink raw milk, right?
Please do not. As the FDA notes , all of TikTok’s main claims are wrong. Here are some of them: the enzymes in raw milk do not promote digestibility, the bacteria found in raw milk is not the kind that is good for our digestive system, raw milk is not more nutritious, and testing programs “can help reduce the likelihood of raw milk being contaminated, but they do not guarantee that raw milk is pathogen-free.”