Rather, it’s veganism for the dairy-devoted, which is to say, it is insufferable for everyone who has to hear about it constantly. Pot-heads, raw-milkers, wine snobs, cross-fitters, and cyclists all share a monomania, the idea that their “thing” is the most important movement on God’s green earth and that it is their duty to proselytize in favor of their favorite substance or activity until the heat death (pasteurization) of the universe. Whatever their peculiarities, just because some folks take things a bit far doesn’t mean that we should ban the sale of elephant-dung coffee, those weird biking speedos, or raw milk. Almost any passion is gross at its extremes.
But only one of these things is associated with the American Right, at least according to the listicle think tank at Rolling Stone, so we’re supposed to jump aboard a Ford Model 18 with well-meaning progressive federal agents and take off into the hinterlands to apply an axe or three to the dairy bulk tanks just as they did to the stills and cider orchards a century ago. Apparently, the potential of allowing the sale of raw milk in Louisiana (explicitly not for human consumption and something more than 40 states allow) is proof enough that right-wingers are in the bottle for big dairy and displaying dangerous levels of science skepticism.
From Rolling Stone:
There’s been a recent surge of raw milk evangelism among conservatives, anti-establishment figures like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the tradwives and homesteaders on social media, and their patron saint, Gwyneth Paltrow — who says she drinks raw cream in her coffee every morning. While their unapologetic espousal of unpasteurized milk isn’t new, the debate — unlike the unprocessed dairy products — has been particularly heated since the H5N1 avian influenza virus was first detected in US dairy cows back in March, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to issue warnings against drinking raw milk.
Things began to boil over last week, thanks, in part, to the discovery that Charlie Kirk’s right-wing youth organization, Turning Point USA, had been selling “Got Raw Milk?” T-shirts that featured an illustration of a bull, not a cow. (The image on the T-shirt has since been updated.) But if you haven’t been keeping up with crunchy TikTok, the right’s latest attempt to undermine public health might appear to have come from nowhere. Here’s what to know about raw milk, including what people are claiming about it, whether it’s safe to drink, and why the dairy aisle has become the site of the MAGA crowd’s most recent anti-science battle.
When it comes down to it, there are 760 illnesses and 22 hospitalizations associated with consuming bad dairy every year. Ninety-six percent of those events are the fault of ingesting raw dairy — this out of millions of dairy users (lactosers). While additional caution should be considered when H5N1 avian influenza is affecting some cows, I find it really difficult to care.
As some Mennonites remarked to me in a recent story about America’s Dairyland, one can buy socially and physically destructive consumables like alcohol and cigarettes at any corner store — but no raw dairy? The farmers had lived their many decades eating and drinking the stuff (yes, survivorship bias), but the data reaffirm the notion that, like the extreme phobias instilled in American youth about raw cookie dough (and quicksand), the threat has been grossly overstated because we have nothing better to fear than differences in string-cheese production.
Raw milk might be better for a body, it might not. You’re an American. Ignore uncultured wingers who want to make the kitchen political. Drink raw milk, or don’t, and argue about why you’re right until St. Peter interrupts your monologue.