Sean tries raw milk

Summary

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Unexplainable: "Sean Tries Raw Milk" (June 15, 2026) — Detailed Episode Summary

Overview of the Episode

In this episode of Unexplainable, Sean Ramisviram investigates the surging interest and controversy around raw milk in the United States. Through a mix of first-person reporting, humorous personal experimentation, and interviews with farmers and experts, the episode examines the science, the risks, the legal battles, and the cultural divides fueling the raw milk revival. The story unfolds at the intersection of public health, regulatory skepticism, and food freedom, all capped off by Sean's memorable on-air tasting of raw milk.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Raw Milk? The Surge in Interest

• Raw milk, or unpasteurized milk, has been the focus of renewed discussion, as more states contemplate legislation to ease its sale and consumption (01:53).
• National political figures, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK), have brought visibility to the issue. RFK’s raw milk “shot” at the White House is cited as emblematic of larger culture war currents.
• "There are dozens of pieces of legislation throughout the country currently...that seek to make it easier to sell and or drink raw milk." — Sean (01:57)

2. The Divisiveness & Parallels with Vaccine Debates

• The raw milk debate mirrors other divisions in American society, pitting “anti-establishment” or “health freedom” advocates against traditional scientific consensus (03:24, 04:32).
• Notably, raw milk’s rhetoric overlaps with anti-vaccine sentiment: "It's very clear that we've firmly entered the I'll do my own research era, the anti-establishment, anti-convention, anti-big-pharma, whatever it might be." — Sean (04:32)
• There’s a generational amnesia or “taking for granted” of why pasteurization was originally introduced to prevent massive outbreaks of disease and infant mortality (03:24).

3. Sean’s Raw Milk Quest: From Farmers Market to Farm

• Sean, joined by his mother, sets out at an Alexandria, VA market but fails (“Nobody is that stupid here.” — Sean, 07:17).
• Raw milk is easier to find in some places (California, Sri Lanka), less so elsewhere. Maryland, for instance, prohibits sales for human consumption but allows sales as ‘pet food’ (08:52).
• The Priggle family of Pringle Creamery realistically explains that customers claiming to buy raw milk for pets are likely consuming it themselves (09:25).
• "People were eating Tide pods not that long ago." — Matt Priggle on human consumption despite labeling (09:35)

4. Science, Safety, and Modern Dairy Practices

• Matt Priggle details how past health issues with milk stemmed from poor city farming practices (indoor cows, grain waste feed, lack of sanitation), which have improved dramatically with closed-system, refrigerated modern dairies (12:47).
• The Priggles are transparent about risks ("There's always a chance…If you can't visit the farm. I wouldn't drink their milk." — Bobby Priggle, 15:11).
• They advocate for a hyper-local model: "If you're buying raw milk, it should come from your state and it should come from your farmer." — Matt Priggle (15:24)
• Sean tries the milk, finds it tastes like “milk,” reports mild stomach discomfort (likely due to lactose issues), and confirms no serious illness (17:32).

5. National Legal Patchwork and Social Media Influence

• Anna Merlin (Mother Jones) provides context: raw milk laws vary widely. Some states allow store sales, others use legal fictions (“herd shares”), others only allow “pet food” sales. D.C. and Rhode Island are among the strictest; California the most permissive (21:26–23:15).
• There are currently over 40 bills across 18 states on raw dairy. Legislative trends are driven by perceptions of "food freedom" (21:26, 22:15).
• The FDA still bans interstate raw milk sales, and despite political theater (e.g., RFK’s public stances), there’s been no major federal change (27:10).

6. Raw Milk Myths, Risks, and the Science

• The case for pasteurization is clear: "There was a pretty direct relationship between more places requiring pasteurization and infant mortality going down.” — Anna Merlin (24:11)
• Raw milk advocates argue unpasteurized milk offers unique health benefits; scientists say these claims aren’t supported by evidence and risks (especially for children, immunocompromised) remain high (25:07–25:49).
• “The raw milk industry tends to talk about this idea that raw milk is safe if you trust your farmer. But when you talk to a virologist...if you're not pasteurizing your milk, you're going to be at more risk of common foodborne pathogens.” — Anna Merlin (30:18)
• Social media and influencers aggressively market raw milk as a health product, often misleadingly (29:35).
• Merlin herself, though raised on a ranch, says, “So no, I am personally not going to drink raw milk.” (31:40), citing hygiene and risk realities.

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Memorable Quotes and Moments (with Timestamps)

• "If nobody told you, you wouldn't know [it's raw milk]." — Sean’s mom Anna Merlin, after tasting raw milk (17:30)
• “I had a glass of milk with my steak last night. I had it in my coffee.” — Matt Priggle, on how he enjoys raw milk (11:26)
• “Oat milk. Which isn’t milk, by the way. It’s oat oil.” — Matt Priggle’s opinion on plant-based “milk” (11:37)
• “People want to figure out their own path. And with raw milk especially, what you see is a lot of people drink it and they don't die, so they trust it.” — Sean (04:32)
• “I rarely ever get sick to begin with.” — Matt Priggle, on never having fallen ill from his own raw milk (16:18)
• “So, earlier this year, an infant died in New Mexico from listeria that public health officials there think was probably linked to the infant's mom drinking it during pregnancy.” — Anna Merlin (29:35)
• “If your listeners want to look at the FDA or the CDC, there’s a page…called ‘Raw Milk Misconceptions and the Danger of Raw Milk Consumption.’ … There’s very, very good evidence about raw milk’s actual dangers and risks.” — Anna Merlin (31:40)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Raw milk’s moment and controversy: (01:53–04:32)
• Sean visits Pringle Creamery; the legal loophole: (08:11–12:07)
• Raw milk safety discussion — modern vs. past practices: (12:47–15:31)
• Sean and mom taste the milk: (16:52–17:38)
• Legal patchwork and political context, Anna Merlin interview: (21:00–32:27)
• Science of pasteurization and risk assessment: (23:40–25:49)
• National health and influencer marketing concerns: (29:35–31:31)

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Summary Takeaways

• Raw milk is at the cross-section of tradition, science, and political culture wars. While it’s promoted as “freedom food” by some and a health risk by others, practical legal realities and scientific consensus favor pasteurization.
• Modern small dairies are cleaner and safer, but the risks haven’t vanished. Both farmers and scientists agree: know your source if you insist on drinking raw milk, but even then, risks persist.
• The revival is as much about distrust in institutions and "doing your own research" as about the taste or claimed health benefits of the milk itself.
• Sean’s verdict: It tastes like milk, but, despite generations of farm nostalgia, the episode leaves listeners with a call for skepticism and science-driven caution.

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Transcript

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[Sean Ramisviram]

why make it harder With a dozen

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[Podcast Host]

Sean.

[Matt Priggle]

Hello.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Yo Noam.

[Podcast Host]

Hello.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Yo Om.

[Podcast Host]

It's been a while.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Yeah. We used to work together on Today Explained.

[Podcast Host]

It was a great time. So much that I still listen to every episode of Today Explained.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Much love. Much love.

[Podcast Host]

And I heard this episode that you guys did recently that I loved about raw milk.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Oh, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I drank some raw milk and

[Podcast Host]

you went to a farm, I hear.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I went to a farm to do it. Yeah.

[Matt Priggle]

How did it go?

[Sean Ramisviram]

I'm still alive. Look at me.

[Matt Priggle]

Yeah.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

What is going on with raw milk right now? Why is everyone talking about raw milk?

[Sean Ramisviram]

Well, no, you know, it's been happening for a while. People probably know that someone who drinks raw milk, whatever it might be. But we thought, let's take a look at this. Because once RFK enters the White House and becomes Secretary of Health and Human Services, all of a sudden you've got him doing like a shot of raw milk at the White House. Yeah, they're not pushing it so hard. They're really getting on like the whole milk train. But there are dozens of pieces of legislation throughout the country currently making their way through state legislatures that seek to make it easier to sell and or drink raw milk.

[Podcast Host]

What do you think surprised you the most from hanging out with the farmers and tasting the milk?

[Sean Ramisviram]

I think what's most interesting about this is if you talk to some people about Raw milk. They want to condemn you for even considering the idea that you would drink non pasteurized milk, which is essentially what we're talking about.

[Matt Priggle]

Right.

[Sean Ramisviram]

But what's funny about it in this particular moment we're in is that you can go to like a trendy grocery store in LA and just buy some raw milk. You know, it's like to some people it's tantamount to being anti vax. And yet in California you can go to the grocery store and buy some raw milk. So this is one of those issues, like many issues in this country, that is incredibly divisive and yet also that some parts of this country have just kind of moved right past and have accepted into their lives.

[Podcast Host]

You know, it's interesting that you bring up the anti vax conversation because I do feel like conversations around raw milk tend to mirror some of the conversations I've had about vaccines where like people are just like, oh, why should I go get this vaccine? There's no measles around. Or I mean, there kind of is measles more now. But I do think that people often forget how many people used to die from things like the measles and polio and all sorts of preventable diseases like vaccines have saved at least 100 million lives. And something I learned from your episode is that before pasteurization, milk could lead to these tuberculosis outbreaks and typhoid outbreaks. Tens of thousands of people, mostly children, used to die from drinking milk. Do you think people just don't remember what things used to be like? Or they don't want to think about what things used to be like and they're just taking for granted all of these incredible scientific achievements we've had to get us to the place where we are now.

[Sean Ramisviram]

It's very clear that we've firmly entered the I'll do my own research era, the anti establishment, anti convention, anti big pharma, whatever it might be. And for a multitude of reasons that I don't want to dunk on necessarily. Some of it's silly, but some of it's not. I mean, I think that's what Maha has really suggested that. Well, he kind of has a point about food dies. Sure, maybe, yeah, why not? You know, does he have a point about vaccines? Less so. It seems less of a point, but. But people want to figure out their own path. And with raw milk especially, what you see is a lot of people drink it and they don't die, so they trust it, you know, And I think we have a problem with like anecdotal experience in this country with distrust of big ag, big pharma, big everything, and that sometimes leading people to make some unfortunate choices.

[Podcast Host]

And I mean, a distrust also of scientific institutions that are saying what is safe and what isn't safe and a reliance on your friend telling you what's safe.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Yes. Does that mean you should never, ever, ever drink raw milk? If you're at some beautiful farm in the south of France and a farmer says, here's a milkshake we just made fresh for you because you're from America and you like that kind of thing?

[Matt Priggle]

Like.

[Sean Ramisviram]

No, it's probably fine. It's probably fine.

[Matt Priggle]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

That feels to me like he's trying to poison you somehow.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Oh, maybe so. Right, right, right. Anyway, that doesn't mean we should just, you know, make it easier for the entire country to drink raw milk or just remove all the guardrails.

[Podcast Host]

Well, it's a very interesting discussion. Your episode is great. I love the way that you talk to people on all parts of this issue. So we're gonna play it for our listeners. Do you want to tee it up? Anything they need to know before you

[Sean Ramisviram]

hit play today Explained from vox. Wherever you listen, hit play today. Explained from vox. Sean Ramisviram here at the historic Old Town Farmers Market in Alexandria, Virginia, on a quest to find something that is not totally legal here across these United States. Raw milk. Mom, have you ever seen raw milk here at this market?

[Sean's Mom]

No.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Have you ever seen it anywhere?

[Sean's Mom]

Yes, in California and in Sri Lanka.

[Sean Ramisviram]

You drank raw milk in Sri Lanka?

[Sean's Mom]

Yes, from the day I was born

[Anna Merlin]

till I left Sri Lanka.

[Sean Ramisviram]

So you're not impressed with my search for raw milk?

[Anna Merlin]

No, not at all.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Okay, Mom's not impressed. But I'm still looking for raw milk because more and more people are drinking it, and something like 18 states are currently trying to make it easier to drink right now. Let me see if I can find some. Sir, do you know where I can find raw milk underneath?

[UPS Store Advertiser]

I don't.

[Matt Priggle]

Not here.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Nobody is that stupid here. Okay, so my farmers market thing was a bit of a bust, but we're not giving up. We're moving on to Google, and we're going to find that raw milk on the show today. Okay, mom, we weren't able to find any raw milk at the farmer's market in Alexandria, Virginia, but I think we might be able to find some out here in Glenarm, Maryland, about 20 miles northwest of Baltimore. Are you ready?

[Sean's Mom]

Yes. I'm excited.

[Sean Ramisviram]

All right, that's the spirit. Let me kick this off more formally. So we are standing here in a field in Glenarm, Maryland. And. And your name, sir?

[Matt Priggle]

My name is Matt Priggle, and we're

[Sean Ramisviram]

here with Bobby Priggle. Are you guys related? Yes.

[Matt Priggle]

I'm his youngest son.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Very nice.

[Matt Priggle]

Okay.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And we are at the Pringle Creamery.

[Matt Priggle]

Yep. Pringle Creamery. Also Pringle Farm. My great, great grandfather got the property we're on now in 1895.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Amazing. And has it always been dairy or.

[Matt Priggle]

Back then, historically, farms did a little bit of everything. And then over the time and generations, it's consolidated. Now it's a. It's a dairy farm. The dairy is our bread and butter. And then we also are registered to sell raw milk in the state of Maryland as a pet food. So we do offer raw milk for cats and dogs.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Interesting. But not for humans.

[Matt Priggle]

It's illegal to sell milk in Maryland for human consumption.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Okay, so how big is your raw milk for pet purposes in terms of your business?

[Matt Priggle]

So the. The milk for cats and dogs, week to week, is roughly the same or more in sales at the Gramery than the pasteurized milk.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Wow. So a lot of people want this milk for their cats and dogs.

[Matt Priggle]

Sounds like it, yeah.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Is there, like, a bit of a wig kick situation here? Nope.

[Matt Priggle]

No winking, no nothing.

[Sean Ramisviram]

They're not buying it for their cats and dogs.

[Matt Priggle]

They're drinking it themselves. Pet food. What they do with it when they leave the store, you know, I can't control that. It's up to them.

[Sean Ramisviram]

But it's possible?

[Matt Priggle]

No, I didn't think it's possible. People were eating Tide pods not that long ago.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Have you seen an uptick in interest in raw milk here at the Creamery?

[Matt Priggle]

I would say it's been steady for the past couple years.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Oh, wow. There's some cows trying to do. Oh, wow. Wow. That wasn't just an attempt at fornication, but also a bowel movement.

[Matt Priggle]

Did you notice that they have a couple party tricks. If you stick around long enough, you'll see some stuff.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Sorry, I got distracted. We were at. Oh, there's been an uptick in interest.

[Matt Priggle]

I think the interest has been kind of the same as far as, like, what goes on with our store. But as far as, you know, like, the nation in general, I think there's been a big movement and big change in interest. You know, our government currently, there's a lot of hype and push about it. Social media, there's a lot of information coming out about it.

[Bobby Priggle]

You don't think we sell a lot more now than we did last Year.

[Matt Priggle]

Not right now.

[Bobby Priggle]

I think we've grown exponentially.

[Matt Priggle]

Whoa.

[Sean Ramisviram]

We've got some father son disagreement here. Sounds like you're maybe looking at those numbers a little more closely. And what are you seeing?

[Bobby Priggle]

I think people are more interested. They're reading more about it, hearing more about it, and have interest.

[Sean Ramisviram]

You mentioned some. Some political trends that have perhaps, you know, facilitated more interest in raw milk. Are you talking about the federal government, that Maha business and all that?

[Matt Priggle]

Yeah. I mean, people should just have get to choose, right? I mean, you go to the grocery store, you get to pick all you want. If you want to have raw milk, you should be able to go get that.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Do you drink raw milk?

[Matt Priggle]

Every day?

[Sean Ramisviram]

Really? Wow. And you, sir?

[Matt Priggle]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Bobby Priggle]

If our kids drank raw milk, I wouldn't drink anything else.

[Sean Ramisviram]

You wouldn't drink anything else?

[Bobby Priggle]

I have an option of drinking raw milk or pasteurized milk in the same refrigerator. I pull raw milk every day.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Are you guys like, glass of milk guys or you talking about, like, with your cereal or what?

[Matt Priggle]

I had a glass of milk with my steak last night. I had it in my coffee.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Oh, like with your dinner?

[Matt Priggle]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Now, I'm not going to be offended by your answers to this question, but I want you to guess what kind of milk I drink.

[Matt Priggle]

Oat milk. Which isn't milk, by the way. It's. It's oat oil.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Oat oil. Oat juice. I'm laughing because you guessed correctly in one guess.

[Matt Priggle]

Well, there's nothing wrong. I don't care. Like, if you want, by all means, drink as much as you want. But it's not milk, because milk, by definition has to come from a mammal's mammary glands, and it doesn't. It's. It's pressed and secreted oils and water that gets diluted and flavored down so you can actually drink it.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I will say, unlike the other soy boys who come to visit you guys, I kind of have some lactose issues. So my drinking of oat milk, you know, it's a nice alternative for those of us who get some stomach issues when we drink milk. Of course, the reason most of us don't drink raw milk in this country is because many, many decades ago, we discovered that through pasteurization, we could avoid a whole host of diseases that were killing kids, including salmonella, listeria, tuberculosis, it turns out E. Coli. There's a lot of questions now about bird flu in the raw milk. Your thoughts?

[Matt Priggle]

So historically, the biggest problem, like you said many, many decades ago, it was 100 years ago, and People had this idea that nothing has changed in the past hundred years with the agricultural practices around. So historically. So what happened was grains and distilling became really big in the 1920s, right? So all the distilleries were in the city, and they were bringing in wheat in and barley and oats and everything and doing all the distilling process. And they had all these leftover grains and didn't know what to do with them. And they said, well, let's feed it to cows. All the dairy farms are out in the country. Why are we shipping everything in? Why don't we just bring the dairy into the city next to the distillery, and we'll just go from one building into the next and give it to them? Well, the problem was one, no nutritional value left in the grains that the cows were eating. The cows were kept indoors, which is ripe for sanitation issues. Also, in that era, there was no closed systems. There was poor refrigeration as well. And over time, now our milk, we like to see it around 36 degrees, okay? And then we have a closed milking system, right? So the milk never actually touches the air until it's getting bottled or you open the cap for the first time.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Do you guys ever have people show up here who are curious about raw milk for their pets or maybe for another purpose, who talk about those anxieties around, you know, listeria, salmonella, anything like that, and then have questions for you guys?

[Matt Priggle]

So listeria is a groundwater issue. And we get tested very well. The health department comes out once a year and tests our groundwater. So that gets tested on a periodic basis. And then the biggest concern most people have with raw milk is E. Coli. And the problem with the fellot is you have thousands of cows in one spot. It's very easy for it to transmit. So when it goes to slaughter, one bad cow can get everywhere just by hands, moving. We're a single herd. These are all of our cows. No one touches it but us. And it goes from here to the processor and then onto our shelves.

[Sean Ramisviram]

You would tell someone who showed up here with some anxieties over raw milk not to worry about it.

[Bobby Priggle]

I would never tell them that.

[Matt Priggle]

Here's the thing, right?

[Bobby Priggle]

If you lived in Pennsylvania, I could give you a whole lot of different answers, but if they're worried or concerned, I would tell them not to drink it.

[Matt Priggle]

There's always a chance I wouldn't buy

[Bobby Priggle]

raw milk for me to consume or my family if I wasn't able to visit the farm and see how the practices are. And if you can't visit the farm. I wouldn't drink their milk.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Okay. And obviously, that's not how most Americans consume their food.

[Matt Priggle]

Correct. I think if you're buying raw milk, it should come from your state and it should come from your farmer. I think you should find your farmer

[Sean Ramisviram]

and you should keep it there.

[Matt Priggle]

Yeah. I don't think milk from California should come in to the East Coast. The amount of time it takes in transportation. There's too many variables where things can go wrong. It needs to be a hyperloquoid product.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Now, if I were to ask about trying some raw milk, how does that work in the state of Maryland?

[Matt Priggle]

I would have to recommend you don't, because it's not pasteurized and maybe. Maybe contains some harmful bacteria now.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And I can't buy some to try right now to say, I lived a little bit while I was out here, but I could buy some for my mom's dog.

[Matt Priggle]

Yeah. Milk for catching dogs.

[Bobby Priggle]

Yeah.

[Sean Ramisviram]

So maybe I could buy some of that now. If I were to drink some of that. That's my business.

[Matt Priggle]

I recommend you don't, though.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Got it. But you do.

[Matt Priggle]

I drink raw milk every day.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And when was the last time it made you sick?

[Matt Priggle]

I have never been sick that I'm aware of from consuming it. I rarely ever get sick to begin with.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Well, I'm gonna buy some. And what I do with it is your business is my business. And on this Memorial Day, there's something beautiful about that.

[Matt Priggle]

Yes.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Well, thank you, and happy Memorial Day to you guys.

[Matt Priggle]

It looks like you're working through it.

[Bobby Priggle]

Yeah.

[Matt Priggle]

Cows always gotta be milked. That's right. Work never ends.

[Sean Ramisviram]

That's right. They don't know it's Memorial Day.

[Matt Priggle]

They don't care.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I'm shaking the raw milk, and then I'm trying the raw milk. Here we go. Opening the raw milk. Oh, wow. Yeah. Smelling the raw milk. What does it smell like?

[Anna Merlin]

Different stuff.

[Sean Ramisviram]

It doesn't smell like anything. Let me shake it one more time just to be extra sure, you know? Okay. Here we go. Wish me luck. Tastes like milk. How you doing? Do you want to try it? One sip. All right. Mom's trying the raw milk. Here we go. What do you think?

[Anna Merlin]

If nobody told you, you wouldn't know.

[Sean Ramisviram]

If nobody told you, you wouldn't know. Yeah, I think that's true. Unless I get salmonella later.

[Anna Merlin]

You won't.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Mom says I won't. It's two days later now, and I didn't. But my tummy did feel a little funny that Memorial Day night. If I'm being completely honest, but as I said, I got some lactose issues, so it's still for me. When we're back on Today explained, we're gonna hear about the movement Raw Milk's having, not just in Glenarm, Maryland but across the country.

[Sean's Mom]

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this show comes from Odoo.

Running a business is hard enough, so

[Sean Ramisviram]

why make it harder with a dozen

[Odoo Advertiser]

different apps that don't talk to each other?

Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce and more.

And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.

So why not you try Odoo for [e-mail] that's o d o o.com

support for this show comes from Odoo.

Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen

different apps that don't talk to each other?

Introducing Odoo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce and more.

And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch.

So why not you try Odoo for

[e-mail] that's o d o o.com.

[Sean Ramisviram]

We gotta circulate this home radio all Right.

[Podcast Host]

What do we circulate? Looking for a man who has recently drunk milk.

[Anna Merlin]

My name is Anna Merlin and I'm a senior reporter at Mother Jones covering disinformation, extremism, and technology.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I guess if you've, like, hung around on either side of the, like, ideological spectrum for the past decade or two, you've probably heard someone talking about raw milk. For me, I've heard, like, lefties, crunchy people talking about raw milk personally. But. But raw milk is having a moment right now. In these United States. We are not united on raw milk. What is going on with raw milk?

[Anna Merlin]

There is definitely an increasing interest in raw milk, especially the idea of increased, like, raw milk legalization and selling raw milk across state lines, which I think even under the second Trump administration and RFK is not super likely. The FDA has enforced their ban on the interstate sale of raw milk since the 1980s. But there is a bill out there in committee right now, and there's also tons of bills at the state level to continue making raw milk even more accessible in various states. There are like 40 plus bills across 18 states that have to do with, you know, raw dairy, raw cheese. Oklahoma just passed one.

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Congratulations, Oklahoma.

[Anna Merlin]

We are one step closer to food freedom. Raw milk is now legal to advertise and sell up to 1500 gallons. So this is super awesome for Oklahomans. Raw milk is legal to some degree in 43 states, but it varies really widely. So in some places, like California, where I live, you can go to the store and buy raw milk. In other places, you can access it through what's called a herd share, which is a legal agreement where consumers have access to a milking animal or a herd and they can buy or get the milk directly from the farmer. In other places, raw milk is only legal as pet food. But, you know, obviously there's nothing stopping people, if they really insist on it, from buying and drinking milk labeled as pet food.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And then I bought and drank some pet food, raw milk yesterday, Anna.

[Anna Merlin]

Yes, I imagine you did because you're in D.C. that's right.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I had to go to Maryland to do it, though.

[Matt Priggle]

Yeah.

[Anna Merlin]

Yeah. So D.C. is one of the places where raw milk is illegal. Rhode Island, I believe it is totally illegal, except I think you can get raw goat milk with a prescription from a doctor. It's also illegal in Hawaii, but yeah, most places in the US you're going to be able to get raw milk in some form.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Remind us why we decided to pasteurize our milk or what the benefits were.

[Anna Merlin]

Right. So one of the first Kind of big pushes for pasteurization of milk came in the 1930s after the discovery that raw milk could transmit tuberculosis, which was killing a lot of babies.

[Podcast Host]

Pasteurized milk, a safe food trusted by millions of people and important in every diet.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Let's go back to middle school for a quick refresher on pasteurization. It's a centuries old process that heats up milk to kill off bacteria like salmonella, listeria, or E. Coli, then cools it back down.

[Anna Merlin]

By heating raw milk to at least 161Fahrenheit for 15 seconds and letting it cool, we can reduce the amount of viruses and bacteria in dairy. And so there was a pretty direct relationship between more and more places requiring pasteurization and infant mortality rates going down. And so after that, it was pretty clear to most people in most public health bodies that this was a good idea.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Okay, so there are some clear risks here. Before pasteurization came around, and then they were saying, basically, pasteurize your milk, warm it up a little bit, and we will keep more kids alive.

[Anna Merlin]

Yeah.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And then since that, you know, medical breakthrough, basically we've been trying to dial it back. Why are we trying to dial it back? And who's doing the dialing?

[Anna Merlin]

So pretty much since pasteurization became a widespread thing, there has been opposition to it. And the raw milk movement has always argued that raw milk is better for you, that it's more natural, it's actually

[Sean Ramisviram]

healing and very beneficial for your body.

[Anna Merlin]

Raw milk will not spoil like conventional milk does. For instance, when I Talked to Mark McAfee, who's the founder and CEO of Raw Farm, the biggest raw milk producer in the country, he told me that raw milk makes asthma go away, which is not true. According to public health experts, virologists, asthma experts, you will see arguments that raw milk is good for allergies, it has beneficial enzymes or bacteria. And this is pretty much the argument that's been made since the raw milk movement sort of organized and took force. Is this idea that raw milk inherently has nutrients and good qualities that are stripped from pasteurized milk.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And these groups that are advocating for more raw milk, do they necessarily hew to like a certain political party?

[Anna Merlin]

I think that historically, raw milk, like anti vaccine ideas, kind of cut equally across the right and the left. You know, I grew up in a pretty blue part of New Mexico and would certainly see raw milk being sold and discussed. So not the way that it is now, but definitely, you know, a lot of the places that you're seeing raw milk legislation, especially picking up our Red states because of ideas around government regulation and health freedom.

[Sean Ramisviram]

And like, of course, red state, blue state, you know, crunchy or libertarian. Distrustful of government wherever it might be. You might find some affinity in our current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Who last year famously did a shot of raw milk at the White House.

[Anna Merlin]

He sure did want to do a

[Sean Ramisviram]

shot of raw milk? Toast this with me. All right. Secretary Kennedy, Cheers.

[Anna Merlin]

He did a little shooter of raw milk to celebrate the publication of the MAHA report, which was meant to be his big kind of capstone piece of writing presenting solutions for chronic disease, and was full of AI slop and fake citations, in which you will notice they don't talk about very much anymore.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Did that quash his attempt to normalize raw milk at the federal level?

[Anna Merlin]

So this is what's super interesting. Before Kennedy was in office as HHS secretary, he was famously, really bullish on raw milk.

[Sean Ramisviram]

I was here last year. I only drank raw milk.

[Anna Merlin]

He had this famous tweet in 2024 where he talked about all the things that the FDA was going to stop suppressing under his leadership. You know, he said, the FDA's war on public health is about to end. And he listed all these things, including raw milk. But since then, much to the frustration of big players in the raw milk industry, there actually hasn't been any federal action to make raw milk more legal or to make it legal across state lines. Kennedy actually hasn't done anything on that. And Mark McAfee told me that he can't get Kennedy to, like, return his calls.

[Matt Priggle]

Huh.

[Anna Merlin]

One thing that has happened instead, though, is that the Trump administration has suddenly been trumpeting their emphasis on whole milk. Right.

[Sean Ramisviram]

No.

[Anna Merlin]

You might have seen this a few months ago. They were saying, you know, we're bringing whole milk back to the schools.

[Sean Ramisviram]

So today, I'm delighted to sign the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids act into law.

[Anna Merlin]

Whole milk is no longer illegal in America, which it never, never was.

[Sean Ramisviram]

It's like the war on Christmas.

[Anna Merlin]

Yeah, exactly.

[Podcast Host]

And it's also ended the war on saturated fat.

[Anna Merlin]

So, yeah, a lot of their language around whole milk really echoes kind of the language around raw milk that you see among raw milk advocates. But. But it's not. They actually have not talked about raw milk at all. So you can. You can speculate, you know, why this might have happened. If this is a liability issue, if there are still people at the CDC and the FDA who are like, it would be a really bad idea for the federal government to promote this. But, yeah, I would say that for raw milk and raw dairy advocates, the fact that the Trump administration has not been on their side is clearly a big disappointment. Appointment.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Well, anecdotal, Anna, but the creamery I visited yesterday, pregel out in Glenarm, Maryland, they said raw milk was a big boon to their business. I mean, even though they only sell it for cats and dogs, it certainly seems like people are drinking it. Are public health officials other than the Secretary of Health and Human Services worried about that trend, if there is one?

[Anna Merlin]

So, earlier this year, an infant died in New Mexico from listeria that public health officials there think was probably linked to the infant's mom drinking it during pregnancy. And there have been, you know, a bunch of foodborne illness outbreaks. So, yeah, I think this is a concern for people because raw milk can carry E. Coli, salmonella, campylobacter, things that can make you really, really sick. So there are concerns here. Right. One, obviously, is the increasing availability of raw milk in various places. Another concern is that it is being marketed by health influencers and other people with big social media followings as like a miracle cure in a very simplistic way. And it is especially being marketed to parents as a cure all for children, which is concerning because raw milk and dairy are especially risky for infants, immune compromised people, and elderly people. You know, an illness like E. Coli that could be, you know, serious, but you would make it through potentially as an adult is incredibly serious for a child and can lead to this thing called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which has sickened and killed children. The raw milk industry tends to talk about this idea that raw milk is safe if you trust your farmer. But when you talk to, like, a virologist, they will tell you that no matter how well you know your farmer, how much you think you trust the dairy, if you're not pasteurizing your milk, you're going to be at more risk of common foodborne pathogens. So, you know, you can find the farm to be delightful in every way and it will not prevent you from illness. You know, ideally we would not be continuing to litigate, like, really well established pieces of science and we could move on to other stuff. But instead we are, you know, talking about raw milk again and whether it's a good idea.

[Sean Ramisviram]

So I take it, despite it being available at, say, the grocery store around the corner from you, you, Anna Merlin, are not going out to buy any.

[Anna Merlin]

You know, I grew up partly on a ranch and I have actually seen cows before, and I know how they're shaped and I know where the udder is compared to, for instance, the cow's asshole. So no, I, I am personally not going to drink raw milk. If your listeners want to look at the FDA or the cdc, there's a page on the FDA right now at the moment called Raw Milk Misconceptions and the Danger of Raw Milk Consumption. And you can read a lot about the counter arguments to these common claims that people make about raw milk. For instance, that it contains, you know, beneficial bacteria or enzymes or something like there's, there's very, very good evidence about raw milk's actual dangers and risks.

[Sean Ramisviram]

Anna Merlin motherjones.com shout outs to my mother for making the time. Shout outs to Avishai Artsy for making today's show. With help from Amna Al Saadi, David Tadashore, Bridger Dunnigan and Gabriel Donatov. It's TODAY explained.

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