Louis Pasteur must be spinning in his grave. Last week, state health officials in New Mexico reported the death of a newborn baby in the US after its mother drank infected raw milk.
Raw milk, which is not heat-treated, can carry bugs including salmonella, E. coli, tuberculosis and listeria. Listeria kills 30 percent of babies whose mothers contract deadly listeriosis.
Yet a vogue for drinking raw milk has gripped the health-conscious middle classes across the globe.
Following the tragic death, New Mexico state officials issued a statement warning pregnant women, young children and the elderly to stay away from raw dairy.
It comes as influencers and controversial US health Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talk up the health properties of untreated milk.
RFK has claimed raw milk ‘advances human health’ and has been pictured drinking shots of the white stuff with wellness influencer Saladino (AKA the ‘Carnivore MD’). He has railed against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regulation of raw milk as a ‘war on public health’.
Meanwhile Mormon health influencer Hannah Neeleman has said that she and her eight kids drink ‘straight from the cow’, and credits it for her clear and radiant complexion.
Ballerina Farm, owned by Hannah and husband Daniel Neeleman, sells frozen meat products, kitchenware and raw milk. However its raw milk sales were paused this summer after high levels of coliform, the family of bacteria that includes E. coli, were found in the farm’s bottled raw milk by Utah state inspectors. Its social media accounts have more than 10 million followers.
Raw milkers claim the beverage is healthy as it is ‘natural’ and that heat treatment destroys vitamins
Tablehurst Farm is incredibly popular with the raw milkers of Forest Row in East Sussex
Raw milkers claim the beverage is healthy as it is ‘natural’ and that heat treatment destroys vitamins (such as vitamin C and some B vitamins), antioxidants, enzymes, and probiotics that have immune benefits to humans. Mainstream science disputes most of these claims.
Invented in the 1860s by French microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), the pasteurisation process involves gently heating milk for a short period to kill off dangerous bugs. Before it became widespread, thousands of Britons each year died of diseases from drinking contaminated milk, especially bovine tuberculosis.
This deadly disease killed my own great aunt Violet at the age of 16 in rural Cornwall. (A fate that was strangely retold by my gran as her teen sister being ‘killed off by a cow’, but which I now know was down to poor food standards.)
The risks of beef products were brought home in the 80s and 90s when ‘mad cow disease’, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), killed over 180 people.
Now this mad fad is gripping the UK, too, with hippy Britons going to lengths to procure the potentially dangerous foodstuff.
It’s illegal to sell untreated cow’s milk in supermarkets, shops, cafés or restaurants so devotees buy directly from farms gates and stores in England and Wales. Scotland bans all sales of raw milk.
In hippy Forest Row in East Sussex, such is the popularity of raw milking that a spat recently broke out after a raw milk vending machine set up at the gates of a local farm ran out of milk by 8 am.
‘We all want and need this healing raw milk,’ a Forest Row raw milker named ‘Yew’ ranted on a social media group with a call to limit purchases of the milk from nearby Tablehurst Farm to a few litres a family per day.
Many farms now offer ‘raw milk’ direct to consumers, but it is illegal to sell in shops and cafés
‘Don’t be greedy, I am crying for my milk,’ Yew signs off.
Yew, who only wanted to be known by her nickname, told the Daily Mail that she believes that drinking raw milk can stave off winter flus and cancers and that she and her family ‘avoid’ Western medicine, including GPs.
Coach Carnivore Cam, a ‘zero carb’ influencer from Manchester, posts TikTok videos in which he drinks raw, unpasteurised milk from his local farm, claiming the practice helps with things like hay fever and eczema.
Mary Ellen, a chiropractor based in Bude, gets raw milk delivered from her local farm, Proper Cornish Milk.
The farm, which provides a doorstep delivery service, advertises the ‘natural taste and numerous health benefits and pure goodness’ of its Jersey cow raw milk.
‘I don’t see the fuss about health risks if the milk is produced in a reputable farm and they don’t worry me,’ Ellen said.
Janey Lee Grace, a 65 year old alternative health youtuber from Hertfordshire, said she believes raw milk is ‘healthier’ than pasteurised. ‘I am lucky enough to have a farm near me licensed to sell it and there are typically queues as people drive from miles away to get it,’ she told the Daily Mail.
Karim Ullah, also from Hertfordshire, 53, told the Daily Mail he also buys raw milk directly from source at his local farm, saying he prefers the taste and that he drinks unpasteurised for his gut health as he suffers from Crohn’s Disease. Scientists warn that raw milk bacteria are unpredictable and that yoghurt and kefir are safer ways for the public to consume live cultures.
Yorkshire GP Sophie Newton told the Daily Mail that she finds the raw milking fad ‘concerning’.
‘Hippy’ town Forest Row in East Sussex has a thriving community of raw milkers
‘Natural does not automatically mean safe,’ she warns. ‘The risks of drinking unpasteurised milk are real, particularly for pregnant women and newborns.’ The US death she adds is a ‘sobering reminder’.
Sutton Coldfield GP Thuva Amuthan agreed. ‘Raw milk is not a lifestyle choice: it’s a food safety risk for pregnant women in particular, it’s one that can have devastating consequences.’
The Royal College of Gynaecologists told the Daily Mail it advises pregnant women to drink only pasteurised or UHT milk.
Antonella Lazzeri, 58, a writer based in Bournemouth who almost lost her baby daughter in 2005 after accidentally contracting Listeria when pregnant from unknowingly eating unpasteurised cheese is ‘alarmed’ about the raw milk trend..
‘Pregnant women and the elderly and immune compromised are dicing with death’ if they choose to drink it, she said.
Safer ways for people who want to boost their immune systems or stave off allergies is by taking proven and safe forms of supplementation such as vitamin D, zinc and probiotics.
With raw milk ice cream set to be the foodie trend of spring/summer 2026 and raw milk vending machines springing up outside farms across the UK, this risky trend looks set to continue.
