The federal government’s advice for raw milk consumers has long been simple: Don’t drink it. But despite the risk of foodborne illnesses, raw milk isn’t going anywhere. Sales have increased in the past year, adding to the over 4% of American adults — nearly 11 million people — who consumed raw milk in 2022.
Now, raw milk may be on the cusp of truly breaking into the mainstream — even as fears grow that it may be able to transmit bird flu from cows to people. Health secretary nominee and raw milk advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently asked raw milk entrepreneur Mark McAfee to serve as an adviser to the FDA on raw milk policy and standards development, McAfee says.
But what should those standards be? Dairy experts, raw milk producers and raw milk consumers say standards are important for the raw milk industry because they help ensure that only high-quality and safe raw milk products make it to the market. But some cautioned that developing and implementing stringent raw milk regulations would face a wide range of hurdles — and that making raw milk verifiably and reliably safe at a national scale might even be impossible.