Today, however, a small but growing number of Americans prefer to drink their milk raw. And Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, now stands at the forefront of this movement. Kennedy said he drinks raw milk and criticized, among other things, what he described as an “aggressive crackdown” on raw milk production by the Food and Drug Administration. Enthusiasts predict that, as HHS secretary, he will make it easier to get raw milk — though it remains unclear how. Federal regulations prohibit the sale of raw milk across state lines, but where it is legal, raw milk is regulated by state governments, not federal agencies.
In embracing raw milk, Kennedy is following an established trend as much as leading the way. The roots of the movement go back decades. For example, the small independent health food stores my parents frequented in New Mexico in the 1980s sold raw milk. (We’ve never participated.) But to hear Mark McAfee tell it, the pandemic has increased demand.
McAfee runs one of the largest producers of raw milk in the country, Raw Farm in California. McAfee, who said Kennedy was a customer, applied for an advisory role at HHS — at the urging of Kennedy’s transition team, he says. During the pandemic, McAfee told me, people felt abandoned by medical professionals and began researching ways to take care of their own immune systems. Many have turned to raw milk, which he calls “the first food of life.” Perhaps they thought it could protect them from the coronavirus, he says, an unproven idea that could stem from the observation that breast milk offers infants some protection from infection.
Anecdotes of seemingly miraculous raw milk cures also help fuel the phenomenon — inflammatory diseases going into remission, allergies and digestive problems disappearing. McAfee eagerly shared such stories. Even so, his customers defy easy categorization. When he started selling raw milk 25 years ago, hippie “nut moms” and natural food lovers, he says, made up McAfee’s core clientele. But as his sales have grown — about 30-fold since then, he estimates — his customers have diversified.
Today’s raw milk movement is made up of people and ideas from across the political spectrum: backcountry types looking for unadulterated whole foods; health fanatics looking for the latest superfood; don’t-tell-me-what-to-eat libertarians who distrust authority and who, according to McAfee’s description, intend to do the opposite of what the FDA says. Various labels have been applied to the movement: “food sovereignty”, “slow food”, “real food”, “food freedom”. For the more conspiratorially inclined, raw milk represents food without government interference. For those just looking for the latest fad, raw milk can be a status symbol—a gallon can cost nearly $20.
