Maintenance Phase

Raw Milk

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[Maintenance Phase theme]


Michael: I'm so curious how you're going to make a real episode out of this. [laughs] 


Aubrey: I know we were talking yesterday and you were like, “I don't know how this is an episode.” And I was like, “It's not just an episode. There's so much of it that I'm having a really hard time editing it down.” 


Michael: I was at the Louvre with some people today, and I was like, “I have to leave because I'm recording a podcast.” They're like, “What's it about?” And I said, “Raw milk.” And there was like this long sign. So, they cocked their heads like a golden retriever. They're [Aubrey laughs] like, “Raw milk. You got to leave for that. You're recording for three hours on Raw Milk.” I'm here instead of the Louvre tonight, Aubrey. You better make it. You better make it. [laughs]


Aubrey: He's a cultured, masculine man. 


Michael: All right. You're probably going to fact check this one. 


Aubrey: Oh, great. 


Michael: Welcome to Maintenance Phase, the podcast that must be heated to 145 degrees for 30 minutes. 


Aubrey: It's shorter than that now, but yeah. 


Michael: I'm Michael Hobbs. 


Aubrey: I'm Aubrey Gordon. If you would like to support the show, you can do that at patreon.com/maintenancephase or you can subscribe through Apple Podcasts. It's the same audio content. Michael. 


Michael: Aubrey. [laughs] 


Aubrey:  I'm so amped. 


Michael: Just get into it. Just start whatever you need to tell me. Go. 


Aubrey: [laughs] So, today we're talking about raw milk. I was going to ask you if you've tracked the raw milk debate at all, and you were like, “I don't think there's an episode there.” [Michael laughs] So, I think that might be my answer to how much you've tracked it. 


Michael: Because I mean, we talked about this with the honey. The blue zones honey shit because pasteurization, I think people think it's like a science word, but all it means is taking something up to a temperature and then cooling it down to kill the bacteria. It's not a big scary “processing” thing like the ultra-processed foods, whatever. It's like the most basic shit. 


Aubrey: Pasteurization is only heating a liquid to well below boiling temperatures in order to kill germs that can make you very sick. Pasteurization today lasts for less than a minute. You're raising the temperature of milk for a matter of seconds, and it kills a ton of germs. It kills E. Coli, Salmonella, Listeria, diphtheria, strep, fucking tuberculosis is in raw milk, tuberculosis. [Michael laughs] On top of killing all those germs it also extends shelf life pretty considerably. 


Michael: It's very funny to classify this as unnatural process when it's people like, figured, even if they didn't know the science, people figured this out a long time ago. 


Aubrey: Right. It's as unnatural as me applying heat to other foods to cook them. 


Michael: I know. 


Aubrey: And I also think a lot of people don't know that prior to pasteurization, it was a common step in recipes to be you using milk, boil it first, baby. 


Michael: Oh, I didn't know that actually. 


Aubrey: People have been heating liquids to kill germs for a thousand years before pastures really, really a long time. 


Michael: It's not like a western concept. [laughs]


Aubrey: No, it's also not a western concept. The earliest record that I found was in the 1100s in both China and Japan. 


Michael: Right. It's like saying, don't give in to western bullshit. Eat raw chicken breast. 


Aubrey: So, on top of those existing pathogens in milk, we now have bird flu in milk. 


Michael: Oh, God. Do we? I didn't even know that. 


Aubrey: Yep. When cows contract avian flu, their highest concentrations of the virus are in their memories. 


Michael: Like the song from Cats.


Aubrey: [sings] Memories. 


Michael: Sorry, I'm cutting that. I'm cutting that. That's for you. That’s for you.


Aubrey:  Thank you. [Michael laughs] The good news is that we know that pasteurization is effective in killing H5N1, which is the avian flu virus. As of last November, avian flu was in 505 herds of dairy cows in 15 states. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: The USDA is no longer publicly reporting info on avian flu in cows.


Michael: Love that. Love that. 


Aubrey: So, knows where we're at now feels so good. I feel so safe. Sale of infected milk has also not been federally banned. Like bird flu infected milk has not been federally banned because they are simply too busy firing everyone. 


Michael: I'm saving my we live in hell for later in the episode, but we truly do live in hell. 


Aubrey: When I started researching this, I really thought we were talking about food poisoning level events. That's part of it. But there can also be long term and permanent effects from these pathogens. According to the FDA, Listeria which is one of the common pathogens in raw milk, Listeria in pregnant people can lead to stillbirth and miscarriage. 


Michael: Yeah, Listeria is really, really rough stuff. Yeah. 


Aubrey: E. Coli can lead to HUS, which can cause kidney failure and tuberculosis. So, there's a book that I read for this called Milk! That was a history of milk. 


Michael: That’s such a good idea, mix.


Aubrey: [laughs] Jeb. 


Michael: Kudos. 


[laughter]


Aubrey: The book was great. And I really loved reading this history of milk. And every time someone was like, “What are you reading?” I was like, “This awesome history of milk. People would just glaze over. So, in this book they write, “Bovine tuberculosis”, a disease found in cattle is transmitted to humans through milk. It attacks the glands, intestines, and bones. Children are particularly susceptible and are often kept in braces for years to keep their spines from becoming deformed. 


Michael: It's one of those destructive diseases of humankind. And it's like such a miracle that it's not a live issue anymore. It's such a huge advancement for humankind and yet we have all these grifters just being like, “Was that really good? Let's bring it back.” 


Aubrey: I think in this way a lot of the raw milk stuff follows a similar path to a lot of the antivax stuff?


Michael: Yes.


Aubrey: Which is just like, I haven't personally seen a child with tuberculosis. How bad can it be? 


Michael: Yeah, yeah, exactly. 


Aubrey: The CDC has conducted a number of reviews on foodborne illness outbreaks linked to dairy products. One of those covered a 13-year period. This was from 1993 to 2006. They covered all 50 states. The study's authors concluded that raw milk was linked to 150 times more outbreaks than pasteurized milk. 


Michael: No way. 


Aubrey: They also found that states where raw milk sale was legal had twice the incidence of foodborne illness outbreaks related to dairy versus states where raw milk is restricted or banned. 


Michael: That's crazy, because also raw milk is not that big of a market. So, if they're having these huge outbreaks, that means that it's a small number of people but much more likely to get sick. 


Aubrey: That's exactly right. Milk consumption overall has been trending downward in the US since the 70s. 


Michael: Interesting. 


Aubrey: People are no longer-- I mean, you can see it culturally, right? Like when we were kids there would be like families where you'd be like, “Your drink to go with dinner is a glass of milk.” 


Michael: Is that not true anymore? 


Aubrey: I don't think so. 


Michael: Is it all like monster energy now? Is that what the kids are thinking? 


Aubrey: [laughs] It's all oat milk for these soy boys. [Michael laughs] So, milk consumption overall has been trending downward for 50 years. But raw milk consumption appears to be on the rise. According to analysis from the University of Delaware, consumer data showed a 21% increase in raw milk sales from 2023 to 2024. 


Michael: Since that's a relative statistic. I'm assuming that's from a very low baseline. 


Aubrey: Yes, it is a low baseline. So, an analysis of two pretty large scale and nationally representative FDA surveys in 2016 and 2019 gave us a pretty good window into what raw milk consumption looks like. 4.4% of American adults said that they had consumed raw milk in the last year, and 1% reported consuming raw milk weekly. 


Michael: Okay, that is like, thank God, blessedly small. 


Aubrey: Totally. It's a small number of people. But then when you're like 150 times the likelihood of illness outbreak, like, woof. 


Michael: On the thing about milk consumption falling in general, I do a thing where if I'm getting a brownie or a cookie at a cafe, I will order a glass of milk with it, because a cookie and milk is hella good. It used to be that cafes and stuff would have listed on the menu a glass of milk, but now they don't even know what to charge me. Oftentimes, they'll just like give me a glass of milk. 


Aubrey: Wokeness has gone too far, Michael. 


Michael: [laughs] I love it. I'll take some free milk with my cookie. 


Aubrey: There are a lot of claims from MAHA types currently about pasteurization making milk less nutritious, but the science just doesn't bear that out. 


Michael: Also, how much nutrition do you fucking need from milk? 


Aubrey: Right.


Michael: Surely losing out on some B12 is worth it, to not get sick. 


Aubrey: So, a 2011 systematic review looked at 40 studies. Pasteurization decreased the amount of vitamins E, C, and some B vitamins and folate, and it increased the concentration of vitamin A. So, on its face, it looks like it's true that pasteurization can reduce the amount of some vitamins in milk. However, those vitamins exist in raw milk in very small quantities. 


Michael: Exactly. 


Aubrey: A couple of four examples. Pasteurization reduces the amount of vitamin C in milk. Okay? But a full pint of raw milk contains 0% of your vitamin C for the day. 


Michael: Oh, wow. Okay.


Aubrey: Vitamin E that same full pint of raw milk gets you to 3% of your recommended daily allowance. Pasteurized milk gets you to 2%. 


Michael: Also, you know this from the last episode that I'm a vitamin E truther. [Aubrey laughs] You should be worrying less about vitamin E than you should about fucking tuberculosis and like, Listeria, like bugs in your juice. 


Aubrey: MAHA types also argue that pasteurization kills off enzymes and probiotics and all kinds of stuff. Overwhelmingly, those things are pathogens. The things that they're like, “Oh, no, it's killing this off.” They're like, “Right.” Those are things that will make you sick. I'm so sorry. 


Michael: By probiotics, I mean tuberculosis.


Aubrey: Diphtheria. 


Michael: Most things you eat don't have live probiotics in them. Again, the probiotics thing is also weird. It's like, you just don't need to think about this that much. 


Aubrey: And now, Michael--[crosstalk] 


Michael: Aubrey. 


Aubrey: -we're going to get in the Wayback Machine, and we're going to talk through the history of the raw milk debate, particularly in the US.


Michael: We're going to start with the birth of a man named Louis Pasteur. 


Aubrey: We sure are. 


Michael: Wait, are we actually. 


Aubrey: We're going to talk about Pasteur for a minute. 


Michael: I'm an expert because I'm in France right now, so, I'll just walk us through this part. Do you want me to, like, do this part? 


Aubrey: I'll just close my notes. You tell me about pasteurization and about Louis Pasteur. 


Michael: I speak three words of French, so I'm actually qualified to do this part. 


[laughter] 


The thing is, that's actually why I'm here. The French government heard me pronounce Pret a manger. 


Aubrey: No. 


Michael: And they were like, “That's so good.” We're inviting you as a diplomatic trip to this country. 


Aubrey: You're such a fucking-- You're such a little troll. 


Michael: [laughs] Even for me, I struggle to pronounce English words. I get it. 


[laughter] 


French is a particularly bad area for me. 


Aubrey: So, as you mentioned, Louis Pasteur was a 19th century scientist and chemistry professor from France. He was working at the dawn of germ theory kind of catching on. In 1864, he took on a distiller as a client. This distiller makes beet alcohol, alcohol out of beets. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: The distiller wanted help figuring out why his alcohol kept turning sour so quickly. 


Michael: Oh. 


Aubrey: Pasteur helped identify the culprit, which was lactic yeast, and found that heating the beet juice for just a few minutes before fermenting it killed that yeast and allowed it to last longer. 


Michael: Beets by Dr. Pasteur. Boom. Oh. 


Aubrey: [laughs] Oh, it's so bad. I liked it so much.


Michael: I thought you would. 


Aubrey: The spark is still alive by God. 


Michael: We still got it. 


Aubrey: Pasteur figured out pasteurization and mostly applied it to wine and beer. Alcohol was the main use of pasteurization early on. It was other scientists who figured out the application to milk. In 1882, a scientist named Robert Koch argued that while scientists had previously seen tuberculosis as resulting from just one germ, he identified three different tuberculosis germs one was a rare form spread by birds.


Michael:  To-bird-culosis. 


Aubrey: He found that there was another germ that spread TB from person to person. That one was much more common. And there was a third kind that had not previously been identified, which was TB that was spread from cows to people through milk. It's not until a German chemist named Franz von Soxhlet came along-- [crosstalk] 


Michael: As the resident pronunciation expert. Do you need me to do it? 


Aubrey: Oh.


Michael: Do you need me to do it? 


Aubrey: Oh. Thank you so much. 


Michael: We get a lot of feedback on how good my pronunciations are, how accurate and precise they are. So, I can do it. 


Aubrey: Denouement.


[laughter] 


Michael: Perseverance. 


Aubrey: Franz von Soxhlet was the first to suggest that pasteurization be used for milk. And that wasn't until 1886, which was 22 years after Pasteur applied it to alcohol. 


Michael: It took him a while figure it out. 


Aubrey: Yeah, totally. Also, part of the reason that we call it pasteurization is, by all accounts, Louis Pasteur was his own hype man. 


Michael: He's like, “I'm the guy that did this, right? You guys should just name it after me.” 


Aubrey: Around this same time, pasteurization becomes a big public health issue or not pasteurization per se, but milk sanitation maybe, milk safety becomes a big public health issue for a few reasons beyond just the TB of it all. One is that more people were moving to cities, and that meant that rather than maintaining small herds of dairy cows for small communities that were more geographically dispersed, there were more centralized dairies with larger herds producing larger amounts of milk and sometimes pooling milk from multiple sources. First of all, if you have a larger herd, there's more opportunities for those cows to all get TB. 


Michael: Right, right?


Aubrey: And if you're pooling milk from multiple sources and one of those sources is contaminated and the others are not, you pool it all together and surprise, now it's all contaminated, right? 


Michael: Right. We saw this with mad cow as well. 


Aubrey: Absolutely. 


Michael: When you have basically one big bucket full of juice, if one cow in the juice bucket has a problem, then the whole bucket has a problem. 


Aubrey: It's not until the early 1900s that pasteurization really starts to catch on as a public policy. In 1907, a group of public health advocates started proposing a ban on selling raw milk in New York City. 


Michael: Oh, 1907. 


Aubrey: 07.


Michael: People have known this is bad for more than 100 years, and we're just doing it anyway. 


Aubrey: When you were like, is there an episode around this? I was like, “Don't get me started on the 1907 campaign, Mike.” 


Michael: Jesus Christ. 


Aubrey: The person leading the charge on that effort was a guy named Nathan Straus. Is this someone who you have come across? 


Michael: No. 


Aubrey: So, this guy was the owner of Macy's and the owner of Abraham & Straus, which was one of the biggest department stores in New York City throughout much of the 20th century. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: Straus became really involved in public life. He started doing a bunch of philanthropic work. He worked as an elected official. One of Straus' main concerns was the public health threat of raw milk. As early as 1858, the New York Times was reporting about the dangers of what they called Swill milk. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: The city was going through wave after wave after wave of disease outbreaks at this time. Yellow fever, cholera, like, really gnarly shit. 


Michael: Also, they should leave raw milk legal, but make them call it swill milk. 


Aubrey: Dude, the reporting on swill milk from this era goes so fucking hard. I'm going to send you-- This is from that 1858 piece. I'm sending you a quote. 


Michael: “The health commissioners agreed with the mayor that the swill milk nuisance must be abated.” I love swill milk nuisance. 


Aubrey: There is so many metal turns of phrase in this. 


Michael: Early next week, they will convene the board of health and unless all the signs fail, will operate with energy and firmness to purify the city of the stables where the disgusting stuff is manufactured, which by a scandalous and lying courtesy we have for years called pure Orange County milk and under stringent penalties prohibit its use. If the board of health has any function, this certainly is one of them. That the business of making and selling swill milk is detrimental to the public health no sane man, not even a city inspector, can any longer doubt. It's so fascinating. They're selling it as pure Orange County milk, which is like the same sort of thing that they do now is like, they rebrand this basically like dirty milk. That's what we should be calling it. 


Aubrey: Yeah. 


Michael: As something that sounds slightly virtuous and clean and natural. 


Aubrey: This same piece goes on to accuse swill milk farmers of making, “Disease libels upon the fair name of cows.” 


Michael: Well, they have tuberculosis. 


Aubrey: They also say that they'll have to, “Show cause before the board why their work of death should not be discontinued.” 


Michael: Hell yeah. More of this. Yeah. 


Aubrey: Metal.


Michael: Also, this is how I feel genuinely the FDA should talk about people who sell raw milk. 


Aubrey: All of that is to say Straus was not alone in his belief that raw milk was a culprit. This reporting happened 50 years before the New York campaign, right?


Michael: Yeah. Yeah. 


Aubrey:  So, it was a well-known and widely believed thing for decades that raw milk might have a role here, but it hadn't been regulated in any meaningful way, right? 


Michael: So, it is almost like a cigarette allegory where it's like, we knew this was bad, but we didn't do anything. We did weird half measures for ages. 


Aubrey: Yep. So, in 1907, Straus proposed an ordinance to require all milk to either be pasteurized or what was called certified. Certified milk producers would just test their herd way more frequently. They would be held to higher food handling standards, and they would submit their milk for certification from a commission of physicians. 


Michael: So, they're getting at it upstream. It's like, “Make sure the milk is clean so you don't have to pasteurize.” It is like the attempt. 


Aubrey: Right. But even if you do that, you're still like none of that guarantees that there's not going to be E. Coli in your milk. Again, it's like getting more at the TB of it all. 


Michael: Like, what's even the downside of pasteurization at this point? 


Aubrey: Part of it honestly was consumer demand. People were like, “A pasteurized milk tastes weird. It tastes cooked.” And at that point it was cooked, right? Like, we pasteurized milk now for way less time. 


Michael: Right. Right. 


Aubrey: So, people were like, “Dude, raw milk tastes dope. This stuff tastes bad. I don't want to drink the stuff that tastes bad.” 


Michael: Yeah. I wonder if it tasted closer to like, how UHT milk tastes now, because you can definitely tell the difference. 


Aubrey: During the campaign, Straus told a story. This has haunted me haunted. I am going to send you this quote from Milk! 


Michael: Milk.


Aubrey: Milk.


Michael: “The island was being used as an orphanage. And in order to ensure the children had a steady supply of good, clean, fresh milk, a dairy herd was maintained there. But between 1895 and 1897, while the 3,900 children were being fed supposedly safe raw milk, 1,509 of them died.” Holy shit. 


Aubrey: Yeah, dude. 


Michael: It is like 40% of the kids died. 


Aubrey: Yes. 


Michael: “In response to this frightening statistic, Straus built a pasteurization plant on the island. He made no attempt to change the children's diet or improve the orphanages hygiene, just pasteurized the milk. The mortality rate declined from 42% of the children to 28%.” Honestly, 28% still sounds real bad. I thought they would have a way better happy ending to this.


Aubrey: Right. It sounds way bad, but it is a 14% reduction-


Michael: Which is like a lot of kids.


Aubrey: -just from heating up the milk a little bit for a short period of time. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: Despite that, really visceral, really heartbreaking example, the 1907 campaign failed and so did a second attempt in 1909. The ban didn't pass until 1910. And again, it's not a full ban. It's just like, you can only sell it if it's certified, right? 


Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 


Aubrey: In the meantime, New York got scooped by Chicago, who beat him to the punch and became the first city to ban raw milk in the US. They did that in 1909, but Chicago's implementation was held up for more than five years for the same reasons that the New York ban didn't pass. 


Michael: It's also funny thinking about how ambitious this policymaking was compared to so much policymaking now. I mean, you're basically requiring an entire sector to add on this very expensive process. It's good. I think much more of this ambitious policymaking should take place. But now it's like anything gets proposed that has any effect on businesses. It's like decades of litigation. It's so hard to do this stuff now. 


Aubrey: It's really remarkable how gutsy the public policy work was. And also, it did take, like 50 years of knowing better. 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: And it took a super-rich dude putting like, all of his money and political capital into making this thing happen. 


Michael: That does feel more American now. Now it feels American. 


Aubrey: There we go. We got there. We got there. We did it, folks. 


Michael: The only good things that happen are because rich people want them. 


Aubrey: So, by 1917, which was just 10 years after Straus' first campaign on raw milk, 46 major US cities required pasteurization. 


Michael: Nice. 


Aubrey: From there, those city ordinances became state laws. It was a dance sensation sweeping the nation and people get more accustomed to pasteurized milk and what it tastes like. By the 1980s, a commanding majority of states have either heavily restricted or outright banned sale of raw milk. 


Michael: So, we're in the modern era where you basically can't get raw milk unless you go to great hassle. 


Aubrey: That's not true. It's not yet impossible because while states have taken action at the state level, the FDA has not taken federal action. So, it is still legal to sell raw milk across state lines. So, even if you live in a state where it's not legal, you could mail order raw milk. Like, “I'm in Portland, I could drive across the river to Vancouver, Washington.” 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: That's sort of what we're talking about at this point. So, we're going to spend a little time now talking about like what got the FDA to finally take action. And that's a story that starts in the 70s and 80s with one of the biggest dairies in California and in the country, Alta Dena. 


Michael: It's funny that the thing that got them to take action was not like the deaths of many children. 


Aubrey: We'll get there, don't worry. 


Michael: That's weird. 


Aubrey: If you've been to a grocery store in California in the last 50 years, chances are they sold Alta Dena Dairy products. Alta Dena remains one of the biggest dairies in the country. In the 70s and 80s, they were also one of the largest dairies selling certified raw milk. So, they're doing the certification process and they're selling raw milk. According to The LA Times, Alta Dena was subject to dozens of recalls in the space of 10 years. 


Michael: Wow. 


Aubrey: Not only for products that they sold retail, but also because they supplied raw milk to other producers who then made things like queso fresco with it and that would then get recalled in the case of that contaminated queso fresco that caused the deaths of 22 Angelenos. 


Michael: Oh, wow. 


Aubrey: Through all of this, Alta Dena defended itself and denied any responsibility in every step along the way, every case. Their owner was out in the press constantly referring to Alta Dena's raw milk as, “The cleanest milk in the world.” 


Michael: By clean, we do not mean it doesn't kill kids, we mean something else. 


Aubrey: The owner is also alleging in the press that this is all a conspiracy against raw milk which like well, it kind of is.


Michael: In that there's a scientific consensus that your product is dangerous, then like, yeah, it is the one. 


Aubrey: Right. Like a flu shot is a conspiracy against the flu. 


Michael: Right. A bunch of parents got together just because we killed kids.


Aubrey: I should also say this dude no longer owns Alta Dena. Alta Dena's still around. It's no longer owned by total crackpots. So, if that's where you buy your milk, don't worry, it's not going to like a raw milk truth or anymore. And they no longer sell raw milk. They're not doing that anymore. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: So, this all comes to a head in 1987 when two Alta Dena court cases finally make a meaningful dent in Alta Dena's reputation and in their ability to do what they're going to do. One is the Paul Telford case. A 66-year-old man named Paul Telford was undergoing radiation for lung cancer. And his doctors had him on a liquid diet. Alta Dena certified raw milk advertised itself as safe and clean and pure. So, he was drinking it regularly for the few weeks leading up to his death. Alta Dena argued in court that cancer killed him, but at the time of his death, he had infections caused by both Salmonella and Listeria. 


Michael: Oh.


Aubrey: Right. 


Michael: And also, the idea that somebody like that needs more vitamins more than they need milk free of pathogens is insane. 


Aubrey: Yes. As a result, for the first time ever, Alta Dena faces a court judgment finding them liable for Telford's death. Like, “Yay they were found liable, boo.” They were ordered to pay 40 grands to Telford's death. 


Michael: Oh, God. Yeah. You just kill five or six people a year and just pay that out and keep making your product. 


Aubrey: Right. It's such a small amount in today's dollars, that's around 113 grand. The other lawsuit that is making its way through the courts around this time was filed as impact litigation by a consumer watchdog group. That watchdog group is Public Citizen, okay. founded by Ralph Nader. 


Michael: Nader's a really influential guy on consumer safety stuff. 


Aubrey: So, Public Citizen filed suit against Alta Dena. They co-filed with the Gray Panthers. Do you know about the Gray Panthers? It's a seniors advocacy group. And I fucking love the name. It makes me so happy. 


Michael: I thought it was going to be [laughs] like a combination of Black Panthers and a bunch of white people. So, then we're gray--


Aubrey: You were just color mixing in your brain. [Michael laughs] The suit argued that Alta Dena was making false advertising claims. They were marketing their raw milk products as “Safe, healthy, wholesome and pure,” and as suitable for vulnerable populations like babies and sick people.


Michael: That's insane. 


Aubrey: The court ultimately ruled in favor of Public Citizen and the Gray Panthers and they find Alta Dena liable. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: That ruling prompted a federal court to force the FDA's hand. We've talked about this in the past, that the FDA can only regulate interstate commerce. Things that happen within the state fall at the state level. So back in 1973, the FDA had strongly considered a ruling that only pasteurized milk could be shipped across state lines, which would have effectively banned interstate commerce of raw milk. They consider it again in 1985, but that's during the Reagan administration. And, you know those fuckers aren't passing new regs, right? 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: The Public Citizen ruling addressed the FDA directly and said, basically, look, like, you can do what you want, but “There is no longer any question of the fact that raw milk is unsafe.” 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: So, they now have judges saying publicly in high profile cases, like, come on, jokers, nothing about this is safe. 


Michael: This is literally why we have a government that you can't just like sell a dangerous product to people. 


Aubrey: Yes. And you can't just be like, “I don't know, regulation just sort of isn't our thing.” 


Michael: It's literally like what you're trading off is a slight inconvenience to a corporation versus the deaths of children. 


Aubrey: Yes. 


Michael: This isn't even like hard trade off. Yeah. 


Aubrey: Following the FDA ban, following this proliferation of state bans, people pretty immediately try to find workarounds and they're successful in doing so, of course they are. 


Michael: [laughs] How do I keep doing this thing that kills kids? 


Aubrey: One of those things, one of the more popular workarounds is something called a milk club, which is essentially like an underground railroad for Listeria.


Michael: [laughs] When you put it that way, it's less appealing. 


Aubrey: There are like a bunch of organizations that get really into milk clubs. One of them, person named Liz Reitzig, who is one of the big popularizers of milk clubs, who also was a supporter of the Raw Milk Freedom Riders. 


Michael: [laughs] That's so good. I'm basically Rosa Parks. I want them to be able to kill kids. I'm essentially Gandhi. [laughs]


Aubrey: It's like staggering. Mother Jones describes the Raw Milk Freedom Riders as, “A caravan of self-described frustrated mothers who wanted the repeal of federal raw milk laws.” 


Michael: But it's like the same framing where it's like, “Oh, these are just like concerned mothers.” 


Aubrey: It's mums net but for Diphtheria.


Michael: As opposed to people who are just anti-science freaks. 


Aubrey: In addition to milk clubs, there's a workaround called herd shares. So, the idea is you're not buying raw milk. You're paying to lease a cow in a dairy herd and then the dairy delivers raw milk as a byproduct of the cow you fake own.


Michael: I love that we're not buying it, we're like subscribed. [laughs]


Aubrey: That all brings us to our contemporary context.


Michael: Nightmare.


Aubrey: Interestingly, the current landscape around raw milk laws is that frankly, a lot of blue states allow the sale of raw milk and a lot of red states ban it outright. 


Michael: Is it illegal in Oregon. 


Aubrey: You can buy raw milk, but only directly on the farm from a farmer with a herd of three cows or fewer. 


Michael: Oh, weird. 


Aubrey: Well, that's because of transmission of bovine tuberculosis. A smaller herd can't transmit it as much that there's fewer opportunities for the disease spreading. Washington and California both have legal raw milk retail sale. You can go to the grocery store and buy raw milk. 


Michael: Really? 


Aubrey: In Washington and California.


Michael: It's at gas stations next to the Kratom. 


Aubrey: I mean, honest to God.


Michael: One stop shop. 


Aubrey: It's so-- [crosstalk] 


Michael: It’s just like the sketchy things aisle. 


Aubrey: You know, Erewhon sells it in California. Of course, they do and it's 13 bucks. 


Michael: The funny thing is I think you could actually do a thing where you're like, “Look, you want raw milk, we don't want raw milk.” Why don't we compromise and we come up with some sort of process where like we'll bring it up to a certain temperature but like it won't be brought up to boiling. How about that as like a compromise? Like they just don't know what pasteurization is. And they're like, “Yeah, that sounds pretty reasonable.” As long as you don't bring it up to boiling. It's like, yeah, actually you know what, we can meet in the middle on this. 


Aubrey: You know, you treat it like it's a new discovery. We found a totally nonchemical way- [crosstalk].


Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 


Aubrey: -to sanitize milk, it's like perfectly natural. 


Michael: Totally. 


Aubrey: And actually, it dates back hundreds of years. So, it's ancestral way of keeping milk safe. 


Michael: [laughs] That’s good. 


Aubrey: You could use the paleo bullshit language as a way to sell heating milk to kill germs. 


Michael: Just call it like deliberate sunshine.


Aubrey: \ Milk sunning. 


Michael: We're basically sunning the milk. 


Aubrey: The milk has gotten red light therapy. [Michael laughs] Just like the kind you put on your mole. 


Michael: My only hopes for America now because everything is just like on fire, is just like, how can we lie to these people to get the outcomes that we want because they're so dumb ultimately.


Aubrey: In 2007, we were at a national high point of raw milk regulation. Just four states allowed for retail sale of raw milk in grocery stores. 


Michael: Say their names. Who was it? 


Aubrey: [laughs] I don't remember which four states. I didn't look into which ones in 2007. By the way, it does seem like California has always been a state that doesn't ban it which I'm like, “Fucking California, man.” 


Michael: Gwyneth is too big to fail. 


Aubrey: In recent years, a number of states have repealed those bans and allowed for the sale of raw milk. Today, many coastal states allow retail sale of raw milk. California and Washington, a number of western states, most of New England, all allow for retail sale of raw milk. So, how in less than 20 years have we seen such a backlash to pasteurization and a rollback of those state bans.


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: The story of how we got here starts with the founding of the Weston A. Price Foundation. 


Michael: I was going to ask about this if they're going to make a little cameo. 


Aubrey: Oh, it's not even a little cameo. 


Michael: It's like a protagonist.


Aubrey: Not protagonist. 


Michael: An-


Aubrey: Antagonist. Is that a drag name? Has someone-- [Michael laughs] So, Mike, what do you know about the Weston A. Price Foundation? 


Michael: Well, I know of them from previous show research. It's like the dumbest like woo-woo aunt that you can possibly imagine, but also with like a ton of power. 


Aubrey: Woo-woo Aunt is such a great description of the vibes at Weston A. Price. There's like a hippie aesthetic to some of the things that they produce. So, I'm going to send you their mission statement. 


Michael: Which I think I was going to send you in the Seed Oils episode so we're coming [crosstalk] because I know I have it in my notes. I'll just do it from memory. “The foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. It supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective including accurate nutrition instruction, organic and biodynamic farming, pasture feeding of livestock, community supported farms, honest and informative labeling, prepared parenting, and nurturing therapies. Specific goals include establishment of universal access to clean certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy formula for infants. It goes really nuts at the end there.” 


Aubrey: They're also leaving out of this mission statement, like how much of their whole thing is about animal fats and fat is actually good for you and you should be eating meat fat and keto kind of elements. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: So that mission statement has a fair amount of curb appeal if you're not a partisan or if you're like a little left leaning. Here's a little glimpse into the issues currently listed on their website. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: Say no to cell towers in your neighborhood. 


Michael: Oh, I love this. Okay. 


Aubrey: Bird flu in raw milk. Our founder reveals the lies underlying the latest attack on raw milk. 


Michael: Oh, they're debunking you from an hour ago. 


Aubrey: Yeah.


Michael: Aubrey in shambles.


Aubrey:  Weston A. Price foundation destroys-- [crosstalk] 


Michael: Destroys SJW. 


[laughter]


Aubrey: They also have a section called main health topics. Here are some of their main health topics. Cod liver oil, our number one superfood. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: Why butter is better, nature's healthiest fat, Vaccinations, the most important decision parents will ever make. 


Michael: [laughs] I wonder where they come down on that. I wonder what decision they think is best.


Aubrey: And then the last one is just soy alert! 


Michael: [laughs] The funny thing is they sound like some sort of 1910s grandma. They're going to give you a Werther's and measles. 


Aubrey: The foundation is named for Weston A. Price. Do you know who Weston A. Price is? I did not. 


Michael: I looked this up, but I forgot. 


Aubrey: He's a dentist from Cleveland who authored a book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration that was published in 1939. Price traveled to more than a dozen countries to observe the health and diets of different societies. His argument was that the dental and physical health of non-industrialized-- [crosstalk]


Michael: Excuse me, hiccup, is your fucking beans for breakfast. 


Aubrey: I only have beans to blame. They make me all that I am. 


[laughter]


His argument was that the health of non-industrialized communities was superior to the health of industrialized communities. 


Michael: Laughably false, but okay. 


Aubrey: He said that the culprit for Americans health woes was, “Foods of modern commerce,” what we now call processed and ultra-processed foods. Here is a synopsis of his conclusions from a of piece in the Atlantic. I apologize for making you read something from the Atlantic. 


Michael: I hate you. 


Aubrey: I know. I know you do. 


Michael: It says “In the conclusion of Price's book, he suggests a common theme in the diet he observed across the world. The healthy primitives ate plenty of meat, seafood and fats. Americans would be wise to adapt their own diets accordingly, Price warned. Shortly before publishing the book, he'd gone to the Rutland State Fair in Vermont, and had sat for an hour observing the crowd. Three out of every four people he saw there, he said, showed signs of prenatal injury due to poor maternal nutrition.” [Aubrey laughs] He's like eating a turkey leg at a state fair, just being like, “That guy's fucked up. That guy's fucked up. Your mom fucked up.” Just like, judging people on no information. 


Aubrey: That is absolute-- [crosstalk] 


Michael: What does that even mean? 


Aubrey: Why I included that part of the state fair. Allow me to introduce this part where he just sits at a state fair and goes, “That guy's fucked up.” Huh? 


[laughter] 


Michael: Yeah. Look like it's overbite. That's because your mom didn't eat enough butter. 


Aubrey: So, of course, this is just an aggressively racist way of talking about shit, right? He is also a dentist and not a physician, which is a different fucking thing. 


Michael: Also, I will say, like, when I worked in human rights, I did a lot of work on developing countries and oftentimes you read nutritional reports and in poor countries, people are often eating 1900 calories of white rice in a day. Because you can't afford protein. You can't afford fat. Like, it's just not factually true that people in poor Southeast Asia are eating tons of meat and seafood and fats. Those are like rich people food. 


Aubrey: The book didn't make much of a splash when it was first published. I can't imagine why it would. Yeah, but it was influential with two people who matter most, and those are the cofounders of the Weston A. Price Foundation. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: One of them is a credentialed person, the other one is not. We're going to talk first about the credentialed person, Mary Enig, had a master's and a doctorate in nutritional science. So, she is credentialed, but her views are extremely fringe. She passed away in 2014. She was a big critic of vegetarianism. 


Michael: Oh, good. I love this. The vegetarian dunking always comes along with this weird animal fat thing.


Aubrey:  Among other things Mary Enig once argued that coconut oil could effectively treat HIV and AIDS. [Michael laughs] The other cofounder is the one who is still with us. Sally Fallon Morell is her name. She is not the credentialed one. She has a bachelor's in English from Stanford and a Master's in English from UCLA. And take it from a literary arts major from Brown University. Knock that shit off. You're not a nutrition guy. She coauthored a book called The Contagion Myth. Why Viruses, (including “Coronavirus”) are not the Cause of Disease. 


Michael: Our entire show is just leading up to this thing where all of these people just come out against the fucking germ theory of disease. 


Aubrey: Michael, you're not actually asking the questions that matter, which is if germs and viruses don't cause disease, what does and the answer is 5G. 


Michael: Oh, wait, is it literally. 


Aubrey: It is literally a 5G. [laughs] 


Michael: Oh my God. I thought she was going to do some imbalance of humors type shit. But this is very innovative. 


Aubrey: In the 90s, she read Weston A. Price's book and it really resonated with her. As a result, she started feeding her kids a high fat diet with lots of animal fats in it. She starts feeding her kids raw milk. She says her children don't have any health problems at all. And she credits that diet for things, even for like her kids not needing braces. She's like, “It's the animal fats. That's why.”


Michael: Or maybe she's decided not to give them braces. They're like “Mom.”


Aubrey: Yeah, totally. Their teeth are fucked up. 


Michael: Oh, it's kind of mean. 


[laughter] 


Aubrey: One of the biggest priorities of the foundation is raw milk. They don't usually call it raw milk. They call it real milk. [Michael laughs] Weston A. Price Foundation spins off something called The Campaign for Real Milk-


Michael: Love it.


Aubrey: -which no joke to this day has a blog post called the vendetta against Alta Dena. 


Michael: Again. The whole real milk thing, it's like, “What do you think pasteurization is?”


Aubrey: Real milk is only warm once and that's when it comes out of a cow. It doesn't get warm again later. 


Michael: They're all like catastrophizing about this extremely minor thing. 


Aubrey: This is a quote from the website of The Campaign for Real Milk under the header, Raw Milk Safety. 


Michael: Okay? It says, “Real milk, milk that is pasture raised, full fat and unprocessed is an inherently safe food that's because raw milk contains numerous bioactive components that kill pathogens in the milk, prevent pathogen absorption across the intestinal wall, and strengthen the immune system. No other food that we consume contains a built-in safety system like the one in raw milk.” Dude, this is like the most density of bullshit I think we've ever had. 


Aubrey: Would you like to know what their source for this is? It is one case study from 1984. 


Michael: It's like the sheer balls to say, “Not only is raw milk not bad for you, but it's actually super good for you. It's actually the only food that's this good for you. You're basically encouraging people to drink like a shitload of it.” 


Aubrey: So, in 2007, they also founded something called The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund and from what I can tell, this is the most effective arm in their raw milk work. 


Michael: Okay? 


Aubrey: The fund provides legal support to farmers, presumably farmers aligned with their organizational values. 


Michael: Of course.


Aubrey: The defense fund also set a goal, “To make raw milk sales legal in every state.” They sort of put out the word that they're providing legal support and legal defense funds to farmers. In that process, they start elevating those dairy farmers in the press. And that is where we start to see a real uptick in more mainstream coverage of raw milk fights. When a raw milk dairy farmer is found to be in violation of a state or local ban or when raw milk tests positive for really dangerous pathogens, they then kind of court media and push the story as an injustice. Look at how our federal government is attacking these small farmers who are just doing things the way we've all always done things. Don't pay attention to the mortality rates. 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: And they frame it as like really devastating evidence of governmental overreach, right. 


Michael: So, they're identifying raw milk farmers and then pitching them to the media as like salt of the earth family farmers who are being trodden upon by government overreach. 


Aubrey: Yeah. Like the legal attack doesn't necessarily make headlines in and of itself. It makes more headlines to have people kind of wilding out. And we have a couple of people who have wilded out about raw milk. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: So, I want to spend some time talking about two of their biggest rising stars of the raw milk world. 


Michael: I'm like a raw milk influencer. I'm like so popular. 


Aubrey: Oh, my God. I'm like the coolest. 


Michael: It's just like me puking in the toilet. 


[laughter]


Aubrey: One of those is someone named Mark McAfee, who is from the San Joaquin Valley in California. In 2000, he cofounded what was then called Organic Pastures Dairy Company, which was renamed in 2020 to Raw Farm USA. 


Michael: And now the logos are two AR-15s. [laughs]


Aubrey: I mean, there's a lot of like distressed American flag graphics happening. 


Michael: Yeah.


Aubrey: It's very much like aesthetic by Christian Ojeda. 


Michael: Right, right. 


Aubrey: McAfee founds his farm in 2000. By 2007, his products were in 300 stores in California. 


Michael: Just fucking room temperature, just on the shelf, just festering. 


Aubrey: To their credit, they do refrigerate it. 


Michael: But then why do they refrigerate it? These people don't even believe in bacteria. Why are you refrigerating it? Have like bright green fucking mold floating on it, you fucking weirdos. 


Aubrey: McAfee also had a mail order business that he said brought in about $80,000 a month. Now you might be thinking this is after the FDA ban. How on earth is he selling mail order raw milk across state lines? And that is he is labeling it as pet food, not for human consumption. 


Michael: That's like those people that were selling fish antibiotics on Amazon.


Aubrey: Much like Alta Dena before them Raw Farm USA has faced a lot of lawsuits and regulation. First up, that labeled as pet food thing didn't last very long. He was doing that in 2007, talking about it in the press 2007. In 2008, they did face federal criminal charges for that. 


Michael: Oh, wow. 


Aubrey: In 2023, federal prosecutors charged that Raw Farm USA had once again been shipping raw milk across state lines. So, as a result, they're now in a consent decree. 


Michael: Oh, wow. 


Aubrey: Until 2028, the FDA can conduct audits and unannounced inspections. But as we know, the FDA, a shell of its former self. 


Michael: So, you just order raw milk in the fucking mail? It takes a couple days in the back of a van to get to you. 


Aubrey: The farm has had many recalls. The most recent was in December for bird flu in their milk. 


Michael: Oh, my God. 


Aubrey: When McAfee was asked for comment on the bird flu recall, he gave comment to Mother Jones. Here is how he responded to their request for comment on the bird flu recall. 


Michael: Trace the money, he wrote in an email in which he also denied bird flu could be a threat to his business or his customer's health. We don't think avian flu causes things to be unsafe. You may think I'm some kind of crazy person, but show me one person who's ever gotten sick from raw milk with avian flu, viruses don't exist in raw milk. They die off quickly. Fearing viruses is ridiculous, he says. He holds that only people lacking strong microbiomes and good immune systems need worry. Of COVID for instance, he says, “I got it and it was mild. I'm a raw milk drinker. It didn't hardly faze me. I can't argue with science.” Aubrey, he got COVID, and he drinks raw milk. 


Aubrey: Show me one person who got sick from COVID and it was mild. [Michael laughs] He's saying, only people without good immune systems need to worry. That's a lot of fucking people, dude. 


Michael: He's the guy with the turkey leg at the state fair being like, “Your mom drank too much wine.”


Aubrey: Pointing at people being like, fetal alcohol syndrome. [Michael laughs] He's also very clear on his view of where the demand for raw milk is coming from. He told CBS news, “People are seeking raw milk like crazy. Anything that the FDA tells our customers to do, they do the opposite.”


Michael: Yep, that sounds about right. That sounds like we're dealing with the dumbest fucking people in the country who [Aubrey laughs] are also running it, by the way.


Aubrey: To your point, McAfee is currently rumored to be in consideration for a role at HHS under RFK Jr. 


Michael: That's always the fucking epilogue to these people now.


Aubrey: The good news is that he does think bird flu is “A huge scam.” 


Michael: Oh, good. 


Aubrey: That was backed by pharma companies, “To create fear and produce a new vaccine after COVID closed up.”


Michael: Just say fucking birds aren't real. Get to the fucking point. 


Aubrey: Birds are fake dinosaurs. We all know this. 


Michael: God, why not? 


Aubrey: There's another sort of rising star named Amos Miller who is an Amish raw milk dairy farmer in Pennsylvania. 


Michael: Okay. 


Aubrey: Pennsylvania allows for sale of raw milk. You just have to have a permit. And the core of the issue with Amos Miller is he's like, “Fuck your permit. I'm never getting a permit.” So, it is legal to do what he is doing. 


Michael: He just decided to do it in the illegal way. [laughs]


Aubrey: Right. 


Michael: I love that.


Aubrey: So, the permit requires dairy farmers, raw dairy farmers, to regularly test their milk, their water and their herd. It's pretty fucking reasonable. Permit holders can't, however, produce raw yogurt, kefir, or fresh cheese. I am guessing that was the problem. He'd have to stop selling some of his products. 


Michael: It's also such garbage that you can just fucking sell this dangerous product with a permit. It feels like these people have all been coddled by these weird carve outs for what, for what reason are we doing this? It's so weird. 


Aubrey: Pennsylvania's Attorney General has also charged that Amos Miller has also been illegally shipping raw milk across state lines through what he calls a buyer’s club that has led to this wild, protracted faceoff between Miller and regulators. He and his attorney really seem to be leaning into the controversy on a bunch of this. His attorney, while they had a court case in progress, wrote that Pennsylvania's Secretary of Agriculture thinks he's, “The food Pope of the world.”


Michael: Right. He is the food Pope of America.


Aubrey: Of Pennsylvania. 


Michael: Yeah.


Aubrey: Yeah, absolutely. 


Michael: This guy thinks he's in charge of this issue. Yep. That's how a government works. 


Aubrey: Amos Miller is extremely public about his alignment with the Weston A. Price Foundation. He publicly talks up the foundation. He cites them as a cornerstone of his analysis and as a flashpoint of his politicization around this issue. He has been a sponsor of their annual conference where, fun fact, the keynote speaker has been RFK Jr. 


Michael: Of course, I'm amazed it took us this long to get to him, honestly. 


Aubrey: For all of those reasons and more, Amos Miller has made a great candidate for right wing stardom. Part of what happens is that these guys start going hard on raw milk publicly. Weston A. Price then boosts the media stories that they're in. And there's this sort of like symbiotic relationship of they keep grabbing headlines and Weston A. Price keeps boosting them. 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: Once we've got these couple of rogue dairy farmers in the headlines, those are now news stories that podcasters can pull up. 


Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 


Aubrey: YouTube reaction channels can start to react to and it becomes a topic of conversation that otherwise wouldn't necessarily be a topic of conversation. 


Michael: It then becomes a circular thing where, like-- [crosstalk] 


Aubrey: Right.


Michael: Then you get the stories where, like, oh, the movement for raw milk is getting bigger. And then that then feeds into the next round of people who are like, “Oh, maybe I should be trying this.” And then you get-- the next round of stories saying, “Oh, there's a lot of raw milk people around.” 


Aubrey: We have had a wave of raw milk endorsements from high profile people, many of whom are friends of the show. Paul Saladino has encouraged feeding raw milk to infants. 


Michael: Yeah, great stuff. I mean, he also says that they should eat raw livers and stuff. So, at least he's consistent. 


Aubrey: Joe Rogan says he's a raw milk drinker. I watched a whole clip of him talking about it at length, and he switches pretty quickly from raw milk to whole milk as the language he uses. [Michael laughs] So, I think he doesn't know what we're talking, like I genuinely think he doesn't know. 


Michael: He's someone you could go on his show and be like, “They need to heat up the milk, Joe.” Easy, easy. 


Aubrey: He also talks in the fucking clip. He's like, “You can pretty well tell when milk has gone bad.” Like, I just sniff it before I drink it [crosstalk] it's safe or not. And you're like, “We're not talking about sour milk, Joe.” 


Michael: You can't smell Listeria, Joe. It's not the same thing. 


Aubrey: It's odorless. 


Michael: Oh, my God. Again, these people don't believe in microscopic things that could cause diseases. 


Aubrey: Turning Point USA sold a shirt that said got raw milk on it referencing a very timely got milk reference in 2025, first of all and second of all, it did have an illustration of a bull on. 


Michael: Because now we're at the place where it's like, do you know where milk comes from? [laughs]


Aubrey: God damn it. 


Michael: It's not even like, “Do you believe in bacteria?” It's like, “Walk me through what you think milk is.” 


Aubrey: It's when you squeeze almonds, Mike. 


Michael: Oh, my God. 


Aubrey: Thomas Massie, that same Republican from Kentucky, has introduced a bill to overturn the FDA ban on interstate raw milks sales goop herself says that she puts raw cream in her coffee each morning, and she says she gets it from Mark McAfee's farm. 


Michael: God not that I expect any better from Gwyneth, but like, Jesus Christ. 


Aubrey: She acknowledged to the cut that some of the claims around raw milk are “Pseudoscience.” But she also said, is someone going to invest in getting a data set around raw milk? 


Michael: Oh, my God.


Aubrey: It's not going to be the dairy industry, right? And I'm like, “Are you fucking kidding me?” If the dairy industry was like, “You can do less work, sell more products at a higher price point across the fucking country, do you not think Alta Dena would be jumping at the opportunity?”


Michael: Yeah. And also, you're paying for the raw milk. It's also a business. It's not like big business versus small farmers. It's all big business. 


Aubrey: And also like, “Who's going to get the data set?” We've had the data set since the fucking 1800s, my guy. 


Michael: I know. This is also of like RFK Jr. being like, “We're finally going to see whether vaccines work.” [laughs]


Aubrey: On top of that, there has also been considerable uptick in pro raw milk discourse on Gab and Rumble and Infowars. And a couple of Infowars podcast hosts have talked about it. One of them, Owen Shroyer, said in his podcast The War Room, “They say bird flu and milk, bird flu and milk. Oh, it's the scariest thing.” They'll just make raw milk illegal. That's what this is all about. And I'm like, “Them is Trump and RFK Jr.” And even under Democrats, no one was reaching further than the FDA interstate commerce ban. No one was saying it's totally illegal to sell raw milk in the United States of America. 


There's some things to think about in terms of like “Why raw milk has taken off now after so many years of such successful regulation of it.” There are a couple of things. One is that as in the turn of the 19th to 20th century, the dairy industry has been changing in recent decades more and more independent and family dairy farmers have disappeared. They've been bought out. They've been overtaken by large scale corporate dairy farms. And if small farmers are trying to compete with the margins of huge dairy farms, they can't. Right? 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: So, instead they're going to look for ways to signify that their milk is different and better. This is part of the reason why some small dairies have started putting their milk in glass bottles because it looks like a heftier and more prestige kind of product. 


Michael: Oh, that's interesting. 


Aubrey: There are a number of dairy farmers that I read interviews with who are like, “Look, I don't believe that GMOs are any kind of issue, but we absolutely label our milk as being GMO free because people will pay more if there's a GMO free label on it.” 


Michael: And people are, “I guess, willing to pay more for milk they think is like, fucking has so many vitamins or some shit.” 


Aubrey: On top of that, in recent years, there has been more new research to misinterpret. The biggest example of this is that in the late 90s, there was a Swiss epidemiologist who started to look into something called the farm effect. It is this sort of sometimes observed, sometimes not effect where some kids raised on farms appeared to develop allergies and asthma much less than kids raised in other settings. So, they published their first study this in 1999, and they found that local kids who lived on farms did indeed appear to have lower rates of allergies. This is just in Switzerland. That's all we're talking about. Studies since then have been considerably more mixed, but there's definitely, like, enough evidence to keep looking. 


The farm effect appears to be most observed, and it might even be exclusively observed in Western European farms. So, I'm like, “Well, there's a lot of differences there.” 


Michael: And also, that doesn't have anything to do with milk specifically. That's just like. That could be many different things. 


Aubrey: They start looking into farm milk. Essentially, what they're talking about when they talk about farm milk is milk that is produced on the farm. But in that research, they didn't track whether the farm milk was raw or not.


Michael: Because they might be just like, pasteurizing it themselves. 


Aubrey: Right. Or they might be doing what lots and lots of farmers have been doing for hundreds of years and boiling or scalding the milk. 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: Even though they have not been able to certify what portion of that is raw versus pasteurized versus boiled or scalded milk. Raw milk folks have seized upon this and been like, “Aha, I knew it. It's the milk.” 


Michael: Dude, even for them, this is thin. 


Aubrey: It is really thin. 


Michael: Farms in other countries have kids who may or may not be drinking raw milk, have fewer allergies. 


Aubrey: Genuinely.


Michael: There's like five leaps you have to make to think that's evidence of anything. 


Aubrey: Your kid's going to get asthma. So as a result, don't let them get asthma. Instead, give them Listeria.


Michael: Kill him quicker. 


Aubrey: On top of the dairy industry stuff, on top of that new research, one of the big boosts that appears to have taken place with raw milk consumption is COVID lockdowns and the amount of anti-vax and anti-science. 


Michael: Yeah. 


Aubrey: Sentiment that that kicked up. Mark McAfee has talked about what a boom in sales they experienced during and after 2020. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: Raw milk and the rhetoric around raw milk dovetails really nicely with a number of other rightwing projects and conspiracies. So, one of the biggest boosters of raw milk has been a number of trad wives- [crosstalk] 


Michael: Yeah, of course. That’s what [unintelligible [01:01:45]. 


Aubrey: -which is a part of this project around cultural nostalgia and a throwback to a time with much more misogyny. 


Michael: And also, everything else on TikTok, it's mostly people faking it. 


Aubrey: I'm so sorry. You don't think Nara Smith woke up to a sick toddler and was like, “I need to make cough drops from scratch.” 


Michael: Right? Like the whole thing is just like, it's like those morning routine videos that we’re talking about that are like completely faked. It's just that everyone is like faking the lifestyle that they're living. And this is just like one of the other fake lifestyles that you can pretend that you're doing. 


Aubrey: I will say some folks on the right go so far as to contend that dairies are injecting chemicals into pasteurized milk. 


Michael: Sure. 


Aubrey: They call it, “State approved milk.”


Michael: What? 


Aubrey: Fiat currency. 


Michael: That's just like everything you eat is state approved. There's like health inspections at restaurants. On some level, it's state approved. 


Aubrey: I'm a rebel. I don't eat your state approved USDA inspected beef. 


Michael: Have fun getting poisoned. Have fun getting fucking Listeria. 


Aubrey: Genuinely. I do think that is sort of the question that we're grappling with here is like, “What are the risky decisions that we let people make?”


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: We allow people to drink to excess. We allow people to smoke. We give them lots of warnings about it, but they're allowed to do it. We allow people to eat steak tartare. You know what I mean, like shit like that. But we also don't let people use like a lot of controlled substances. We don't let you enroll your kid in school without vaccinating them for certain communicable diseases. In a lot of states, not everyone anymore, Jesus Christ. 


Michael: But then I also think raw milk is different because there isn't actually any benefit to it. 


Aubrey: Right. There's not a use case. 


Michael: Yeah. The reported benefits are fake, like people are lying. And then it just feels like it's in a category that's much closer. Just like driving without a seatbelt. 


Aubrey: Yeah. Like it is and it isn't. It's a freedom issue. But you're like, “Sorry, you want the freedom to, I guess, drink things that make you sick.”


Michael: Right. And also, especially to give them to your kids. It's like there's also victims of this who are not making a choice. And there's a reason why if you want to smoke when you're over 18, you're smart enough to decide that's the risk reward for you. But like, if kids are being given raw milk, those kids are not in charge of the decision. 


Aubrey: Right. That is the hardest stop for me. 


Michael: Right. 


Aubrey: Is the fact that so many people are getting raw milk under the misapprehension that it will prevent their kids from getting allergies, in the process their kids are getting fucking Diphtheria and old timey ass diseases. 


Michael: Because that also is where like regulation would come in that you're basically making a tradeoff. Okay, regulating this does involve some loss of freedom if you think about it purely philosophically, but also will save the lives of many children. 


Aubrey: I thought that I would give our final word today to a food scientist named John Lucey, who was quoted by USA Today quote, “A lot of people just don't trust science anymore. But I don't even think this is science. I think a lot of it is just common sense. [Michael laughs] This is not making milk into an ultra-processed food.” 


Michael: I know. 


Aubrey: “This is just heating it to [Michael laughs] 160 degrees for 15 seconds.


Michael: You fucking weirdos. 


Aubrey: It's so, it really is one of those things where I'm like, “I feel like I'm living on another planet.”


Michael: The most amazing thing is to me is that these people do not believe in bacteria, but they do believe that you can walk around a state fair and identify people with prenatal injuries.


[Aubrey laughs]


[Transcript provided by SpeechDocs Podcast Transcription]

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Aubrey Gordon

Host
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Michael Hobbes

Host