Raw milk is a controversial subject. Many raw milk advocates tout its health benefits and the economic opportunities it opens to small producers. On the other hand, many folks are concerned about the dangers of raw milk consumption.
In this year’s general legislative session, three bills affecting raw milk regulation are on the docket. Their passage would have important implications for public health and small Utah farms.
To understand the potential effects of this legislation, we need to take a deep dive into the raw milk controversy. That starts with understanding the basic science of milk processing.
Dr. Drew Swartz is an Extension assistant professor and dairy cattle specialist at Utah State University. “Raw milk," he said, "is simply milk that's just come out of the cow, and it's typically compared to pasteurized milk. So, it's milk that's out of the cow that has yet to be heat treated.”
Swartz said that raw milk, unlike the milk you see in the grocery store, is not pasteurized. (And no, this has nothing to do with the pasture where cows hang out and eat grass).
“Pasteurization is where you take the raw milk, and then you heat it," Swartz explained. "It actually kills off the pathogens, or the disease-causing bacteria in the milk, to make it more sterile.”
Raw milk from healthy cows can be contaminated with harmful bacteria like salmonella, E. coli, and listeria. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, children under 5, adults over 65, pregnant women, and immunocompromised people are at a higher risk of serious illness from these pathogens.
The presence of pathogenic bacteria in raw milk raises the question: Why would you drink something that has a chance of carrying a dangerous disease?
For many, the answer is nutrition. Jen Corrington, for example, sells small batches of raw milk from Vintage Lily Farms in Eagle Mountain. I met her at the Capitol, where she traveled to voice her support for legislation that would make it easier for her and other producers to distribute their milk. She said that raw milk has a profoundly positive impact on the lives of her customers.
“I've had so many customers who they have not been able to drink any milk at all for so long," she said. "Then they drink raw milk, and it starts to heal their gut and really makes a big difference with allergies.”
When I speak to raw milk producers and consumers, I hear this sort of perspective all the time. People feel that raw milk is more pure, more nutritious than pasteurized milk. They say that it is better for their immune systems or that they tolerate it better than the pasteurized stuff. But what evidence exists that can confirm or disprove such statements?
I asked Swartz about the health benefits that people report from raw milk consumption.
“I think it's important to note that people's experiences are real," he told me, "but individual experiences aren't the same as population level evidence.”
He said that the nutrient profiles of raw and pasteurized milk are almost identical.
"Raw milk versus 'normal' milk, or pasteurized milk, they're both very nutrient-dense foods; however, there's not a lot of strong scientific evidence out there saying that raw milk actually has health benefits compared to regular pasteurized milk.”
The scientific literature on the subject is mixed as to raw milk’s health benefits beyond the basic nutrients. While unpasteurized and pasteurized milk are very similar, some evidence does suggest that heat treatment like pasteurization can slightly decrease the concentration of vitamins C, B1, and B12.
Advocates often claim beneficial probiotic effects of raw milk. While raw milk can contain certain types of bacteria similar to human probiotics, they are probably not found in high enough concentrations to carry major health benefits, according to a 2022 publication from dairy scientists Giuseppe Aprea and Michael Mullan. Aprea and Mullan add that raw milk has shown no clinical benefit to those suffering from lactose intolerance — another common claim of raw milk advocates.
Some research, however, suggests that raw milk can can have a protective affect against conditions like asthma, atopy, and hay fever, adding weight to the experience of Jen Corrington’s customers.
Despite mixed evidence, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejects the notion that raw milk is a superfood, capable of transforming a consumer's health.
Regardless of what one thinks about its health benefits, raw milk production and distribution represent an important revenue stream for small Utah dairies.
Tasha Walker owns Harmony Homestead with her husband Alma in Corinne. She said that turning to raw milk production saved her dairy operation.
“The conventional dairy," Walker explained, "was an anchor dragging us down, and we knew we had to make a change, or else we were done farming.”
Walker switched to selling raw milk directly to consumers after their conventional dairy operation almost went under due to high input costs and unpredictable milk prices.
“Buying the animals, the cow health, taking care of them, your equipment that you need to run it, the tractors, the fuel, plus the feed," Walker said with exasperation. "You know, all of those stay at the same level, and then the price of the milk fluctuates. Drastic drops, and then jumps and spikes in it. It all has to do with politics plus market value. You know, it's nothing that we can guess what's happening tomorrow or the next month or next year.”
While conventional production is subject to market fluctuation, raw milk production offers the Walkers a degree of financial freedom.
“With direct to consumer, I get to say, okay, it costs X amount to produce this milk," Walker said. "It costs this much to take care of the cows, the feed, all of that. And I get to set a price. Consumers get to choose if they like my product, then they come and buy it. To me, it's a no-brainer. I think that's how it's always been.”
Data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service shows that there are fewer small dairies in Utah today than there were 20 years ago. The number of total dairies shrank during this period, and more of the cows are concentrated at larger operations.
While conventional milk production is economically challenging for small farms, food system advocates say that raw milk production offers a glimmer of hope for small dairies moving forward.
Symbria Patterson is a co-founder of the Red Acre Center, a nonprofit that advocates for farmers in Utah producing on a local scale.
“Raw milk doesn't sell to a pasteurizer or a bottler, so they're independent," she said. "I would say they have less of a rough time because they set their own price. They sell to who they want, where they want, and they decide how much to produce. So I would say they have a fighting chance. The guys that are stuck in that other system have been struggling for a while, and until we figure out how people can buy milk for less than a gallon of gas, we're going to be in trouble.”
Patterson comes to the Capitol every year to advocate for policies that the Red Acre Center believes favor the local producer. This year, they’re arguing for House Bill 179, legislation that would make raw milk distribution easier for small dairies.
House Rep. Kristin Chevrier, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill will remove government interference from raw milk production.
“My intention is to help the market to be more free," Chevrier told a crowd of farm advocates at the Capitol, "both for the consumers to find the milk and for the producers to sell the milk. We have loosened up a lot of the restrictions. We're trying to put more of the responsibility on the producers and less on the [Utah Department of Agriculture and Food], which means that there's less interference in the process.”
Under current law, farmers selling raw milk are only allowed to sell milk directly from their farm property or off-premise retail stores the farmers own. Practically speaking, this is a major limitation for small, rural dairies. HB 179 would remove that rule.
“This state made it so that you had to own the store," Patterson says with a wry smile. "So, if you're a dairy farmer, you also have to own your retail store. Pretty unusual. Can you imagine if that was true for meat or vegetables?”
Besides allowing third-party resale, HB 179 removes the raw milk permitting process and only requires producers to notify the Utah Department of Food and Agriculture of their intention to sell raw milk. It also moves testing responsibility to the producers themselves, rather than the department. Producers will be required to test their raw milk monthly for pathogens but will only be required to release test results following an outbreak of foodborne illness linked to the producer.
It's not hard to imagine how loosening restrictions and increasing raw milk distribution could open the door for more illness associated with raw milk production.
A 2017 report from the Center for Disease Control concluded that consumption of unpasteurized dairy products between 2009 and 2014 caused 840 times more illness than pasteurized dairy products, and 45 times more hospitalization.
A 2022 meta-analysis in the Canadian Journal of Public Health found that between 2007 and 2020, 20 food-borne illness outbreaks caused by unpasteurized dairy products caused 124 hospitalizations and five deaths in the USA and Canada. Pasteurized dairy products, on the other hand, caused 134 hospitalizations, 17 deaths, and seven fetal losses.
While this may sound positive for unpasteurized dairy, consider that only around 4.4% percent of Americans consume raw dairy according to a 2023 article in the Journal of Food Protection, while around 95% of Americans consume all categories of dairy according to the McKinsey Global Institute’s 2022 US Dairy Consumer Survey.
Unpasteurized dairy products undoubtedly carry a higher risk to consumers according to the public health data. But it’s important to consider that even though raw milk is more dangerous than pasteurized milk, both are still extremely safe.
According to that article in the Journal of Food Protection, about 3.9 million Americans drink milk every month; however, very few of them get sick. Yet high profile cases like the recent milk safety test failure at Ballerina Farms in Kamas or the recent newborn death in New Mexico cast a shadow over raw milk that is perhaps disproportionate to the actual health risks it poses.
For Symbria Patterson, the raw milk movement is not about a fad superfood. Raw milk is an avenue for farmers to remain viable while producing on a small scale and building food resilience in their communities. Local producers can’t compete with the industrial dairy apparatus, but they can sell raw milk locally and still have a fighting chance.
Patterson emphasized that Utahns can support local dairy producers by buying raw milk, even if they prefer to minimize health risks by pasteurizing it themselves.
"You can take that raw milk home and cook it," she explained. "You don't have to drink it raw. I believe it's healthy, but it also represents something more than just the product. It's a way bigger statement about food security and about what a raw milk producer means in the food network, not the food chain. That system is fragile.”