Pour me a glass of milk!

I get it.

It has minerals, vitamins, protein.

There's actually so many options for milk in the aisles that the dairy industry has begun to complain that nut milk isn't real milk.

But right now, this is one of the most healing foods on the planet, and our government says it's illegal.

There's one milk.

I think you will notice immediately how valuable this food is for humans.

That's all the rage.

It's normal and healthy.

It's way easier for you to digest.

Raw milk.

So what is raw milk?

It's milk that hasn't been pasteurized, meaning it hasn't gone through the heating process that kills harmful bacteria and pathogens.

It's straight from the cow, unprocessed, and unfiltered.

Advocates say it's more natural and therefore more nutritious than pasteurized milk.

But is it really better for you?

To cover the entire truth behind raw milk, we need to look at how humans started consuming milk in the first place.

Milk has been part of the human diet for thousands of years, ever since people domesticated cows and other livestock.

Back then, milk was consumed fresh, straight from the farm.

It was an important source of nutrition for rural communities.

But as cities grew during the industrial era, milk production changed, and not in a good way.

Actually, in the 1800s, milk turned into a full-on public health threat.

It was being shipped over longer distances and produced in increasingly dirtier urban environments.

These changes led to outbreaks of deadly diseases like bovine tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and diphtheria.

These illnesses weren't mild either.

They were often fatal, especially for children and infants.

Producers tried to preserve milk by adding formaldehyde to it.

Formaldehyde, the same chemical we use to embalm corpses.

Not surprisingly, it didn't solve the problem as it didn't kill enough bacteria and kids kept getting sick.

Fortunately, a solution came in the form of pasteurization.

A process invented in 1864 by Louis Pasteur, originally creating it to sanitize wine.

In the pasteurizer, the milk is heated to exactly 161 degrees for just 15 seconds, and then is quickly cooled to about 35 degrees.

At first, doctors worried that heating milk would destroy its nutrients, but when unpasteurized milk kept killing babies, the medical community fully came around.

Actually, in New York City, pasteurization laws cut the infant mortality rate dramatically, from 240 deaths per 1,000 births in 1891 to just 71 deaths per 1,000 in 1921.

By the 1920s, pasteurized milk was the norm.

The federal government established a gold standard for how milk should be pasteurized, stored, shipped, and distributed.

This was called the Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance.

That's why on grocery store shelves and on the back of milk cartons, you see it says Grade A on it.

But this wasn't a mandatory policy.

Local and state governments could choose not to adopt it.

Most states, however, did go on to pass laws about milk pasteurization, even fully banning the sale of unpasteurized milk.

The first and only federal pasteurization law was passed in 1987, and it banned all interstate sales of unpasteurized milk.

That means a farm can't produce raw milk in one state and then ship it to another for it to be sold.

But remember, all of these pasteurization laws that we're talking about are about selling it, not drinking it.

It's always been legal to consume raw milk anywhere in the country.

With the lack of access, raw milk was pushed to the fringe for most of the 20th century, but it has made a huge comeback in recent years.

The organic and natural food movements of the 2000s helped make it popular, and today, raw milk sales are absolutely soaring.

In 2019, according to the FDA, 4.4% of Americans said they'd consumed raw milk in the last year.

That number is almost certainly bigger today since the raw milk movement has really picked up steam within the last two years.

Weekly sales of raw milk increased by 21% just last year, and one recent survey found that about one quarter of American adults either don't think pasteurization kills bacteria and viruses or aren't sure if it does.

There's also been a trend of states relaxing their raw milk restrictions.

In 1999, 26 states had full bans on the sale of raw milk.

Today, only 11 do.

Some states allow it to be sold directly to consumers by the farms.

Others that ban the sale of raw milk still even allow what's known as herd shares.

That means even if raw milk can't be sold commercially, state residents can buy shared ownership in a cow or a herd of cows and then get a portion of whatever raw milk is produced that way.

Another weird tactic, I find kind of shady, that raw milk producers use to bypass state laws is to sell raw milk labeled as pet food.

But why is everyone going through all that trouble just to access raw milk?

Well, advocates believe it's healthier, claiming it has more probiotics, enzymes, and nutrients than pasteurized milk.

Some even say it can cure lactose intolerance, asthma, and chronic diseases like osteoporosis.

Others blame pasteurized milk for modern health problems like obesity and argue raw milk is more natural and better for digestion.

Health claims like this are actually spread all over the internet, so I had to do some serious research for this video, a lot of which was done with Ground News, an app and website that combines the world's news in one place, allowing me to compare coverage and verify sources of information.

According to an article I found on Ground News, the California Department of Public Health actually detected bird flu inside a popular brand of raw milk.

I'm going to go into more detail on that later, but I'm grateful for Ground News in providing a lot more insight into this story than meets the eye.

For example, they show me that hundreds of outlets have covered this story, the bias distribution of the coverage, so I know if the story is slanting one direction politically, and the factuality rating that tells me how trustworthy these sources really are.

I love comparing the coverage to see which outlets are sharing each other's reporting.

All of that helps me form the most accurate opinion on what's actually going on in the news.

Their blind spot feature is also pretty great, in that it could show me stories that I may have missed and fill in the critical gaps of my understanding of a story.

This bird flu story actually had way more coverage from the left than the right, making it a potential blind spot candidate for people who follow those outlets.

Echo chambers are a big no-no.

So go to ground.news.com or scan the QR code to subscribe.

My link saves you 50% on their top-tier Vantage plan, the same one I use, making it less than $5 a month.

Makes for a great gift, too.

Where is all this positive talk about raw milk actually coming from?

Well, it started with research out of Switzerland, which showed that there may be a connection to children raised on a farm drinking raw milk, and the development of healthier immune systems.

This farm effect is actually incredibly interesting, as it was backed up by future studies conducted all across Europe and the US.

These children that were raised on farms were truly found to have lower rates of allergies and asthma.

It's speculated that their immune systems develop differently with more regulatory T cells that help prevent allergic responses.

Raw milk may have also played a role because they have some nonspecific bioactive molecules that may subtly play a role in immune development.

Also, farm children develop gut microbiomes, that's the bacteria in your gut, that produce more butyrate.

It's a metabolite that's been linked to reduced asthma risk.

It's important to note these benefits were only seen with very early exposure, either in utero or during infancy.

So the protective effect was diminished with later life introduction.

So that's why the hype for adults doesn't make a lot of sense.

Before we give raw milk a Nobel Prize, though, we need to consider a few points.

A, it's unclear to what extent raw milk alone contributes to allergy protection, versus the combined effect of farm living, you know, exposure to animals, cow sheds, and fermented animal feed.

There's something to be said about the hygiene hypothesis.

B, most of these studies are based on small family-run farms in Europe.

So it's unknown whether raw milk from industrial farms, or cows in different environments, will offer the same benefits.

And finally, C, there are legitimate dangers to consuming raw milk, so let's touch on those.

Raw milk is significantly more dangerous to consume than pasteurized milk.

It's 840 times more likely to cause significant illness.

Between 1998 and 2018, raw milk caused over 2,600 illnesses, 228 hospitalizations, and three deaths.

Recent outbreaks have involved E. coli, salmonella, listeria, and even more scary, a batch of whole raw milk being voluntarily recalled tonight in California, after health officials detected bird flu in a sample sold in stores.

In states where raw milk isn't banned, there are protocols to prevent tainted milk from being bottled and sold.

But most experts say these safeguards aren't completely reliable, as even a small amount of dirt on a cow's udders, on the hands of the person milking the cow, can pose a risk.

And testing for bacteria isn't a sure bet either, because they might be present at levels too low to detect.

In fact, one popular supplier called Raw Milk Farm, which frequently boasts of struggling to keep raw milk on shelves because of so much demand, has had numerous outbreaks tied to its raw milk and cheese products.

This is why pasteurization was created, and it certainly doesn't destroy all the good microbes in milk, or significantly reduce its nutritional value.

Pasteurized milk has just as much calcium and keeps stable vitamins like B6 and B12 in raw milk.

So why is this movement suddenly gaining traction?

It's probably not just about health.

The modern raw milk movement is tied to a broader trend of distrusting experts and regulatory agencies like the FDA.

Advocates see raw milk as a symbol of freedom and natural living.

But drinking raw milk to make a statement seems pretty reckless.

Take what happened in West Virginia in 2016.

When the state lifted its raw milk ban, politicians celebrated with glasses of raw milk, and many of them got sick almost immediately.

One representative blamed it on a stomach bug, but come on, we know better.

So, all in all, is raw milk worth the risk?

Right now, I think not.

Remember, everything has a trade-off in healthcare.

And trading the well-proven risk of foodborne illness for the unproven health benefits just doesn't seem worth it.

And if we're being honest, pasteurization is a public health triumph that has saved countless lives and should be celebrated.

But what I will say is we definitely need more research on the benefits of raw milk, and even more specifically, on other ways we can disinfect milk that might keep more bioactive compounds around.

Let's not forget the lessons of history and make public health decisions based on good science, not emotions.

The first doctor to recommend washing hands was murdered.

Click here to check that out.

Really interesting story, animated too.

As always, stay happy and healthy.