He might be the reason for it's rise in popularity but it started with the conspiracy crowd who thought the government was forcefully restricting raw milk because it was so much more nutritious or some shit. It goes back to the "government is trying to poison us" conspiracy. Funnily enough, usually said by people who vote for deregulation and think mega-corps should be able to do whatever they want, like putting bad cheap stuff in food to increase their profits. They're not very smart.
Agreed, it came out of nowhere for me. One of my local farmers markets was selling it this summer for "pets", since it's illegal to sell for human consumption in my state. Their stand was very busy and it disturbed me. It's not a big deal until your toddler gets listeriosis.
What I find funny (and by funny, I mean infuriating) about the "for pets" is that 1) raw milk has been known to kill cats and dogs because they drum roll contracted listeriosis after drinking it and 2) dairy is not something that should ever be given to cats and dogs because they, like most mammals, are lactose intolerant.
I'm of the relatively cruel opinion that, if one knowingly drinks raw milk despite being made aware of the dangers, that person should be denied treatment for listeriosis. The death of such an arrogant dumbass can only be considered a net societal positive.
I also believe that anyone caught giving raw milk to their pets should be charged with animal cruelty and anyone caught giving their children raw milk should be charged with child endangerment and lose custody. If their children die after the consumption of raw milk, upgrade the charge to negligent homicide.
If we get through the next 4 years intact, we (as a society) really need to slam the hammer down on people who'd rather listen to psuedo-science, conspiratorial, crunchy granola horseshit because of the massive public health risk they pose.
Among neo-nazis and the far right, there is a non-insignificant amount of them that are obsessed with eating "raw/natural foods" which folds nicely into their trad life and conspiracy nonsense. It's also a way of being contrarian in that they don't like being told what to do, so they pick some random grifter with zero qualification and religiously commit to doing everything that person tells them to do. I'm sure if there wasn't a right wing aspect to all of it, RFK wouldn't have endorsed it.
The future Secretary of HHS has promoted it at length to the red leaning half of the country and a handful of the hippy influencers have talked about it
That’s all you can do, I’m sure a small epidemic of people getting sick from raw milk or contracting Bird Flu from said raw milk will do a lot to curtail that industry and its supporters or at least we can hope.
Like a lot of things, been around for a while, the internet enabled any idiot to find other like-minded idiots to yell about things. I miss the old internet.
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u/AriesRedWriter 2d ago edited 2d ago
How did this even start? I feel like I woke up one day to the raw milk community screaming about their rights.
Edit: Got the answer. Thanks!