Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

The hottest drink among conservative influencers? Raw milk.

Turning Point USA, the youth conservative messaging organization, is promoting consumption of raw milk with T-shirts and Instagram posts.

Bottles of raw milk are displayed for sale at a store in California.
Bottles of raw milk are displayed for sale at a store in California.Read moreJoNel Aleccia / AP

Conservative influencers are promoting the consumption of raw unpasteurized milk through a mix of T-shirts, Instagram posts, and videos. Health professionals say the milk’s newfound popularity is a cause for concern, amid a recent bird flu outbreak infecting America’s dairy cows.

But the push prevails — along with the controversy.

Despite warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about the dangers of raw milk, Turning Point, the right-winged messaging group aimed at young people, tells its base that the beverage provides good bacteria and nutrients. The group unveiled a $35 cropped tee that says “got raw milk? with an illustration of a cow above.

Alex Clark, a conservative influencer who hosts Turning Point’s pop culture YouTube series and a podcast, has also repeatedly promoted raw milk in her content.

Unpasteurized milk is a historically spicy subject in Pennsylvania and beyond. There’s been longtime debates over its regulation and benefits. It’s at the center of a concerted push in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware — among other areas of the United States — to loosen regulations despite health concerns.

» READ MORE: Got raw milk? Despite health concerns, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and even New Jersey look to loosen regulations.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has long said that raw milk can have “dangerous germs” that “can pose serious health risks.” That concern among health agencies is only growing with the presence of the H5N1 bird flu outbreak.

But, what sets the debate about pasteurization apart now is a “cool factor.”

Content creators on TikTok tout the raw drinks. Gwyneth Paltrow drinks it. It can be found in specialty shops like Erewhon — which holds its own set of “coolness” thanks to influencer hauls and celebrity partnerships.

“Influencers have really driven us in the last four years to new levels we never imagined,” Mark McAfee — who owns Raw Farm, the largest supplier of unpasteurized milk in California — told the Wall Street Journal earlier this month.

Tieghan Gerard, the creator of the popular food blog Half Baked Harvest, used raw milk in her matcha latte recipe. Rural Utah influencer and pageant queen Hannah Neeleman — best known as Ballerina Farm on social media — is launching her own dairy line featuring raw milk for local buyers.

GetRawMilk.com, a site that tracks unpasteurized dairy’s availability, shows consumers nationwide are looking to purchase the milk. The site’s creator told the Wall Street Journal that it’s been hitting “all-time highs” with nearly 97,000 visitors last month.

Media Matters, a left-leaning watchdog journalism outlet, reported last month that it found more than 13,000 TikTok posts that used the hashtag #rawmilk, with the top 581 videos amassing over 231 million views.

The spike in popularity comes amid a waning trust in the U.S. government and American media, the Wall Street Journal also reported. In turn, influencers are filling the void — regardless of their authority to speak on a product’s safety.

There was a similar push among conservative influencers who spread anti-birth control messages on platforms like TikTok and Instagram last year. Health experts cautioned that the content creators’ alarmist statements about hormonal birth control weren’t entirely fair or accurate.

The latest push for raw dairy comes as state governments across the country are examining dairy legislation.

Until recently, Louisiana was one of a small handful of states that outright banned raw milk sales. A new law that allows for the sale — but not intended for human consumption — is awaiting the governor’s signature. A common loophole among raw dairy enthusiasts is purchasing the raw milk, which is labeled for pet use, and consuming it themselves.

Turning Point’s other new merch items include stickers that say things like “trust farms, not pharma” and “strawberry jams but my glock don’t” and a hat promoting “holistic” health.