2d ago

Led by RFK Jr., Conservatives Embrace Raw Milk. Regulators Say It’s Dangerous.

kffhealthnews.org Led by RFK Jr., Conservatives Embrace Raw Milk. Regulators Say It’s Dangerous. - KFF Health News

Controversy over raw milk reflects the push-pull the Trump administration faces in rolling back regulations and offering consumers more choices. For now, the CDC still recommends against consuming raw milk and the FDA bans its interstate sale.

Public Health @mander.xyz

Cat @ponder.cat

2d ago

Led by RFK Jr., Conservatives Embrace Raw Milk. Regulators Say It’s Dangerous.

kffhealthnews.org /news/article/raw-milk-rfk-conservatives-regulators-mark-mcafee/

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Can anyone explain to me why conservatives love raw milk so much? Is it like more profitable or something? Why the hell does this keep coming up?
- Science-denying anti-intellectualism mixed with "you can't tell me what to do!"
  
  Exactly. And we should exploit that by telling them it's not safe to consume Arsenic or lick a lead bar multiple times a day, every day. They'll be like, "oh yeah! watch me lib tard!". And the population will shrink. :)
  
  How about a glass of Hemlock juice? All those intellectuals and "city doctors" will try to get you away from that stuff, so it must be good!
  
  Hey, it turns out that lead acetate is a natural, calorie-free, sweetener! In fact, the ancient Romans used it. The FDA doesn't want you to use this because they're in bed with Big Sugar and the Splenda people.
- They're like toddlers. You tell them they shouldn't and they will do everything in their power to do it anyways. They don't believe in science so everything is a "radical far left jewish space laser" conspiracy to take away their freedumbs.
- It's the hip new way to feel rebellious and tell the government "you can't tell me what to do" while the government fucks them over and steals their future for a quick pay day.
  It's a carefully orchestrated distraction.
- As far as I can tell: It's partially the same shit as the anti vaccine mixed with being angry about government regulations.
  A lot of the anecdotes I've heard about raw.milk being safe, are from small farms with few dairy cows.
  
  My upper middle class family in Houston drinks it all the time. Yes they're all die hard conservatives.
- In addition to what everyone else has said, I think it's also from ideas of "return to tradition" and a veneration of a kind of rural lifestyle that largely doesn't exist anymore. My extended family are farmers and even they got out of livestock when I was really young because there's not enough profit except at obscene scale. But milk fresh from the cow was a thing I grew up hearing about from cousins, it was apparently viewed as safe enough for the older kids as long as you cleaned the teat and it was really really fresh. But I wouldn't be surprised if the conditions in factory farms added another layer of risk that just wasn't there in the 90s on the last remaining family farms.
  Edit: also some of them are operating under the mistaken idea that raw milk is healthier or more nutritious (it's not), or that or tastes better (actually possible, I actually heard it tasted slightly better as a kid).
  
  Return to tradition is not the whole story.
  For conservatives, power is wielded or power is seceded. In a government that you don't trust, that's forcing you to drink pasteurized milk, the idea of raw milk is kind of that "the government is hiding something from us" and not "the government is protecting us". While there is some overlap between "the government can't be trusted with milk" with "the government can be trusted with immigrants", for the most part they aren't necessarily the same people but they are cut from the same cloth.
  They don't want the government to control them. The government controls other people.
  It's why people like RFK are so dangerous because he now has the power to remove many of the safety nets we have grown accustomed to. Instead of Trump's first term where COVID was downplayed, we won't even test for avian flu. We won't even research cures.
  Not only that, given the sheer kowtowing media outlets are doing we likely will have challenges reading outbreaks in other countries.
  This is not an exaggeration. We are in fascism today.
  
  as long as you cleaned the teat and it was really really fresh. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the conditions in factory farms added another layer of risk that just wasn’t there in the 90s on the last remaining family farms.
  I think you're hit the nail on the head. There's a concept in engineering (Hyrum's Law) that where systems interface with each other (e.g. software), the design of one will ultimately rely on every aspect of the other, intentional or otherwise. In the case of industrially produced milk, pasteurization permits a relatively high degree of filth on the supply side when compared to practices in the EU or UK (they ship more raw product). So, it stands to reason that this isn't just likely but exactly what's going on since everyone can get away with it.
  
  When consuming raw milk directly from your own cow its a lot safer than anything related to shipping, holding and selling it. Raw milk always contains bacteria and other microbes. These take time to grow so drinking it immediately doesn't give them time to grow. But any amount of time between that allows them to go crazy. So it can be safe to drink raw milk in the old method where it came directly from your own cow with no time between. Its anything with scale that causes all the issues.
- My mother's been on the "natural health" train for a while now and claims that pasteurizing milk removes most of the nutrients (verifiably false). No amount of my protesting or pointing her towards sources for the contrary have convinced her to stop consuming that garbage.
- It's anti vax and anti regulation so basically a maga wet dream. Squeeze cow, milk, ta da. In reality to the other 3/4 of humanity it's a microbial breeding ground for unfiltered mutations and diseases because you're just trusting the entire food chain leading up to the cow has been healthy and unmutated.
  Pasteurized milk goes through a process where you filter out unwanted microbes or unsafe mutations before bottling the milk. It's like boiling water before drinking vs drinking from a puddle.
  
  Pasteurized milk goes through a process where you filter out unwanted microbes or unsafe mutations before bottling the milk
  Not filtering. You heat the milk. And it'll do nothing to "mutations." It suppresses bacteria and at least some viruses. If you double-pasteurize, it'll also suppress bacterial spores.
- Regression. World is scary. Milk brought safety during infancy and the limbic system remembers.
  
  Crying and shitting themselves not good enough?
- If no one else has mentioned it, there are also those idiotic fascists (but I repeat myself) that were/are big on guzzling milk to show how "superior" they are because lactose intolerance is fairly common, but even more common among non-whites.
  Extra Nazi points if it's raw milk, maybe?
  
  Damn Empire milk-drinkers. A True Nord is raised on mead straight from their momma's teat.
- The only half reasonable argument I've seen is that requiring pasteurisation (supposedly) makes it difficult for small dairy farms that want to sell direct to consumer, and forces them to sell to large milk companies for a far lower price. I have no idea how valid that argument is.
  
  I don't think so. I remember that we bought milk directly from the farm as a kid (Germany, so experiences may vary), but it always got collected in a big container that automatically pasteurized it during storage. Every farm had those, so they couldn't have been that expensive.
- I think it's one of the easiest ways they can "stick it to the man".
- Brawndo hasn’t been invented yet.
- The conscription of the granola moms.
  I think it's just that it's a regulation, and regulation bad. I don't want the gunment telling me I can't drink raw milk. No, fools, the government doesn't want people selling raw milk.
  A lot of the US understands capitalism as purchasing choices at the store. Therefore if I can buy more stuff at the store I'm more free. Regulation bad.
  This is handy for actual capitalist that want to abuse their workers and their customers by selling poison or watered down milk with plaster of Paris for color and liquified calf brains for texture miles from cows that are fed sawdust and literally dying. 👈 Why we regular milk now because this is all literally what was occuring.

111 comments