Some North Carolinians are drinking raw milk despite the health and safety risks

Homesteader Ali Tisdall first started looking for a source of raw milk because she had dietary and autoimmune problems. A friend suggested that raw milk, with its active digestive enzymes, could help her diet.

“And so I tried it. It didn’t work for me because I can barely eat anything,” Tisdall said. “But I had this gorgeous container of raw milk, so I brought it home, and my husband and my daughters were like, ‘holy smokes, this tastes so good!’”

To get their hands on the raw milk, Tisdall’s family joined a herd share near Asheville, providing them with partial ownership of a cow and access to a portion of the milk it produces.

“I think my daughters felt way better on it, my husband felt way better on it — far less bloated. And then we discovered that the taste is phenomenal,” Tisdall said. 

However, drinking raw milk comes with a slew of safety risks. 

N.C. Sen. Brent Jackson (R-Bladen, Duplin, Jones, Pender, Sampson) said drinking raw milk is like playing Russian roulette. Now, there are even more concerns about the practice due to a national increase in bird flu cases, which can be transmitted to cattle. 

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services advises against the consumption of raw milk, saying that unpasteurized milk becomes safe to consume after pasteurization kills harmful germs. 

Likewise, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links raw milk consumption to many foodborne illnesses. 

Raw milk was outlawed in North Carolina in 1983. However, there are still two ways to obtain raw milk legally: purchasing milk labeled as “not for human consumption” (referred to as pet milk) or participating in a herd share program. 

Kelsey Barefoot, assistant secretary of The Barefoot Cow, a small farm in Dunn that provides both options, said some farms tend to regulate the herd share milk more than pet milk, since farms are not held responsible for complications in human consumption of pet milk.

Barefoot said  she knows people who believe their cows had bird flu and decided to drink their milk anyway. If an infected cow's milk gets in a worker’s eye, it can lead to pink eye, she said. 

“That's honestly the worst I've heard of it,” Barefoot said. “I'm gonna have to see more. Even with the cows, two weeks with a snotty nose — just treat them with a little extra care and electrolytes, and they're better from what I’ve heard."

Chad Wilkins, owner of Seven Seasons Farm, which offers pet milk and herd shares, said a lot of people are beginning to distrust mass production and are trying to get back to natural products.

“We get testimonials all the time from folks who cannot drink regular pasteurized milk from the store, that they can tolerate raw milk just fine,” Wilkins said. 

Wilkins said he and his wife are with their cows every day, and if one of them is sick, they would know right away. When a cow is sick, they collect the milk separately, and it never comes in contact with any milk they sell. 

“I will say that there hasn't been a single case reported of transmission from bird flu via raw milk consumption,” Wilkins said. 

Tisdall’s family, in the end, decided to stop buying raw milk because of the safety risk that comes with it. If it were just her and her husband, she said the risk would be well worth the reward, but they have 5-year-old twins who are more vulnerable. 

“We decided as a family to hold off,” Tisdall said. “The dream is still to get our own cow. That's a different situation because then we have full control of the cow and testing. We can also wait till the kids are a little bit older before we reintroduce it.” 

Barefoot said that there needs to be freedom, but she also recognizes the need for standards meant to protect consumers. She said people should be able to produce raw milk for human consumption, but customers have to hold their raw milk farmers accountable for testing, cleaning equipment, and ensuring herd health, especially to see if the cows are negative for certain diseases. 

“Handled correctly, it's a superfood,” Barefoot said. “I've been drinking it for half my life, and my children have. I've drunk it through pregnancy. I mean, it's obviously just as big of a risk if you're eating at a buffet, but if it's not handled correctly, then you could definitely have some problems.”

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