Is raw milk safe?

No. Food safety experts say it’s dangerous to consume raw milk, or unpasteurized milk, due to the high risk of foodborne illness.

“There’s just too many safety concerns (with raw milk), and it’s not worth the risk,” says Terri Boylston, a human nutrition expert at Iowa State University. “And the benefit that you may think you’re getting nutritionally, studies have shown that there’s no nutritional benefits (to raw milk), but the risk of illness is so much greater.”

This year, at least 165 people, including children, got sick from salmonella after drinking raw milk from a California dairy farm. It was the largest outbreak linked to raw milk in a decade. Twenty people were hospitalized. No deaths were reported.

Consuming raw milk can lead to serious health risks, especially for vulnerable populations, including young children, older adults and people with compromised immune systems, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

Pasteurization removes any disease-causing germs by heating milk to a high enough temperature for a certain length of time. Pasteurization also kills the bird flu virus, which was discovered in some U.S. dairy herds this year.

For more information about pasteurization and raw milk risks, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s food safety website.

Learn more about author Teresa Bjork here.