During the 2000s, after decades of highly processed food and skyrocketing obesity rates, consumers began to favour natural, organic food, said [associate editor of The Washington Monthly Marc] Novicoff. Raw milk began to grow in popularity among subsets of liberals, alongside a wider farm-to-table movement and the popularity of Whole Foods.

Since 2020, five other Rebublican-leaning states have passed laws or changed regulations to legalise the sale of raw milk in farms or supermarkets, while liberal elites “gave up on it”. The trend is “a vivid example of a larger upheaval in American politics”, said Novicoff, mirroring the rise of Donald Trump and a GOP electorate that is “more rural, more working class, less ideological and generally more distrustful” of experts.

More than the deregulatory appeal, conservatives discovered that raw milk fits “neatly inside a world view that was increasingly sceptical”, said Novicoff. On average, American conservatives “trust everything less”, from experts to politicians to the media, and this loss of trust rapidly accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Raw milk has “taken on a new tone” since then, one dairy farmer told Weiss. A lot of people lost faith in the national health institutions, and more broadly in scientific and health advice.

Drinking raw milk is a “giant middle finger to the experts”, said Novicoff.

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