Esquire Tries to Take Down Raw Milk
From esteemed periodical to clickbait dumpster in one quick hit
It was a banal, three-paragraph story but the headline caught my eye.
I wanted to know why! Don’t you want to know why? Okay, here you go:
It can make you sick.
Raw milk—meaning milk that has not been pasteurized—has been consumed for millennia and has legions of modern-day fans. (Pasteurization, by contrast, has been used in the dairy industry for less than 150 years.) Advocates argue that the sterilization process, while effective at killing harmful bacteria, also destroys beneficial enzymes, probiotics, and certain vitamins that support gut health, immunity, and digestion. Many people with lactose intolerance find raw milk easier to digest.
Suburban germophobes and self-proclaimed “science guys” want you to think it’s barnyard swamp water.
How safe raw milk is or isn’t depends on where it comes from and how it’s handled. From industrial-scale dairy operations with poor sanitation, sure, it can indeed be risky. (Is there a single industry or situation in which that’s not the case? Google “Taco Bell salmonella” if you’re unsure.) But small, transparent farms that follow rigorous hygiene practices, test regularly for pathogens, and keep herds healthy routinely produce raw milk that’s remarkably safe and incredibly healthy.
And yet, according to this person ostensibly employed by Esquire (“the author of four books, most recently Idiot America,” which certainly explains a lot), the “empowered stupid” [ES] have arrived in Florida, and wouldn’t you know it—Florida rolled out the welcome mat.
If this substack were a cartoon, I’d be Yosemite Sam with steam shooting out of my ears right now.
The empowered stupid, in case the headline didn’t make it clear, are the pasteurization deniers; the folks so insane they think they should be allowed to decide what they eat and drink (and inject into their bodies) without a government hall pass; the ones nutty enough to ignore the obviously stellar advice spewing out of our captured public health agencies.
Pierce goes on to admit he’s never “gotten the whole raw milk thing,” which apparently gives him the right to sling ignorant accusations at people who do. I mean, nothing says subject matter expertise like proudly not understanding it. Personally, I’ve never “gotten the whole oat milk latte with 2% foam thing,” but you don’t see me calling for it to be slapped with a warning label and sold behind a curtain like a set of lawn darts. Still, that’s the spirit here: treat raw milk as a public health apocalypse and mock anyone who indulges or disagrees.
The non-article’s breathless gotcha moment is this: seven people in Florida were hospitalized after drinking raw milk from a single regional dairy farm. That’s obviously awful and I’m certainly not minimizing it—but to act like that’s definitive proof that all raw milk everywhere should be treated as one giant petri dish would be like criminalizing spinach because one bag tested positive for E. coli. I’m embarrassed for Esquire, frankly.
By their logic, if RFK Jr. wasn’t a worthless piece of garbage, he’d be busy blacklisting sandwiches, cucumbers, and salad (alongside probably literally every other food on the planet).
After informing readers that raw milk can contain dangerous bacteria and that it can only be sold in Florida as “pet food,” Pierce lands the kicker:
“The spirit of the horse-paste cure for COVID-19 will never die,” he writes.
There’s your mic drop: exhuming a patently false, long debunked bit of pandemic propaganda.
When I was cutting my teeth in the publishing world, Esquire was a highbrow staple, respected for its editorial depth, reliability, and cultural commentary. It was one of those magazines you liked to be seen reading on the train or heard referencing at cocktail parties. Fast-forward to today, when health-conscious individuals are referred to as the “freakazoid community” and the rare policymaker who actually thinks outside of the pharmaceutical box is straight out of the “Ancient Aliens wing of public health.”
The problem? It’s patent political posturing. We allow adults to eat oysters, steak tartare, and actual gas station sushi without the state intervening to save us from ourselves—but let’s all make a redneck mockery of something that’s been safely consumed for thousands of years.
Rather than have a grown-up conversation, Esquire goes with the lazy “Ancient Aliens” sneer and a tacked-on ivermectin joke. If the “empowered stupid” really has arrived in Florida, they must have gotten directions from the smug, incurious, and overconfident—because clearly they were already there.
(If this poll isn’t a clean sweep, I’m going to have to start questioning how many of you are bots.)
Who needs raw milk, sunshine, regular exercise, ivermectin (feel free to add to the list), when you can have Ozempic, mRNA vaccines, synthetic milk and chemtrails blocking the sun (feel free to add to the list).
i have made the complete switch to raw milk partially due to the wonderful family owned farm near me that treats it's cows like royalty and of course they are hormone and antibiotic free and grass fed. it doesn't hurt that they are also unwilling to ask exhorbitant prices for their products. since the change my acid reflux is gone, although it's not the only dietary change i've made. however i find myself much less willing to grab a latte when i'm out and about now. my homemade lattes using a stovetop stainless steel italian espresso machine (the kind you screw together) and warmed raw milk are better than any specialty coffee shop. and the milk bottles have cream on the top and are so delicious i must chug from them regularly. btw, jenna, love what you're doing here ~ thanks!