Raw milk is a drink that remains unregulated at the federal level, with individual states left to decide whether it's deemed safe for human consumption.
As of right now, only eight states in the nation — California among them — permit the unrestricted retail sales of raw milk.
But Mark McAfee believes a lot of this "could change and will change" now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary.
"I think you're going to see major changes within six to eight months," the founder and CEO of the family-operated Raw Farm near Fresno, California, predicted in an interview with Fox News Digital. "But I think, fundamentally, it's going to take a little bit of time for the states to catch up, which could take two to three years."
McAfee discovered some time ago there was a marketplace for raw milk consumption and adopted the standards developed by the American Association of Medical Milk Commissions (AAMMC).
"And those are the standards we use today to produce raw milk for human consumption versus raw milk for pasteurization," McAfee told Fox News Digital. "They're worlds apart."
In operation since 1998, Raw Farm sells its products to about 500 stores throughout California.
Business, McAfee said, is "thriving."
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"We realized that people wanted a food that was easily digested, delicious and deeply nutritious," McAfee said of raw milk.
He's also chair and founder of the Raw Milk Institute, which mentors and trains farmers to improve the safety and quality of unpasteurized milk. The bioactive found in raw milk, McAfee said, is "destroyed in pasteurization."
"Raw milk is the first food of life," McAfee said.
Essentially, it's breast milk, he said.
"When you think about mammalian milk, it's got these blueprints of life in it," McAfee said.
"The bioactives are there for a reason, and they build your immune system. They are anti-inflammatory. They're antivirus. They're very, very good for cancer and tumors. [They're] all these things that Mother Nature would have wanted to go into the gut to begin life to protect the baby."
McAfee also believes that raw milk is "more powerful than any other food," he said. And because it's "delicious, on top of all the benefits, it sells like hotcakes."
In the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, raw milk sales from McAfee's farm were growing at about 10-12% annually, he told Fox News Digital.
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"But now we're growing at 1% per week, which is just outrageous," he said.
Amid the country's ongoing egg shortage, McAfee said, some stores have "taken over the egg area and just put all the raw milk there because they don't want to restock the shelves because they sell out so fast."
"We deliver a truckload of milk intended to last a week – and we get a call in two days saying, 'Come back. We need more. We're sold out.'"
There are some raw truths about raw milk people must be aware of, however.
"If you are getting raw milk from a farmer [who] doesn't care or uses very poor standards and gets manure in the milk and has sick cows that have mastitis, you can get in trouble real quick," McAfee said.
Raw milk can carry potentially harmful bacteria such as E. coli or salmonella.
"We don't want that," McAfee said.
Every batch of unpasteurized milk at Raw Farm is separated by lot number and tested for pathogens before leaving the farm, McAfee said.
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"You have to have very clean conditions," McAfee said. "You have to test. You have to make sure all your cows are healthy – and you've got to be on your game."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for its part, warns on its website that pasteurized milk is the best way to safely enjoy the benefits of milk.
Children younger than 5, adults 65 or older, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of serious illness from the germs, according to the CDC.
"While good practices on farms can reduce contamination, they cannot guarantee safety from harmful germs," the CDC stated. "Pasteurized milk offers the same nutritional benefits without the risks of raw milk consumption. Since the early 1900s, pasteurization has greatly reduced milk-borne illnesses."
Dr. Rafid Fadul, a pulmonary critical care and internal medicine physician in northern Virginia, called drinking raw milk a "risk-benefit analysis."
"[If] I can have the same product, essentially, with slightly less vitamin D and calcium but a lot less risk of getting E. coli or salmonella or listeria or what have you, I'd much prefer to take the pasteurized milk," Fadul told Fox News Digital. "From the medical standpoint, the risks far outweigh the benefits."
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Raw milk is also more expensive than its pasteurized counterpart, going for anywhere from $18 to $20 per gallon, McAfee said.
There's a cost associated with cleanliness and making sure the cows are healthy. "That's why it's more expensive but has a lot of value to it," McAfee said.
Raw milk is also regulated state by state — so it's inaccessible for some.
Although he's a proponent of raw milk, McAfee was quick to point out that he never forces it on others.
"I never, ever tell people, 'Go drink raw milk.' I never say, 'You've got to drink raw milk.' No, I never do that," he told Fox News Digital.
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"I teach the principles of the gut microbiome. I teach the principles of the immune system. And it's their choice. They can do what they want."
The Raw Milk Institute has trained over 1,000 farmers in North America and around the world, McAfee said. It's his hope that further education about raw milk will lead to a more unified standard that can be applied in all 50 states.
"I think that it will be easy to harmonize with an organization that really has their act together," McAfee said, "that's supporting good science, strong standards, great training for the farmers — as well as good testing and investment in further testing technology to make it cheaper, easier and faster for farmers to do that testing."
