In recent weeks Ballerina Farmaka Hannah Neeleman and the ‘queen of tradwives’, has come under fire against TikTok for selling raw milkstraight from her mountain valley farm in Utah.
Hannah, who has 10.5 million followers on the social media platform, is one of many who have made it fashionable to drink unpasteurised milk.
For those unfamiliar, unpasteurized or raw milk is milk that has not been heat treated to kill pathogens and extend its shelf life.
But the KPCW newspaper reported that the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food found two cases of very high levels of coliform, the family of bacteria that includes E. coli, in packaged raw milk.
Hannah and her husband, Daniel, stopped selling raw dairy products from their Ballerina farm shop in August 2025 and two weeks ago said they had never sold unsafe dairy, in a TikTok that reached 2.5 million views.
However, they backtracked on an earlier statement where they claimed raw milk was ‘100% safe’, adding: “Nobody produces 100% safe all the time. That’s impossible.’
The bloom of raw milk
But Ballerina Farm isn’t solely responsible for the UK’s obsession with raw milk. The movement then began to pick up in the mid-2010s with sales of raw milk rising from 610,000 liters in 2014 to three million liters in 2018, according to Farmers’ Weekly.
This is despite the fact that it is illegal to sell unpasteurized dairy milk supermarkets OR high street shops in england, Wales AND Northern Irelandwhich has been happening since 1985. Not to mention, it is illegal scotch.
But that’s not stopping influencers talking about what they believe are the ‘benefits’ of drinking raw milk, with more than 40,000 posts about it on TikTok alone.
Influencers compare it to breast milk and claim it aids digestion, immunity, and is anti-inflammatory, and people seem to be listening.
Google searches for raw milk have grown steadily since 2022, with a search spike in 2025, and searches for “raw milk near me” have increased by 40% in the UK over the same time period.
Raw milk is a health hazard
The process of pasteurizing milk is ‘one of the simplest and most important food safety measures we have’ according to food safety expert Sylvia Anderson.
“Milk is usually pasteurized by heating it to around 72°C for at least 15 seconds and then rapidly cooling it, which destroys harmful bacteria such as E. coli, Salmonella, Listeria and Campylobacter,” Sylvia tells Metro.
“These pathogens can be naturally present in raw milk and can cause serious illness, especially in young children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems.
“Raw milk bypasses this safety step, which is why it carries a greater risk.”
If you ingest E. coli, you may experience relatively brief diarrhea, although some strains can cause severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea and vomiting, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Healthy adults usually recover within a week, but in more serious cases you can develop a life-threatening form of kidney failure.
Salmonella will show similar symptoms, along with fever, nausea, chills and headache, as well as listeria, while Campylobacter is a bacteria also responsible for diarrhea.
After a gradual increase since 2022, E. coli infections increased from 2,018 in 2023 to 2,544 in 2024. Englandaccording to the UK Health Safety Agency.
A large outbreak in 2024 saw 293 people infected by E. coli, 126 people requiring hospital care and two deaths.
“From a food safety perspective, pasteurized milk is the safest option,” says Sylvia. Nutritionally, raw and pasteurized milk are very similar. Some proponents of raw milk believe it offers additional health benefits, often claiming that pasteurization destroys beneficial nutrients or enzymes.
“However, scientific evidence shows that pasteurized milk retains its primary nutritional value, including protein, calcium and essential vitamins. Any nutritional differences between raw and pasteurized milk are very small and do not outweigh potential food safety risks.’
Sylvia adds that raw milk cannot be sold in UK supermarkets for this reason and must be sold directly from farmers to consumers.
In the UK, raw milk cannot be sold in supermarkets because of these health risks. Its sale is strictly limited and can only be purchased directly from registered manufacturers or through limited distribution channels, with clear health warnings for consumers.
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