Raw milk is in the news again. In Florida, a mother lost her unborn child to an infection traced back to raw milk labeled “for pet food only.” Her toddler became sick first, and she later contracted the illness herself. This is a tragedy, and I don’t want to minimize the heartbreak of her loss. We should take pause, grieve for that family, and pray for them. But it should not be weaponized into yet another push to take away the small, fragile access this so-called “free country” gives us to raw milk.

We should also be asking a bigger question: Is pasteurization truly about protecting our health—or is it also about consolidating control of the food system? In the last 20 years, tens of thousands of small dairy farms have gone out of business. Independent farmers are squeezed while large, centralized dairies thrive. Safety is the headline, but power and profit are always part of the story.

Let me state my bias upfront: I am a raw milk mother. My children wake up eager to help milk the cows. They love frothy hot chocolate made by stirring organic cacao into a glass while the warm milk streams directly from the udder, filling the cup with bubbles no espresso machine could match. They beg me for “babyccinos”—steamed raw milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top. We are a dairy cow family. We make the time and effort to milk cows every day because we believe it is one of the best foundations for our children’s health.