The Raw Milk Question

It was a summer day in 2009 when an unexpected visitor pulled into Dan Brown's farm.

It was a small operation, a few cows, a couple

hundred chickens.

I was outside milking the cow when he pulled up.

It's vivid.

It's right there.

It's like 9-11 type thing.

It would be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.

A guy named John stepped out of the truck.

He had one of those government lanyards around his neck and a big clipboard.

He was a state health inspector.

And he told Dan, listen, you have got to stop selling

your milk.

I was not nice to him.

I'll be the first one to admit it.

I was very nasty, very antagonistic.

I didn't want to hear what he

had to say.

At the time, Dan sold his milk raw, which means no pasteurization.

Now, technically, this was legal where he lived in Blue Hill, Maine.

But Dan's setup was a pretty homegrown operation.

He packaged it in recycled plastic juice bottles, and then he sold it straight to customers who'd pull into his driveway with cash.

So the health inspector told him, until he outfitted his barns with stainless steel tanks and properly labeled his bottles, Dan's raw milk was violating Maine's health code.

This is not how Dan

saw it.

I naively said, I don't recognize your authority.

Get the F off my property.

And then the short version is they spent the next three years explaining their authority to me.

And they did it really well to the point that I was no longer farming anymore.

Dan may be a man of superlatives, but this is no exaggeration.

Over the next three years, the dairy wars came to Blue Hill.

The state sued Dan for not following the regulations.

Dan fought back.

Who is Farmer Brown? We are Farmer Brown!

He became kind of a weird celebrity.

People all across the country took up his cause.

They're not saying I can't do anything.

They're saying you can't come to my house and buy my milk.

Reporters, even the New York Times showed up at his front door.

Farmer Brown is this man, Dan Brown, of Gravelwood Farms in Blue Hill.

I'm a farmer.

It's all I ever wanted to be.

It's all I've ever done.

Thank you very much.

Dan's day in court eventually arrived.

In 2014, the Maine Supreme Court officially ruled that he was no longer allowed to sell dairy products.

And with that, the milk wars in Maine quieted down.

There was nothing good about the lawsuit.

It ended a chapter of my life.

I want to say that unequivocally.

I was very happy doing what I was doing, and I loved it.

It was fabulous.

But it was really just a house of cards.

But recently, raw milk has been back in the zeitgeist.

RFK Jr. is taking shots of it at the White House.

You want to do a shot

of raw milk? Sure.

Can you toss this with me? All right.

Here you go, boys.

Enjoy.

Cheers.

Secretary

Kennedy, cheers.

Winif Paltrow is talking about it on

podcasts.

How do you drink your coffee? With raw heavy cream.

What? I know.

And, of course, Joe Rogan has weighed in.

People who live on farms have been drinking raw milk since the beginning of time.

It's normal and healthy.

It tastes better.

All these raw milk chugging celebrities make for a pretty obvious question.

What's the appeal? Is raw milk some kind of superfood?

Did you tell me you're like, I can taste a difference?

Yes, I can.

Or is it something to avoid at all costs?

You wouldn't give your kids raw chicken.

You wouldn't give your kids raw beef.

The milk is the same.

I'm Nate Hedgie.

This is Outside In.

And producer Marina Henke has the story after a break.