Gwyneth Paltrow's Dairy Delusion

Milking conspiracy theories and JAQing off is even more harmful when it comes from celebrities

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Gwyneth Paltrow is at it again.

We haven’t heard her medical proclamations for a while, but given the decimation of expertise at the CDC and the mass canceling of vital scientific grants, 2025 is turning into a shit show for health, so why not add Paltrow descending from her bespoke vaginal steaming throne to dispense wisdom from the Ancients for us poor struggling mortals to read in Vanity Fair?

Look, it must have been on someone’s bingo card!

Goop doesn’t look like it’s doing too well (it used to sell 161 wellness products; I know because I once reviewed them all and is now down to a measly 16), and they had a lot of layoffs in September and December 2024, so perhaps she senses the time is ripe to to curry favor with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement with her “JAQing off” (just asking questions) so she can re-launch a spate of questionable, yet expensive wellness products for summer 2025?

Look, she’s just asking questions about raw milk that no one has apparently answered even though, thousands if not hundreds of thousands of articles have been published that answer her question. Very Trumpian or very MAHA or very Big Wellness…the tactics are all the same.

Regardless of the reason for the Paltrow pseudoscience renaissance, her health musings get a lot of attention, which is what makes them all the more dangerous, especially considering she was misinforming about raw milk and only 56% of US adults know that raw or unpasteurized milk is less safe to drink than pasteurized milk!¹ I was stunned at the number, but this single statistic shows the impact of propaganda, and hence, we are here having this discussion and why a celebrity wielding their megaphone this way is so problematic.

Here is the relevant section from her interview with Vanity Fair:

Before we go any further, here’s a fucking data set for Paltrow:

Consumption of unpasteurized dairy products is associated with 840 times more illnesses and 45 times more hospitalizations than pasteurized dairy products.²

And this beauty:

In the United States, “Unpasteurized milk, consumed by only 3.2% of the population, and cheese, consumed by only 1.6% of the population, caused 96% of illnesses caused by contaminated dairy products.”²

This is because multiple infectious diseases can be transmitted by raw milk, including typhoid, tuberculosis, a variety of microorganisms that can cause diarrhea, yeast, and, of course, bird flu, TO NAME BUT A FEW.^2-10 I mean, “data set”? Girl, I have so many data sets; I have a library!

If one does a Google search for “diseases related to raw milk,” every reference on the first three pages (I stopped looking after that, but really, who even goes to the second page?) is about the risks of raw milk and yet Paltrow is supposedly looking for quality information, and yet can’t find it? The wonders of the Internet are apparently a mystery to someone who built an online store.

No data supports any benefits of unpasteurized milk over pasteurized milk. It’s not nutritionally superior and doesn’t cure or treat asthma or allergies; it’s not better for the gastrointestinal tract, does not enhance the immune system, and does not contain natural antimicrobials that make it safe. There is an EXHAUSTIVE list of references for Ms. Show-Me-the-Data-Set ver at the FDA and the CDC, which is probably worthwhile downloading now before RFK Jr gets his sweaty whale-flesh paws all over it.

People like Paltrow, RFK Jr, and the many MAHA types who pushes for raw milk are amplifying conspiracy theories, not rallying around a battle cry for better science. The data is there. To believe in the superiority and safety of raw milk over pasteurized milk in the face of what we know is like standing in a downpour, claiming, while water is running off your face, that you are just asking questions about why “they” are hiding the rain.

Pseudoscience is a cult; if you admit one belief is incorrect, you must look at the whole house of cards, so nothing outside the belief system can be acknowledged. It’s also hard to get through to people, because pseudoscience doesn't enter the brain via logic, it enters by propaganda on repeat, so it’s difficult to remove with facts. Celebrities are highly effective vectors for propaganda, so when they throw their hat into the ring, it only amplifies the disinformation, creating exponential harm. In addition, for those at the top of the pseudoscience profiteering chain, it is too financially inconvenient to consider the facts, especially as conspiracy theories boost the sales of supplements and pricey rocks for the vagina, and they get page clicks, which is another kind of currency. I also believe some people think being contrarian about raw milk is cool or edgy. I dunno, giving my kid tuberculosis from raw cow's milk or shitting myself for weeks due to diarrhea from raw milk, or killing my cat with bird flu from infected raw milk isn't my idea of edgy.

I also believe that people who profit from pseudoscience can't fathom that there are legions of infectious diseases experts, agricultural experts, microbiologists, chemists, public health nurses, epidemiologists, and so on who have spent their careers studying dairy, nutrition, and the impact of raw milk and trying to bring that knowledge to the public for the betterment of humanity. Pseudoscience profiteers make shit up, so they assume everyone else does.

It’s important to note that Paltrow is not new to the raw milk rodeo. Goop was promoting it back in 2017. It was part of one of the most bizarre and potentially harmful claims on goop.com: goat’s milk can cure parasites, and raw goat’s milk is even better. The “article” was called, “You Probably Have a Parasite-Here’s What to Do About It.” The expert, a naturopath who was apparently also a parasite whisperer, claimed:

Heavy metals and chemicals have a low vibrational frequency that causes our cells to slow down and lose their vitality. On the other hand, radiation, including both fallout and EMF, can cause agitation in the cells, creating weakness in our neurological and immune systems. As long as there are heavy metals, chemicals, and/or radiation in your system, you are more susceptible to parasites and their eggs.

Yeah, I don't know what the fuck that means either, but it seems the wackier the theory, the better for goop.com.

Apparently, parasites cause almost every symptom a human can have, and goat’s milk, preferably raw, is the treatment. This is, and I quote:

…based on knowledge of the Essenes, a community that lived outside of Jerusalem during biblical times. In those days, when a healer learned of a worm infestation, they would put the patient in a tub of milk until the worms would come out to drink—parasites love milk! In fact, many people who think they’re allergic to milk actually have a parasite in their system.

I was astounded that this naturopath had the cure for almost every ailment; she could be a modern-day St. Patrick driving out parasites and curing the world, yet here she was toiling away in Santa Fe and doing interviews for goop.com. Who knows, maybe RFK Jr will replace all the parasite experts at the CDC with a raw goat's milk-loving naturopath?

So why did Louis Pasteur, an incredible scientist and a man dubbed the benefactor of humanity, decide we should boil milk? Well, Pasteur didn’t decide to boil milk, he was a chemist and a remarkable scientist who discovered that microbes were the cause of fermentation and that the microbes that gave us cheese were different from those that gave us wine. He discovered that when wine was heated to the right temperature, it killed the microbes that spoiled wine (which was apparently an issue at the time). The concept of heating to prevent spoilage wasn’t unknown, but it was Pasteur who figured out the science of it all, filing a patent for the process in 1865, and hence it bears his name.

The idea to pasteurize milk for public consumption belongs to Frans von Soxhlet, a German chemist. During the Industrial Revolution, dairy farming changed from small herds to large operations, and crowding, low-quality feed, inadequate refrigeration, and adulterating milk with additives were all big issues; consequently, milk-born sicknesses skyrocketed, especially among infants.⁵ Others had shown that pasteurization of milk was possible, but von Soxhlet created the first equipment to treat bottled milk, which led to widespread adoption of the process.

It took some time for pasteurization of milk to be adopted and perfected on a large scale. Some people even worried about pasteurization affecting the quality of the milk (the more things change, the more they stay the same). However, in the late 1800s, there was a decrease in breastfeeding driven by the Industrial Revolution as more women went to work, so babies were given cow’s milk, which was still largely unpasteurized. While investigating infant deaths in England, it was found that babies less than three months of age who were fed cow’s milk (which was still unpasteurized) were 15 times more likely to die than breastfed babies (how’s that for a data set?).⁵ A similar tragedy was also observed in France, where infant deaths from diarrheal diseases were far more common among babies fed cow’s milk.⁵ Over time, and due to many public health efforts, the process of Pasteurization of milk at scale was improved and adopted, and milk-related infectious diseases gradually decreased.

But isn’t it just nasty Big Dairy farming in the United States that requires pasteurization, isn’t raw milk from Big Raw Dairy and other countries safer? The ongoing outbreaks of illnesses related to raw milk in the U.S. would argue, no. While it’s true that dairying standards may be different in other countries, we have no idea if that translates to a lower risk with their raw milk. What we can say is, regardless of where someone lives, the risks of harmful infectious diseases is still far higher with raw vs. pasteurized milk and other countries absolutely do have serious issues with raw milk. For example, the sale of raw milk is banned in Scotland because of “several fatal food poisonings.”⁹ In France, in 2022 the government reported that over the previous ten years that “34%, 37% and 60% of outbreaks of salmonellosis, listeriosis and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) infections respectively have been linked to the consumption of raw-milk cheeses.” There have been many outbreaks of serious infections related to drinking raw milk in England and several countries in Europe.^9,10

It’s really hard to understand Paltrow and RFK Jr’s and anyone else’s resistance to briefly heating milk to dramatically reduce milk-born disease. Perhaps if I were to rephrase this process and talk about a “sacred, ancient French ritual that uses the heat of the hallowed flame to warm ethereal resistance molecules, coaxing them from a deep slumber to create vitality that balances evil humors” Paltrow and RFK Jr. and the rest would be all in!

After debunking pseudoscience and celebrity crackpot claims for over a decade, it’s still amazing to to see someone negate entirely the fact that the pasteurization of milk happened for a reason, that this just wasn’t some scam dreamed up by Big Dairy, but rather something that started with identifying a problem via the scientific method and then, with over a hundred years of work from a multitude of dedicated experts created a safer milk supply that is supported by a massive body of evidence. Then I realized that people like Paltrow and RFK Jr. and the MAHA folks probably can’t begin to comprehend that legions of scientists and public health officials would work to save lives. I guess the idea of something like pasteurization, the culmination of science and public health without a quest for personal profit, is so foreign that the only explanation must be that it is a conspiracy theory.

It suppose when you make shit up, you assume that everyone else does too.

References

1. Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania. https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/with-bird-flu-in-raw-milk-many-in-u-s-still-do-not-know-risks-of-consuming-it/

2. Costard S., Espejo L., Groenendaal H., Zagmutt F. J. (2017). Outbreak-related disease burden associated with consumption of unpasteurized cow’s milk and cheese, United States, 2009-2014. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 23 957–996. 10.3201/eid2306.151603

3. Kapoor S, Goel AD, Jain V. Milk-borne diseases through the lens of one health. Front Microbiol. 2023 Apr 6;14:1041051. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1041051. PMID: 37089537; PMCID: PMC10117966

4. Koski L, Kisselburgh H, Landsman L, Hulkower R, Howard-Williams M, Salah Z, Kim S, Bruce BB, Bazaco MC, Batz MB, Parker CC, Leonard CL, Datta AR, Williams EN, Stapleton GS, Penn M, Whitham HK, Nichols M. Foodborne illness outbreaks linked to unpasteurised milk and relationship to changes in state laws - United States, 1998-2018. Epidemiol Infect. 2022 Oct 25;150:e183. doi: 10.1017/S0950268822001649. PMID: 36280604.

5. Russell W. Currier, John A. Widness, A Brief History of Milk Hygiene and Its Impact on Infant Mortality from 1875 to 1925 and Implications for Today: A Review. Journal of Food Protection, Volume 81, Issue 10. 2018. Pages 1713-1722. ISSN 0362-028X.

6. Koski L, Kisselburgh H, Landsman L, et al. Foodborne illness outbreaks linked to unpasteurised milk and relationship to changes in state laws – United States, 1998–2018. Epidemiology and Infection. 2022;150:e183. doi:10.1017/S0950268822001649

7. Áine B. Collins, Sian Floyd, Stephen V. Gordon, Simon J. More. Prevalence of Mycobacterium bovis in milk on dairy cattle farms: An international systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Tuberculosis, Volume 132, 2022, 102166, ISSN 1472-9792,

8. Scott C, Cavanaugh JS, Pratt R, Silk BJ, LoBue P, Moonan PK. Human Tuberculosis Caused by Mycobacterium bovis in the United States, 2006-2013. Clin Infect Dis. 2016 Sep 1;63(5):594-601. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciw371. Epub 2016 Jun 13. PMID: 27298329.

9. Kenyon J, Inns T, Aird H, Swift C, Astbury J, Forester E, Decraene V. Campylobacter outbreak associated with raw drinking milk, North West England, 2016. Epidemiol Infect. 2020 Jan 31;148:e13. doi: 10.1017/S0950268820000096

10. Scientific Opinion on the public health risks related to the consumption of raw drinking milk EFSA Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ) First published: 13 January 2015 https://doi.org/10.2903/j.efsa.2015.3940.