Unpasteurized raw milk is trending on TikTok and Instagram Reels, thanks to a variety of wellness-branded communities who preach the gospel of the forbidden cream. Drinking raw milk has always been risky, but an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cow herds has potentially made it more dangerous than ever.

Raw milk’s recent popularity in the United States has been linked to its TikTok virality, and now the unpasteurized craze has spilled into Instagram Reels. Online wellness subcommunities populated by gym influencers, homesteaders, “crunchy” moms, and carnivore dieters on TikTok and Instagram Reels encourage their followers to consume raw milk.

According to a Media Matters analysis, the first 581 videos from the “top” tab shown under a search of the “#rawmilk” hashtag have accumulated over 231 million views. That represents just a fraction of all the TikToks about raw milk — over 13,000 posts include #rawmilk. 

Per the CDC, drinking unpasteurized milk is risky because it can contain pathogens like E. coli and salmonella. The pasteurization process kills harmful bacteria, and raw milk consumers are at greater risk for a variety of foodborne illnesses. 

It seems that reliable information about the dangers of drinking raw milk isn’t easily accessible on either Instagram or TikTok. Instead, when a user searches for “raw milk” on TikTok and Instagram Reels, the first populated videos all encourage raw milk consumption.TikTok’s top “raw milk” video comes from user Gubba Homestead, who describes herself as a “conspiracy theorist.” 

TikTok’s other top raw milk videos peddle misinformation about the alleged (and unsupported) benefits of unpasteurized milk, wrongly claiming that pasteurization makes it less nutritious. An interview with actress — and, apparently, raw milk enthusiast — Gwyneth Paltrow also appears in the top results.

Instagram Reels has a similar raw milk lineup, with some of the top videos on both platforms coming from the same creators who cross-post. One top Reels video encourages pregnant women to drink raw milk, which is particularly dangerous because, according to the FDA, “Pregnant women run a serious risk of becoming ill from the bacteria Listeria, which is often found in raw milk and can cause miscarriage, or illness, or death of the newborn baby.”

In addition to the standard dangers of raw milk consumption, a new risk is emerging as researchers have discovered that dairy cow herds infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu are producing milk with the virus present in “concentrations that have taken scientists by surprise.”

Experts are concerned that milk infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus could seriously sicken those consuming it unpasteurized.

The New York Times reported that Dr. Meghan Davis, a veterinarian and environmental epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said that she was “concerned” about the possibility of the virus being transmitted from birds to humans through raw milk “in part because cats on dairy farms have been sickened by the virus.” According to a CDC report, more than half of the domestic cat population on one Texas dairy farm that “had been fed milk from sick cows” got sick and died.

Even absent the new concerns around bird flu, raw milk is an extremely risky food to consume. TikTok and Instagram Reels should prioritize providing factual information to its users about the dangers of raw milk consumption, instead of fueling the craze for engagement.