TikTok advice should always be taken with a grain of salt. The social media platform has brought us clever tricks like the viral pancake flipping hack, but it can also lead people astray, such as with the apple juice and tequila combo that can get people dangerously inebriated without realizing it. Among the questionable wisdom proliferated through TikTok, one subject generates more controversy than any other: raw milk.

Raw milk TikTok is a thriving subcommunity where wellness influencers promote drinking unpasteurized milk. Pasteurization, a process that heats milk to kill harmful pathogens, has saved millions of lives worldwide. However, some TikTok influencers misrepresent pasteurization as an unnecessary over-processing of food. They oversimplify U.S. laws, claiming the federal government has banned raw milk sales entirely, while many states have made it legal. Despite its portrayal as a natural and healthy alternative, raw milk poses serious health risks, including exposure to tuberculosis, the world's most deadly infectious disease, along with other dangerous pathogens.