One in six Australians drink raw milk you cannot legally buy, and it is most popular in homes with children

One in six Australian adults is drinking milk that no shop in the country is allowed to sell them as food.

A national survey commissioned by the Food Safety Information Council found that 16% of adults say they consume unpasteurised, or raw, cows’ milk. The figure is higher among men (20%), people in capital cities (18%), households earning more than $90,000 a year (20%) and adults aged 25 to 34 (29%). The number that worries food safety experts most: in households with children, it is 25%, one in four.

The results were released for Australian Food Safety Week, which runs from 7 to 14 November under the theme “Raw food, know the risk”.

If it is illegal, how are people getting it?

Selling raw cows’ milk for people to drink is banned across Australia. It is not illegal to drink it, and buyers have found ways around the ban. Of those who drink it, 73% said they buy directly from a farm, 27% buy online and 15% have their own cow or are part of a “cow share” program, where people buy a stake in an animal rather than its milk.

Some raw milk is sold as “bath milk” or “pet milk”. Victoria now requires bath milk to contain a bitter agent to stop people drinking it, a rule brought in after a three-year-old child died in 2014 after drinking raw milk sold for cosmetic use.

Health experts have also pointed to social media, where raw milk is promoted as more natural or nutritious. The Australian Medical Association in Queensland has said there is no way to guarantee raw milk is safe.

What are the risks?

Raw milk can carry Salmonella, Listeria, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus and E. coli, the council said, and tuberculosis, all capable of causing serious and sometimes fatal illness. Pasteurisation, which heats milk to 72°C for at least 15 seconds, kills those bacteria. Council chief executive Lydia Buchtmann called it “a major public health achievement” and said: “We urge people not to consume raw milk.”

Children are the main concern. They can fall ill from drinking it themselves or through cross-contamination in a kitchen where raw milk is handled. Some strains of E. coli can cause kidney failure in young children. Pregnant women, older people and anyone with weakened immunity are also at higher risk, particularly from Listeria.

How big is the food poisoning problem overall?

The council estimates Australians suffer about 4.67 million cases of food poisoning a year, with tens of thousands of hospital admissions and an economic cost of about $3 billion. Raw milk is one part of that, but one the council says is entirely avoidable.

What does the survey actually show?

It measures what people say they do, not how often, how much, or whether anyone fell ill. It was an online poll of 1,229 adults run by Omnipoll from 22 to 28 October, with quotas by state, city, region, sex and age, and weighted to Census data. It shows the habit is widespread and concentrated among younger adults and families. It does not show how many cases of illness raw milk caused this year.

What should you do?

Food safety authorities say to drink only pasteurised milk, and to keep raw milk away from children. Anyone who becomes unwell after drinking raw milk should talk to their doctor.