Queen Elizabeth II drank raw milk all her life, from her own Windsor herd, and had it sent to her grandsons at Eton. She reached 96. In Scotland, selling that same milk has been a crime since 1983. The legal position: - England: farm gate only, with a health warning, banned from every shop - Scotland: banned - Canada: banned outright, and a farmer called Michael Schmidt was prosecuted over it for 20 years - United States: a federal offence to sell it across a state line On sale in every British supermarket, to anyone, without a warning label: - Raw oysters - Sushi - Steak for tartare - Bagged salad - Vodka - Cigarettes, behind a little door Every human being who lived before about 1890 drank raw milk or none at all. That includes everybody who built the cathedrals, won at Agincourt and wrote the King James Bible. It is the only food in the Western world that a government will serve to a monarch and prosecute a farmer for selling to her subjects. The health warning was never for the Queen. The warning, it turns out, is for people who cannot afford their own herd.