What's the Beef with Raw Dairy?

[KD]

You might be reading in to it too much, but basically there is many double standards going on in regard to what is "natural" and people are willing to change where the line is when it suits their needs. Even heated grains like rice have been suggested as being less worse than raw dairy at times in these kinds of 'paleo' arguments, so how does that remotely make sense in regards to the actual minimal tech involved and other factors re how natural it is to consume? Particulary as said in the above posts about what constitutes food meant to be eaten?  I think that part is pretty transparent. Other than that, the problem is people want to point to some group of people (at some far off age or those nearer to today) to show that something is not necessary. This is never an accurate complete argument. People use it within 'paleo' centered debates as well to suggest that people don't X [need to eat lots of fat, various doses of vitamins from food, salt. whatever one can think of] or the possible need to exclude even natural things because some single other group did not. Its just not a complete closed argument because people do indeed have differnt needs based on a million differnt factors in themselves and in environment.

The idea that dairy or grain did not exist before a certain period really says nothing intrinsically about the healthfulness of these foods no matter what the corresponding correlation also shows. Only that + recorded results does, and these really are totally inconclusive to be suggested as absolute arguments. No matter what is absolutely best, just because someone excludes everything non-plaeo doesn't mean they have  a better program than someone including these non-paleo things. Most people would see that as obvious considering the possible range one can create there. At the same time, the typical WAP arugments and such are also totally bogus. Just because people did *something* WHENEVER doesn't mean its ok either.

But there is a big but there. The thing is, the only double standard which is real and fair is that people indeed can point out that when others attribute specific problems to dairy, that they better have correlated in the people that consumed a lot of it all their life. OR they would have to suggest that dairy is somehow more a negative for contemporary people in a similar way likewise with those imbalances with "natural"  things like modern and domestic fruit and protein and such. Or maybe they are arguing that modern avalaible dairy is significantly worse or contaminated in some way, which I actually believe might be a legitimate argument. Either way, adoping a diet that is found in nature at any time, as the inevitable answer to whether to eat something or not, is not the way to go.

[zeno]

Or maybe they are arguing that modern avalaible dairy is significantly worse or contaminated in some way, which I actually believe might be a legitimate argument.

On that thought:

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to release new data showing that various milk and water supply samples from across the US are testing increasingly high for radioactive elements such as Iodine-131, Cesium-134, and Cesium-137, all of which are being emitted from the ongoing Fukushima Daiichia nuclear fallout.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032048_radiation_milk.html#ixzz1kngFpnMR

However, milk was the subject of the study and suggests that only milk was affected which is most definitely not the case.

[zeno]

Milk has indeed been on the planet since before humans and primates and is literally one of the ONLY foods designed to be food other than fruit.

This argument seems foolish. Whether or not we humans rationalize whether a food was designed for consumption means absolutely nothing to the body. The body will break down and utilize what it can and all other materials will either clog it up or just be flushed out. However, this does not trump the argument that there are certain foods which are more "powerful" (healthy, nutritious, life-giving, and so on) than others. My concern is whether or not I should continue to consume milk if there will be long-term detrimental side effects.

I've never felt as good as I did when I was on the milk diet. I'm not sure if this was because of the huge amount of carbohydrates (in the form of lactose) or if milk truly is a powerful food. That so many other people avoid raw dairy and criticize the consumption of dairy confuses me and led me to questioning the power of this food. Moreover, I've never been able to digest and handle red meat as well as I have since I pumped my body full of milk.

I'm of the opinion that milk may not be ideal when consumed with other foods, that is: milk is most powerful when consumed by itself.

Either way, adoping a diet that is found in nature at any time, as the inevitable answer to whether to eat something or not, is not the way to go.

I could see how this could be foolish and now see the point of your comments in light of this last remark. I suppose I brought up this topic to understand if there are any other concerns I should have for consuming dairy. Also, I admit that I'm impatient in that rather than testing dairy in my diet for long-term effects I'm searching for the answer through the advice and experience of others, but it seems that search is ultimately a foolish one.

[sabertooth]

 I believe each of us has to find our own answers in regards to the Dairy dichotomy.

My personal reactions to dairy are so impossible to fully understand, that to claim that I know how it works in other people seems foolish.

I remember drinking pasteurized milk as a child. I went through different stages. When I was real young I never liked drinking milk, but would have it daily with my morning bowl of cereal. I never liked the taste of plain milk, although I would drink chocolate milk on occasion. Then I hit a growth spurt around 16 years old. I grew 9 inches in one year. During that time I craved milk heavily and would drink a good amount. Now that I remember I also began to crave and drink raw eggs around that time. I never liked cooked eggs,but I would drink a couple a day through that time period.

(coincidentally this was during the time when they were adding hormones to the dairy cows. Me and many of the people I know growing up had these weird growth spurts that didn't correlate with ancestral norms)

Anyway I eventually lost my apatite for it and then only used it for cereal. By the time I became ill in my early twenty's I lost my ability to handle most foods in general including milk. I foolishly tried to eat yogurt , being brainwashed by the probiotic propaganda into thinking that it was somehow easier to digest. Looking back now, I believe that I did develop an intolerance to dairy and it was aggravating ,if not causing some of my digestive troubles and liver congestion..

This is not an uncommon experience. My brother lived off of fried cheese for years and has all kinds of issues which point to dairy intolerance, although he ignores the chronic constipation and other health issues. My uncle loved milk and drank it regularly until he hit about 40 years old, and then it began to give him digestive problems. I know countless others who have all sorts of vague but real issues with dairy.

This is why I side with Tyler in warning newbies about the possible dangers of dairy(raw or pasteurized). There are allot of people with already damaged digestion who hear or read AV and others claim the benefits of raw dairy and jump right into a dairy rich diet, even if their body was never fully acclimated to dairy to begin with. These people may suffer needlessly from issues that could be avoided. There seems to be a good number of people here that have reported issues while using dairy, even if those individuals do not themselves believe dairy is the cause.

I tried raw milk early into this diet, and I liked the taste , but it made me feel a little bad. I also ate some raw cheeses ,that were really tasty, but they would make me feel bloated after eating so much. My aversion to dairy comes from a gut feeling, that is hard to explain.I still admit that from time to time I will eat a small hunk of raw cheese.

My third child is two years old now and will drink about 32 ounces of goats milk at night. She seems to thrive on dairy raw and pasteurized.

My 5 year old son, on the other hand will eat yogurt and cheese, but hates milk (both raw or pasteurized). He gets bad gas pains after drinking it. In fact he wont drink it at all anymore: the last time he was tempted by some chocolate milk,he ended up complaining about his stomach for hours.

Milk intolerance seems to run along gender lines at my house. My girls and their mother can drink milk by the bucket with no problem, but my son and I just cant take it.

Each person who is concerned about possible issues with raw dairy may just be on their own. All I can sensibly advise is for each person to try to use their own instincts and intuition.

[Brady]

Know when to use raw dairy.

I am incompatible with raw dairy. I experimented many times. I just can't digest it without my body resorting to intense gas formation.

My 10 year old son benefited with a short stint on raw dairy for a few weeks to help heal his intestines.  After that he just went downhill with constipation and mucus formation.  End of dairy.  But his intestines and pooping to color brown normal were helped.

I agree most people have no idea how to use dairy, thats why reading such material from Bernarr McFadden and Dr Charles Porter is vital before embarking on Raw Milk.

I had severe mucus for 3 weeks, coming out my eyes, nose and throat, aches and pains, at one point the pain from coughing was so bad I though my lungs were going to come up through my throat.  But it all cleared and my airways have been clearer than at any time in my life since (approximately 4 months ago)  I can only imagine the amount of Mercury and other toxicity I got rid of during that period.  Detox isn't pretty but No pain No gain.

Raw milk is definately best done alone although since going back on some solid food (Raw Fish, a little fruit and cooked veggies) I have discovered I can drink Raw milk from breakfast throughout the day and then have solid food in the evening, just try not to mix the two.

Its been my experience that Raw Milk is without doubt the most detoxifying substance known to man.

[zeno]

Thank you, sabertooth and Brady, for adding to the conversation.

[KD]

Milk has indeed been on the planet since before humans and primates and is literally one of the ONLY foods designed to be food other than fruit. Eggs and meats clearly are not designed in any way whatsoever TO BE food, but humans invent tools in order to exploit those sources from the environment as food.

This argument seems foolish. Whether or not we humans rationalize whether a food was designed for consumption means absolutely nothing to the body.

hrm?  its not an argument at all, its a fact. Seeing since I have not at the point of writing drank (mammal) milk regularly for maybe a decade or more, its a pretty unbiased use of fact. It indeed proves nothing about what is edible or vital or ok or not-bad.

milk is a whole food that flows right from one being to another. This is a factor of which increased intelligence likely saw could be interrupted. But anyway, even though the milk is meant for the feeding of the young (exclusively, anyone should admit) in a similar way, the egg itself - as it exists whole In the world - is not meant to be eaten by the offspring. It contains it of course.

But the irony is the very idea that milk is not meant to be eaten by others is pretty much the same idea that animals are not really created to be food, even though they are food for many other creatures.

The thing for you is, is that its going to be pretty hard to decode symptoms or true problems (particularly long term) from yours or others' dairy consumption. What I said is just to accurately counter a simple phrase people will utter about how they see nature that supplies 0 real evidence about what types of things we are adapted to or not. So its a problem to base a discussion around that  and whatever experiences they have had + whatever innaccurate studies on people that ironically their own 'paleo' and 'raw' theories themselves would make clear are automatically unhealthy specimens to test such things as healthy or not, but stubbornly not so present in people in nature.

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This isn't to suggest that dairy is even good at all, its the typical BS around these issues that is worth pointing out, regardless of what people choose to eat. Its just incorrect thinking about wellness or even anthropology in my opinion. This is particularly a problem if it is within an environment that does not encourage experimentation, true free thinking, and has some set answer/all the answers for everything (even when they arn't actually so rational/logical)...don't you think?

The "play it safe route" would involve not eating dairy products, but then you are then automatically more in the category that will assume that eating some contemporary version of "naturally" is supplying all your needs as a modern human or as a human at all , as these perfect ancient humans may have done quite a few things differently than we guess about here.

[Dorothy]

KD - I noticed that in another post that you stopped eating dairy a bit ago, would you please tell me how that has affected you personally? Why did you decide to cut out dairy?

[KD]

financial reasons and laziness at first. Desire to truly experiment followed...and extended it.

I don't particularly like eating dairy, if i'm doing dairy...its for my health. Based on what I noticed on my experiment and lots of other reading/considering I'm just now experimenting with even more dairy than before..which was always pretty limited for the last 3-4 years (mostly blocks of butter). I've been skeptical in the past to the sugars and proteins in the milk itself, based on "reactions" to eating raw cheeses (proteins only) as well as fresh milk. I just never did great with milk or cheese so I had given up and I was doing VLC or some variation anyway so It didn't really matter. Plus milk was hard or impossible to get regularly here.  Anyway, yeah maybe 3 months which is more than the one month I've heard quoted to "tell how damaging dairy is" or something. I don't really want to get into it in this thread, but its all negatives (or more accurately projections, nothing really significantly negative in that period) in terms of cutting dairy.

Regardless of what anyone claims, I can say taking a few small sips of warm milk PER DAY for one or two weeks, does make a drastic difference in terms of regenerating the lactase enzyme. Although some say disrupted digestion might continue for some, as lactase deficiency is also linked to deficiency of other enzymes and hormones, hypothyroidism (low body temp) and  bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine, likely due to the first two. I can't confirm that but it makes sense. Whether one eats dairy, all these things factor into general health and ability to digest all foods properly, particularly "complex" food combinations. This is also linked to improper K (and other vitamins than ironically are in dairy) as well as things like sodium and vit D. if you see where I am going there.

Based on those things and anecdotal info on probably the healthiest or unhealthiest people one would know in real life, I really don't think extreme health is correlated at all with inability to produce lactase, regardless of how natural it is to consume lactose containing foods.

[Charlie4444]

I think aajonus is amazingly right about high meat, and I think his mistake is eggs and milk.  "high meat" has improved me, raw dairy  and eggs hasn't.  I think the only way to ever know is to live in the amazon for a year, then you'd know what promotes growth.

[RogueFarmer]

Most people in the world could not benefit from a raw paleo diet because they could not afford it and probably couldn't deal with the logistics. Most of the people in the world could benefit from a raw paleo diet. Dairy and eggs are insanely more economic than raw meat.

Although, I don't know if any of y'all eat this way but the paleo diet could be made to be economic... if it relied primarily on inverts for protein and fat.

economics and practical farming play into this heavily in mind.

I could afford to eat raw primal but it would be more of a hardship and also less enjoyable.

Ice cream is my fuckin favorite food.

A big part of why I prefer raw primal is because it's all of my favorite foods, I really really really like it, way better than cooked foods. I used to be somewhat of a chef too, I cooked all of my own meals for 5 years.

I was suffering health wise, and raw milk helped me, I had heard of raw meat and eggs being good for you, but I couldn't imagine liking them, but actually they made cooked food taste bad.

Up the dairy haha.

[TylerDurden]

This is not the view of many Americans. These constantly point out how raw dairy is way more expensive than raw meat. Even though raw dairy is much cheaper in the UK, my craving for raw dairy(those with allergies often get cravings for the very food they are allergic to) meant that my food-bills soared as a result.

People could lower their costs by eating raw meat provided that they switched to raw wild game instead, or if they ensured that laws were passed which banned grains-subsidies(ie if they voted for Ron Paul).

[zeno]

Just for information sake, where I source food the prices are as such as of 2012:

$6.49 for a dozen eggs
$5.49 for the cheapest cut of pre-frozen, lean beef
$7.00 for a gallon of milk

A dozen eggs and a gallon of milk will last a lot longer than a pound of beef. If I could get more wild game I would. Perhaps during hunting season I'll be able to get some.

[TylerDurden]

The meat you refer to is 100% grassfed, I trust, and the eggs are all free-range, and the milk comes from 100% grassfed cows,  at the very least?

[zeno]

Yes; yes; and yes.

[Dorothy]

Practicality does count Rogue Farmer! You make a good point. I can raise my own chickens for eggs in my back yard and grow my own produce and I have a source for fresh milk to make my own butter and quark and yogurt - but I can't find a source for fresh unfrozen red meat that is accessible for me like the eggs and milk. On this note I am going to start trying to raise my own fish soon. I raise bugs but haven't gotten myself to eat any yet - I feed them to the chickens.

If you raise your own produce, bugs and even grains you can have eggs for pretty much nothing. I can take fresh raw milk (I know this isn't the same for everyone) and keep it indefinitely where I will still like it with fermentation. If you aren't willing to hunt or can't figure out another source for fresh meat and if you don't like high meats - it's expensive and not as practical for a lot of people.

I don't have a farm but do have a backyard. It's astonishing really how much food you can produce in a regular old backyard. It's at least a whole lot better than the vast majority eat. Of course if you are allergic to dairy or eggs that changes things entirely. If not though, some high-powered and inexpensive nutrition there.

[RogueFarmer]

I'm not talking about $, I am talking about real economics. A beef cow produces a big calf every year. A dairy cow produces a big enough calf every year and 1000+ gallons of milk a day.

A Normande cow (like the one girl I got) makes a lot of milk and a lot of beef.

In the olden days, most cows were dual purpose and made plenty of beef and plenty of milk, today a jersey cow (good milk cow) still makes a lot of beef for a family.

Goats make gangbuster milk compared to cows for what they eat and you could cut and haul all their food to them if you don't have any acreage.

Not to run on, but cows have an advantage over goats in that they can make all that milk off of just pasture, while goats need a much more complex diet and are prone to sickness from pasture parasites...

[RogueFarmer]

On the other side, there are places where a dairy cow won't be able to make it on pasture but a beef cow could do just great.

[invisible]

There was that Mann study on the atherosclerotic aspects of the Maasai

That study holds little weight, as the Maasai studied had access to flour/processed foods, and were thus not entirely traditional. The specific details of their diet weren't considered/controlled which makes any conclusions speculative. Dairy can't be pinpointed as the problem.

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Did-Masai-Have-Atherosclerosis.html

[TylerDurden]

The traditional diet of the Maasai also included grains.

As regards raw dairy, if it was really so healthy, one would expect the consumption of raw dairy to have negated the atherosclerotic effect a bit, but clearly this was not the case.

But, yes,  since atherosclerosis has been directly linked to the consumption of cooked foods, raw dairy is unlikely to be the culprit, in hindsight.

[Dorothy]

I'm not talking about $, I am talking about real economics. A beef cow produces a big calf every year. A dairy cow produces a big enough calf every year and 1000+ gallons of milk a day.

A Normande cow (like the one girl I got) makes a lot of milk and a lot of beef.

In the olden days, most cows were dual purpose and made plenty of beef and plenty of milk, today a jersey cow (good milk cow) still makes a lot of beef for a family.

Goats make gangbuster milk compared to cows for what they eat and you could cut and haul all their food to them if you don't have any acreage.

Not to run on, but cows have an advantage over goats in that they can make all that milk off of just pasture, while goats need a much more complex diet and are prone to sickness from pasture parasites...

Interesting information there Rogue about the breeds and the larger economics - I learned something from you so thanks. For me personally the savings doesn't relate directly though. I've thought of getting a miniature goat a long time as I love goats - but they have to be kept at least in pairs to be happy and I would have to import their food and they would have little room and not be all that happy living in my yard because they would have to be always contained or chained up - cuz goats are great climbers - and I don't even need as much milk as too miniature goats would produce and the extra work would be considerable - whereas with my chickens they live the life of riley, take almost no effort and are a delight. Cows and goats are for larger families with more land - chickens are for anyone with even the tiniest little plot of land - or even can be kept as pets indoors. But - the bigger economics of milk that you talk about make it possible for me to gather with other people to obtain a dense raw food source at what I consider to be an amazingly affordable price - only $7 for the cheese, butter and whey that we need for two weeks eating some every day. The only thing that beats that is my own chickens with me raising their food. Good meat on the other hand is massively expensive and hard to obtain in comparison.

[CS]

Good meat on the other hand is massively expensive and hard to obtain in comparison.

Clearly then, the answer is to replant forests and regenerate a thriving natural ecosystem which can supply plentiful resources including wild game.

This guy from India planted 1360 acres of forest, single-handedly. It is host to tigers, deer, elephants and that sort of traditional India fauna.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/indian-man-jadav-molai-pa_n_1399930.html