The Anonymous Widower

Coeliacs and Goat’s Milk Products

If you want to read an interesting take on health, go to DogtorJ’s web site.  He is an American vet, who is also a coeliac, and uses his insight to try to explain the health or should it be unhealth around him.

Here’s what he says on goat’s milk in a section called The Answer. Read it!

Wheat had an amazing history and clearly played a major role in shaping the medical conditions that would follow. But, the same thing happened with dairy products. Before 1500 A.D., the principle sources of milk and its derivatives were sheep and goats. Even the ancient Greeks and Romans demonstrated their understanding of the true value of these animals by elevating them to the heavens. The sheep was honored for it’s wool and milk and given the astrological name Aries. Capricorn, the goat, was valued for its milk. In fact, part of the name given to this honored creature meant “foster milk”. The ox, Taurus, was deified for his work in the fields. It wasn’t until much later that man veered from his natural course and chose to mass-produce cow milk.

In fact, it wasn’t until the middle of the second millennium that this took place. Somewhere between 1300 and 1500 A.D., our ancestors decided to go into the dairy industry using cows. A decisive factor had to be the usual motivation for most that we do as humans, supply and demand. The corollary to this is ignorance and greed. Suddenly, there was a demand for greater and greater quantities of milk and the cows larger udder was a tempting source. The rest is history.

The main problem with this seemingly logical yet devastatingly ignorant decision was that there was a vast difference between cow milk and that of its predecessors. The protein, fat, mineral, and vitamin content as well as the pH buffering qualities were all different. Some of these differences were subtle; others would be the difference between tolerance and intolerance. Goats milk was much more digestible, forming smaller curds and being lower in the indigestible components such as lactose. However, the most vital difference would not be discovered until the days of immunology and quantitative analysis arrived.

Now we know that the biggest difference between cow and goat milk is the absence or low quantity of one protein fraction, alpha S-1 casein. Understanding of this dairy protein not only serves to explain the lower allergy rate to goat milk, but also sends us in the right direction on our search for the culprit behind other immune-mediated food issues. Casein makes up 80% of the protein in cow milk. In bovine milk, 75% of the casein is alpha casein. In goat milk, the majority is beta casein. The dominant component of the alpha casein in cow milk is the alpha S-1 casein, the culprit we just identified as being responsible for most immune reactions, including milk allergies. There are other differences in protein concentrations, including those lactalbumins in the whey portion, but we will focus later on casein as it relates to the induction of villous damage in the small bowel.

The milk history lesson doesn’t end here. The reader is directed to remember the possible relationship between the advent of common wheat and the start of then Dark ages because history repeats itself. The first pandemic of plague occurred shortly after wheat’s creation. The second pandemic of plague, by far the worst of the three, immediately followed the introduction of cow milk. This was a phenomenal coincidence to me. This devastating epidemic known as the Black Death started in Europe in approximately 1300 A.D. and killed one fourth of its population. The pandemic occurred in 1400 and spread across Europe into Asia wiping out nearly 40 million people. Just as the dairy industry was getting into full swing in 1600 in England, its true land of origin, the Great (bubonic) Plague of London occurred, killing another 100,000 people. The third and last pandemic occurred in the mid 1800s in China, causing over 20 million deaths over a 75-year period. Had milk and wheat finally reached their land?

On reading this, I decided that if I must have milk products, then I would use goat’s milk products where I could.

So I switched to the Waitrose goat’s milk and use St. Helens Farm cream and yoghurt.

I think that I feel better, but how would I actually prove a scientifically correct proof of it?

Incidentally, I always find that goat’s milk lasts a lot longer than cow’s.

July 5, 2009 - Posted by AnonW | Food, Health | Coeliac/Gluten-Free, Milk