On Fri, 13 Apr 2001, Stacie Tolen wrote:

> It's *foreign milk proteins* (each word equally operative) which can cause
> problems, not necessarily *foreign proteins* in general. The sole purpose of
> milk is to nourish *that mammal's* infants. This is what it is designed for.
> If you give dog milk to an infant mouse for example, it will not survive.

The trouble with this way of thinking is that we have no way of
applying it.  The sole purpose of milk is to nourish that
animal's infants, as you say.  You don't say how you know this.
Now if I look at an animal's heart I will tend to say that *its*
sole purpose is to pump blood through that animals arteries and
veins.  That is what it is designed for.  There's nothing about
it to suggest that it was designed to be eaten by me.  The
purpose of blood is to get oxygen and nutrients to that animal's
tissues; nothing suggests it was designed to be eaten by me.

It makes no sense to me to suppose that a goat's milk was
designed only to be eaten by a young goat, but a goat's muscles
or brain were designed to be eaten by me.

The fact is there are many animal proteins that cause problems
for *somebody*: egg, beef, seafood, chicken, to mention just the
ones that I happen to know about.

The idea seems to be that milk proteins are "more foreign" than
an animal's muscle proteins, or brain proteins, or blood
proteins, or whatever.  I think we cannot logically base this
claim on the premise that milk, and only milk, is designed for a
specific purpose.  The only other argument I know of is that we
should avoid milk protein because our paleolithic ancestors had
no access to it.  But I simply can't believe that.  Those lions
that I watched clearly had access to milk protein, as they ripped
open the calf's abdomen.  Human hunters had the same sort of
access.

Todd Moody
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