About milk: first, a few stories.
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1) In his book, Burger describes an experiment he made with raw goat's milk.
It was during a period when he was working in his farm, and he got wounded
in the forearm. The infection soon began to progress towards the elbow.
But Burger noticed that each time he stopped drinking milk, the size of
the infected zone decreased, and that it increased when he resumed the
consumption of milk. He drank milk until the infection went up to the
shoulder, then stopped until it got down to the elbow. Then, he drank milk
for a few days to check that the infection resumes its progression. After
he stopped milk, his wound healed quickly.
He also carried out similar experiments with other members of his family,
concluding that the taste change is not efficient.
2) One of my friends became a raw vegan one year ago. Before that, he was
a cooked ovo-lacto-vegetarian, but now he seems to thrive on his new diet.
His asthma has greatly improved. He didn't give up dairy for ethical
reasons, but because he had carried out experiments with raw, organic
goat milk's cheese: he noticed that he has asthma crisis only during the
periods of cheese consumption.
3) Experiments with suppression of bread and milk and disease recovery
described in Burger's book.
Remarks about dairy products:
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1) Experiments where bread and milk have been suppressed don't prove that
milk is harmful: maybe bread alone is to be blamed.
2) Personally, I wouldn't eat raw cheese, even if proved "safe", because,
as it is not a natural food, the taste change probably doesn't come soon
enough. Same thing for dried fruits, which are too high in sugar and thus,
are tastier than fresh fruits.
3) Eating raw butter alone seems a bit odd to me, but that's not the most
important point. With butter, or other extracts like fruit juices, although
they have a taste change, the instinctive stop often comes too late. Burger
relates the story of a man who got poisoned after drinking the juice
and spitting the skin (without chewing it) of wild berries.
4) Milk is not a necessary staple (except for infants). Anyway, I don't like
to be dependant on a particular food might it be milk, avocado or cassia.
5) That some babies are intolerant to cow's milk doesn't prove milk is
harmful: first, babies are never fed with raw milk. Second, when fed on
a monodiet, the food should match as closely as possible to the body's needs:
supposed a baby was on a monodiet of egg yolks, it would probably be seriously
sick. But things are different for adults because dairy products are
only a small part of the diet.
6) Conversely, my father wasn't breast-fed but, at 59, he is still strong.
Remarks about cooking:
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1) Burger talks a lot about Maillard molecules, and considers their existence
as a good argument against cooking. However, Maillard molecules (and
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) only appear at high temperatures,
not in boiled and steamed veggies.
2) Anyway, even if I was sure I could eat mildly cooked food without
undermining my health, I would still continue to eat raw for many reasons:
-unless salt and spices are added, and foods are mixed, cooked food is
not very attractive;
-cooking easily leads to overeating (although raw fruits too...);
-cooked food doesn't have any taste change;
-raw food is, on average, much more pleasant.
Remarks about wheat:
1) Experiments with bread don't prove anything about wheat, since bread
contains Maillard molecules which are not present in raw wheat.
2) Experiments with raw, unsprouted wheat don't prove anything because
wheat contains phytic acid which is toxic. I would only be convinced by
an experiment with raw, sprouted wheat.
3) Of course, there are gluten-intolerant persons, but the question is:
does sprouted wheat cause troubles among gluten-tolerants?
Remarks about milk and evolution:
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1) The goat, before the cow, has been domesticated less than 10000 years
ago. Of course, milk is not usually a food for adult animals, but since
we have got the genetic information to produce enzymes that digest milk,
we just need some genes to tell us that this production should continue
during adulthood.
2) That our ancestors didn't eat X doesn't mean we shouldn't eat X. Our
genetic material is more flexible than we might think: our brain was
certainly not designed to prove theorems in mathematics.
Best,
Jean-Louis
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