Melisa mentioned on Friday that she kept thinking about yogurt (prompted by
a co-worker eating some for lunch), that she had the taste of yogurt "on
her mind" repeatedly. As this happens to us regularly with other raw
foods--and more often than not our mental "craving" is right on target (as
found when tasting the desired food)--I picked up some raw dairy for the
ol' taste-test. (All this dairy talk on raw-foods probably primed me as
well. Melisa, however, hasn't looked in on the list for many many weeks.)

Anyway, there was no raw yogurt available, and no raw goat dairy, but I
bought Steuves raw unsalted butter, cream, whole milk, and keifer (trying
hard not to notice the gelatin listed on the ingredients ;)).

So at room temperture, and on an empty stomach, here is what we found,
eating these four dairy products "instincto" (we tested all by smell/taste
before swallowing any)

        smell  -  taste  -  comsumption -  "stop"

BUTTER
Melisa: mild  -  yuck, like lard, tasteless  - none
Kirt: mild, interesting - lovely, melting, buttery - about 3.5 oz - not
much of a stop (it was still very tasty/melting/rich in my mouth when I
stopped eating, but on another level was becoming "gaggy, lardy",
increasingly "salty" but off-flavoredly so. I wanted more but stopped cause
it didn't seem "right", esp because of the rising off-flavors)

CREAM
Melisa: rich, sour - sour, "off-flavor", pablum - none
Kirt: rich, pleasant "skunkiness" - buttery, sour cream, off'flavor -
couple spoonfuls - wasn't good enough to eat really

MILK
Melisa: OK - OK - 2-3 oz - boring
Kirt:  mildly rich, sour - boring, sour - none

KEIFER
Melisa: interesting, spicy - yum! "the taste that I was after" - 4 or 5 oz
- "got sour"
Kirt: interesting, sour - yuck, like my nephew's spit up - none

AFTERBURN (the morning after ;))

Melisa: mucousy throat, sinuses, but "no big deal"
Kirt: greasy skin on face along nose, the usual joint "suppleness/lube"
(postive thing) I notice after all RAF fat consumption, bad taste in mouth
upon waking which was the same as the rising unpleasant "salty" taste.
(I've had similar experiences with less-than-instincto-quality bone
marrow--and farmed salmon, for that matter.

no digestive or excretory troubles for either of us


COMMENTS:
Hmmm....

Melisa says that keifer is definitely not an "everyday" food, but she when
she gets the hankering or the "yogurt" flavor, she will go for it. She
wonders about the gelatin. She will keep testing it for a while.

I wonder: is it the milk or the bacteria that tasted good? Is the mucous
"good" in that she was needing a particular detox, or was it just the
"intox"(?) of the dairy? I think it is "good" that we had definite
attractions/repulsions --possibly meaning that raw dairy can be eaten
instincto to some degree. I think it is almost hilarious that I enjoy yet
another fat--is there an end to my attraction to avos, butter, animal fat,
fatty fish, etc? Animal fats (including bone marrow, but apparently not raw
butter) and fatty fish are the only fats that have a clear, pronounced
taste change. The butter "tried" but pretty much failed to give a good
stop, and I'm not certain it wasn't it's "denatured aspects" which were
tasting bad anyway. (BTW, I'm doing fine so far on a limited avo intake...)

I wonder too about how dairy from pastured cows/goats would compare. Would
the off-flavors (esp the "salty" one) be absent? Would a "stop" be clearer?
Since we had been eating fish bones regularily up until a week ago
(unavailable from my fish guy last week) did she get used to the calcium
fix and look to yogurt for that reason? If so, why didn't she crave fish
bones (she says she does, but after seeing the co-workers yogurt that she
found that taste was on her mind). And still, dairy is gross-er to me than
other RAF (except maybe mealworms ;)): the idea of suckling (or even
milking) a cow remains more "unnatural" to me than killing it.

And mostly: now that we have $10 of raw dairy soon going bad in the fridge,
what can we do with it? The butter will probably keep and be usable for
guests. The cream is already bad :). Can we put a bit of keifer in the milk
to turn the milk into keifer? Would we have to leave it at room temp for
this to work? Could we add a bit of commercial yogurt and make raw yogurt?
Should we flush it down the toilet? Should we compost it? Should we search
out a calf and give it back? Should we use it to fertilize our fig trees?
Should we keep it and test it at various stages of putrification?

BTW, we put the cream, milk, and keifer into little "tester bowls" and in a
couple hours the room smelled very strongly of cheese (esp a variety I
remember with bits of sausage inbedded). This smell arose clearly from the
cream bowl. And then later, I actually did the dishes, as opposed to
rinsing a few utinsels and salad bowls. Much more of this and I'll be as
mainstream as Kenny G! ;)

Your faithful researcher, putting RAF exploratory duty above life and limb,

Cheers,
Kirt