On Thursday, July 3, 2003, at 06:21 PM, Fredrik Murman wrote:
> Tell me what kind of negative effects does raw milk from a healthy
> animal
> have on a person who's not intolerant to lactose and casein?
The key here is "from a healthy animal". Some diseases don't show up in
the cow until it is too late.
These days bovine tuberculosis is nearly extinct in western countries.
This is the form of tuberculosis that caused so many hunch-backed
children in the old days. After testing started, tuberculin positive
animals were slaughtered to prevent spread of the disease, much like
today with mad cow disease. It is not much of a concern today in the
west.
A bigger modern concern is Brucelosis, which is still fairly common. It
causes a severe recurring fever over the course of a year, and kills
you slowly. In cows it causes abortion. Farmers usually have these cows
slaughtered too, to prevent the rest of the herd getting it.
There are other diseases that can be spread through raw milk. I have
drunk it, and would again without worry, but there are good reasons for
pasteurization.
>
> Raw milk probably increases resistance to tuberculosis. It has been
> succesfully used to treat pulmonary tuberculosis. Hippocrates
> prescribed
> raw milk for tuberculosis.
Better not to get it at all! In Japan they still vaccinate children
against tuberculosis, by the way. With the severe crowding here it
remains a threat. I had myself vaccinated a few years ago when my
daughter was. Expensive.
Milk is one of those funny things, like salt. It is very hard to
separate the possible negatives from the positives. Japan claims to
have the longest average life-span in the world. This is a big jump
from the pre-war days when Japan had the lowest life-span of the
idustrialized countries. The increases began with the introduction of
western foods and eating habits after the war. Meat, milk, bread etc
became common components of the daily diet for the first time. That,
and the introduction of western standards of cleanliness, toilets and
sewer systems, medicines. What were the positives and which negatives?
Milk fulfills some of the most serious deficiencies of the traditional
Japanese diet, B vitamins, calcium, fat, protein, which were all
lacking for most people. Does it have negatives as well? OK, but then
we still have to get these nutrients somewhere. For the masses of
people milk is still the best source, simply because they don't eat a
sufficient range of nutritious foods.
For those of us on paleo diets, we assume that milk, a neo-food, is no
longer necessary, that our "natural" diet will cover all our needs
easily. I hope this is so, as long as we can get the range of natural,
good quality foods we need. One concern of mine is that since most of
my ancestors' foods are either extinct, or not available, I CAN NOT eat
a sufficient variety of paleo foods to cover my needs. So I garden to
get some of these foods. I also drink milk, as I seem to have no
trouble with it, and on those occasions when I stopped drinking it, I
didn't feel as strong. Mostly I use yogurt made at home, and cream.
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