Finally, the post I can springboard on to say what I wanted to add to 
this thread.

Whilst not undermining in anyway the excellent posts made about the 
dairy industry etc (who, after all, brought us formula), I do think some 
sense of our own past is important here.  There where many communities 
that only survived deprivation in their hostile geographies, by 
consuming milk and milk products.  There are still many communities in 
the world today, barely surviving thanks to goats and sheep milk.  Every 
Winter Excess Ritual, one of my son's presents, is a goat.

We don't keep the goat, obviously - we buy one for Africa, or wherever 
Oxfam thinks best to send it.  One goat can lift a family out of 
starvation and several goats can find the resources to send a child to 
school.
 
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/ProductDetails.aspx?catalog=Unwrapped&product=OU2653

When I visited the Highlands of Scotland for the first time last year, 
and found myself in the Highland Folk Museum  
http://highlandfolk.museum/newtonmore-township.php, and saw for myself 
the stone age living conditions that the people of the Highlands endured 
up to the 18th Century, I was shocked to my core.   For it wasn't at all 
romantic, and was very very harsh, and a level of poverty and 
deprivation that I'd fondly thought was not part of UK life for a lot 
longer back than this (there was a reason so many Highlanders left for 
the New World, and stone age living conditions in was one part of it.)  
It was also utterly dependent on milk - sheep and goats: milk was life 
for whole townships.  Goats and sheep can take inedible scrub, and turn 
it into life saving milk.  If all you have is inedible scrub most of the 
year, this is A Good Thing.

Comparing all milks to what is being produced by the dairy industry, and 
condemning them all equally as part of the human diet, is to do a 
disservice to the humble goat and sheep, who are still keeping many 
adult humans alive.  There is a reason why many of us are completely 
tolerant of milk in adulthood - we've adapted to survive on what was 
available through the generations of our ancestors who were dependent 
upon it as a staple of their diet.  If we'd stayed gatherer/hunters in 
the warm forests of our genesis, we'd be healthier - but there ain't 
that many warm forests around and a lot more of us than can be supported 
by gathering/hunting!  We're biologically evolving slower than we need 
to, for our intellectual evolution rate, sure, but it is an ongoing 
process.  :-)  And I like medicine and cars and stuff.  I have a lot of 
'stuff 'that ain't compatible for gathering/hunting.  We're humans - we 
ALWAYS want more!

When discussing beef, we do differentiate between prime, well hung steak 
and hamburger from fast food junk sources.  Milk requires the same 
distinction, and not to be condemned outright for all the evils of the 
food tree.  :-)

Just my never humble opinion... and my awareness that my family was milk 
dependent for survival in quite recent history.

Morgan Gallagher

Christina wrote:
> Joy... I appreciated your post and your information.  I know I am opening up
> a whole new "can of worms" here, but I did want to comment that there is
> also a vast difference between raw milk and pasteurized/homogenized milk.
> No, I am not making the suggestion that someone feed raw milk to their child
> (although I do).  I'm simply making the statement that there are many
> nutritional differences in milk that hasn't had its fat cells crushed under
> pressure and that hasn't had all the natural probiotics destroyed by heat.
> I do not ever feed my children pasteurized or homogenized milk as I feel
> that it is quite unhealthy.  But I think raw milk is actually very healthy,
> provided it comes from a reputable source.  I don't want a debate to ensue
> over this, I simply wanted to bring attention to the differences.
>
> Christina Harris, RN
> Federal Way, WA
>
> O

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