share: Dairy is for Baby Cows....

Susan, I appreciate your post and information. I think my lactose intolerance was partly due to being treated for acne with anti-biotics (for 10 years!). Hooray for soy-based products (like IMO) and Lactaid !

Hi Linda

It's thought that human beings were originally omnivores, meaning capable of being vegetarian or carnivores. But some literature suggests that we were actually vegetarian, based on the structure of the ancient jaws and teeth of bones studied. But other studies would disagree.

When saying we were hunter-gatherers - we were. But we mainly ate the grains and fruits, nuts, vegetables and berries etc, gathered by the women. Hunting was a long and difficult process that required days to do and the meat had to be eaten quickly (no freezers back then!) so people mainly survived on a vegetarian diet, with occasional meat. It also depends on the climate and terrain of the various groups and tribes of people. Humans were mainly "foragers" who spent their days eating from bushes and trees, rather than hunting.

We are descendants of the ape and many species of ape (monkeys etc) are vegetarian (herbivores). Some will eat insects and the like but most are herbivores/vegetarian. Many will make exceptions in time of need (won't we all!) but in for most species, it's vegetarianism all the way. Even gorillas are vegetarian, except they do like to eat grubs! Like humans, the ape families will adapt and eat animals products when they need to. Baboons, for example, are known to eat small animals.

Our meat consumption has grown exponentially in the last hundred years.

But evidence of dairy eating (and keeping cows for more than their meat or coats: ie; their milk) goes back about 9,000 - 10,000 years. Using animals for dairy was comparatively easy because processing could be done by hand and no hunting was involved.

Why aren't more people diagnosed as lactose intolerant? Well, many are non-whites and in non-western areas of the world where tests are not available and cannot be afforded.

Most people in Scandinavia and the European Lowlands have the enzyme to tolerate dairy very well. Evolution, need, and the human diaspora (the eventual migration from Africa to other global areas) saw to this.

Lactose intolerance may also be misdiagnosed or under diagnosed.

Getting a dairy free meal can be difficult in the U.S. (depending on location, where I live there are many vegan and vegetarian restaurants and stores) but it's nearly impossible in France!

Dairy is a bane for those of us not blessed with the enzyme. (Thank God for Lactaid) I think healthy diet recommendations should include calcium sources with dairy listed as an option or as part of Fats and Oils. Afterall, dairy has NOT been in diets of ALL peoples for as long as one reader indicates, has it? Weren't we hunter-gatherers first? Also, why isn't lactose intolerance a more common diagnosis? I think too many doctors misdiagnose lactose intolerance symptoms as stress and IBS. It's too bad that getting a dairy-free meal is such an oddity in this country. Soy Latte anyone? Thanks for listening, Linda (lslassiter)

While I agree that eating dairy is not necessary for human beings, we have been consuming it for 9000+ years. It's not something that we suddenly introduced to our systems a few hundred years ago and there is nothing "western" about it.

Being lactose intolerant is quite common! Our bodies still remain true in many ways to how we were tens of thousands of years ago - meaning we're made for human milk until the age of 3 or 4 and then our older bodies don't have a tolerance for lactose. many of us now do but some don't and never will.

But our bodies have adapted to new diets, new ways of eating (we are no longer vegetarian, for example, like we were for thousands of years save for the occasional hunting trip) and as we went from horticultural life to agricultural life, we began to eat meat on a regular basis.

So eating meat or dairy is not "weird" unless we want to go back 5000 or 10000 years and call our ancestors weird! As humans, we adapt! We progress! If we ate what we ate 20,000 years ago and had no mainstream medicine, we'd be dead by the age of 30. Just like dogs and cats and birds and fish (and on) - they have adapted too! They don't eat or live like they did 20000 years ago and much of it has nothing to do with pollution or human causes.

Like the French and Dutch, we eat cheese and many kinds of it. The French and Dutch live better than the Irish or Americans. How? With all that wine and gasp!!! - evil cheese and dairy! We're perfectly healthy too. Everything in moderation. While our "new" way of living has brought new problems (certain cancers, obesity, AIDS and many others) we are also living longer and better. We need a broader perspective on things. Deciding that a certain food lifestyle is gross for ourselves is fine. Deciding it's gross for the whole world is not.

Edam, anyone? Or a slice of Havarti?

:)

Anon, are you serious about the milk coating?? Disqusting!!!! I haven't (knowingly) had dairy of an kind since I was about 18 years old. I am in my thirties now. I have always found it repulsive to say the least. My mother said that I completely rejected bottle milk at 18 months of age and wouldn't touch it after that! I was past weaning, I guess.
It is difficult, indeed, to always be label reading and paranoid about injesting any dairy but I manage it.
I am super healthy. I don't eat meat either. I do like occasional seafood but am getting closer and closer to vegan and even raw vegan living.
For me, not only do I dislike the taste, texture and smell of dairy products, but I am also psychologically repulsed by it for some strange reason. I could not sit next to someone who was drinking a big glass of milk, for example or eat a salad on which a single drop of milk had fallen! LOL!

A troublesome thing is that lots of foods have hidden milk ingredients - e.g. McDonald's fries have milk in their coating. It took me a long time to realize what was effecting me when I would go their in my late teens.

I agree with this--I do not have a problem going without dairy, especially milk. Gah, it tastes soo bad to me.
When I was a kid people always said "drink your milk, it will make you grow" I have never had a glass of milk at night or for breakfast and I am 5'7" and healthy.
The only thing is that eliminating it completely is seemingly impossible for the majority of people-- cows milk is in lots of foods and it takes a lot of effort to cut out entirely--especially when you have a family or husband who are used to the consumption of dairy.

It is very much possible, but only realistic for the percentage of the population who are either lactose intolerant or have been raised this way.