For example, if it’s milk, is it skim or whole? Raw and untouched? Pasteurised organic? Or UHT homogenised chemical cocktail? If it’s cheese is it unpasteurised cheese? Pasteurised but otherwise carefully made cheese? Or processed cheese-like product?

Given that probably 90% of people drink industrial milk and eat processed cheese-like products, the lactose intolerance test could be measuring not a reaction to dairy products but a reaction to the degree of industrial processing undergone by those products. And if it is, that would explain why so many people are “lactose intolerant”. And given that industrial agriculture has reached its apotheosis in the USA, that might explain why so many people in the US are apparently “lactose intolerant”, even those of European extraction.

Anyway, I know of no major raw milk / lactose intolerance study so this is all hypothetical. But it makes ya think…

Dan

One thing to watch for when trying to determine if there is any level of dairy intolerance is mucus production. I don’t know how raw dairy will affect me, but the pasteurized stuff in any measurable quantity makes my nose stuffy.

Cheers
Scott

This is only one study but given that dairy products seems to be - I hesitate to use the word demonised - denigrated on many forums I find this an interesting result! Dairy might - gasp - have a positive influence?!

I come from a northern European background and grew up on a small dairy farm, so naturally enough I took in a substantial amount of mostly raw milk, butter and cream. So did most people I know, many of whom have family who are still hale in their 70s and 80s (anecdotal evidence, I freely admit). The idea that dairy products might not be a positive dietary influence didn’t present itself to me until a few years back.

I can accept that lactose intolerance is a problem for some people. On the other hand I’m far from convinced that natural dairy products in general are an issue. Off the top of my head I suggest two factors that might be at work.

(1) “Machine milk”. Most people drink milk that is scarcely recognisable as the substance that would have existed in, say, 1950. Cows in some countries are fed on corn, pumped full of antibiotics and hormones, seldom if ever led out to pasture and produce milk that in addition to its unwelcome content is then homogenised and in many regions subjected to ultra-heat treatment.

I would not drink this rubbish by choice, but how many people even stop to think about it? I do not support dairy industry propaganda, I am simply pointing out that denatured modern milk is scarcely a good starting point for exploring the merits and demerits of dairy products. (There seems to be a decent body of research pointing to the positive benefits of raw milk, which is precisely what the dairy industry will not or cannot supply.)

(2) Are genetic “dialects” a factor? I first noticed that some people consider dairy products to be a problem when talking to American friends. I don’t believe I have ever heard people from the UK or indeed Europe talk about intolerance to dairy goods.

I have followed the cholesterol controversy for years and although it has left me extremely skeptical of the integrity of mainstream medical thinking on diet, I am certainly not arguing that lactose intolerance does not exist outside the imagination of US dieticians. However, might it be the case that the US has an unusually high proportion of genetic groups that for whatever reason are less used to milk and its by products? Or conversely it is only people from certain parts of the world that are lactose tolerant? (It has always interested me that the Masai for example don’t seem to have many health problems despite their diet.)

Dan