I recently heard that goats milk has positive affects on brain development. Overall, my son is sensitive (not “allergic”) to cows milk and I tend to favor almond or coconut milk in place of giving cow’s milk to both kids. I try to avoid too much dairy myself, as well. But now I am intrigued with the idea of goats milk although I have not had a chance to do much research yet. Is anyone familiar with it? Any possible links to improving brain development? I grabbed a quart today ($.6.59 at the health food store, yikes!) and both kids enjoyed it without issue. I have to figure out if it’s worth incorporating into our current line up of milk options, if it really is beneficial, and if there is any truth to what I heard. Thoughts?
While browsing for more information I came across this and wanted to post it for any parents of infants— goat’s milk is not a suitable substitution for infant formula according to this article. I know in some places throughout the world that may be a cultural norm. It also says that those will cow’s milk allergies will likley react to goat’s milk similarly. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/4/e973.full
I don’t know about the research, but I was lucky enough to buy raw goats milk from my Mom for awhile. We never got used to the flavor and quit. Shame on us.
I also don’t know about the brain development thing, but my daughter is also sensitive to cow’s milk (she gets rashes), so we use goat’s milk and it works fine for her. No odd reactions, and all of my siblings developed dairy intolerances as an adult, so we’re at risk.
I’m lucky enough to be zoned for goats, so we’ve got two in the backyard, and at $6.59 a quart, they’re very economical! Nigerian dwarfs are about as much money and work as a dog, but you have to have two or they’ll pine. We like our goat’s milk, been drinking it raw but I’m getting worried about doing that pregnant so I’m going to start pasteurizing it; it’s very easy. My husband makes awesome cheese out of the extra milk. I’m so lucky! As for the flavor, as far as I’m concerned well-handled goat’s milk tastes no stronger than cow’s milk, but the flavor is different. I hate the taste of cow’s milk and had to teach myself to drink it while pregnant by adding decreasing amounts of Nesquick, and I followed the same program with the goat’s milk. Now we all drink it straight with no problems.
Maybe I’ll have to look into the brain development thing. That would be a nice plus!
Hmm. I have never heard of this. But anecdotally I don’t think it did much. We were raised on goats milk. My brother especially. He was given it due to asthma. And i think it helped him for that. We had our own goats and would have probably drank it either way. However my brother got the goat milk priority because we bought had to supplement with cow’s milk also.
Fwiw… I am the smarter of the 3 kids and didn’t drink milk often at all. I detest milk. My brother has issues. We call him doughy. But there is probably more to it than that. We were all breast fed for about a year.
So basically from experience I am thinking that the benefits are probably negligible. I don’t think it would hurt to try, but I would weigh the costs.
Have no idea of brain development and goats milk correlation… But we have been using fresh goat’s milk with all of our kids instead of cows milk. We run multiple allergies in our family, and while cows milk did not work for us for that reason, goats milk worked wonderfully!
We get ours fresh from local farm and love it, it actually does not have a strong taste or smell at all. Taste and smell vary from goat to goat, so if you did not like it ones, try it again :yes: !
Cows milk is a gluten cross reactor. There are maybe 15-20 foods that can cause a gluten like reaction in gluten sensitive people. Gluten is very inflammatory to the brain in those who are gluten sensitive, and the cross reactors do the same thing.
We do a gluten cross reactor blood test on patients to see which foods, if any, are causing an immune response and dairy is the most common positive test we find.
We quit doing the gluten test because everyone with a chronic condition came back positive on it, so getting off of gluten is just a given.
In my opinion, goats milk or any other dairy substitute, besides soy, would be very important for the brain in sensitive people, but not in non sensitive people.
Many people who are dairy sensitive do fine on raw milk.
