Yes, there are certainly a lot of things to consider when choosing whether or not to drink milk. I don’t recommend soy milk, and if you’re considering it, I suggest reading The Whole Soy Story by Kaayla Daniel first. Almond milk and coconut milk are suitable alternatives, but even these come with considerations. Almond milk can potentially be high in phytates and enzyme inhibitors, and coconut milk is typically canned. Although most people don’t want to hear this, I think filtered water is by far the best thing to drink, especially since many people don’t drink enough of it and are chronically dehydrated.

I think it’s great that you enjoy making your own kefir, and I think it’s an excellent and natural source of probiotics. However, I’m not so sure about it compensating for the potentially detrimental effects that pasteurization and homogenization have on milk. I think the only true way to avoid these effects is to use raw milk, and that of course is a decision that you must make for yourself.

Personally, although I prefer to avoid both, I’d be more concerned about the detrimental effects of pasteurization than homogenization. In regard to skim milk, it’s important to consider that it’s often supplemented with milk powder which tends to contain small amounts of oxidized cholesterol. In effect, you’re trading one problem for another.

Since fat soluble vitamins are stored within fat, those that naturally exist in whole milk are removed during the production of skim milk. While they may be replaced through enrichment, the vitamins used are likely to be synthetic and of lesser quality than the original vitamins that existed in their natural and whole food form. Although the addition of fat from other sources such as coconut milk might facilitate their absorption, it’s still important to consider the difference in quality.

It’s convenient, and also a cheap source of food, along with homemade sourdough — milk and flour aren’t very expensive, and by preparing them by making them into kefir and sourdough, they’re much easier to digest and are, as far as I understand, much healthier than they would be otherwise (lactose/phytic acid/starches/gluten broken down, etc.). I can repeat all the science I’ve read about it, but in reality, I’m getting a lot less gas and am not feeling sluggish while eating these products, as I did when I was eating them in the commercial form that isn’t effectively pre-digested, and since my own body is telling me it’s doing better with these foods, I’m listening to that.

Of course, even if kefir is healthier than regular milk, for example, it doesn’t mean that it can’t do any harm. Commercial milk has many problems and I’m aware of those — I think kefir is the remedy for pasteurization, in that it re-introduces the enzymes necessary to break down milk, and makes it much easier to digest, but as for homogenization? I’m pretty sure that kefir breaks down the fat and cholesterol (you can check out “Dom’s Kefir” website to read more about this — I refer to that page often to refresh my memory on kefir, just as a little side note there XD)…but yeah, I don’t know about homogenization. The whole xanthine oxidase thing doesn’t sit well with me.

Pasteurized goat milk kefir should theoretically be the best option, since it’s naturally homogenized and the kefir would provide beneficial bacteria and yeasts to break down the milk for you. I think that would be the best alternative.

However, there’s only one place I can find pasteurized goat milk around here (I’d rather avoid the UHT goat milk because of the greater denaturing of the milk), and it’s $7.69 a half gallon. There’s no way I can afford to drink that on any kind of regular basis, and the same goes for raw milk.

So here’s my solution: make kefir with store-bought skim milk, preferably a brand that says it’s hormone-free, and then add coconut milk to that before you drink it. You can also make a mixed kefir by culturing the skim milk as well as the coconut milk, but I find that culturing both together makes the process go a little too fast because of the lowered milk content.

I’m not sure how well this would work, but I don’t see why coconut milk wouldn’t help with the absorption of the fat-soluble vitamins. Maybe the medium chain fatty acids don’t work like the long-chain fatty acids in relation to digestion and assimilation there, but I don’t have a degree in nutrition and I don’t really understand how the body works with these things — but the coconut milk fat seems like it’d be better to me than the homogenized milk fat.

Basically, I think it would be a lot better if we could at least have the option of buying regular grade A pasteurized goat milk, or pasteurized and non-homogenized cow milk. Same with raw honey — filtering and processing that is purely a cosmetic matter, and if it were more commercially available and became a lot cheaper, I think that would be great.

Food is getting so processed and manipulated these days, it’s like you have to do months of detective work just to make sure that what you’re eating isn’t going to hurt you in the long run. I think that’s really sad, and it’s already difficult for so many people to even pay for food in the first place — on top of that, you think you’re eating something that’s good for you and you start to feel sick, and don’t make the connection because you’re so used to hearing “this is loaded with calcium and vitamin A and vitamin D” and all that stuff. The problem isn’t completely that people don’t care about being healthy; it’s also that a lot of people don’t care about other people being healthy, and the pushing of modern processed and denatured foods that are blatantly bad for our health demonstrates that.

Humans are adaptive, though, and I’m sure somewhere down the road we can really get to using science and improvisation/creativity to our advantage to come out on top again. We already know that there’re problems with pasteurized and homogenized milk, but I think we’ll eventually figure out a way to make these things work to our advantage. After all, xanthine oxidase might not be good liposomally speaking, but look at liposomal sodium ascorbate you can make yourself with an ultrasonic cleaner — homogenization there is very useful, and I’ve even read studies comparing the efficacy of that to intravenous vitamin C. I think it would be equally foolish to ignore the advantages that science has to offer, and technology has definitely improved life in many ways. It’s worsened life in many ways, but there’s the double-edged sword — I think the key to this whole nutrition thing will be a balancing act, and combining tradition and science in order to make new traditions and keep humanity on the track to progress. Look at food dehydrators and juicers and things like that — ‘raw foodists’ will use these things that were never available in older times, and they aren’t traditional at all, but they certainly help.

Back to the main topic: I for one just want some answers on basic things like milk. The xanthine oxidase thing hasn’t been completely proven, to my knowledge, and I think that’s a problem — can we get some studies that definitely prove whether or not it causes arterial scarring/calcification? If they know that liposomal vitamin C is absorbed that directly, shouldn’t they be able to definitely tell what the story is with xanthine oxidase, which they’re saying theoretically works in the same way?

And if we get straight answers on that, why isn’t non-homogenized milk available? That’s not a safety issue; and maybe people would want to buy non-homogenized milk and the demand would greatly go up for that, if they publicized studies on xanthine oxidase? I’m currently hoping it isn’t as awful for you as it’s been theorized to be, but I’d rather have someone prove/disprove that it’s “rocket-fuel for cancer” and then take it from there. It’s frustrating that it’s so hard to get any clear answers on anything these days. Are you lying to me or not? That’s all I want to know — I don’t care about the ethics of people lying to each other, I just want people to be healthy. That’s all that matters; and maybe all this stuff is being perpetuated by people lying to one another because they’re afraid of what’ll happen to them (imagine the response to an article on xanthine oxidase if it were widely publicized after definitive clinical studies, given that someone eventually carried them out). I don’t even know what the stuff I’m eating might be doing to my body, and nobody really seems to care enough to research it and tell me and the other millions of people in the same position that I’m in. There’re too many lies and too much confusion in this world, seriously.

Well, I’m ranting now (I do that a lot), so I’ll stop here. But thank you for sharing this…my brain needed some morning exercise XD Shook the bugs out! I guess I’ll go have my potentially cancer-causing kefir made from commercial homogenized skim milk now (why does it say “homogenized” on skim milk? It has no fat….????)

-_- *sigh* someday we’ll have answers. Humans are adaptive — I’m convinced we’ll come out on top again, even if it takes some odd hundred years. Optimism is the best thing for our health, and it’s free too So maybe all this isn’t so bad after all.

I said I was going to stop there. But don’t get mad at me, it was the red dye in that Kool-Aid I had that’s making me so hyperactive!!!! Thanks again for sharing

There’s no need to apologize for exercising your right to choose what you eat. I disagree with your reasoning, but it’s still your body and your choice.

Anything consumed in excessive amounts has the potential to cause a problem, even vitamins and antioxidants. However, very few people truly have the problem of consuming too much fat from natural whole foods, and as such, I’m not too sure what you’d expect me to include in a list of “terrible things” that fat does. It’s actually easier to list the terrible things that could happen when fat is lacking in the diet which includes impairment of brain and nervous system function, altered moods, deficiencies in fat soluble vitamins, compromised cell membrane function, fatigue, impaired immunity, and the list goes on.

In regard to “cutting” being your motivation to avoid fat, perhaps you’d find it interesting that several varieties of the ketogenic diet are used by many bodybuilders to achieve a very low body fat percentage. These diets are high in fat and protein and very low in carbohydrates. Although I don’t recommend an extreme diet like this, it shows that fat intake isn’t the primary factor in weight loss that many people believe it to be.

In regard to general wellbeing, perhaps you should consider traditional Eskimos or Native American Indians who consume significant quantities of fat on a regular basis and enjoy exceptional health. I suggest reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration for more information on this as well as the importance of consuming natural animal fats.

I certainly agree that altered fats such as trans fat and polyunsaturated vegetable oils, especially when oxidized, are a legitimate cause for concern, but the fats that naturally exist in whole foods shouldn’t be associated with them.

I’m not sure what your point is about health being nebulous. While science certainly has a way to go in regard to understanding nutrition and human physiology, we do know enough to make educated decisions. Whether right or wrong, you’re attesting to this by choosing to drink skim milk and insinuating that fat does “terrible things.”

Yes, there are a lot of opinions regarding milk, but it’s also a staple of the modern diet. As such, addressing the complicated issues associated with milk must be done to address the basics that you say we need to get back to. Besides, my general approach to nutrition is to eat minimally processed natural whole foods including the fat that they may contain, and it doesn’t get much more basic than that!

P.S. Because orange juice is refined and pasteurized, it has a higher concentration of sugar and less nutrition than an actual orange. It also doesn’t have the fiber of the fruit to slow the absorption of the sugar. As such, there’s legitimate reason to question the healthfulness of orange juice. Sure, you could do worse by drinking a can of soda, but you could also do much better by having a whole piece of fruit.

Also to ever say you can understand something as nebulous as health when it comes to the human body is nuts. Theirs way too many variables including how everybody reacts differently to certain foods.

Take this for example people still argue over milk if it’s even good for you, and hell even orange juice. Hell people argue that were drinking to little water then someone comes out with some numbers and says we’re drinking too much water. Take those numbers with a grain of salt. Get back to the basics.

Every family needs a troublemaker to look after them. Most people are quick to ridicule anything that doesn’t agree with mainstream belief. It’s just the way it is and those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to open our minds beyond the mainstream have to do our best to deal with it. Unfortunately, it’s usually a bit tougher with family, but definitely worth the effort.

I don’t know if it’s me being more aware of this information now or that it’s becoming more mainstream, but either way, I think it’s great and hope it continues to gain momentum!