I just received an email from a friend rightly pointing out that the Word of Wisdom does not mention dairy products, and that there are scriptures that mention a land of milk and honey, and why would it say that if we weren't supposed to drink milk. She said that she does think that raw dairy products are okay.
I will share my response to her here, for anyone who might be interested, and I would invite anyone who feels so inclined to weigh in on the subject. I don't claim to be right in my opinions, only to have them, and I'm certainly open to being corrected. I actually don't have any reason to want to defend or villify dairy products. They are some of my favorite foods, but I do want to be healthy so I continue seek for the truth of the matter.
I think she may be right about the raw dairy products being better than what we currently have available at the store. I know there a lot of people who use them and say that their health has improved as a result. If that's the case, and the Word of Wisdom is silent on the matter, then that should probably settle the matter for them. I don't believe that pasteurization nor homogenization have done us any good, and I don't believe that processed dairy is good for us. I think using a little of it, sparingly, probably is all right, if one feels the need, but as the promises at the end of the Word of Wisdom are given to those who keep it, without it having mentioned dairy of any kind, I have to believe that we can be perfectly healthy without them. At least Elder Widtsoe seemed to think so, according to his quote that said that plants contained all the nutrients we needed to be healthy.
Sometime back, I had wanted to start my family drinking raw milk, and I knew that it was available at Real Foods Market in Orem. When I mentioned it to my husband, he very adamantly told me that I was not to give it to the children. My husband is the most mild-mannered man you can imagine, and it's rare that he gets his dander up about anything, so I knew he was serious. At the time, I did a Google search to see what I could find out about Real Foods and their dairy products, to show him that they were safe, but all I could find were articles about how they'd had problems with the raw milk. I came away from it feeling like maybe he was right, so I let it drop. Which isn't to say that I think raw milk is necessarily bad, just that there are so many things that can go wrong with it these days, that those who use it need to make sure that it doesn't get contaminated, and unless you have your own animals, you don't really know.
I wonder about the statistic that says that a high percentage of the world's population is lactose intolerant. It doesn't surprise me, being that it does make sense to me that mother's milk would be intended for the young of that species. However, I was reading in the Essene Gospel of Peace recently, and they said that the Lord told them that the milk of all animals was intended for humans. I don't take that as gospel to me, but I did find it interesting. Of course, they weren't homogenizing or pasteurizing it back then, either.
Bottom line for me is that I don't really know the definitive answer to the milk issue, but I'll probably continue to use dairy products very sparingly, just because I do like them, and I occasionally like to add a little bit of cheese to things as flavor. I think it's a matter of doing what feels like the right thing to do for you. It isn't mentioned specifically in the Word of Wisdom, so maybe it's something that has been left up to us to figure out. If you find that you are having certain health problems that could be diet related, you might try giving up dairy for a time and see if your health improves. It has for many people.
And that's what I think about that, for what it might be worth to anyone, opinions being worth almost as much as you pay for them.
Lactose intolerance is generally associated with cow's milk as opposed to goat's milk or the milk of other animals. Also it is important to consider whether one is drinking A1 or A2 milk. Lot's to research and think about.
ReplyDeleteI've got mixed feelings about it. I think raw milk is healthier for the reasons you mentioned-- not pasteurized, not homogenized, but also as you mentioned it can be tainted by bacteria. I've had milk from there and so have my boys (but I didn't look into the dangers at the time. I was just going by positive health benefits family members mentioned to me (which information probably ultimately came from the Weston A Price Foundation which heavily promotes raw milk). After having having read an article today that gives me a lot more pause about it though.
ReplyDeleteI can note that I had a mild lactose intolerance problem before, but haven't experienced it all with consuming raw milk.
As for the Word of Wisdom, it says precious little about what we need to consume and shouldn't consume. I think the 'thou shalt nots' of it might be the important part (since staying away from tobacco, and hot drinks, alcohol, and as was added later, drugs ultimately keep people from getting addicted to those substances and keep them in their right mind so they can feel the spirit).
As for whether to consume milk or not, I don't think it's required since I'm not sure some of the weakest of the saints would be able to afford it, and the blessings of the WoW are eternal rather than just for health reasons in this life. It's a basic law of health, not a comprehensive list of everything everyone should eat and shouldn't eat (which would be hard to make since it would have to include potential allergens too). Anyway, it's an area where you have to make a decision. And I like you, like the taste of cheese and dairy in food occasionally.
I'm finally getting around to posting a reply. We've tried goat's milk, and the goaty taste (caprillic acid most likely) is a hard flavor to get past. Some people like it but it hasn't been a favorite in our house.
ReplyDeleteWe've been consuming raw milk for a few years now. I think it tastes better than regular milk, it's not pasteurized and homogenized which kills a lot of the enzymes that make it healthy and easier to digest, but also kills bacteria in the process.
Real Foods in Orem on 800 North by State street handles bacteria by immediately freezing the milk (if I recall correctly), and does a bacteria count to make sure it's as safe as possible to eat. There have been times when we went to buy milk there that a sign on the refrigerator that typically had milk in it said, 'We're sorry the bacteria count was too high for us to sell it, so our pigs our going to be eating it, sorry for the inconvenience'.
So my verdict on it, is it tastes great, it's I think healthier than regular store bought milk (due to the lack of pasteurization or homogenization which organic milk I think is usually ultra-pasteurized), but on the down-side, there is the tiny possibility that you could get sick from it (we never have, knock on wood), and it does go bad a lot faster (part of the reason they pasteurize and homogenize it in the first place, so it can sit on a shelf in a grocery store or in your home fridge considerable longer), and also it is considerably more expensive than the regular store bought variety, so there are definite trade-offs with getting it.