Moo Juice: How Now Black and White Cow? Part 1

Hi, everyone,

Most people like milk and milk products. I for one am totally addicted to milk, good fresh, cold cow milk. I can handle goat milk if it is Sanaan goat milk. Those are the big white ones, and only if they are fed correctly. But cow's milk, most breeds are fine for me.

However, some people cannot tolerate milk from certain breeds. At least that is what the thought is in some circles. In other circles, they say they can't handle milk unless it is lactose free. We are going to attempt to get to the bottom of this issue and deal with it.

The problem is basically two-fold. One is the issue with certain breeds of cows that have a mutation in their gut that directly affects some people's ability to digest milk. Now that is strange, isn't it? Basically a gut problem in one mammal that directly affects the gut in another mammal and the only common link is the milk. The breed that has the mutation is the Holstein. That breed is the most typical on American dairies or, more accurately, most dairies in the western world. Something like about 90 percent or more of the milk in the US is produced by the Holstein or Holstein crossbreeds.

The other less than 10 percent comes from the old breeds of cows. Those breeds are primarily Jersey, Brown Swiss and Milking Shorthorns, plus a very few breeds from places like Africa and India.   Many times you will find crossbreeds of these different breeds of cows will carry the mutation about 3/4 of the time. The other 1/4 of the time they won't, even when crossed with beef breeds, such as a beef breed cross of Angus. So the influence of that mutation appears to be pretty strong.

The second issue is the glyphosate influence. This is the active ingredient in a lot of popular herbicides. This particular product is widely used to "burn down" foliage in many of the food crops for both humans and animals. You may have heard of the GMO angle. This is primarily designed to "mutate" many plants to be able to tolerate the glyphosate application.

We need to take a breather here. Look for a continuation of this topic as part two in an upcoming blog post.

Thanks!

Written by Kent King.