Do people who allergies to cow-dairy also typically have allergies to goat milk? How do you give up dairy?

I'm lactose intolerant and have found that if I drink whole raw milk I'm OK, or anything that has been cultured - cheese/yogurt for example. Store bought milk I have to be very careful with - I'm lucky if I can drink 8 ounces a day for any period of time, same with ice cream. If I've had any dairy products in the past few days I can not eat ice cream, but if I stay away for a while then I can enjoy a bowl of ice cream with out the cramps and irritation.

I tried those lactose pills, but I'd have to eat a whole bottle to get any relief, so I've learned to just limit my intake and stay away from it as much as possible. A true allergy is different though, and may actually be an allergy to the hormones and chemicals found in store bought milk - switching to an organic brand may help if that's the case. Otherwise you'll just have to learn to like rice or soy milk and fake dairy products.

I don't mind the taste of chocolate rice milk, but regular rice and all soy milk just tastes funny to me. Rice cheese isnt too bad, but definately not like real cheese! But what kind of milk?

Twenty years ago, most people who routinely had milk with their morning cereal used whole milk. Today, with the concern for fat in the diet, many people have switched to low-fat milk or skim milk. And a significant number of people are opting for lactose reduced or lactose free milk.

There are other alternatives: take goat's milk, for example. Patients with diarrhea, asthma, bloating and irritability may be suffering from the most common food allergy: cow's milk. Goat's milk is a natural alternative to cow milk and can comfortably be consumed by many patients who suffer from cow milk allergies or sensitivity.

Although goat milk, like cow's milk and human milk, contains lactose, many people with lactose intolerance can drink goat milk. It has been hypothesized that the reason lies in goat milk's superior digestibility. Goat milk is more completely and easily absorbed than cow's milk, leaving less undigested residue behind in the colon to quite literally ferment and cause the uncomfortable symptoms of lactose URL2 may also be that the patient is not lactose intolerant at all, but instead is one of the 1-in-10 people who are allergic to the major protein of cow's milk ... alpha S1 casein protein.

The symptoms are almost identical to those of lactose intolerance. Both goat milk and human milk lack this offending protein. The digestibility of goat milk can be attributed to its casein curd, which is both softer and smaller than that produced by bovine milk.

The smaller and softer the curd, the more easily accepted by the human digestive system. Another significant difference between cow's milk and goat milk is found in the composition and structure of fat. The average size of goat milk fat globules is about two micrometers, as compared to 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 micrometers for cow's milk.

These smaller sized fat globules provide a better dispersion and a more homogenous mixture of fat in the milk, another factor in making goat milk easier to digest. Goat milk contains more of the essential fatty acids (linoleic and arachidonic acids) and a higher proportion of short-chain and medium-chain fatty acids than cow's milk. The fat in goat milk may be more readily digested and absorbed than cow milk because lipases attack ester linkages of such fatty acids more readily than those of longer chains.

And, unlike cow's milk, goat milk does not contain agglutinin; as a result, the fat globules in goat milk do not cluster, which helps facilitate digestion and absorption. Goat milk is a nutritious dairy option for many patients of different age groups and lifestyle needs. Young children and seniors can be especially sensitive to cow's milk and so can certain ethnic groups, including Asians, Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans.

Goat milk is an excellent option for any patient who is cow milk or soy milk sensitive and is necessarily concerned with obtaining adequate calcium from a natural dietary source. Goat milk is also an excellent source of dietary calcium important in the prevention of high blood pressure, osteoporosis and other bone-related problems. For menopausal women, goat milk provides 13% more calcium than cow's milk and can be consumed comfortably even by those women with milk sensitivity.

While it is often recommended that children who have problems digesting cow's milk change to vegetable protein soy-based milk, that is not always the answer. An estimated 20%-50% of children with cow milk protein intolerance will react adversely to soy proteins. Goat milk is a natural milk that children like and can consume comfortably, even if they are sensitive to cow's milk and/or soy milk.

The nutrient composition of goat milk is very different than that of cow's milk. In addition to containing 13% more calcium than cow's milk, goat milk also has 25% more vitamin B-6, 47% more vitamin A, 134% more potassium and 350% more niacin. Goat milk is also higher in chloride, copper and manganese and contains 27% more of the essential nutrient selenium.

Goat milk contains none of the controversial Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH). Goat milk is available nationwide in evaporated and powdered forms (supplemented with folic acid) and in fresh one-quart, refrigerated cartons (whole and 1% low fat), as well as aseptic quarts with an unopened 8-month shelf life. For more information on goat's milk, contact the National Goat Milk "hotline" at (800) 891-GOAT (4628).

***************************Info for a true allergy:Contaminants in cow's milkIf you haven't already switched to organic dairy products in your meal plan, you'll definitely need to do so in order to determine if you have an adverse reaction to cow's milk. The reason is quite simple: about a dozen pesticide residues are commonly found in non-organic cow's milk. (The source of these pesticides, of course, is the food that the cows were given to eat.) Also commonly found are hormonal residues from hormones that were given to the cows prior to milking, as well as antibiotics.

Finally, from cow's milk products like cheese, cream, or butter packaged in plastic containers, residues of the plastic itself are found in the dairy products. These residues are called packaging migrants, and they include the substances DEHP and DEHA (diethylhexyl phthalate and diethylhexyl adipate). Unless you switch over to organic dairy products when trying to determine a dairy reaction, you won't know whether your reaction is occurring due to components of the cow's milk itself, or to these contaminant residues.

Practical tips - how to test for dairy food reactionsFor a two-week period, eliminate the following: * casein-containing foods * lactose-containing foods * all pure dairy products (including cow's milk, cow's milk yogurt, cow's milk cheese, and cow's milk ice cream) * processed foods containing milk solids, casein, sodium caseinate, caseinate, or lactose. After the two-week period, begin to reintroducing dairy-containing foods into your meal plan. Start with organic low-fat cow's milk, organic skim cow's milk, or organic nonfat cow's milk, and just try about 4 ounces total at two different times during the day.

On the following two days, go back to your dairy-free meal plan, and wait and see if you experience any of the reactions you noticed before you removed dairy (the two day rule). If not, introduce another dairy-containing food that you would like to keep in your meal plan, for example, organic cow's milk yogurt. Stick with the highest quality and least complicated product when you conduct your test - for example, try 4 ounces of a plain, nonfat organic yogurt rather than a flavored product or a product containing fruit on the bottom.

Follow the the two-day rule again. If you still experience no problematic reaction, you may want to go on and experiment with a non-dairy food that contains dairy protein, like a soymilk cheese that contains casein. The process is time-consuming, and it takes a lot of patience!

But it is still the best way to decide if dairy is a problem for you or not.