Screw the paleo label, give me moderate amounts of good, tasty dairy.

Just like certain aspects of grains, dairy appears to have potentially problematic components, however just like with grains, there are probably different tiers of danger depending on type. I just finished watching Sean Croxton talking about A1 vs. A2 dairy, A2 dairy can be said to be more in accordance with our biology than A1, just like white rice seems to be better tolerated than modern wheat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEpfYHS5pU

Whether or not dairy is paleo at all is a matter of opinion, depending on what you mean by paleo. But whether or not it is bad probably depends on the type and amount consumed. A2 appears to be better than A1 and raw appears to be better than pasteurized http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/raw-milk-is-tied-to-lower-risk-of-asthma-allergies-in-children/ (maybe, it's correlative data, but without significant confounders), and grass-fed is better than grain-fed. So if we were to look for evidence to implicate bovine milk then we would have to be very specific about which types we were talking about.

Thank you for the link, I had a read of it and it is very interesting.

From my reading of it:

• This is a research letter, a published update of ongoing research work rather than a full research paper.

• In a recent issue of Nutrition, intolerance to bovine milk of some patients with celiac disease was reported.

• A subset of people with celiac do not respond to a gluten-free diet due to reactions to bovine milk proteins.

• A section of the amino acid chain (an epitope) forming the casein proteins is very similar to a section of the gluten protein.

• The serum IgA response of patients with celiac disease to bovine milk could be related to gliadins and caseins sharing epitopes recognized by antigliadin IgA antibodies.

• In some people with celiac disease milk proteins cause inflammatory responses in the gut.

If you have celiac disease and do not fully respond to a strict gluten-free diet the this is worth thinking about. Other people with celiac do not seem to react to milk proteins. Most people do not have celiac disease.

• "...some other dietary proteins, such as those of cow's milk, induce celiac disease-like symptoms in some patients with celiac disease."

If you have not developed T-cell mediated celiac disease though gluten exposure, would you develop IgA antibodies targeting gluten like peptides in casein proteins?

I do not think this research letter is a good rational for everyone to avoid cows milk or other dairy products (There are other possible reasons). Or to provide as a link to support the statement that milk is not "paleo". Especially one that most people will not be able to access.

How can milk be "paleo" anyway? It is almost a definition of "not paleo" :)

Goat milk is probably paleo. Also, it's not like celiac disease is a reference to normal people. There is also the probability that something else influences an allergy to milk. Gluten could probably induce milk allergy, but there are indices that the opposite could also happen:

The major food antigens in CD [celiac disease] are gliadin and similar prolamines from rye and barley. In active disease increased serum antibodies not only against gliadin but also against CM proteins are seen [17]. However, direct evidence for CM (cows milk) protein allergy in CD is lacking. Most exposed healthy individuals have low levels of antibodies against various food antigens [17,18]. The probably explanation of this physiological phenomenon is that a small fraction of food proteins passes undegraded across the gut barrier [19], and thereby presents to the immune system with subsequent production of antibodies.

From: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2249.2007.03298.x/full

That said, bovine milk was probably here for a very long time and we did have time to adapt. Some evidence suggest that early humans couldn't digest milk.

It's much more probable that bovine milk is too much industrialized and once you have normal cow on normal pasture and omit wheat from the diet, results would be different.

Dairy is beneficial on multiple levels, on the other hand, kefir particularly.

I am so ridiculously on the fence about dairy. Some say it promotes IGf1 thus aging. Other say the fats in dairy help calcium absorption. Milk is so complex. From the type of animal, to the food it eats to the way it is processed.

I'll prolly stick with cheese and cultured dairy as that ferments the IGF1 out as per Mat Lalonde. But since I can get quality raw milk, I will for sure get that from time to time and feed that to my family. Oh, I also make butter which I love.

No, but neither are Ipods, Ipads, and smartphones - and most people aren't going to give those up! :)

Most domesticated animals and produce are very different from their wild ancestor, so as with everything the individual has to test their own tolerance!

Most of us do not live among hunter gatherer tribes so we do the best we can:

1) pastured meat/eggs, wild seafood, and game meat

2) organic produce (ideally Farmer's Markers or locally-grown)

3) pastured dairy (depending on the individual)

People tolerate dairy in varying amounts - none, goat, cow, buffalo, yak, etc.

I don't think it's paleo but I see it as a bridging culture between paleo and neolithic since wandering groups became herders long before settling into agriculture. It's a moot point for me, since I was lactose intolerant as early as age 5.

Do I think it's paleo? No. Do I occasionally eat butter, yogurt, and other dairy products? Yes.

Not particularly, but it can definitely work in the "ancestral" diet template. My ancestors are all from the herders and fishermen of northern Europe. I'm not lactose intolerant, and so can handle some dairy. I don't eat it frequently, because of a casein intolerance that couples with the severe gluten issues I've got also. If I rotate things like pastured butter and raw cream in and out of my diet (mostly out, to be fair), I do okay.

I think pastured, raw dairy products are probably okay for some people who can handle the casein/whey/lactose, but based on statistics that number worldwide is probably not all that high. I would generally say raw/pastured bovine milk is more paleo than pasteurized/homogenized/conventional dairy, and is somewhere on the spectrum between strict paleo and WAPF. I certainly feel that it's more paleo than eating grains.

To answer the question, no. No dairy after weening at least.

Is it possible for lactose intolerance to come and go? There were times when I would get hives, and through elimination diet I sorta pinned the problem down to dairy. Then I lapse back into dairy consumption and everything would be okay for a year or two. Then more hives. That and hay fever were my only allergies. Is that lactose intolerance?

I eat goat dairy, but not most of cow dairy, and none of animal milk. I eat lactose-free (hard) goat cheeses, and I make my own home-made probiotic lactose-free goat yoghurt (fermented for 20 hours). Goats have a different casein protein to bovine which is more tolerable by humans. I still can eat easily cow butter and lactose-free cow sour cream though. But cheese/yoghurt is problematic for me when it's bovine in origin, but it's ok if it's goat. But as I said, lactosed milk from any kind of animal, is problematic for me.

http://freetheanimal.com/2012/10/got-milk-whats-so-bad-about-milk.html

No it isn't. Blood type is a consideration though, Os can't generally tolerate dairy while other blood types can have it in small amounts.