HomeHealthIs Raw Milk Easier to Digest Than Pasteurized Milk?

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Is Raw Milk Easier to Digest Than Pasteurized Milk? — 21 Comments

  1. I’d also point out that they used sugar-free vanilla syrup to flavor the milks to mask the different tastes of the varieties – not sure what was in it, but I’ve never met a non-caloric sweetener that agreed with my gut.

  2. Well, isn’t it true that it takes weeks to build the microbial flora in your digestive tract to handle RAW milk, but once it’s established it aids in the digestion and absorption. While pasteurized milk doesn’t have the microbial flora and therefor, once lactose intolerant …you STAY Lactose intolerant.

    • I don’t know if there is an adjustment time to be able to digest raw milk. I started drinking it by the cupful right away, but I got my start with raw goat milk kefir, which I used in smoothies. I now drink raw cow milk from Guernsey and Jersey cows plus my goat milk kefir smoothies. I’ve never had any digestive issues with any raw milk.

  3. I started having problems when drinking milk about 15 years ago. I assumed I was lactose intolerant and started drinking the so called “lactose free”milk. Things seemed better with that and I just went on with it and that assumption.
    A few years later however, I moved to a small rural community where I couldn’t find “lactose free” milk. During a craving for milk I decided to buy raw milk at the market place and deal with the consequences of my lactose intolerance and my craving later.

    To my surprise though, there were no consequences. No heaviness, no bloating or anything else. After trying it a few times I told my mom, who suffered from the same symptoms I did with milk, and she decided to try it too. She looked for a farm where she could get raw milk and she had the same results. Ever since, I will try to find raw milk and just use that when I can or feel like having milk.

    This, of course, wasn’t a scientific experiment nor did I have many more subjects to study, but my personal conclusion was that I wasn’t lactose intolerant. I was possibly intolerant to part of the process of pasteurization, or whatever vitamins and things that may be added to milk now, or something along those lines.

    Later on I heard a similar story from someone else and somewhere else in the world and I was quite pleased to have a confirmation to my story.

    As said earlier, I did not conduct a scientific experiment, but I did have that experience. I imagine that there are people who are truly lactose intolerant with whom it won’t matter if the milk is raw or pasteurized, if it has lactose it will affect them.
    However I believe that there are some of us, whose milk problem is not related to the lactose in it.

    On a side note, if you would try the experiment mentioned above with me and you would give me soy milk I would end up with worse off than with pasteurized or processed milk itself. Soy milk does not sit well with me at all….

    • Drinking soy milk can’t be better than raw cow or goat milk. I was disturbed that it was used as a control and unbelieving that the subjects had less indigestion from the soy milk than from the raw or pasteurized milk.

    • I know myself, I can handle raw milk easier than store bought, I have a nephew that was diagnosed as lactose intolerant at about age 14 and had terrible reactions to pasteurized milk, even baked goods with milk, now 22 he can drink all the raw milk he wants ,no side effects. I’m wondering how much of it is to do with the N1 protein present in commercial milk, the family cow is a Jersey

  4. Yeah. There is “science by authority” which is heavily biased and controlled. More reliable for people is “science by repeatability”. This is the people’s science. As a lactose intolerant person, you hear that raw milk may be digestible. You try it. No problems. A friend repeats the experiment. Same result. More friends repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. Most have no problem with raw milk. That’s real science. The studies are only there to provide repeatable experiments with repeatable results for people. Otherwise they are worthless propaganda. If you live with a lactose intolerant person or are one, you know the truth. You can easily design a study that shows that raw milk does not cause the nasty inflammatory gut response mildly called “lactose intolerance” which is clearly caused by the destructive processes of homogenization and pasteurization.

  5. Sadly my experience is the complete opposite, I never had issues drinking store bought milk but after reading articles here and there I decided to take the step and look for raw milk, it gives me a very bad diarrhea depending on the amount of milk I drink, half a liter is enough to keep me bloated with gasses for more than 24 hours

    Any one had the same experience? This has been happening for long enough not to think that I have to adapt to it, it just feels worse than pasteurized milk

    • I’m not an expert but had a similar experience. It took my body a few years to get used to rich food such as raw milk. The most considerate explanation I’ve heard made by medical personnel was that the body’s system might not be able to handle loads of bacteria no matter how good they were. Introducing new type of food, especially something rich in nutrients and other “good stuff” slowly so that the body has the time to adjust to the new input. One case I heard was someone taking lots of antibiotic medication, doing some kind of “cleanse” as this person believe was doing to herself, and she reacted violently to fresh milk. If you strongly believe you must make a switch to unpasteurized milk, I hope that you will listen to your body first and take your time. Good luck.

  6. one must look at the work of Dr Natasha Campbell-McBride in her GAPS book – the answer is gut bacteria – a lack of this causes the lactose intolerance and unless that balance is re-adressed lactose intolerance will occur with both kinds of dairy milk – i would assume that the study cases had a very severe lack of correct gut bacteria and if they rebalanced that first and then tried ingesting the raw milk again, it would not have the same result …… would be interesting for a good probiotic manufacturer – like UDO’s – to find thsse 14 people, put them on a 3 month course and then retry the study – bet the results would be very interesting!!

  7. It does not really matter any more to me if a “scientific study” proves or disproves the health benefit, when I for one, after several years (not after a mere week or two), realized that I could drink fresh milk without worrying about instant warning message from my body. I’m personally not the one to jump on any information about certain cures. Raw milk was readily available as a milking technician, and I chose fresh milk because it tasted better. Some said that working on the farm increased my exposure to various contamination (by dirt and bacteria?) that helped my immune system stronger. Other said raw milk had lots of beneficial elements that brought healing to my system. My body’s reaction took at least a few years. My reaction to “milk” was on and off during the past years since I started exclusively consuming unpasteurized milk. But I know definitely, in the recent months, that my body’s reaction to milk (which had been unmistakable because it used to happen within a few minutes to half an hour) was completely gone. I pushed myself and increased the sip of milk that I timidly took to a big gulp, and guess what? No reaction. My stomach has not made that unhappy growl for several months. The opinion based on my own experience is that cure of any sort, especially something as complex as guts, does not occur instantly. If the “scientific” observation was done over the years, and if I were the study subject, I would have been one of the positive results. If I were a subject in a study done over a period of several days, I would have definitely been one of the negative outcome.

  8. Pasteurized milk actually causes me so much pain I can’t stand up straight so I never really drank it. Not sure if I am actually lactose intolerant but have been dealing with severe gut issues for years and when I was not able to tolerate much food at all I lived on mostly raw milk for two years. I have recently started making my own raw milk kefir and I love it so much I don’t even drink plain raw milk anymore, and it has tons of probiotics and almost no lactose.

  9. I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder four years ago and very weak. I was also lactose intolerant since birth. With the first cup of raw milk, my whole body started to change, and after that, and since then, four years ago, I have had at least a cup of kefir mixed with a cup of milk every day. The strength has been unbelieveable and my blood numbers are all normal now. I absolutely love my raw milk, my farmer lady and the cream and butter. It has made all the difference.

  10. Oh, and the study? If they used sugarless or sugar free syrup, that means they used xylitol, or something like it, and that stuff goes thru folk like water. It is undigestible. Look it up. Body does not recognize it as a nutrient and just sends it thru. Amazing how folks like me, uneducated really, but dedicated to research can figger this out when scientists can’t. Poor study. Untrue results. Sad.

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