When we made the switch for him, I did it as well and can no longer even think about drinking milk.

I don’t know what’s considered “ideal”, but I was only fed soy milk as a baby (no cow’s milk OR human breast milk), and I seem to have turned out fine.

Well, physically at least

The only “natural” drink for an adult human could be said to be water. If cow’s milk is unnatural, then give up all juices, coffees, teas, etc (and soda obviously, but I doubt most of us drink that).

The milk you buy in a store nowadays is about as far removed from natural cow’s milk as it is possible to be. Hyper inbred for larger pituitary glands and fed incredibly unhealthy diets for the sake of volume of milk production, modern cows are very unhealthy and usually only live 3 or 4 years max, vs, 10 to 15 year “natural” productive life. (BTW, dairy farmers are in a hard place – prices they get per 100 lb of milk are still about the same as 60 YEARS ago!) Most cows have chronic illnesses and there is a great deal of pus and infections that make it into the milk -the USDA has certain “acceptable levels.” Killing the bacteria by pasteurization does not remove the impurities. Add in major hormone and antibiotic contamination and yes, store-bought milk from sad and diseased cattle is a terrible and poisonous substance. I do avoid it whenever possible, especially since learning about the Johne’s disease in cattle/Crohn’s disease in humans connection.

HOWEVER, grassfed raw milk is AWESOME! First, it naturally contains lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose. (Calves don’t produce enough lactase either all on their own, interestingly) So, the majority of “lactose intolerant” people CAN tolerate raw grassfed milk just fine! Also, pasteurization kills phosphatase in milk, which is what is necessary to absorb the calcium effectively. Raw milk enables you to get all the benefit of the calcium in what truly is one of the most bioavailable forms out there. Grassfed raw milk is at least as healthy for you as wild salmon – research the CLA and other benefits found in it. Cattle are designed to eat grass and they are happy, healthy, and long lived when they are able to get all of their nutrition from grass and NOT grain. Raw milk has antibodies from the cow in it, such that experiments have been done infecting raw milk with pathogens and the antibodies killed all the germs! The milk also has properties that help irritated stomachs and intestines.

Finally, in personal experience, I started drinking grassfed raw milk 4 or 5 years ago. I was worried it might taste weird. It has subtle flavor differences in each swallow, like a good wine, but it tastes great. I am lucky to live in CA where I can buy it in stores and even though it is super expensive it is the only milk I buy now. For a few months last year I stopped buying milk because I was trying to save $. I did not miss it much at the time but my health did go down – you could say that I was just not balancing my diet well enough, but I will say that my body really, really craved the milk. As soon as I bought some and took the first sip, my body was like “phew!” Obviously, it is a topic I am passionate about and I have gotten several friends and family members started on it too. They have all noticed a difference for the better. Please do not say that all milk is bad and unnatural for humans – we humans constantly do “unnatural” things, and many of them are good, like reading. The way the milk is produced is what makes a difference. Oh, and grassfed cattle can not only use land that is unsuitable for farming, but properly managed they vastly increase soil health and fertility.

For some references, please see westonaprice.org or realmilk.com

That said, I went from being a person who only drank soy milk to a person who drinks about a pint of 2% milk every week. Women are more susceptible to things like osteoporosis, and you can get calcium from milk and other sources of dairy. I plan to go back to consuming much less milk in the future.

I read (I would link but can’t remember where) that when humans are young they have a special enzyme in their digestive system that helps break down and process milk. We however lose this enzyme around puberty. Once this enzyme is lost it’s actually pretty hard on our bodies to digest dairy.

I have no idea if he’s right. Here’s his book:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1603581022/

Anybody care to provide an explanation or pointers?

I have no background in this area, but it seems to me that that not being lactose intolerant and able to drink milk is a good thing. It adds an extra source of protein, calories, and variety in our diet.

…and is it possible to sustain a garden and chickens on a boat?

http://www.pacificecologist.org/archive/18/pe18-hunter-gatherers.pdf

H-G lifespan is _similar_ to ours (and that’s WITHOUT the medicine we have available). Degenerative diseases (heart, cancer) are rare. They mostly die from infections (modern medicine has to a large degree fixed this).

http://www.cathletics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3779

And how about all the advances in food, medicine etc. I often try to make food the way it was made long ago, but how far back can we go?

We don’t do or use half the things they did back in the 1600, 1700 or even 1800s, let alone the stone age or say, Apocalypto age.

Hunter/gatherer-ers also worked a lot harder than any of us. Thus, heavy meat worked perfect – restored muscle mass, even though now we have beans and broccoli, etc. They also didn’t live as long, and I bet had heart disease or some sort of ailment that we would never really know.

The paleo-diet is based on what humans been bred to eat by evolution. Of course, if you believe that humans were created here 6,000 years ago …

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleo_diet
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://freetheanimal.com/