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Goat milk & cheese with a dairy allergy?


Katy
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Are you talking about an allergy that shows up on skin tests?  Or a sensitivity/intolerance? 

Several in my family react to cow dairy products, but not to goat dairy products.  Skin tests don't show cow milk allergy, but we still react to it.  We don't have the same problems with goat milk products.  There's a difference in the type of casein.  This explains it: https://gundrymd.com/does-goat-cheese-have-casein/  FWIW, my experience matches what Dr. Gundry claims.  I never had problems with cow dairy products until the Guernsey and Jersey dairies went out of business and I switched to milk products from Holsteins.

 

 

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If it is a true allergy, the protein in sheep milk is even more different from cow milk than goat milk and tastes better.  There is a nice sheep Manchego from Whole Foods, and they have sheep milk yoghurt as well. Trader Joes used to have a nice sheep milk feta, but I haven't shopped there for a while.  You can get a wheel of sheep cheese from Amazon cheaper than Whole Foods:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0042W3ZAE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My allergy to cow milk is so severe that even the bit of contamination you get from chopping the cheese on the same machine can cause me problems, so I buy a whole wheel and chop it myself.  It freezes well, I freeze half and use up the other half.  The sheep feta from Trader Joes is in small sealed packages so is a small amount of cheese that doesn't suffer from contamination problems.

If it's lactose intolerance, you can get drops or pills that help, but the problem will be the same for cow or goat or sheep, they all have lactose, so you'd need the lactose product for any.

I can also tolerate goat milk but I don't like it as much and your chances of becoming allergic to the new cheese are less with sheep milk because the protein is more different.

Edited by ElizabethB
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We didn’t have first hand experience, but ds’s ped gastro did suggest that, if he didn’t tolerate our food trials with cow products, we could try goat products next.  His issue was the casein, and the... molecules (?) are smaller than cows’.  (Soy issues often goes with cow because the molecules - if that is the right word - are similar size. Sorry, it’s been like 8 years.)

If lactose is the issue, I found that many hard cheeses are labeled lactose-free. I’m talking regular bricks of cheddar and similar. I can’t remember the specific brands that prominently used that label, though.

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6 hours ago, klmama said:

Do they keep it cool during shipment?  

Yes.  They ship with ice packs and aluminum colored bubble wrap.  I've also forgotten about it and left it in the box for an extra day during the winter and it was fine, may not have worked in summer.  If you get to it on time the ice packs will still be keeping it cool.

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DS, who projectile vomits with cow milk, and has increased seizure activity with lactose free cow milk, does just fine with goat milk. In fact, powdered goat milk is the base of the food I blend for him. I don't know exactly what it is that he can't tolerate in cow milk, but whatever it is, it's not in goat milk.

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Thanks everyone.  I don't know what the problem is.  It involves both toddlers. They both have digestive issues. The older one was fine until he had to have a shot of antibiotics in the NICU, after which he stopped tolerating milk.  Projectile vomiting, acidic & mucous filled diarrhea started less than 36 hours later.  One pediatrician and a pharmacist said that meant it was an allergy triggered by the antibiotics. Another said that the fact they can both tolerate soy milk means it must be lactose, but neither can do lactose free milk or hard cheeses. Even though there is some cross reactivity between dairy and soy, not everyone cross reacts so I have my doubts. The younger is biological, and on both sides of our family there is both food allergies and lactose intolerance.

DH found some dairy free fruit smoothie with probiotics so we tried that first, and it seems to have improved things in the diaper department.  I figure I'll start with goat cheese in 3 days or so, then try milk, and then try sheep milk later if need be.  It's a bit of a drive into the closest whole foods and we're going to have some house guests at some point this week so that will have to wait.

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