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Raw Goat Milk

Has anyone else tried raw goat milk? I've been doing the goat milk for about a year now, and Crohn's is a thing of the past for me. The enzymes in the raw milk help heal the gut, the proteins are half the size as cow milk protein, so they digest quickly, in only 20 minutes. Cow milk proteins can take about 20 hours to digest. For people with absorption issues, this really helps! Goat milk is virtually lactose free, so people who have an hard time with cow's milk, can usually handle goat milk. When I first started, I used goat milk as a meal replacement. After a few months of drinking goat milk, i could tolerate foods that used to be banned from my menu! I could now eat spicy, and cow dairy! I sure missed the ice cream!

Goat milk is a complete food. You can live off of it. When I have it for a meal, it is surprisingly filling and satisfying.

The trick is it has to be fresh and raw. Fresh goat milk does not have that "goaty" flavor, but rather a rich, sweet taste. It's like the best milk you've ever tasted. We liked it so much, that we got our own goats!
 
Kind of amazed to see this post, and so recently posted.

Because I have just discovered it myself--been drinking it since the end of March--and me & the ol' lady are ALREADY thinking about buying our own goats. In fact it's all we can think about, basically. Is this how it happened to you??

So I bought a half gallon on a whim at the farmer's market, and it was remarkable right off the bat just because i could consume it and not have any problems--the first thing in years, it seemed like.

Since then i've been drinking it like a maniac and feeling better symptomwise--less pain, less cramping--and gaining back a bunch of weight (12 lbs up, starting out at about 35 lbs underweight end of March and for like six months before that), AND finding foods more tolerable.

Also since the farmer's market I've found a couple home farmers selling their milk slightly cheaper--plus we get to go to the farm and meet all the goats, and learn about goatkeeping. Today i picked up a gallon of colostrum, some of it from a goat milked right in front of us! It was awesome. And I've read that the benefits of colostrum (the first of the milk right after a doe gives birth) can be awesome too. Excited to find out how I feel a year out!

Would love to hear more about how it's affected the course of your disease, and your life. How much are you drinking now? How much do you love your goats? How many do you have? Do you still take meds for crohns? And what do your doctors think? Have you met anyone else with IBD who's been helped by raw goats milk?

Thanks so much for posting! And all best!
marc.
 

nogutsnoglory

Moderator
I'd encourage anyone to be careful with raw animal products but especially those on immunosuppressants. I do believe raw is better but in today's day and age you never know what dangerous bacteria could be in an unpasteurized product.
 
Raw milk is safe if you know where it comes from, and know that the goat farmers use proper milk handling procedure. There has been very few actual cases of people who have gotten sick from goat milk.

I started just like you, schultmh, did some research and dove in to the goat life. I've been in it for a year, and in that time, got off of Remicade, and stayed in remission. My GI doctor was skeptical at first, but when he saw my improvement, became more open to it. I raise Nigerian Dwarf goats. They are smaller and easier to handle. Their milk is also high in butterfat which makes it one of the more sweeter goat milks out there.

I drink a cup of goat milk chai in the morning, and usually a cup in the afternoon (sometimes as a meal replacement) and sometimes with dinner, but just occasionally.
 

Lisa

Adminstrator
Staff member
Location
New York, USA
When I was a child, my mom got raw goats milk from a local dairy. When she couldn't get that any more, she found a place for raw cow's milk....I remember the cream being so thick you could literally stand a spoon up in it!!

I drank raw milk through high school, and to this day do not like store bought milk...tastes like water.....
 

nogutsnoglory

Moderator
But unless one raises themselves how do you know how fresh it is, the health of the goat, what they ate etc? I mean even healthy goats can contain harmful bacteria. I would not risk it on remicade but I would be interested if I could be confident the product is safe.
 
Goats have 1 main disease that could affect the milk, called CAE. Good goat farmers have documentation that their goats have been tested and are CAE free. If you are checking out a farm, ask them if the have a CAE free herd. Also ask about how they collect the milk. Do they use a bleach solution to sanitize their collecting jars and equipment? Do the refrigerate the milk soon after milking? If so, it is safe to drink.
 
Love that photo amyh! I tried to hug it but I don't think that means what I think it means. (I'm brand new to the forum.)

Yep, I've been reading up and digging in and learning about proper handling and what to ask. It's been fun! And restorative! And I have my doc checking for bacterial infections in my output to doublecheck. We are looking at nigerian dwarfs ourselves! There's a great farm near us that breeds them, they've built a bunch of their structures and fencing from old surf boards.

How much space do your goats take up amyh? Did you have to move to accomodate them? We are currently renting in metro Atlanta, so thinking of buying something a little further out with a few acres to keep the goats and whatever else we decide to raise.
 
So excited to hear about this amyh!! Thanks so much for sharing your story. Do you know of anyone else who has cured a chronic illness with raw goat milk? I'm a journalist, was thinking it could make a great story, if I found a modest variety of people who have seen this kind of benefit and decided to get goats themselves. (A handy rule of journalism: two's a coincidence, three's a trend story.)

Best!
m.
 
Store bought milk is collected and commingled with thousands of gallons of milk from various sources. If the milk from one cow is infected, the whole batch is infected. Pasteurization kills most infections, but several outbreaks have happened over the years with pasteurized milk.

Buying unpasteurized milk from one source at least allows you to know who it is from, and precautions taken to assure it is safe. Standard for regular store bought milk allows so much puss in the milk, so it is not like it is sterile even under the best of circumstances.

Dan
 
There are lots of stories about goat milk and healing. I subscribe to Nigerian dwarf digest, a magazine, and there are lots of stories of real people and how goat milk changed their lives. I have a Facebook page "goats in Eugene" and there are a few stories on there.
 

theOcean

Moderator
So excited to hear about this amyh!! Thanks so much for sharing your story. Do you know of anyone else who has cured a chronic illness with raw goat milk? I'm a journalist, was thinking it could make a great story, if I found a modest variety of people who have seen this kind of benefit and decided to get goats themselves. (A handy rule of journalism: two's a coincidence, three's a trend story.)



Best!

m.

It would still be considered a treatment at best and not a cure. If you were to write an article about it and describe it as such, it would be pretty misleading. So please be careful about that if you wrote about it!
 
Not a cure, but made my life as close to pre-Crohns days as possible! I still have occasional lower abdomen aches, much like gas pains but nothing like I had before. I now have regular BM's once a day.
 
Oh sure, I used "cure" without thinking, I would be sure not to misrepresent the significance of it, I know there's no "cure" for crohns. Will check out the forum amyh! Thanks again!
 
I have a terrible lactose problem; however, since being on SCD, I've been able to periodically eat approved cheeses. Have any of you made yogurt from Raw Goat Milk? Please let me know. I've tried making coconut yogurt but would love to move into goat milk if possible. Is dairy an issue for any of you experiencing such great success with the raw goat milk? Thank you!
 
AmyH, how much did you drink when you first started out? I'm drinking I think between 1-2 quarts a day. It's been about two months. At first I was craving/thinking about it all the time but lately I've been slowing down a bit. I guess that's normal right?

Joie, raw goat milk has much much less lactose than cow milk, plus it's got digestive enzymes and probiotics to help digest it (that's the RAW advantage, pastuerization kills those enzymes and probiotics). Plus goat milk is much much easier to digest than cow milk, the proteins and fats are much smaller and don't take any (or take very little) work to digest. I myself get pretty sick pretty quick drinking regular cows milk. Raw goat milk i can drink all day and night without any distress.
 
Schultmh: Thanks so much for your response--very helpful. Question: Do you follow the SCD program? And, do you make yogurt from the goat milk? I'm guessing you might not need it if you are getting probiotics and the enzymes from the goat milk. Also, are you on any medications?
I was just diagnosed in April 2014 after 13 years of "D". By day 5 on the SCD Intro, I was "D" free! Only came back when I was on Uceris--I'm currently off all meds because I am having terrible reactions to them.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply!
 
Joie, sorry for the delay!

I have not tried the SCD, it's a bit too "Specific" for me to follow without backsliding. Though I probably should give it a try, I've tried just giving up sugar as a first step and it is too hard for this weakling.

I have not tried making yogurt with goats milk, but you definitely can--actually, a farmer we purchased from gave us a bit, and it was super good.

And though my weight is up (almost 25 lbs up!) and my pain/cramping is down, I am still having the D and my frequency is still in the 12-16 neighborhood. I am currently on ZERO medications, just came off a trial w/Stelara that wasn't doing me much good. Happily, I am starting the new stuff, Entyvio, next week.

AmyH! Is that a Nigerian Dwarf baby? Is that what you keep? We are thinking Nigerian Dwarfs is our breed (at least to start with).
 
I've been casein free for a long time. Today I tried fermented goat yogurt for the first time since a long time. I've read the A1/A2 casein hypothesis and wanted to give it a shot. Casein generally makes my arthritis worse so I'll know if goat yogurt will do any damage by observing my joint pain.

Because it's fermented, it has no lactose.
 
Has anyone else tried raw goat milk? I've been doing the goat milk for about a year now, and Crohn's is a thing of the past for me. The enzymes in the raw milk help heal the gut, the proteins are half the size as cow milk protein, so they digest quickly, in only 20 minutes. Cow milk proteins can take about 20 hours to digest. For people with absorption issues, this really helps! Goat milk is virtually lactose free, so people who have an hard time with cow's milk, can usually handle goat milk. When I first started, I used goat milk as a meal replacement. After a few months of drinking goat milk, i could tolerate foods that used to be banned from my menu! I could now eat spicy, and cow dairy! I sure missed the ice cream!



Goat milk is a complete food. You can live off of it. When I have it for a meal, it is surprisingly filling and satisfying.



The trick is it has to be fresh and raw. Fresh goat milk does not have that "goaty" flavor, but rather a rich, sweet taste. It's like the best milk you've ever tasted. We liked it so much, that we got our own goats!
amyth, would be possible for you to share the name and location of your GI dr, who observed your improvement with drinking goat milk? I can only convince my teen to drink it, if observations can be confirmed by a GI dr. He is very sceptical, and unless dr tells him, would not try it...
Thank you!
 
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