Apologies if this has already been mentioned in this forum, I only searched under 'nomad'.

As I mentioned before, I'm a dairy-eating paleo person, and wondered what your thoughts were on the subject. Do you think there were nomadic herders in the paleo period (okay, it's a fine line, but they had to start sometime, no?)? Or strictly h-g'ers?

The reason I ask is because I firmly believe that paleo peoples would have taken advantage of every food source they came across, including milk from freshly killed prey. I believe that foods such as cheese, yogurt, and kefir were happy accidents and as such, I can eat them. Am I sane or mad?

M

Animal husbandry didn't come into being until after the start of agriculture, at least according to Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel. So that would have been the neolithic age.

But we're not paleos because we have an extraordinary fondness for hunter gathers, more for the fact that the sort of food they ate is the food humanity has had to eat for the longest to eat and adapt to. So, if there's evidence that a food is one we're not particularly well adapted to eat then we would try to avoid that, if we chose to do so. Personally, I've found my gut is much quieter and happier without the dairy products. I'll never forget my last day on dairy products. I decided to mark the occassion with lots and lots of ice cream. I could just fill my belly swelling with gas.

I'm not as fanatical about avoiding dairy as I am gluten but I do seem to have issues with it.

I only eat raw dairy, pasturized, homogenized dairy is not a food substance but more like a posion..........even raw dairy is not paleo, but it is the closet form possible

Dairy is definitely not paleo.
What is your goal by the way, most people switch to Paleo eatting for a reason, and for many that reason is to lose weight.

Some people have adapted to handle dairy better than others. If you can eat dairy without the side effects, then I wouldn't worry about it.
But if your goal is to lose weight and when you eat dairy your weight lose stalls or you gain weight, then I would cut out the dairy.

Good luck to you.

Couldn't agree more. Cheese, in particular, seems to slow me down.

I think if all your dairy came from raw sheeps and goats milk, that might be fine. Humans are generally more tolerant of those.

Domestication of cows came much later and cow dairy is not well tolerated by humans in general.

I agree with Bat spit to some extent. It seems to cause my gut less agony than cow milk, plus if you think about it, it makes sense. The cow produces hormones that create a HUGE animal, sheep and goat are much smaller.

But you should try a period of no-dairy products for a couple of weeks at some point, to see how you feel.

I guess I should add that all my raw milk is raw goats milk. I agree dairy is not paleo but that doesn't mean in is nessesarily a bad food

I try to avoid dairy in general. When I do have it I buy organic or raw. I do not have GI symptoms from milk products, but I do get zits. Usually cheese, yogurt and milk are the worst, sour cream and cream cause much less skin problems. Quantity matters too.

I think if I had symptoms half as bad as I get from gluten I would certainly avoid dairy completely. I have to be really miserable in order to give something up. Just yesterday I had some whipped cream with splenda - totally non-paleo and today I am beating myself up because of that.

I eat dairy even though I try to pretty much eat mostly paleo other than that. My personal belief is that animal husbandry would have preceded the agricultural revolution by quite a long shot. My long-ago great-great-(etc.) ancestors used to herd reindeer in Lapland. They didn't try to do any agriculture; they apparently just started following the herds and then that's how their animal husbandry started. They lived off the meat and milk of their herds.

It seems to me that other cultures would have had a similar beginning. It would almost seem ridiculous to think that we started farming, and THEN decided to capture and raise animals. I mean, c'mon, anyone who's had a child or been around a child, what's the first thing they want to do when they see a wild animal? Catch it and raise it. Even city children have this "instinct", so why wouldn't early hunter-gatherers?

So IMHO, dairy is fine. I try to get raw when I can, though.

" It would almost seem ridiculous to think that we started farming, and THEN decided to capture and raise animals. "

I agree. I believe Mongols drank mare's milk? I eat dairy, too.

Janine

I searched on "animal husbandry timeline" and found a few things like

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0804081.html
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-...terview1c.shtml

It seems like there'd be evidence if it happened earlier. Like containers to store the milk in or something. Cave paintings of people milking animals.

There's some pretty good reasons why they think dairy came into play right around the time of agriculture. The dairy animals could eat the stubble from the fields of grain and then fertilize those fields with their poo.

Otherwise the people with the critters would probably have a pretty hard time keeping their critters fed and watered.

Are there any modern examples of hunter gatherer populations with dairy animals?

One thing from Guns, Gems and Steel is that there are only about 14 species of domesticated animals and nearly all of them are found in the Middle-East (where agriculture started) and Europe.

As far as I know, I have no problem with dairy. However, paying close attention to how I FEEL after eating a lot of it, I notice I am sluggish and bloated. But this is after eating a whole cup of whipped cream, or a fake pizza made with a cheese base plus cheese topping. If I remember correctly I have eaten goat/sheep cheese and rather a lot of it and not felt bloated.

I have access to great goat and sheep cheese here which I do buy (and eat). I am going to do an experiment and cut out the cow dairy but not the goat/sheep cheese and see what happens.

I would actually like to cut out all dairy, but I find it very hard to get my the fat content of my diet up without. I can't seem to find lard anywhere that isn't modified, and I prefer the REAL crispies but no butcher ever seems to have spare pig fat to give me (I could live off pork crispies).

I feel AMAZING after eating pork crispies. They are my holy grail.

I think there's something to this whole dairy isn't great thing.

It made a big difference to my health. I'd recommend you give yourself a couple of weeks totally dairy free just to see if you feel better. I think it tends to mess up my sinuses and give me brain fog and memory problems.

Why cut out the pork crispies? They're not dairy. I didn't quite understand that seque.

For fat there's always avocados, coconut milk/cream, nuts, macadamia nuts, animal fat drippings, ghee, and so on.

No no you misunderstand - my meaning is that if I COULD get raw pork fat here, I would be rendering it and eating the crispies every day!!

But alas, I can't buy pork rinds OR pork fat it seems - only tallow which is ok but lacks the tastiness of lard cracklings.

Having said that I have a batch of cow fat in the oven and I will eat the crispies!

I will go dairy free for a couple of weeks then, just to see. However we are going to be travelling so I might have to take some goat cheese or starve - I think I'll pick the cheese. No cow dairy though - that should be easy.