Milking it

Finding milk a bit difficult to digest? You aren’t alone: around 75 per cent of the world’s adult population have some degree of lactose intolerance, and while we in the West are less susceptible, even in the UK eight per cent of us are afflicted.

One option is to switch to a plantbased version, although in general they provide poorer nutrition. Could dairy milks other than cow’s be the answer?

There’s certainly been a boom in animal milk. Goat’s milk is a supermarket staple, and sheep’s milk is increasingly available. Even camel and mare’s milks have been appearing. Not that the non-cow dairy trend is new. In Georgian Britain, donkey milk reached superfood status – in Jane Austen’s Sanditon, the redoubtable Lady Denham (played by Anne Reid in Andrew Davies’ TV adaptation) is obsessed with the health-giving properties of ass’s milk, two millennia after Cleopatra bathed in the stuff.

While broadly the same, in that they are a suspension of minerals, sugars, protein and fat in water, the milks do differ subtly. Some who can’t tolerate cow’s milk (as opposed to having an allergy – see below) seem to manage fine with sheep’s milk and goat’s milk. There is much debate about whether a proportion of people with a full cow’s milk casein allergy may safely drink goat’s or sheep’s milk, as the casein is a subtly different kind, but as the body may confuse the two, it’s not worth the risk except under medical supervision.

All animal milk contains lactose, and new research suggests other factors may be causing intolerance symptoms, as most people who consider themselves lactose intolerant haven’t had any formal tests. Those small differences in the casein types may be just one of the culprits.

The fat is another. The globules in sheep’s and goat’s milk are smaller than in cow’s milk, so the cream does not naturally rise to the top as it does with cow’s milk (essentially they are naturally homogenised). Cow’s milk, in contrast, has fat globules that separate as the milk stands, making butter and cream production fairly simple. Fans of sheep’s and goat’s milk say the small globules make the milk easier to digest.

But small globules aren’t always good. The homogenisation of cow’s milk is blamed by some experts for making the fat too easily absorbed into the bloodstream.

For me, the differences are worth celebrating for their flavour alone, from rich sheep’s milk, to savoury goat, to sweet, creamy whole cow’s milk. If they make us feel good too, so much the better.