goat milk, hormones, vs cow milk

Lojo

I'm trying to cut out dairy and am good except for my coffee in the morning. None of the substitutes are tolerable and I was wondering if anyone knew whether goat's milk generally has lower amounts of estrogen/progesterone than commercial cow milk. Thank

MelissaDallas

why don't you just buy organic cow's milk? Horizon is widely available.

Lojo

I already am, but I was under the impression that the hormones are mostly because in modern dairy farming, milk is coming from pregnant cows rather than nursing only cows. Didn't know if goat farming is similar. (organic milk protects against added growth hormones but not excess Er/P

MelissaDallas

I thought the problem that people worried about was the artificial hormones given to encourage lactation, which aren't used in organics. 

I would think that cow or goat, their hormone levels are high to be lactating.

curveball

@Lojo, I don't know whether goat's milk in the US comes from pregnant goats, but a similar question (regarding hormone content of US cow's milk) came up on a thread here at bco last year. A study was mentioned which compared US milk to Mongolian milk (produced by the nomadic herders in the traditional way). The link to that study has been deleted from the bco thread, but I found another article about it  by googling. The article says "One compared levels of hormones and growth factors in American milk
(whole, whole organic, skim milk, and UHT - ultra-high temperature -
milk) to milk from Mongolia. Levels were very low in both American skim and in Mongolian milk."
and "Because hormones reside in milk fat, drinking skim milk is one
option."

So, non-fat milk might be one option for you. When you said the substitutes were not tolerable, did you mean things like CoffeeMate? If so, you might also try one of the non-dairy milks, such as rice, almond or hemp milk.

Lojo

Thanks curveball..I'll stick to skim. I tried almond milk, coconut, rice milk and thought they were gross in my coffee (ok in smoothies, but not coffee)

lightandwind

I understood that the problem w/ dairy (even organic although there is less in organic) is IGF- insulin growth factor. It supposedly facilitates some pathway for ER+ cancer growth. The idea of blocking the pathway somehow has been studied and considered as a preventative approach to BC.

http://ww5.komen.org/BreastCancer/Table21IGF-1andb...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11566611

http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/15/4/R55

http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/15/4/R55

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/03/15/high-fat-...

juneping

ronnybrook's milk is grass fed no growth hormone...you can get it at the wholefoods market? or online order directly from them.

http://www.ronnybrook.com/

ChemicalWorld

My (limited) understanding is that in general, goat milk causes less inflammation in the body, which is overall a good thing . 

For those looking for coffee substitutes, So Delicious brand makes a coffee creamer from coconut milk (at least I think that's the brand)