“It does a body good.” Right? I grew up believing that cow’s milk was the best thing you could put into your body. I didn’t enjoy drinking it, though, unless I masked the taste with chocolate or strawberry. Since the necessity for cow’s milk was crammed down my throat from an early age, I never questioned it.

Then, in the summer of 2005, I was introduced to goat’s milk. My daughter was 14 months old at the time and was suffering from severe atopic dermatitis, a form of eczema. My husband and I were trying to figure out what we could cut from her diet to alleviate some of her breakouts. We were visiting family in Montana, and my husband’s uncle, who is a holistic chiropractor, gave us some dietary advice. He recommended that we stop buying and consuming cow’s milk. He told us to start drinking goat’s milk. Some of the reasons we discussed are as follows:

Goat’s milk is easier to digest.  Due to the nature of the fat globules in goat’s milk, it is easier for humans to process.

Goat’s milk is less apt to trigger allergenic responses. Most people who are allergic to cow’s milk are actually allergic to its protein, casein. As it turns out, goat’s milk has much less casein than cow’s milk. Because of this, most babies who are allergic to cow’s milk have no problems or reactions after drinking goat’s milk.

Goat’s milk is naturally homogenized. I found this to be very interesting. Cow’s milk has a compound called agglutinin that separates the milk – the heavy cream from the skim milk. Goat’s milk is lacking this compound, so it doesn’t need to go through the whole process of homogenization.

Goat’s milk has slightly less lactose. Numerically, the difference between the amount of lactose in cow’s milk and the amount of lactose in goat’s milk doesn’t look that great. However, many parents report that their babies don’t show signs of lactose-intolerance with the goat’s milk.

After our discussions, I started buying goat’s milk for my daughter. She did seem to tolerate it better. It is a little more expensive and not sold everywhere – you might have to do some searching. Some stores have a plethora of different goat milk products, including yogurt, ice cream, and cheese.

If you do decide to make the switch from cow’s milk products to goat’s milk products, you will need to supplement the diet with folic acid. While goat’s milk has more of many of the needed vitamins and minerals, it is lacking in that department.

Try it! Besides – goats are cuter.

Krista currently lives in the Salt Lake Valley with her husband, three children, and dog. She loves reading, writing, and discussing childbirth and natural parenting methods and ideas. She has been a science teacher for the past decade, but resigned for a bit after having her third child this year. Now she can spend more time being crafty and playing with her children. See more of her writing at Everything Little Ones.