I am certainly not a vegan. (If you read back a few posts, you’ll find my odes to lard and poultry fat.) I don’t believe that a vegan diet is safe in the long term — it can cause a fatty-acid imbalance, protein deficiency, vitamin deficiency, etc.

I think that dairy is a lovely food, if you aren’t allergic / sensitive to it. As you wrote, it’s best to find local, unhomogenized and if possible unpasteurized dairy. You could look for a farm near you on localharvest.org.

If you can’t get your dairy from a farmer, look for local or organic milk in the grocery store. (Unfortunately, not all organic milk is really organic in spirit — Horizon is an example of this. For help choosing a brand, check out Cornucopia’s Dairy Scorecard.)

Enjoy all your posts…they are well written and are a great resource in living natural and healthy! thank you!!

I was searching your blog for any comments you may have on milk. Nowadays 99.9 % is homogenized and pasteurized…both have negative effects. homogenization changes the structure of milk making it harder to digest besides changing nutritional properties…and this has been shown by scientific studies. pasteurization we all know

I am originally from India, where many are vegetarian and milk has been valued and used in many forms (yogurt, curds, sweets, creamer, added to food) for hundreds/thousands of years. But I suspect whether the same value applies to homogenized and pasteurized milk of today….India did not use this technology until the last few decades and it was pretty much “grow-buy-sell local”.

How about yogurt made from such homogenized/pasteurized milk? would you consider that healthier than consuming milk-off-the-shelf? are you a vegan? if you do consume milk products, where do you source them from? Enough questions for you to write a new post on milk huh

Although I wish to go vegan, it is hard for me to let go of consumption of plain milk (used as creamer in tea/coffee) and yogurt…the milk substitutes available aren’t good enough and sometimes too expensive. also I’m not convinced that consuming too much of soy products including soy based yogurt is a good idea for those of us who have not grown up with a soy-based diet or culture. Therefore, your suggestions would be most welcome!

I’m glad you like the categories. I try to make them useful. And I do try to make constitutional terms like “hot” and “cold” understandable. They really aren’t so esoteric after all…