Vegans: Once you go dairy free, there's no turning back?

Question

I read that once you go dairy free for a while, you can never return to dairy again, especially milk, because it will cause a disturbance in the stomach. Something to do with enzymes... once it's gone, it's gone for good!

True or false?

Either way, I'm not interested in going back to dairy, AT ALL.

Answer 1

ahh wow.

my bestfriend is a vegan, and he has been one for about three years.

and when he accidentally eats cheese or dairy, he feels REALLY REALLY sick.

i dont know how they can turn back to dairy if they would feel sick to the stomach

Answer 2

false I know someone who was vegan and then turned back to being a veggie (unless they were lying)

Answer 3

Its partially true, and partially inaccurate.  COMMERCIAL milk that has been pasturized becomes void of any nutrients, and the naturally occuring enzymes are destroyed. Then, "nutrients" are added in artificially.  This is why many people are "lactose intolerant".  If you consume RAW, ORGANIC milk, however, it contains all of the enzymes necessary to digest itself, and is therefor well tolerated by even the most intolerant people.  I avoided dairy for over 10 years (due to dairy allergy).  A friend tried to convince me to try raw, organic dairy, which I resisted because I was convinced I would have issues with it.  I eventually tried it though, and had no problems at all.  I tried commercial milk again, and ended up in the hospital for a week.  Now, I consume huge amounts of raw dairy, and have no problems at all.  I make butter, kefir, yogurt and cheese and these are all staples in my diet.  I have my own cows now, and I have no issues with consuming their excess milk.  I know they are well cared for, loved, and being farmed as nature intended them to be.  Their milk is gift that has quite literally saved my life.  I would NEVER go back to consuming dairy from animals farmed intensively-they are pumped full of garbage, and are treated horribly.  The way their milk is overprocessed makes it no surprise that people have reactions to it.  The enzymes that are alive in the raw milk make it totally digestible, nourishing, and healthy.

Answer 4

It seems that if you did not have interest you would not be posing this question... many folks on this particular site have so much emotion about foods and their bodies and not enough understanding of the food process and where it comes from and how it will specifically affect you.  

Milk is a very safe food, highly regulated by food inspections from the farm tank to the hauler to the processor.  If something gets through the system, it is a rare event.  

Do some folks have a genetic disposition for lactose intolerance, sure and they will have to deal with that as anyone else with a metabolic challenge.

There is nothing magic about dairy foods, it is pasteurized which raises the milk temperature to 165 degrees for about 30 seconds and then cooled back to 38 degrees.(This is probably an outdated mode of food processing from the early 1900's when people would contact Undulent Fever from milk supplied from cows with Brucellosis.  Cattle today are Brucellosis free so no worries there)

Its homogenized in which the processor breaks down the size of the fat particles so that you do not have cream floating to the top of the milk.  On the farm we used to shake the jar of milk to mix the cream and then drink it as is.  I would drink milk directly from the farm today, yet there are no farms close enough, so I drink the skim milk and save those extra calories for my ice cream diet!

Many misconceptions on this site about cows, farms and the foods that you eat.  Farms today are a business, not like our grandparents place, yet cattle are treated very well, with good diets, good veterinary care and 99.9% of the farms are a complete opposite of the videos that you folks watch on the PETA websites.  

I have watched the PETA websites and they show people (not farmers) treating animals badly.  In my 45 years I have never seen a farmer treat cattle like that displayed on your videos.  PETA creates these videos with their people so that they can sucker folks like you into believing that farms are a bad place.  That is so far from the truth and it is apalling to me that anyone with an ounce of common sense believes all of this c**p that they are trying to sell you.  

If you want to go on being a vegan or veg or whatever the h*** else you call yourselves that is your choice, but for your own sake and the health of your friends or family, take your food and diet seriously and study an issue away from these pro-PETA sites and research the issue properly.  If you only find a certain type of information from one site saying what you want to believe without verifying that information from other credible websites or research you are only fooling yourself and those that hang out with you.

Answer 5

Interesting question :)

To be able to drink milk without "disturbing" your stomach you need to make the enzyme lactase. This enzyme breaks down the lactose in milk into sugars we can use.

Many kids can make lactase because they have an active lactase gene, hence many kids can drink milk. Over time, the gene that codes for lactase is usually shut down (it doesn't go away it is just not read and translated into an enzyme anymore).

Approximately 75% of adults (vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore) no longer make lactase and so they are lactose-intolerant (i.e. can't drink milk). People who can drink milk as adults have a DNA mutation and this is now referred to as a condition: lactase persistence!

This is a natural process and diet will not affect lactase production. Scientists used to think that being able to drink milk was a case of “use it or lose it”. But lots of studies have been done to show that removal of dairy from your diet doesn’t affect the amount of lactase you make.

The myth of "use it or loose it" probably came from people who had given up dairy when they were younger returning to it as adults and discovering they were lactose intolerant. This is just a matter of timing, not their diet.

It is possible that a vegan diet could affect the balance of bacteria in the gut and favour the growth of bacteria that can't digest milk over those that can't. However, this is only a theory and there is no evidence I know of that suggests these bacteria affect a persons ability to drink milk.

My final suggestion is that milk is something you simply "loose your taste for" if you haven't had it for a long time. Nothing genetic, nothing to do with enzymes, just a matter of taste.

Hope this helps, and well done on your commitment to not eating dairy :)

Answer 6

False, although there is an element of truth to it. Once you eliminate something unhealthy from your diet for a long enough period of time, it will take some getting used to to be able to eat again in large quantities, however this is not only true for dairy. It's the same thing with sugar and meat.