Fallon & Enig write, in response to my recent generalizations about dairy:

>Regarding your most recent contribution about milk consumption, one could
>also say that man is the only animal that uses tools, lives in houses, wears
>clothes, speaks and writes books--and uses milk products.  Is the use of milk
>products thus one of those attributes that sets man apart from the beasts?

I chuckled when I read this, but I must emphasize that when I pointed out
that man appears to be the only animal on the planet that regularly
consumes milk, I was answering the point of a person who had inquired, "why
would we exclusively consume one food for the first 2-4 years of our lives
and then abandon it altogether?"  My response to this question was
rhetorical and meant to point out the obvious: cow and goat milk are
nature's way of feeding infant cows and goats, not adult humans, and
there's no animal on the planet that requires its own milk outside of
adulthood, let alone that of a different species.

Now I'll ad a tongue-in-cheek response to Enig & Fallon: It is difficult to
imagine what metabolic pathologies might be caused by daily consumption of
tools, houses, or books, but I hope you will grant the possibility that if
we all started chewing on hammers, huts, and Hawthorne, we might get sick.
;-)

More seriously, my point was that there I no reason to suggest that there
is any NEED for dairy outside of infancy.  I know of no evidence that
adults who drink milk are healthier than adults who do not.  Most humans,
in fact, are lactose-intolerant, and even that minority which continues to
secrete lactase into adulthood frequently lose this ability later in life
(references available upon request).  Casien and lactoglobulin, the primary
proteins in cow's milk, are both rather different from the proteins found
in meats, eggs, and nuts, and a number of people are allergic to one or
both.  There are even studies suggesting a link between casein and the
development of autism in children, with some interesting and promising
studies going on right now with treating autistic people with dairy-free
diets (references for this also available upon request; in fact I hope to
get more information from researchers working on this in the near future).
I'm not sure what to make of the assertions Enig & Fallon make versus the
countering data provided by Lindeberg; both clearly require some
contemplation.

By the way, for an interesting analysis of the difference between human and
cow milk (which I'm sure Fallon & Enig are entirely aware of, but which
others on the list may want to look at out of simple curiosity), have a
look at http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci308/HumanLact.html#Macro -- the
differences are quite substantial.