135: The Milk Problem Nobody Talks About

Episode 135 - Raw Milk, Body Odor, and Why Your Biology Might Be Telling You Something_1
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Here is something I've been quietly tracking for a long time. When I drink milk, not all the time, but often enough to notice I start to stink, like really stink. I. Now that's not the usual, you know, post-workout kind of smell, manly smell that you might be familiar with. It's, it's something different.

It's punchier, it's heavier. And what makes it strange is that I have no digestive issues when consuming dairy and milk in particular. So there is no bloating, no cramping, nothing anyone would call lactose intolerance because lactose intolerance or lactose, the milk sugar in the milk is usually the component that most people associate being problematic in the context of dairy.

You know, my gut is fine. But that pattern, that that stinky pattern is weirder than that though. Welcome to the Primer Shift Podcast with conventionally pasteurized milk, which I usually never drink every so often. You know, if I can't help it or if I wanna experiment, it shows up. The time. So I think consistently after consuming regular dairy, but not for about 48 to 72 hours after I started drinking milk.

And when I stop drinking milk, it takes a few days to fade with raw milk. Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't, which. Told me this isn't probably a milk doesn't work for me, kind of problem. There is something more specific going on, and I'm telling you this because raw milk in particular has been hailed as a superfood.

You know, every wellness influenza you ask, you know, most of them are pro raw milk and how great it is and you know, all of the benefits, et cetera. And it heals the gut and heals allergies and, and whatnot. I've come to realize that while it might be true that raw milk can work for a lot of people, I think there is a part of the population.

I don't know how big that part is. That probably is not gonna do well. With dairy and even if it's raw milk, you know, and we recently found a local farm just across the state land in Alabama. They raise a hundred percent grass fed, rotationally grazed, a two a two jersey cows, and they sell the milk in. In glass Chucks so it, it doesn't get any better than this.

While they are milking the cows get organic alfalfa, which is also forage, not a grain, and. I'm like, finally, you know, but I was always afraid or, you know, thinking about, well, you know, I've made, I've had the experience in the past. If I drink raw milk, I start smelling. And so I really, I was trying to figure out does that smell tell me something about the fact that the milk, that milk might not be good for me, regardless of how good it is.

But when we found that farm across the state line. I started drinking milk. Actually, just a couple of days ago. I began drinking a glass of milk or two every day. And just because I ho just before I hopped, uh, on this recording, I went to the kitchen and I told, Hey, everybody, come here. You know, I need you to smell me.

You know, the kids refused to smell my armpits, but my wife volunteered and she confirmed you don't smell and I haven't smelled myself either. So something is different with this particular, uh, milk. How my body appears to be handling it. So today I wanna pull on that threat because what I've been tracking on my own skin points to a much bigger conversation, you know, about raw milk, about what it actually is, why most of what you've been told about it is wrong and why even the best milk in the world might not be the right food for every human adult.

So let's get into that.

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 And now back to the episode. And I wanna set the stage a little bit, um, pointing out that. Your body is signaling you to you all the time through sweat, skin, breath, mood, sleep, even body odor. But most people only start listening to their bodies when something hurts, and that's usually already when it's too late.

And I also wanna point out that a food can be quote-unquote, well toler well tolerated. At least on paper and still be not read, be the right food for you. You know? Ancestral doesn't mean dogmatic. You know, every mammal on earth weans at some point, and that isn't an accident. That's just basic biology. So the question is, if all mammals wean themselves from mom's milk, should we be drinking milk?

You know? And I mentioned it initially, you know, lactose or lactose intolerance and the absence of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose. Is one of the major issues that most people have with dairy. You know, there are, there is only about a third of the population who have a mutation, and that's called lactase.

Persistence, meaning that the lactase, the enzyme persists into adulthood because usually as we are weaned from mom's breast, lactase goes away because it's no longer needed. We no longer have the need to break down lactose, the sugar that's in milk. But there is that mutation. There is that part of the population, about 35% who have lactose persistence.

And so for those, they have no issues breaking down lactose Now. There are certain lineages across the population and I'm just, you know, thinking of the Masai in, in Africa, they consume raw milk with mixed, with blood, with cow blood throughout the year. And they do incredibly well. They're tall, they have perfect teeth, they have good health and so forth.

They keen observer, you know, I'm not MSI and chances are if you're listening to this, neither are you. So the question is. Do you do well with dairy or maybe not. Do you have any science that you might not be doing well or not? And again, lactose is only part of the equation. That's something that I've realized over time that even though I don't seem to be struggling with, with lactose and I haven't done any lactose persistent testing in me, I don't know if I have that, you know, mutation and I can, I, I still have.

Lactase, I have no idea, but it seems to be the case for me. But I've realized that, you know, in the absence of GI issues of any bloating, et cetera, lactose is probably not the culprit in, in my case, of just smelling terribly. And what's very interesting in my case is that those, that 48 to 70 hour delay, you know, rules out most of the usual suspects as far as.

Issues with dairy is concerned. You know, it's not a simple sulfur off gassing from digestion. It's no acute histamine reaction and it's no direct excretion of volatile compounds from the milk itself because that would, all of those would hit within hours and not days. So that kind of delay. Leads me to think there might be other mechanisms at place that I wanted to dig into.

And so I did some research and I wanted to share a few of those with you because you might exper have experienced the same thing. And that might give you a clue on whether or not dairy is good for you or whether or not you should be consuming dairy. And the number one factor that I stumbled across is a shift in the gut's microbiome.

You know, when you introduce a substrate. Like milk, you know, your resident bacteria likely adjust because if you have not consumed milk in a while, then the bacteria that's that thrive on dairy are probably not very widespread in your digestive system. But if you introduce a substrate like milk, then you're resident.

Uh, bacteria population starts to shift and that reshuffling occurs usually within 24 to 72 hours. So that's potentially one clue. And there are also certain dairy, uh, protein and fat fragments that reach the colon and feed, uh, put effective and sulfur reducing bacteria. And those populations then start blooming and their metabolites, like indu skeletal, peak cresole, hydrogen sulfide, they get absorbed and vented through the skin and breath.

As I mentioned, that bloom, you know, of bacteria takes a couple of days to build. It also takes a few days to die back once you stop. And that's exactly the pattern that I'm seeing. So my smelly armpits, and it's not only my armpits, I think I feel like my, my entire upper body kind of excretes that that odor that I have noticed could be a cause of a change in gut microbiome.

Now the second factor could be a delayed type immune response, you know, because the textbook window for cell mediated, or ITG mediated reactions is 24 to 72 hours from exposure. And you know, none of that would really show up on a standard IGE allergy panel because I'm not, it's not a, a full direct immune response.

It's a delayed immune response. So there are different, I guess, antibodies you can measure in your blood. Based on the type of immune response you are, you are dealing with, and you know that immune response at the end of the day is low grade inflammation. So that shift in systemic inflammation and then the skin microbiome can lead to theodor production that I'm experiencing.

And here is the most telling part. You know, sometimes raw milk doesn't trigger it, but regular pasteurized milk pretty much always does. And so that essentially exonerates quote unquote milk as a category and points at what's different, uh, at what's different between the two, meaning raw and pasteurized, you know, and some of the differences are, you know, the enzymes.

Raw milk, the enzymes are usually intact. There is lactoferrin, there are immunoglobulins, uh, in raw milk, and that leads to a more complete upstream digestion and less, but, uh, effective, uh, fermentation downstream. And less fermentation means less fermentation byproducts, which usually, um, expose themselves as body, body order, for example.

Also, pasteurization. Which is, you know, the heating up of the milk alters case in digestibility and creates Melo reaction byproducts that were not in the original food. And that's something also your immune system and your gut, gut bacteria can respond to, leading to, again, the consequences like body order or low grade inflammation.

The other nuance is that most commercial pasture is milk is from Holstein cows. You know, it's a German breed from Holstein and they are a one dominant. There are different types of Cain protein, A one and a two, and the A one dominant milk, um, when you consume it causes the release of what's called beta caso morphine seven.

That's a morphine at the end of the day. And we'll talk about more than in a minute, but that can also lead then to different outcomes or different consequences like body odor and low-grade inflammation. The other nuance. Another, yet, another nuance is that conventional milk is usually grain fed. Now you can obviously find grass fed, you know, milk, um, in the stores, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the cows are fed grass a hundred percent of the time.

Very often commercial dairies, they are fed grains while they, they're milking kind of like as their treat, and they're milked once a day, sometimes twice a day, depending on the breed. And so they are a grain consumption can be a meaningful part of the diet, and that leads to a different fatty acid and, uh, profile in the milk and a different microbiome signature at the end of the day.

And the translation of all of that is that it's, it might not be the milk per se. It could be the A one K scene in the milk. It could be processing, it could be, uh, grain fed inputs that drive low grade inflammation and a microbiome response on a multi-day timeline. Now, if you've been following me for a while, you probably know that I consider regular pasteurized milk chunk food.

You know, it's, it's ach into drinking sugar water instead of consuming raw honey, you know. Raw milk would be ach into raw honey. And, uh, pasteurized homogenized milk is ach into sugar water. It's, it's has very little nutritional value. Proteins are denatured. No enzymes, no. None of the bioactive ingredients.

They're all dead. They're all killed by the pasteurization right now. One could argue well, but isn't raw milk, you know, dangerous. You know, pasteurization wasn't invented because milk is inherently dangerous. You know, it was invented because industrial dairy in the late 18 hundreds was a public health disaster.

You know, confinement barns, sick cows, no refrigeration, and milk was shipped in hot trains. In those cases, pasteurization probably made a whole lot of sense to prevent people from getting sick. But it was ultimately a bandaid on a system that was genuinely poisoning. People, you know, applying that logic to small, clean grass fed farms in 2026 is a category error.

You know, of course, raw milk, anything raw carries some risk, like eating your, you know, steak raw. Yes, of course, but that risk is really negligible if you source from someone who pays attention. To cleanliness. You know, it's like, you know, saying that all the eggs that we get from our barn, you know, uh, from our, from our hands in the backyard, you know, they're health risk because they're not rinsed in chlorine.

I dunno how many, how many thousands of eggs I've consumed from our own chickens. And I've yet to get sick or anyone else who consumed our eggs. So it's, you know, the risk is always there, but you know, living is risky. You know, stepping up or getting up from this chair and walking to the kitchen, there is a risk of that.

I might trip. Is it a real risk? Does it prevent me from taking the walk to the kitchen, or, of course not. And the same goes with, with dairy as well. You know, now there is another, you know, nuance to. To milk. And that is the grass fed versus grain fat, you know? And, and that also plays them into the raw milk argument because here is the thing, if cows are fed an unnatural diet, meaning grains, then they are rumen acidity changes over time.

It makes the rumen more acidic, right? That's not, and it more acidic than the rumen is supposed to be naturally. And when that happens, then. The bacteria in their rumen adjust as well, and over time become acid resistant. That's not a good thing because the bacteria in grass fed in 100% grass fed cows are get killed.

By an acidic digestive environment, and the human digestive environment happens to be fairly acidic. So when we get exposed to germs from a hundred percent grass fed cows, and let's say there is an e coli or anything, any other pathogen in the milk, in the meat, in the egg, whatever, it doesn't really matter.

The acidic environment, our stomach kills it off and it doesn't harm us at all. But when the bacteria becomes as, um, acid resistance by cows being fed in unnatural diet of grains, then those bacteria survive our own acidic stomach and we can get sick. So that is an important aspect because there is a, there was actually a study done, a landmark study in 1998 and.

That study clearly showed that cattle switched from grain to hay, had their eco population drop about a thousand fort within five days. The bottom line here really is if you get raw milk from a farm that feeds their cows only in appropriate diet of forage, meaning grass and Forbes and legumes, et cetera, and no grains.

There is no bacteria in there that, that, that can harm you. You know? And paired with proper, you know, rinsing and washing of the containers where the milk gets bottled into the risk is not even worth talking about. You know? So that's another nuance to that whole thing. This. The another, and yet another nuance to is, you know, that whole A one A versus a two.

You know, there are certain types of animals like goat, sheep, and water buffalo. They are naturally a two, meaning they're dec casein. And the casein is the, the part of the protein type that makes up that milk has mostly casein all the way, but predominantly cain. And if that Cain is a one, there are certain studies that have shown that it's more inflammatory.

And the problem is, you know. Wild animals are typically the ruminants at least are naturally a two, but through our breeding and you know, selection and making cows produce more milk than they would naturally do because all dairy cows produce more milk than they the calf can consume. So we have enough to harvest ourselves.

You know, we introduced it a one. Variation that wasn't natural. And that, again, is foreign to our body. We don't seem to be doing well. So that's why consuming milk, that's from a, to a to cows like IESs and uh, Guernsey, uh, I think Guernseys is called. I dunno if we, we don't, I have no hands on experience with, uh, with dairy cows, but the IES for sure.

Um. They're a two. A two, not all of them. So you have to ask. And the farm that we sourced from, they tested their jersey cows, and they're a two, A two confirmed, you know, because again, 80% of the protein in milk is casin. So it's important what type it is to get the least potential immune response from it.

Now, if you cannot have access, or can't get access, or can't find raw dairy, you know, we were really, really lucky. I mean, we've had access to raw dairy before. But it was not always from regeneratively rotationally grazed cattle. It was not always a two A two, and it was not in glass, it was in plastic jugs.

Typically. Now we got lucky and we found this farm, um, across the state line that does everything the way we do. I mean, you can't do it any better, as far as I'm concerned. But if that's not you, if you cannot find raw dairy, then. There is, I guess, somewhat of a middle ground that's not as bad as, you know, the high temp, ultra pasteurized crap you find in the store, and that's called low temperature VAT, that pasteurization.

And there are a couple of brands that, one that we have purchased, uh, creamer from is called Kelowna Supernatural. Uh, that's one of the, i, I would say best brands. In our area here at, at least here in Georgia, they do low temperature wet pasteurization, so lower temperature than normal high temperature pasteurization, and that milk and the cream and everything.

And the, the, the C they make is non-homogenized, and so it's the least processed. Among the processed dairy options that I've seen in the store, and they sell it at Sprouts, at Whole Foods and in probably a lot of regional health stores as well. So check that out. Kelowna. Supernatural, if you can't get access to raw dairy.

Now, from a, uh, practical takeaway per, I would highly encourage you if you are a fan of milk, if you like the taste of milk, and I really, really do. You know. Listen to your body and, and really see over the course of a few days, how do you feel? You know, does your digestion change? Does your body odor change?

Does your breath change? Does your sleep change? Do you feel it? Is your skin breaking out? Maybe all of those could be signs that milk is not doing well for you. You know, and in my case, I have not made, uh. I still haven't decided whether or not milk is, is not good for me. I, I like to think that if I don't smell with the raw dairy that we are sourcing right now, that I can probably have it maybe not every day, but on occasion at least.

But if I smell, I wanna. I wanna be a little bit more careful because in the best case scenario, maybe it's just a shift in microbiome and that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just different bacteria producing different byproducts and that causes the smell. Even though I would argue from an ancestral perspective, smelling bad was probably not a good thing because you are.

Easier to detect, to detect by predators. So having a somewhat neutral smell is probably more advantageous or maybe among, you know, other livestock you just blend in. And I, I don't know, but I would argue it's probably more on the not so good side. If my smell is caused by low grade inflammation, that's definitely not a good thing.

So what I wanna do is I wanna keep an eye on, I'm gonna consume, you know, dairy for a while and keep tabs on my CRP and other inflammatory markers as, uh, part of my three months blood work and see if anything changes. If nothing changes there, maybe it's just my microbiome. Um. Then I'm still not a hundred percent certain whether or not that's good.

But you know, I'm not telling you, you know, to drink milk or to not drink milk. You know, I'm telling you to pay attention to. To pay attention to how your body responds and the signals your body is trying to send you. You know, those, those details are important. And what's also important is not just saying, okay, yeah, milk or no milk.

Now it's, you know, what type of milk is it? Is it raw or pasteurized or homo, homogenized? Um, is it a two, A two or a one? You know, does it come in glass or in plastic? There are so many different factors that you all have to. Pay attention to, to kind of figure out what type of milk, if any, you know, works for you.

And that's really the whole, you know, idea of the Primer Shift podcast here to make you understand that, you know, outsourcing the answer is, is probably not a good thing. Don't listen to any health influencer, myself included, if you hear, oh, milk is a new superfood, or. You know, milk is the worst. It really depends.

There's a lot of nuance and there is a lot of individuality, so you gotta pay attention to how you feel with it. For me. I'm gonna continue experimenting with the raw milk we currently have access to. If I stop smelling, I pay attention to other things, see if maybe my skin changes over time, see if my sleep changes, see if maybe I am feel more congested again.

So far, I haven't been able to tell that with that link, uh, that milk from Alabama, but who knows? Maybe as I continue my exposure, you know, my threshold is gonna change as well, and maybe at some point I start smelling again and I have to stop it. But. That's, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna see how, how that's gonna pan out, uh, in the future episode.

Maybe for now, we're gonna wrap it up. Uh, thanks for listening. If you like this episode, share with someone, leave a comment, leave a rating. You know, that's really the engaging with the episode is one of the best ways to help the algorithm understand that this is worthwhile content, that it should be, you know, showing to other people as well.

So, I appreciate it. Leave your a review, leave a comment, let me know if any questions, and I hope I'll see and hear you in the next episode.