Laura Schoenfeld: I would say, really, anytime you’re thinking about a food that’s a different form of the food than something they’re sensitive to or intolerant to, it’s always worth trying. The worst thing that can happen if somebody tries goat or sheep milk products if they’re cow dairy intolerant is that they just don’t tolerate it, and then you know that they can’t. But if they have it and they feel fine eating it, then that gives them some level of flexibility, and it gives them some amount of variety in their diet. Maybe they get to have goat cheese now, or maybe they can make some sheep’s milk yogurt and have a little bit of good probiotics. I’d say for most people, unless they’re severely allergic to dairy, where dairy, in general, just makes them have really bad reactions, I always think it’s worth just trying and seeing what happens because worst-case scenario, they are still intolerant and then they just know from now on, OK, I can’t have goat milk, or I can’t have sheep’s milk.
I know that’s kind of an easy answer, but I think experimentation is always on the table as far as figuring out what somebody should eat. Yeah, the testing is helpful, and, yeah, there are theories about what foods people should avoid for certain reasons, but at the end of the day, if somebody feels good eating something, it’s rare that I would pull it out unless I have a lot of evidence that it’s not a good food for them to be eating.